Lovely Ilonka

There was once a king’s son who told his father that he wished to marry.

‘No, no!’ said the king; ‘you must not be in such a hurry. Wait till you
have done some great deed. My father did not let me marry till I had won
the golden sword you see me wear.’

The prince was much disappointed, but he never dreamed of disobeying his
father, and he began to think with all his might what he could do. It
was no use staying at home, so one day he wandered out into the world to
try his luck, and as he walked along he came to a little hut in which he
found an old woman crouching over the fire.

‘Good evening, mother. I see you have lived long in this world; do you
know anything about the three bulrushes?’

‘Yes, indeed, I’ve lived long and been much about in the world, but I
have never seen or heard anything of what you ask. Still, if you will
wait till to-morrow I may be able to tell you something.’

Well, he waited till the morning, and quite early the old woman appeared
and took out a little pipe and blew in it, and in a moment all the crows
in the world were flying about her. Not one was missing. Then she asked
if they knew anything about the three bulrushes, but not one of them
did.

The prince went on his way, and a little further on he found another hut
in which lived an old man. On being questioned the old man said he knew
nothing, but begged the prince to stay overnight, and the next morning
the old man called all the ravens together, but they too had nothing to
tell.

The prince bade him farewell and set out. He wandered so far that he
crossed seven kingdoms, and at last, one evening, he came to a little
house in which was an old woman.

‘Good evening, dear mother,’ said he politely.

‘Good evening to you, my dear son,’ answered the old woman. ‘It is
lucky for you that you spoke to me or you would have met with a horrible
death. But may I ask where are you going?’

‘I am seeking the three bulrushes. Do you know anything about them?’

‘I don’t know anything myself, but wait till to-morrow. Perhaps I can
tell you then.’ So the next morning she blew on her pipe, and lo!
and behold every magpie in the world flew up. That is to say, all the
magpies except one who had broken a leg and a wing. The old woman sent
after it at once, and when she questioned the magpies the crippled one
was the only one who knew where the three bulrushes were.

Then the prince started off with the lame magpie. They went on and on
till they reached a great stone wall, many, many feet high.

‘Now, prince,’ said the magpie, ‘the three bulrushes are behind that
wall.’

The prince wasted no time. He set his horse at the wall and leaped over
it. Then he looked about for the three bulrushes, pulled them up and
set off with them on his way home. As he rode along one of the bulrushes
happened to knock against something. It split open and, only think! out
sprang a lovely girl, who said: ‘My heart’s love, you are mine and I am
yours; do give me a glass of water.’

But how could the prince give it her when there was no water at hand?
So the lovely maiden flew away. He split the second bulrush as an
experiment and just the same thing happened.

How careful he was of the third bulrush! He waited till he came to a
well, and there he split it open, and out sprang a maiden seven times
lovelier than either of the others, and she too said: ‘My heart’s love,
I am yours and you are mine; do give me a glass of water.’

This time the water was ready and the girl did not fly away, but she
and the prince promised to love each other always. Then they set out for
home.

They soon reached the prince’s country, and as he wished to bring his
promised bride back in a fine coach he went on to the town to fetch one.
In the field where the well was, the king’s swineherds and cowherds were
feeding their droves, and the prince left Ilonka (for that was her name)
in their care.

Unluckily the chief swineherd had an ugly old daughter, and whilst the
prince was away he dressed her up in fine clothes, and threw Ilonka into
the well.

The prince returned before long, bringing with him his father and mother
and a great train of courtiers to escort Ilonka home. But how they all
stared when they saw the swineherd’s ugly daughter! However, there was
nothing for it but to take her home; and, two days later, the prince
married her, and his father gave up the crown to him.

But he had no peace! He knew very well he had been cheated, though he
could not think how. Once he desired to have some water brought him from
the well into which Ilonka had been thrown. The coachman went for it
and, in the bucket he pulled up, a pretty little duck was swimming.
He looked wonderingly at it, and all of a sudden it disappeared and he
found a dirty looking girl standing near him. The girl returned with him
and managed to get a place as housemaid in the palace.

Of course she was very busy all day long, but whenever she had a little
spare time she sat down to spin. Her distaff turned of itself and her
spindle span by itself and the flax wound itself off; and however much
she might use there was always plenty left.

When the queen--or, rather, the swineherd’s daughter--heard of this,
she very much wished to have the distaff, but the girl flatly refused
to give it to her. However, at last she consented on condition that she
might sleep one night in the king’s room. The queen was very angry, and
scolded her well; but as she longed to have the distaff she consented,
though she gave the king a sleeping draught at supper.

Then the girl went to the king’s room looking seven times lovelier than
ever. She bent over the sleeper and said: ‘My heart’s love, I am yours
and you are mine. Speak to me but once; I am your Ilonka.’ But the king
was so sound asleep he neither heard nor spoke, and Ilonka left the
room, sadly thinking he was ashamed to own her.

Soon after the queen again sent to say that she wanted to buy the
spindle. The girl agreed to let her have it on the same conditions as
before; but this time, also, the queen took care to give the king a
sleeping draught. And once more Ilonka went to the king’s room and spoke
to him; whisper as sweetly as she might she could get no answer.

Now some of the king’s servants had taken note of the matter, and warned
their master not to eat and drink anything that the queen offered him,
as for two nights running she had given him a sleeping draught. The
queen had no idea that her doings had been discovered; and when, a few
days later, she wanted the flax, and had to pay the same price for it,
she felt no fears at all.

At supper that night the queen offered the king all sorts of nice things
to eat and drink, but he declared he was not hungry, and went early to
bed.

The queen repented bitterly her promise to the girl, but it was too late
to recall it; for Ilonka had already entered the king’s room, where he
lay anxiously waiting for something, he knew not what. All of a sudden
he saw a lovely maiden who bent over him and said: ‘My dearest love, I
am yours and you are mine. Speak to me, for I am your Ilonka.’

At these words the king’s heart bounded within him. He sprang up and
embraced and kissed her, and she told him all her adventures since the
moment he had left her. And when he heard all that Ilonka had suffered,
and how he had been deceived, he vowed he would be revenged; so he gave
orders that the swineherd, his wife and daughter should all be hanged;
and so they were.

The next day the king was married, with great rejoicings, to the fair
Ilonka; and if they are not yet dead--why, they are still living.

[From Ungarische Mahrehen.]




Lucky Luck

Once upon a time there was a king who had an only son. When the lad was
about eighteen years old his father had to go to fight in a war against
a neighbouring country, and the king led his troops in person. He bade
his son act as Regent in his absence, but ordered him on no account to
marry till his return.

Time went by. The prince ruled the country and never even thought of
marrying. But when he reached his twenty-fifth birthday he began to
think that it might be rather nice to have a wife, and he thought so
much that at last he got quite eager about it. He remembered, however,
what his father had said, and waited some time longer, till at last it
was ten years since the king went out to war. Then the prince called his
courtiers about him and set off with a great retinue to seek a bride. He
hardly knew which way to go, so he wandered about for twenty days, when,
suddenly, he found himself in his father’s camp.

The king was delighted to see his son, and had a great many questions
to ask and answer; but when he heard that instead of quietly waiting
for him at home the prince was starting off to seek a wife he was very
angry, and said: ‘You may go where you please but I will not leave any
of my people with you.’

Only one faithful servant stayed with the prince and refused to part
from him. They journeyed over hill and dale till they came to a place
called Goldtown. The King of Goldtown had a lovely daughter, and the
prince, who soon heard about her beauty, could not rest till he saw her.

He was very kindly received, for he was extremely good-looking and had
charming manners, so he lost no time in asking for her hand and her
parents gave her to him with joy. The wedding took place at once, and
the feasting and rejoicings went on for a whole month. At the end of
the month they set off for home, but as the journey was a long one they
spent the first evening at an inn. Everyone in the house slept, and only
the faithful servant kept watch. About midnight he heard three crows,
who had flown to the roof, talking together.

‘That’s a handsome couple which arrived here tonight. It seems quite a
pity they should lose their lives so soon.’

‘Truly,’ said the second crow; ‘for to-morrow, when midday strikes, the
bridge over the Gold Stream will break just as they are driving over
it. But, listen! whoever overhears and tells what we have said will be
turned to stone up to his knees.’

The crows had hardly done speaking when away they flew. And close upon
them followed three pigeons.

‘Even if the prince and princess get safe over the bridge they will
perish,’ said they; ‘for the king is going to send a carriage to meet
them which looks as new as paint. But when they are seated in it a
raging wind will rise and whirl the carriage away into the clouds. Then
it will fall suddenly to earth, and they will be killed. But anyone who
hears and betrays what we have said will be turned to stone up to his
waist.’

With that the pigeons flew off and three eagles took their places, and
this is what they said:

‘If the young couple does manage to escape the dangers of the bridge
and the carriage, the king means to send them each a splendid gold
embroidered robe. When they put these on they will be burnt up at once.
But whoever hears and repeats this will turn to stone from head to
foot.’

Early next morning the travellers got up and breakfasted. They began to
tell each other their dreams. At last the servant said:

‘Gracious prince, I dreamt that if your Royal Highness would grant all
I asked we should get home safe and sound; but if you did not we should
certainly be lost. My dreams never deceive me, so I entreat you to
follow my advice during the rest of the journey.’

‘Don’t make such a fuss about a dream,’ said the prince; ‘dreams are but
clouds. Still, to prevent your being anxious I will promise to do as you
wish.’

With that they set out on their journey.

At midday they reached the Gold Stream. When they got to the bridge the
servant said: ‘Let us leave the carriage here, my prince, and walk
a little way. The town is not far off and we can easily get another
carriage there, for the wheels of this one are bad and will not hold out
much longer.’

The prince looked well at the carriage. He did not think it looked so
unsafe as his servant said; but he had given his word and he held to it.

They got down and loaded the horses with the luggage. The prince and
his bride walked over the bridge, but the servant said he would ride the
horses through the stream so as to water and bathe them.

They reached the other side without harm, and bought a new carriage in
the town, which was quite near, and set off once more on their travels;
but they had not gone far when they met a messenger from the king who
said to the prince: ‘His Majesty has sent your Royal Highness this
beautiful carriage so that you may make a fitting entry into your own
country and amongst your own people.’

The prince was so delighted that he could not speak. But the servant
said: ‘My lord, let me examine this carriage first and then you can get
in if I find it is all right; otherwise we had better stay in our own.’

The prince made no objections, and after looking the carriage well
over the servant said: ‘It is as bad as it is smart’; and with that
he knocked it all to pieces, and they went on in the one that they had
bought.

At last they reached the frontier; there another messenger was waiting
for them, who said that the king had sent two splendid robes for the
prince and his bride, and begged that they would wear them for their
state entry. But the servant implored the prince to have nothing to do
with them, and never gave him any peace till he had obtained leave to
destroy the robes.

The old king was furious when he found that all his arts had failed;
that his son still lived and that he would have to give up the crown to
him now he was married, for that was the law of the land. He longed to
know how the prince had escaped, and said: ‘My dear son, I do indeed
rejoice to have you safely back, but I cannot imagine why the beautiful
carriage and the splendid robes I sent did not please you; why you had
them destroyed.’

‘Indeed, sire,’ said the prince, ‘I was myself much annoyed at their
destruction; but my servant had begged to direct everything on the
journey and I had promised him that he should do so. He declared that we
could not possibly get home safely unless I did as he told me.’

The old king fell into a tremendous rage. He called his Council together
and condemned the servant to death.

The gallows was put up in the square in front of the palace. The servant
was led out and his sentence read to him.

The rope was being placed round his neck, when he begged to be allowed
a few last words. ‘On our journey home,’ he said, ‘we spent the first
night at an inn. I did not sleep but kept watch all night.’ And then he
went on to tell what the crows had said, and as he spoke he turned to
stone up to his knees. The prince called to him to say no more as he had
proved his innocence. But the servant paid no heed to him, and by the
time his story was done he had turned to stone from head to foot.

Oh! how grieved the prince was to lose his faithful servant! And what
pained him most was the thought that he was lost through his very
faithfulness, and he determined to travel all over the world and never
rest till he found some means of restoring him to life.

Now there lived at Court an old woman who had been the prince’s nurse.
To her he confided all his plans, and left his wife, the princess, in
her care. ‘You have a long way before you, my son,’ said the old woman;
‘you must never return till you have met with Lucky Luck. If he cannot
help you no one on earth can.’

So the prince set off to try to find Lucky Luck. He walked and walked
till he got beyond his own country, and he wandered through a wood for
three days but did not meet a living being in it. At the end of the
third day he came to a river near which stood a large mill. Here he
spent the night. When he was leaving next morning the miller asked him:
‘My gracious lord, where are you going all alone?’

And the prince told him.

‘Then I beg your Highness to ask Lucky Luck this question: Why is it
that though I have an excellent mill, with all its machinery complete,
and get plenty of grain to grind, I am so poor that I hardly know how to
live from one day to another?’

The prince promised to inquire, and went on his way. He wandered about
for three days more, and at the end of the third day saw a little town.
It was quite late when he reached it, but he could discover no light
anywhere, and walked almost right through it without finding a house
where he could turn in. But far away at the end of the town he saw a
light in a window. He went straight to it and in the house were three
girls playing a game together. The prince asked for a night’s lodging
and they took him in, gave him some supper and got a room ready for him,
where he slept.

Next morning when he was leaving they asked where he was going and he
told them his story. ‘Gracious prince,’ said the maidens, ‘do ask Lucky
Luck how it happens that here we are over thirty years old and no lover
has come to woo us, though we are good, pretty, and very industrious.’

The prince promised to inquire, and went on his way.

Then he came to a great forest and wandered about in it from morning to
night and from night to morning before he got near the other end. Here
he found a pretty stream which was different from other streams as,
instead of flowing, it stood still and began to talk: ‘Sir prince, tell
me what brings you into these wilds? I must have been flowing here a
hundred years and more and no one has ever yet come by.’

‘I will tell you,’ answered the prince, ‘if you will divide yourself so
that I may walk through.’

The stream parted at once, and the prince walked through without wetting
his feet; and directly he got to the other side he told his story as he
had promised.

‘Oh, do ask Lucky Luck,’ cried the brook, ‘why, though I am such a
clear, bright, rapid stream I never have a fish or any other living
creature in my waters.’

The prince said he would do so, and continued his journey.

When he got quite clear of the forest he walked on through a lovely
valley till he reached a little house thatched with rushes, and he went
in to rest for he was very tired.

Everything in the house was beautifully clean and tidy, and a cheerful
honest-looking old woman was sitting by the fire.

‘Good-morning, mother,’ said the prince.

‘May Luck be with you, my son. What brings you into these parts?’

‘I am looking for Lucky Luck,’ replied the prince.

‘Then you have come to the right place, my son, for I am his mother. He
is not at home just now, he is out digging in the vineyard. Do you go
too. Here are two spades. When you find him begin to dig, but don’t
speak a word to him. It is now eleven o’clock. When he sits down to
eat his dinner sit beside him and eat with him. After dinner he will
question you, and then tell him all your troubles freely. He will answer
whatever you may ask.’

With that she showed him the way, and the prince went and did just as
she had told him. After dinner they lay down to rest.

All of a sudden Lucky Luck began to speak and said: ‘Tell me, what sort
of man are you, for since you came here you have not spoken a word?’

‘I am not dumb,’ replied the young man, ‘but I am that unhappy prince
whose faithful servant has been turned to stone, and I want to know how
to help him.’

‘And you do well, for he deserves everything. Go back, and when you
get home your wife will just have had a little boy. Take three drops of
blood from the child’s little finger, rub them on your servant’s wrists
with a blade of grass and he will return to life.’

‘I have another thing to ask,’ said the prince, when he had thanked him.
‘In the forest near here is a fine stream but not a fish or other living
creature in it. Why is this?’

‘Because no one has ever been drowned in the stream. But take care, in
crossing, to get as near the other side as you can before you say so, or
you may be the first victim yourself.’

‘Another question, please, before I go. On my way here I lodged
one night in the house of three maidens. All were well-mannered,
hard-working, and pretty, and yet none has had a wooer. Why was this?’

‘Because they always throw out their sweepings in the face of the sun.’

‘And why is it that a miller, who has a large mill with all the best
machinery and gets plenty of corn to grind is so poor that he can hardly
live from day to day?’

‘Because the miller keeps everything for himself, and does not give to
those who need it.’

The prince wrote down the answers to his questions, took a friendly
leave of Lucky Luck, and set off for home.

When he reached the stream it asked if he brought it any good news.
‘When I get across I will tell you,’ said he. So the stream parted; he
walked through and on to the highest part of the bank. He stopped and
shouted out:

‘Listen, oh stream! Lucky Luck says you will never have any living
creature in your waters until someone is drowned in you.’

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the stream swelled and
overflowed till it reached the rock up which he had climbed, and dashed
so far up it that the spray flew over him. But he clung on tight, and
after failing to reach him three times the stream returned to its proper
course. Then the prince climbed down, dried himself in the sun, and set
out on his march home.

He spent the night once more at the mill and gave the miller his answer,
and by-and-by he told the three sisters not to throw out all their
sweepings in the face of the sun.

The prince had hardly arrived at home when some thieves tried to ford
the stream with a fine horse they had stolen. When they were half-way
across, the stream rose so suddenly that it swept them all away. From
that time it became the best fishing stream in the country-side.

The miller, too, began to give alms and became a very good man, and in
time grew so rich that he hardly knew how much he had.

And the three sisters, now that they no longer insulted the sun, had
each a wooer within a week.

When the prince got home he found that his wife had just got a fine
little boy. He did not lose a moment in pricking the baby’s finger till
the blood ran, and he brushed it on the wrists of the stone figure,
which shuddered all over and split with a loud noise in seven parts and
there was the faithful servant alive and well.

When the old king saw this he foamed with rage, stared wildly about,
flung himself on the ground and died.

The servant stayed on with his royal master and served him faithfully
all the rest of his life; and, if neither of them is dead, he is serving
him still.

[From Ungarische Mahrchen.]




The Hairy Man

Somewhere or other, but I don’t know where, there lived a king who owned
two remarkably fine fields of rape, but every night two of the rape
heaps were burnt down in one of the fields. The king was extremely angry
at this, and sent out soldiers to catch whoever had set fire to the
ricks; but it was all of no use--not a soul could they see. Then he
offered nine hundred crowns to anyone who caught the evil-doer, and at
the same time ordered that whoever did not keep proper watch over the
fields should be killed; but though there were a great many people, none
seemed able to protect the fields.

The king had already put ninety-nine people to death, when a little
swineherd came to him who had two dogs; one was called ‘Psst,’ and the
other ‘Hush’; and the boy told the king that he would watch over the
ricks.

When it grew dark he climbed up on the top of the fourth rick, from
where he could see the whole field. About eleven o’clock he thought he
saw someone going to a rick and putting a light to it. ‘Just you wait,’
thought he, and called out to his dogs: ‘Hi! Psst, Hush, catch him!’
But Psst and Hush had not waited for orders, and in five minutes the man
was caught.

Next morning he was brought bound before the king, who was so pleased
with the boy that he gave him a thousand crowns at once. The prisoner
was all covered with hair, almost like an animal; and altogether he was
so curious to look at that the king locked him up in a strong room and
sent out letters of invitation to all the other kings and princes asking
them to come and see this wonder.

That was all very well; but the king had a little boy of ten years old
who went to look at the hairy man also, and the man begged so hard to be
set free that the boy took pity on him. He stole the key of the strong
room from his mother and opened the door. Then he took the key back, but
the hairy man escaped and went off into the world.

Then the kings and princes began to arrive one after another, and all
were most anxious to see the hairy man; but he was gone! The king nearly
burst with rage and with the shame he felt. He questioned his wife
sharply, and told her that if she could not find and bring back the
hairy man he would put her in a hut made of rushes and burn her there.
The queen declared she had had nothing to do with the matter; if her son
had happened to take the key it had not been with her knowledge.

So they fetched the little prince and asked him all sorts of questions,
and at last he owned that he had let the hairy man out. The king ordered
his servants to take the boy into the forest and to kill him there, and
to bring back part of his liver and lungs.

There was grief all over the palace when the king’s command was known,
for he was a great favourite. But there was no help for it, and they
took the boy out into the forest. But the man was sorry for him, and
shot a dog and carried pieces of his lungs and liver to the king, who
was satisfied, and did not trouble himself any more.

The prince wandered about in the forest and lived as best he could for
five years. One day he came upon a poor little cottage in which was an
old man. They began to talk, and the prince told his story and sad fate.
Then they recognised each other, for the old fellow was no other than
the hairy man whom the prince had set free, and who had lived ever since
in the forest.

The prince stayed here for two years; then he wished to go further. The
old man begged him hard to stay, but he would not, so his hairy friend
gave him a golden apple out of which came a horse with a golden mane,
and a golden staff with which to guide the horse. The old man also gave
him a silver apple out of which came the most beautiful hussars and a
silver staff; and a copper apple from which he could draw as many foot
soldiers as ever he wished, and a copper staff. He made the prince swear
solemnly to take the greatest care of these presents, and then he let
him go.

The boy wandered on and on till he came to a large town. Here he took
service in the king’s palace, and as no one troubled themselves about
him he lived quietly on.

One day news was brought to the king that he must go out to war. He was
horribly frightened for he had a very small army, but he had to go all
the same.

When they had all left, the prince said to the housekeeper:

‘Give me leave to go to the next village--I owe a small bill there, and
I want to go and pay it’; and as there was nothing to be done in the
palace the housekeeper gave him leave.

When he got beyond the town he took out his golden apple, and when the
horse sprang out he swung himself into the saddle. Then he took the
silver and the copper apples, and with all these fine soldiers he joined
the king’s army.

The king saw them approach with fear in his heart, for he did not know
if it might not be an enemy; but the prince rode up, and bowed low
before him. ‘I bring your Majesty reinforcements,’ said he.

The king was delighted, and all dread of his enemy at once disappeared.
The princesses were there too, and they were very friendly with the
prince and begged him to get into their carriage so as to talk to them.
But he declined, and remained on horseback, as he did not know at what
moment the battle might begin; and whilst they were all talking together
the youngest princess, who was also the loveliest, took off her ring,
and her sister tore her handkerchief in two pieces, and they gave these
gifts to the prince.

Suddenly the enemy came in sight. The king asked whether his army or the
prince’s should lead the way; but the prince set off first and with his
hussars he fought so bravely that only two of the enemy were left alive,
and these two were only spared to act as messengers.

The king was overjoyed and so were his daughters at this brilliant
victory. As they drove home they begged the prince to join them, but he
would not come, and galloped off with his hussars.

When he got near the town he packed his soldiers and his fine horse all
carefully into the apple again, and then strolled into the town. On his
return to the palace he was well scolded by the housekeeper for staying
away so long.

Well, the whole matter might have ended there; but it so happened that
the younger princess had fallen in love with the prince, as he had with
her. And as he had no jewels with him, he gave her the copper apple and
staff.

One day, as the princesses were talking with their father, the younger
one asked him whether it might not have been their servant who had
helped him so much. The king was quite angry at the idea; but, to
satisfy her, he ordered the servant’s room to be searched. And there,
to everyone’s surprise, they found the golden ring and the half of the
handkerchief. When these were brought to the king he sent for the prince
at once and asked if it had been he who had come to their rescue.

‘Yes, your Majesty, it was I,’ answered the prince.

‘But where did you get your army?’

‘If you wish to see it, I can show it you outside the city walls.’

And so he did; but first he asked for the copper apple from the younger
princess, and when all the soldiers were drawn up there were such
numbers that there was barely room for them.

The king gave him his daughter and kingdom as a reward for his aid, and
when he heard that the prince was himself a king’s son his joy knew no
bounds. The prince packed all his soldiers carefully up once more, and
they went back into the town.

Not long after there was a grand wedding; perhaps they may all be alive
still, but I don’t know.




To Your Good Health!

Long, long ago there lived a king who was such a mighty monarch that
whenever he sneezed every one in the whole country had to say ‘To your
good health!’ Every one said it except the shepherd with the staring
eyes, and he would not say it.

The king heard of this and was very angry, and sent for the shepherd to
appear before him.

The shepherd came and stood before the throne, where the king sat
looking very grand and powerful. But however grand or powerful he might
be the shepherd did not feel a bit afraid of him.

‘Say at once, “To my good health!”’ cried the king.

‘To my good health!’ replied the shepherd.

‘To mine--to mine, you rascal, you vagabond!’ stormed the king.

‘To mine, to mine, your Majesty,’ was the answer.

‘But to mine--to my own,’ roared the king, and beat on his breast in a
rage.

‘Well, yes; to mine, of course, to my own,’ cried the shepherd, and
gently tapped his breast.

The king was beside himself with fury and did not know what to do, when
the Lord Chamberlain interfered:

‘Say at once--say this very moment: “To your health, your Majesty”; for
if you don’t say it you’ll lose your life, whispered he.

‘No, I won’t say it till I get the princess for my wife,’ was the
shepherd’s answer. Now the princess was sitting on a little throne
beside the king, her father, and she looked as sweet and lovely as a
little golden dove. When she heard what the shepherd said she could not
help laughing, for there is no denying the fact that this young shepherd
with the staring eyes pleased her very much; indeed he pleased her
better than any king’s son she had yet seen.

But the king was not as pleasant as his daughter, and he gave orders to
throw the shepherd into the white bear’s pit.

The guards led him away and thrust him into the pit with the white bear,
who had had nothing to eat for two days and was very hungry. The door of
the pit was hardly closed when the bear rushed at the shepherd; but when
it saw his eyes it was so frightened that it was ready to eat itself. It
shrank away into a corner and gazed at him from there, and, in spite of
being so famished, did not dare to touch him, but sucked its own paws
from sheer hunger. The shepherd felt that if he once removed his eyes
off the beast he was a dead man, and in order to keep himself awake he
made songs and sang them, and so the night went by.

Next morning the Lord Chamberlain came to see the shepherd’s bones, and
was amazed to find him alive and well. He led him to the king, who fell
into a furious passion, and said: ‘Well, you have learned what it is to
be very near death, and now will you say “To my good health”?’

But the shepherd answered: ‘I am not afraid of ten deaths! I will only
say it if I may have the princess for my wife.’

‘Then go to your death,’ cried the king; and ordered him to be thrown
into the den with the wild boars. The wild boars had not been fed for a
week, and when the shepherd was thrust into their don they rushed at him
to tear him to pieces. But the shepherd took a little flute out of the
sleeve of his jacket and began to play a merry tune, on which the wild
boars first of all shrank shyly away, and then got up on their hind legs
and danced gaily. The shepherd would have given anything to be able to
laugh, they looked so funny; but he dared not stop playing, for he knew
well enough that the moment he stopped they would fall upon him and tear
him to pieces. His eyes were of no use to him here, for he could not
have stared ten wild boars in the face at once; so he kept on playing,
and the wild boars danced very slowly, as if in a minuet, then by
degrees he played faster and faster till they could hardly twist and
turn quickly enough, and ended by all falling over each other in a heap,
quite exhausted and out of breath.

Then the shepherd ventured to laugh at last; and he laughed so long
and so loud that when the Lord Chamberlain came early in the morning,
expecting to find only his bones, the tears were still running down his
cheeks from laughter.

As soon as the king was dressed the shepherd was again brought before
him; but he was more angry than ever to think the wild boars had not
torn the man to bits, and he said: ‘Well, you have learned what it feels
to be near ten deaths, now say “To my good health!”’

But the shepherd broke in with, ‘I do not fear a hundred deaths, and I
will only say it if I may have the princess for my wife.’

‘Then go to a hundred deaths!’ roared the king, and ordered the shepherd
to be thrown down the deep vault of scythes.

The guards dragged him away to a dark dungeon, in the middle of which
was a deep well with sharp scythes all round it. At the bottom of the
well was a little light by which one could see if anyone was thrown in
whether he had fallen to the bottom.

When the shepherd was dragged to the dungeons he begged the guards to
leave him alone a little while that he might look down into the pit of
scythes; perhaps he might after all make up his mind to say ‘To your
good health’ to the king. So the guards left him alone and he stuck up
his long stick near the well, hung his cloak round the stick and put his
hat on the top. He also hung his knapsack up inside the cloak so that it
might seem to have some body within it. When this was done he called out
to the guards and said that he had considered the matter but after all
he could not make up his mind to say what the king wished. The guards
came in, threw the hat and cloak, knapsack and stick all down the well
together, watched to see how they put out the light at the bottom and
came away, thinking that now there really was an end of the shepherd.
But he had hidden in a dark corner and was laughing to himself all the
time.

Quite early next morning came the Lord Chamberlain, carrying a lamp and
he nearly fell backwards with surprise when he saw the shepherd alive
and well. He brought him to the king, whose fury was greater than ever,
but who cried:

‘Well, now you have been near a hundred deaths; will you say: “To your
good health”?’

But the shepherd only gave the same answer:

‘I won’t say it till the princess is my wife.’

‘Perhaps after all you may do it for less,’ said the king, who saw that
there was no chance of making away with the shepherd; and he ordered the
state coach to be got ready, then he made the shepherd get in with him
and sit beside him, and ordered the coachman to drive to the silver
wood. When they reached it he said: ‘Do you see this silver wood? Well,
if you will say, “To your good health,” I will give it to you.’

The shepherd turned hot and cold by turns, but he still persisted:

‘I will not say it till the princess is my wife.’

The king was much vexed; he drove further on till they came to a
splendid castle, all of gold, and then he said:

‘Do you see this golden castle? Well, I will give you that too, the
silver wood and the golden castle, if only you will say that one thing
to me: “To your good health.”’

The shepherd gaped and wondered and was quite dazzled, but he still
said:

‘No; I will not say it till I have the princess for my wife.’

This time the king was overwhelmed with grief, and gave orders to drive
on to the diamond pond, and there he tried once more.

‘Do you see this diamond pond? I will give you that too, the silver
wood and the golden castle and the diamond pond. You shall have them
all--all--if you will but say: “To your good health!”’

The shepherd had to shut his staring eyes tight not to be dazzled with
the brilliant pond, but still he said:

‘No, no; I will not say it till I have the princess for my wife.’

Then the king saw that all his efforts were useless, and that he might
as well give in, so he said:

‘Well, well, it’s all the same to me--I will give you my daughter to
wife; but, then, you really and truly must say to me: “To your good
health.”’

‘Of course I’ll say it; why should I not say it? It stands to reason
that I shall say it then.’

At this the king was more delighted than anyone could have believed.
He made it known all through the country that there were to be great
rejoicings, as the princess was going to be married. And everyone
rejoiced to think that the princess, who had refused so many royal
suitors, should have ended by falling in love with the staring-eyed
shepherd.

There was such a wedding as had never been seen. Everyone ate and drank
and danced. Even the sick were feasted, and quite tiny new-born children
had presents given them.

But the greatest merry-making was in the king’s palace; there the best
bands played and the best food was cooked; a crowd of people sat down to
table, and all was fun and merry-making.

And when the groomsman, according to custom, brought in the great boar’s
head on a big dish and placed it before the king so that he might carve
it and give everyone a share, the savoury smell was so strong that the
king began to sneeze with all his might.

‘To your very good health,’ cried the shepherd before anyone else, and
the king was so delighted that he did not regret having given him his
daughter.

In time, when the old king died, the shepherd succeeded him. He made a
very good king and never expected his people to wish him well against
their wills; but, all the same, everyone did wish him well, for they all
loved him.

[From Russische Mahrchen.]




The Story of the Seven Simons

Far, far away, beyond all sorts of countries, seas and rivers, there
stood a splendid city where lived King Archidej, who was as good as he
was rich and handsome. His great army was made up of men ready to obey
his slightest wish; he owned forty times forty cities, and in each city
he had ten palaces with silver doors, golden roofs, and crystal windows.
His council consisted of the twelve wisest men in the country, whose
long beards flowed down over their breasts, each of whom was as learned
as a whole college. This council always told the king the exact truth.

Now the king had everything to make him happy, but he did not enjoy
anything because he could not find a bride to his mind.

One day, as he sat in his palace looking out to sea, a great ship sailed
into the harbour and several merchants came on shore. Said the king to
himself: ‘These people have travelled far and beheld many lands. I will
ask them if they have seen any princess who is as clever and as handsome
as I am.’

So he ordered the merchants to be brought before him, and when they came
he said: ‘You have travelled much and visited many wonders. I wish to
ask you a question, and I beg you to answer truthfully.

‘Have you anywhere seen or heard of the daughter of an emperor, king,
or a prince, who is as clever and as handsome as I am, and who would be
worthy to be my wife and the queen of my country?’

The merchants considered for some time. At last the eldest of them said:
‘I have heard that across many seas, in the Island of Busan, there is a
mighty king, whose daughter, the Princess Helena, is so lovely that she
can certainly not be plainer than your Majesty, and so clever that the
wisest greybeard cannot guess her riddles.’

‘Is the island far off, and which is the way to it?’

‘It is not near,’ was the answer. ‘The journey would take ten years, and
we do not know the way. And even if we did, what use would that be? The
princess is no bride for you.’

‘How dare you say so?’ cried the king angrily.

‘Your Majesty must pardon us; but just think for a moment. Should you
send an envoy to the island he will take ten years to get there and ten
more to return--twenty years in all. Will not the princess have grown
old in that time and have lost all her beauty?’

The king reflected gravely. Then he thanked the merchants, gave them
leave to trade in his country without paying any duties, and dismissed
them.

After they were gone the king remained deep in thought. He felt puzzled
and anxious; so he decided to ride into the country to distract his
mind, and sent for his huntsmen and falconers. The huntsmen blew their
horns, the falconers took their hawks on their wrists, and off they all
set out across country till they came to a green hedge. On the other
side of the hedge stretched a great field of maize as far as the eye
could reach, and the yellow ears swayed to and fro in the gentle breeze
like a rippling sea of gold.

The king drew rein and admired the field. ‘Upon my word,’ said he,
‘whoever dug and planted it must be good workmen. If all the fields in
my kingdom were as well cared for as this, there would be more bread
than my people could eat.’ And he wished to know to whom the field
belonged.

Off rushed all his followers at once to do his bidding, and found a
nice, tidy farmhouse, in front of which sat seven peasants, lunching
on rye bread and drinking water. They wore red shirts bound with gold
braid, and were so much alike that one could hardly tell one from
another.

The messengers asked: ‘Who owns this field of golden maize?’ And the
seven brothers answered: ‘The field is ours.’

‘And who are you?’

‘We are King Archidej’s labourers.’

These answers were repeated to the king, who ordered the brothers to
be brought before him at once. On being asked who they were, the eldest
said, bowing low:

‘We, King Archidej, are your labourers, children of one father and
mother, and we all have the same name, for each of us is called Simon.
Our father taught us to be true to our king, and to till the ground,
and to be kind to our neighbours. He also taught each of us a different
trade which he thought might be useful to us, and he bade us not neglect
our mother earth, which would be sure amply to repay our labour.’

The king was pleased with the honest peasant, and said: ‘You have done
well, good people, in planting your field, and now you have a golden
harvest. But I should like each of you to tell me what special trades
your father taught you.’

‘My trade, O king!’ said the first Simon, ‘is not an easy one. If you
will give me some workmen and materials I will build you a great white
pillar that shall reach far above the clouds.’

‘Very good,’ replied the king. ‘And you, Simon the second, what is your
trade?’

‘Mine, your Majesty, needs no great cleverness. When my brother has
built the pillar I can mount it, and from the top, far above the clouds,
I can see what is happening: in every country under the sun.’

‘Good,’ said the king; ‘and Simon the third?’

‘My work is very simple, sire. You have many ships built by learned men,
with all sorts of new and clever improvements. If you wish it I will
build you quite a simple boat--one, two, three, and it’s done! But my
plain little home-made ship is not grand enough for a king. Where other
ships take a year, mine makes the voyage in a day, and where they would
require ten years mine will do the distance in a week.’

‘Good,’ said the king again; ‘and what has Simon the fourth learnt?’

‘My trade, O king, is really of no importance. Should my brother build
you a ship, then let me embark in it. If we should be pursued by an
enemy I can seize our boat by the prow and sink it to the bottom of the
sea. When the enemy has sailed off, I can draw it up to the top again.’

‘That is very clever of you,’ answered the king; ‘and what does Simon
the fifth do?’

‘My work, your Majesty, is mere smith’s work. Order me to build a smithy
and I will make you a cross-bow, but from which neither the eagle in the
sky nor the wild beast in the forest is safe. The bolt hits whatever the
eye sees.’

‘That sounds very useful,’ said the king. ‘And now, Simon the sixth,
tell me your trade.’

‘Sire, it is so simple I am almost ashamed to mention it. If my brother
hits any creature I catch it quicker than any dog can. If it falls into
the water I pick it up out of the greatest depths, and if it is in a
dark forest I can find it even at midnight.’

The king was much pleased with the trades and talk of the six brothers,
and said: ‘Thank you, good people; your father did well to teach you all
these things. Now follow me to the town, as I want to see what you can
do. I need such people as you about me; but when harvest time comes I
will send you home with royal presents.’

The brothers bowed and said: ‘As the king wills.’ Suddenly the king
remembered that he had not questioned the seventh Simon, so he turned to
him and said: ‘Why are you silent? What is your handicraft?’

And the seventh Simon answered: ‘I have no handicraft, O king; I have
learnt nothing. I could not manage it. And if I do know how to do
anything it is not what might properly be called a real trade--it is
rather a sort of performance; but it is one which no one--not the king
himself--must watch me doing, and I doubt whether this performance of
mine would please your Majesty.’

‘Come, come,’ cried the king; ‘I will have no excuses, what is this
trade?’

‘First, sire, give me your royal word that you will not kill me when I
have told you. Then you shall hear.’

‘So be it, then; I give you my royal word.’

Then the seventh Simon stepped back a little, cleared his throat, and
said: ‘My trade, King Archidej, is of such a kind that the man who
follows it in your kingdom generally loses his life and has no hopes of
pardon. There is only one thing I can do really well, and that is--to
steal, and to hide the smallest scrap of anything I have stolen. Not
the deepest vault, even if its lock were enchanted, could prevent my
stealing anything out of it that I wished to have.’

When the king heard this he fell into a passion. ‘I will not pardon
you, you rascal,’ he cried; ‘I will shut you up in my deepest dungeon on
bread and water till you have forgotten such a trade. Indeed, it would
be better to put you to death at once, and I’ve a good mind to do so.’

‘Don’t kill me, O king! I am really not as bad as you think. Why, had I
chosen, I could have robbed the royal treasury, have bribed your judges
to let me off, and built a white marble palace with what was left.
But though I know how to steal I don’t do it. You yourself asked me my
trade. If you kill me you will break your royal word.’

‘Very well,’ said the king, ‘I will not kill you. I pardon you. But from
this hour you shall be shut up in a dark dungeon. Here, guards! away
with him to the prison. But you six Simons follow me and be assured of
my royal favour.’

So the six Simons followed the king. The seventh Simon was seized by the
guards, who put him in chains and threw him in prison with only bread
and water for food. Next day the king gave the first Simon carpenters,
masons, smiths and labourers, with great stores of iron, mortar, and the
like, and Simon began to build. And he built his great white pillar
far, far up into the clouds, as high as the nearest stars; but the other
stars were higher still.

Then the second Simon climbed up the pillar and saw and heard all that
was going on through the whole world. When he came down he had all sorts
of wonderful things to tell. How one king was marching in battle against
another, and which was likely to be the victor. How, in another place,
great rejoicings were going on, while in a third people were dying of
famine. In fact there was not the smallest event going on over the earth
that was hidden from him.

Next the third Simon began. He stretched out his arms, once, twice,
thrice, and the wonder-ship was ready. At a sign from the king it was
launched, and floated proudly and safely like a bird on the waves.
Instead of ropes it had wires for rigging, and musicians played on them
with fiddle bows and made lovely music. As the ship swam about, the
fourth Simon seized the prow with his strong hand, and in a moment it
was gone--sunk to the bottom of the sea. An hour passed, and then the
ship floated again, drawn up by Simon’s left hand, while in his right he
brought a gigantic fish from the depth of the ocean for the royal table.

Whilst this was going on the fifth Simon had built his forge and
hammered out his iron, and when the king returned from the harbour the
magic cross-bow was made.

His Majesty went out into an open field at once, looked up into the sky
and saw, far, far away, an eagle flying up towards the sun and looking
like a little speck.

‘Now,’ said the king, ‘if you can shoot that bird I will reward you.’

Simon only smiled; he lifted his cross-bow, took aim, fired, and the
eagle fell. As it was falling the sixth Simon ran with a dish, caught
the bird before it fell to earth and brought it to the king.

‘Many thanks, my brave lads,’ said the king; ‘I see that each of you is
indeed a master of his trade. You shall be richly rewarded. But now rest
and have your dinner.’

The six Simons bowed and went to dinner. But they had hardly begun
before a messenger came to say that the king wanted to see them. They
obeyed at once and found him surrounded by all his court and men of
state.

‘Listen, my good fellows,’ cried the king, as soon as he saw them. ‘Hear
what my wise counsellors have thought of. As you, Simon the second,
can see the whole world from the top of the great pillar, I want you to
climb up and to see and hear. For I am told that, far away, across many
seas, is the great kingdom of the Island of Busan, and that the daughter
of the king is the beautiful Princess Helena.’

Off ran the second Simon and clambered quickly up the pillar. He gazed
around, listened on all sides, and then slid down to report to the king.

‘Sire, I have obeyed your orders. Far away I saw the Island of Busan.
The king is a mighty monarch, but full of pride, harsh and cruel. He
sits on his throne and declares that no prince or king on earth is good
enough for his lovely daughter, that he will give her to none, and
that if any king asks for her hand he will declare war against him and
destroy his kingdom.’

‘Has the king of Busan a great army?’ asked King Archidej; ‘is his
country far off?’

‘As far as I could judge,’ replied Simon, ‘it would take you nearly ten
years in fair weather to sail there. But if the weather were stormy
we might say twelve. I saw the army being reviewed. It is not so very
large--a hundred thousand men at arms and a hundred thousand knights.
Besides these, he has a strong bodyguard and a good many cross-bowmen.
Altogether you may say another hundred thousand, and there is a picked
body of heroes who reserve themselves for great occasions requiring
particular courage.’

The king sat for some time lost in thought. At last he said to the
nobles and courtiers standing round: ‘I am determined to marry the
Princess Helena, but how shall I do it?’

The nobles, courtiers and counsellors said nothing, but tried to hide
behind each other. Then the third Simon said:

‘Pardon me, your Majesty, if I offer my advice. You wish to go to the
Island of Busan? What can be easier? In my ship you will get there in a
week instead of in ten years. But ask your council to advise you what
to do when you arrive--in one word, whether you will win the princess
peacefully or by war?’

But the wise men were as silent as ever.

The king frowned, and was about to say something sharp, when the Court
Fool pushed his way to the front and said: ‘Dear me, what are all you
clever people so puzzled about? The matter is quite clear. As it seems
it will not take long to reach the island why not send the seventh
Simon? He will steal the fair maiden fast enough, and then the king,
her father, may consider how he is going to bring his army over here--it
will take him ten years to do it!---no less! What do you think of my
plan?’

‘What do I think? Why, that your idea is capital, and you shall be
rewarded for it. Come, guards, hurry as fast as you can and bring the
seventh Simon before me.’

Not many minutes later, Simon the seventh stood before the king, who
explained to him what he wished done, and also that to steal for the
benefit of his king and country was by no means a wrong thing, though it
was very wrong to steal for his own advantage.

The youngest Simon, who looked very pale and hungry, only nodded his
head.

‘Come,’ said the king, ‘tell me truly. Do you think you could steal the
Princess Helena?’

‘Why should I not steal her, sire? The thing is easy enough. Let my
brother’s ship be laden with rich stuffs, brocades, Persian carpets,
pearls and jewels. Send me in the ship. Give me my four middle brothers
as companions, and keep the two others as hostages.’

When the king heard these words his heart became filled with longing,
and he ordered all to be done as Simon wished. Every one ran about to do
his bidding; and in next to no time the wonder-ship was laden and ready
to start.

The five Simons took leave of the king, went on board, and had no sooner
set sail than they were almost out of sight. The ship cut through the
waters like a falcon through the air, and just a week after starting
sighted the Island of Busan. The coast appeared to be strongly guarded,
and from afar the watchman on a high tower called out: ‘Halt and anchor!
Who are you? Where do you come from, and what do you want?’

The seventh Simon answered from the ship: ‘We are peaceful people. We
come from the country of the great and good King Archidej, and we bring
foreign wares--rich brocades, carpets, and costly jewels, which we wish
to show to your king and the princess. We desire to trade--to sell, to
buy, and to exchange.’

The brothers launched a small boat, took some of their valuable goods
with them, rowed to shore and went up to the palace. The princess sat
in a rose-red room, and when she saw the brothers coming near she called
her nurse and other women, and told them to inquire who and what these
people were, and what they wanted.

The seventh Simon answered the nurse: ‘We come from the country of the
wise and good King Archidej,’ said he, ‘and we have brought all sorts
of goods for sale. We trust the king of this country may condescend
to welcome us, and to let his servants take charge of our wares. If he
considers them worthy to adorn his followers we shall be content.’

This speech was repeated to the princess, who ordered the brothers to
be brought to the red-room at once. They bowed respectfully to her and
displayed some splendid velvets and brocades, and opened cases of pearls
and precious stones. Such beautiful things had never been seen in the
island, and the nurse and waiting women stood bewildered by all the
magnificence. They whispered together that they had never beheld
anything like it. The princess too saw and wondered, and her eyes could
not weary of looking at the lovely things, or her fingers of stroking
the rich soft stuffs, and of holding up the sparkling jewels to the
light.

‘Fairest of princesses,’ said Simon. ‘Be pleased to order your
waiting-maids to accept the silks and velvets, and let your women trim
their head-dresses with the jewels; these are no special treasures.
But permit me to say that they are as nothing to the many coloured
tapestries, the gorgeous stones and ropes of pearls in our ship. We did
not like to bring more with us, not knowing what your royal taste might
be; but if it seems good to you to honour our ship with a visit, you
might condescend to choose such things as were pleasing in your eyes.’

This polite speech pleased the princess very much. She went to the
king and said: ‘Dear father, some merchants have arrived with the most
splendid wares. Pray allow me to go to their ship and choose out what I
like.’

The king thought and thought, frowned hard and rubbed his ear. At last
he gave consent, and ordered out his royal yacht, with 100 cross-bows,
100 knights, and 1,000 soldiers, to escort the Princess Helena.

Off sailed the yacht with the princess and her escort. The brothers
Simon came on board to conduct the princess to their ship, and, led by
the brothers and followed by her nurse and other women, she crossed the
crystal plank from one vessel to another.

The seventh Simon spread out his goods, and had so many curious
and interesting tales to tell about them, that the princess forgot
everything else in looking and listening, so that she did not know that
the fourth Simon had seized the prow of the ship, and that all of a
sudden it had vanished from sight, and was racing along in the depths of
the sea.

The crew of the royal yacht shouted aloud, the knights stood still with
terror, the soldiers were struck dumb and hung their heads. There was
nothing to be done but to sail back and tell the king of his loss.

How he wept and stormed! ‘Oh, light of my eyes,’ he sobbed; ‘I am indeed
punished for my pride. I thought no one good enough to be your husband,
and now you are lost in the depths of the sea, and have left me alone!
As for all of you who saw this thing--away with you! Let them be put in
irons and lock them up in prison, whilst I think how I can best put them
to death!’

Whilst the King of Busan was raging and lamenting in this fashion,
Simon’s ship was swimming like any fish under the sea, and when the
island was well out of sight he brought it up to the surface again. At
that moment the princess recollected herself. ‘Nurse,’ said she, ‘we
have been gazing at these wonders only too long. I hope my father won’t
be vexed at our delay.’

She tore herself away and stepped on deck. Neither the yacht nor the
island was in sight! Helena wrung her hands and beat her breast. Then
she changed herself into a white swan and flew off. But the fifth Simon
seized his bow and shot the swan, and the sixth Simon did not let it
fall into the water but caught it in the ship, and the swan turned into
a silver fish, but Simon lost no time and caught the fish, when, quick
as thought, the fish turned into a black mouse and ran about the ship.
It darted towards a hole, but before it could reach it Simon sprang upon
it more swiftly than any cat, and then the little mouse turned once more
into the beautiful Princess Helena.

Early one morning King Archidej sat thoughtfully at his window gazing
out to sea. His heart was sad and he would neither eat nor drink. His
thoughts were full of the Princess Helena, who was as lovely as a dream.
Is that a white gull he sees flying towards the shore, or is it a sail?
No, it is no gull, it is the wonder-ship flying along with billowing
sails. Its flags wave, the fiddlers play on the wire rigging, the anchor
is thrown out and the crystal plank laid from the ship to the pier. The
lovely Helena steps across the plank. She shines like the sun, and the
stars of heaven seem to sparkle in her eyes.

Up sprang King Archidej in haste: ‘Hurry, hurry,’ he cried. ‘Let us
hasten to meet her! Let the bugles sound and the joy bells be rung!’

And the whole Court swarmed with courtiers and servants. Golden carpets
were laid down and the great gates thrown open to welcome the princess.

King Archidej went out himself, took her by the hand and led her into
the royal apartments.

‘Madam,’ said he, ‘the fame of your beauty had reached me, but I had not
dared to expect such loveliness. Still I will not keep you here against
your will. If you wish it, the wonder-ship shall take you back to your
father and your own country; but if you will consent to stay here, then
reign over me and my country as our queen.’

What more is there to tell? It is not hard to guess that the princess
listened to the king’s wooing, and their betrothal took place with great
pomp and rejoicings.

The brothers Simon were sent again to the Island of Busan with a letter
to the king from his daughter to invite him to their wedding. And the
wonder-ship arrived at the Island of Busan just as all the knights and
soldiers who had escorted the princess were being led out to execution.

Then the seventh Simon cried out from the ship: ‘Stop! stop! I bring a
letter from the Princess Helena!’

The King of Busan read the letter over and over again, and ordered the
knights and soldiers to be set free. He entertained King Archidej’s
ambassadors hospitably, and sent his blessing to his daughter, but he
could not be brought to attend the wedding.

When the wonder-ship got home King Archidej and Princess Helena were
enchanted with the news it brought.

The king sent for the seven Simons. ‘A thousand thanks to you, my brave
fellows,’ he cried. ‘Take what gold, silver, and precious stones you
will out of my treasury. Tell me if there is anything else you wish for
and I will give it you, my good friends. Do you wish to be made nobles,
or to govern towns? Only speak.’

Then the eldest Simon bowed and said: ‘We are plain folk, your Majesty,
and understand simple things best. What figures should we cut as nobles
or governors? Nor do we desire gold. We have our fields which give us
food, and as much money as we need. If you wish to reward us then grant
that our land may be free of taxes, and of your goodness pardon the
seventh Simon. He is not the first who has been a thief by trade and he
will certainly not be the last.’

‘So be it,’ said the king; ‘your land shall be free of all taxes, and
Simon the seventh is pardoned.’

Then the king gave each brother a goblet of wine and invited them to the
wedding feast. And what a feast that was!

[From Ungarischen Mahrchen.]




The Language of Beasts

Once upon a time a man had a shepherd who served him many years
faithfully and honestly. One day, whilst herding his flock, this
shepherd heard a hissing sound, coming out of the forest near by, which
he could not account for. So he went into the wood in the direction of
the noise to try to discover the cause. When he approached the place
he found that the dry grass and leaves were on fire, and on a tree,
surrounded by flames, a snake was coiled, hissing with terror.

The shepherd stood wondering how the poor snake could escape, for
the wind was blowing the flames that way, and soon that tree would be
burning like the rest. Suddenly the snake cried: ‘O shepherd! for the
love of heaven save me from this fire!’

Then the shepherd stretched his staff out over the flames and the snake
wound itself round the staff and up to his hand, and from his hand
it crept up his arm, and twined itself about his neck. The shepherd
trembled with fright, expecting every instant to be stung to death, and
said: ‘What an unlucky man I am! Did I rescue you only to be destroyed
myself?’ But the snake answered: ‘Have no fear; only carry me home to my
father who is the King of the Snakes.’ The shepherd, however, was much
too frightened to listen, and said that he could not go away and leave
his flock alone; but the snake said: ‘You need not be afraid to leave
your flock, no evil shall befall them; but make all the haste you can.’

So he set off through the wood carrying the snake, and after a time he
came to a great gateway, made entirely of snakes intertwined one with
another. The shepherd stood still with surprise, but the snake round his
neck whistled, and immediately all the arch unwound itself.

‘When we are come to my father’s house,’ said his own snake to him, ‘he
will reward you with anything you like to ask--silver, gold, jewels,
or whatever on this earth is most precious; but take none of all these
things, ask rather to understand the language of beasts. He will refuse
it to you a long time, but in the end he will grant it to you.’

Soon after that they arrived at the house of the King of the Snakes, who
burst into tears of joy at the sight of his daughter, as he had given
her up for dead. ‘Where have you been all this time?’ he asked, directly
he could speak, and she told him that she had been caught in a forest
fire, and had been rescued from the flames by the shepherd. The King of
the Snakes, then turning to the shepherd, said to him: ‘What reward will
you choose for saving my child?’

‘Make me to know the language of beasts,’ answered the shepherd, ‘that
is all I desire.’

The king replied: ‘Such knowledge would be of no benefit to you, for if
I granted it to you and you told any one of it, you would immediately
die; ask me rather for whatever else you would most like to possess, and
it shall be yours.’

But the shepherd answered him: ‘Sir, if you wish to reward me for saving
your daughter, grant me, I pray you, to know the language of beasts. I
desire nothing else’; and he turned as if to depart.

Then the king called him back, saying: ‘If nothing else will satisfy
you, open your mouth.’ The man obeyed, and the king spat into it, and
said: ‘Now spit into my mouth.’ The shepherd did as he was told, then
the King of the Snakes spat again into the shepherd’s mouth. When they
had spat into each other’s mouths three times, the king said:

‘Now you know the language of beasts, go in peace; but, if you value
your life, beware lest you tell any one of it, else you will immediately
die.’

So the shepherd set out for home, and on his way through the wood he
heard and understood all that was said by the birds, and by every living
creature. When he got back to his sheep he found the flock grazing
peacefully, and as he was very tired he laid himself down by them to
rest a little. Hardly had he done so when two ravens flew down and
perched on a tree near by, and began to talk to each other in their own
language: ‘If that shepherd only knew that there is a vault full of gold
and silver beneath where that lamb is lying, what would he not do?’ When
the shepherd heard these words he went straight to his master and told
him, and the master at once took a waggon, and broke open the door of
the vault, and they carried off the treasure. But instead of keeping it
for himself, the master, who was an honourable man, gave it all up to
the shepherd, saying: ‘Take it, it is yours. The gods have given it to
you.’ So the shepherd took the treasure and built himself a house. He
married a wife, and they lived in great peace and happiness, and he was
acknowledged to be the richest man, not only of his native village, but
of all the country-side. He had flocks of sheep, and cattle, and horses
without end, as well as beautiful clothes and jewels.

One day, just before Christmas, he said to his wife: ‘Prepare everything
for a great feast, to-morrow we will take things with us to the farm
that the shepherds there may make merry.’ The wife obeyed, and all was
prepared as he desired. Next day they both went to the farm, and in the
evening the master said to the shepherds: ‘Now come, all of you, eat,
drink, and make merry. I will watch the flocks myself to-night in your
stead.’ Then he went out to spend the night with the flocks.

When midnight struck the wolves howled and the dogs barked, and the
wolves spoke in their own tongue, saying:

‘Shall we come in and work havoc, and you too shall eat flesh?’ And
the dogs answered in their tongue: ‘Come in, and for once we shall have
enough to eat.’

Now amongst the dogs there was one so old that he had only two teeth
left in his head, and he spoke to the wolves, saying: ‘So long as I have
my two teeth still in my head, I will let no harm be done to my master.’

All this the master heard and understood, and as soon as morning dawned
he ordered all the dogs to be killed excepting the old dog. The farm
servants wondered at this order, and exclaimed: ‘But surely, sir, that
would be a pity?’

The master answered: ‘Do as I bid you’; and made ready to return home
with his wife, and they mounted their horses, her steed being a mare.
As they went on their way, it happened that the husband rode on ahead,
while the wife was a little way behind. The husband’s horse, seeing
this, neighed, and said to the mare: ‘Come along, make haste; why are
you so slow?’ And the mare answered: ‘It is very easy for you, you carry
only your master, who is a thin man, but I carry my mistress, who is so
fat that she weights as much as three.’ When the husband heard that he
looked back and laughed, which the wife perceiving, she urged on the
mare till she caught up with her husband, and asked him why he laughed.
‘For nothing at all,’ he answered; ‘just because it came into my head.’
She would not be satisfied with this answer, and urged him more and more
to tell her why he had laughed. But he controlled himself and said: ‘Let
me be, wife; what ails you? I do not know myself why I laughed.’ But the
more he put her off, the more she tormented him to tell her the cause of
his laughter. At length he said to her: ‘Know, then, that if I tell it
you I shall immediately and surely die.’ But even this did not quiet
her; she only besought him the more to tell her.

Meanwhile they had reached home, and before getting down from his horse
the man called for a coffin to be brought; and when it was there he
placed it in front of the house, and said to his wife:

‘See, I will lay myself down in this coffin, and will then tell you why
I laughed, for as soon as I have told you I shall surely die.’ So he lay
down in the coffin, and while he took a last look around him, his old
dog came out from the farm and sat down by him, and whined. When the
master saw this, he called to his wife: ‘Bring a piece of bread to give
to the dog.’ The wife brought some bread and threw it to the dog, but he
would not look at it. Then the farm cock came and pecked at the bread;
but the dog said to it: ‘Wretched glutton, you can eat like that when
you see that your master is dying?’ The cock answered: ‘Let him die, if
he is so stupid. I have a hundred wives, which I call together when I
find a grain of corn, and as soon as they are there I swallow it myself;
should one of them dare to be angry, I would give her a lesson with my
beak. He has only one wife, and he cannot keep her in order.’

As soon as the man understood this, he got up out of the coffin, seized
a stick, and called his wife into the room, saying: ‘Come, and I will
tell you what you so much want to know’; and then he began to beat her
with the stick, saying with each blow: ‘It is that, wife, it is that!’
And in this way he taught her never again to ask why he had laughed.




The Boy Who Could Keep A Secret

Once upon a time there lived a poor widow who had one little boy. At
first sight you would not have thought that he was different from a
thousand other little boys; but then you noticed that by his side hung
the scabbard of a sword, and as the boy grew bigger the scabbard grew
bigger too. The sword which belonged to the scabbard was found by the
little boy sticking out of the ground in the garden, and every day he
pulled it up to see if it would go into the scabbard. But though it
was plainly becoming longer and longer, it was some time before the two
would fit.

However, there came a day at last when it slipped in quite easily. The
child was so delighted that he could hardly believe his eyes, so he
tried it seven times, and each time it slipped in more easily than
before. But pleased though the boy was, he determined not to tell anyone
about it, particularly not his mother, who never could keep anything
from her neighbours.

Still, in spite of his resolutions, he could not hide altogether that
something had happened, and when he went in to breakfast his mother
asked him what was the matter.

‘Oh, mother, I had such a nice dream last night,’ said he; ‘but I can’t
tell it to anybody.’

‘You can tell it to me,’ she answered. ‘It must have been a nice dream,
or you wouldn’t look so happy.’

‘No, mother; I can’t tell it to anybody,’ returned the boy, ‘till it
comes true.’

‘I want to know what it was, and know it I will,’ cried she, ‘and I will
beat you till you tell me.’

But it was no use, neither words nor blows would get the secret out of
the boy; and when her arm was quite tired and she had to leave off, the
child, sore and aching, ran into the garden and knelt weeping beside his
little sword. It was working round and round in its hole all by itself,
and if anyone except the boy had tried to catch hold of it, he would
have been badly cut. But the moment he stretched out his hand it stopped
and slid quietly into the scabbard.

For a long time the child sat sobbing, and the noise was heard by the
king as he was driving by. ‘Go and see who it is that is crying so,’
said he to one of his servants, and the man went. In a few minutes he
returned saying: ‘Your Majesty, it is a little boy who is kneeling there
sobbing because his mother has beaten him.’

‘Bring him to me at once,’ commanded the monarch, ‘and tell him that it
is the king who sends for him, and that he has never cried in all his
life and cannot bear anyone else to do so.’ On receiving this message
the boy dried his tears and went with the servant to the royal carriage.
‘Will you be my son?’ asked the king.

‘Yes, if my mother will let me,’ answered the boy. And the king bade the
servant go back to the mother and say that if she would give her boy to
him, he should live in the palace and marry his prettiest daughter as
soon as he was a man.

The widow’s anger now turned into joy, and she came running to the
splendid coach and kissed the king’s hand. ‘I hope you will be more
obedient to his Majesty than you were to me,’ she said; and the boy
shrank away half-frightened. But when she had gone back to her cottage,
he asked the king if he might fetch something that he had left in the
garden, and when he was given permission, he pulled up his little sword,
which he slid into the scabbard.

Then he climbed into the coach and was driven away.

After they had gone some distance the king said: ‘Why were you crying so
bitterly in the garden just now?’

‘Because my mother had been beating me,’ replied the boy.

‘And what did she do that for?’ asked the king again.

‘Because I would not tell her my dream.’

‘And why wouldn’t you tell it to her?’

‘Because I will never tell it to anyone till it comes true,’ answered
the boy.

‘And won’t you tell it to me either?’ asked the king in surprise.

‘No, not even to you, your Majesty,’ replied he.

‘Oh, I am sure you will when we get home,’ said the king smiling, and he
talked to him about other things till they came to the palace.

‘I have brought you such a nice present,’ he said to his daughters, and
as the boy was very pretty they were delighted to have him and gave him
all their best toys.

‘You must not spoil him,’ observed the king one day, when he had been
watching them playing together. He has a secret which he won’t tell to
anyone.’

‘He will tell me,’ answered the eldest princess; but the boy only shook
his head.

‘He will tell me,’ said the second girl.

‘Not I,’ replied the boy.

‘He will tell me,’ cried the youngest, who was the prettiest too.

‘I will tell nobody till it comes true,’ said the boy, as he had said
before; ‘and I will beat anybody who asks me.’

The king was very sorry when he heard this, for he loved the boy dearly;
but he thought it would never do to keep anyone near him who would not
do as he was bid. So he commanded his servants to take him away and not
to let him enter the palace again until he had come to his right senses.

The sword clanked loudly as the boy was led away, but the child said
nothing, though he was very unhappy at being treated so badly when he
had done nothing. However, the servants were very kind to him, and their
children brought him fruit and all sorts of nice things, and he soon
grew merry again, and lived amongst them for many years till his
seventeenth birthday.

Meanwhile the two eldest princesses had become women, and had married
two powerful kings who ruled over great countries across the sea.
The youngest one was old enough to be married too, but she was very
particular, and turned up her nose at all the young princes who had
sought her hand.

One day she was sitting in the palace feeling rather dull and lonely,
and suddenly she began to wonder what the servants were doing, and
whether it was not more amusing down in their quarters. The king was at
his council and the queen was ill in bed, so there was no one to stop
the princess, and she hastily ran across the gardens to the houses where
the servants lived. Outside she noticed a youth who was handsomer than
any prince she had ever seen, and in a moment she knew him to be the
little boy she had once played with.

‘Tell me your secret and I will marry you,’ she said to him; but the boy
only gave her the beating he had promised her long ago, when she asked
him the same question. The girl was very angry, besides being hurt, and
ran home to complain to her father.

‘If he had a thousand souls, I would kill them all,’ swore the king.

That very day a gallows was built outside the town, and all the people
crowded round to see the execution of the young man who had dared to
beat the king’s daughter. The prisoner, with his hands tied behind
his back, was brought out by the hangman, and amidst dead silence his
sentence was being read by the judge when suddenly the sword clanked
against his side. Instantly a great noise was heard and a golden coach
rumbled over the stones, with a white flag waving out of the window.
It stopped underneath the gallows, and from it stepped the king of the
Magyars, who begged that the life of the boy might be spared.

‘Sir, he has beaten my daughter, who only asked him to tell her his
secret. I cannot pardon that,’ answered the princess’s father.

‘Give him to me, I’m sure he will tell me the secret; or, if not, I have
a daughter who is like the Morning Star, and he is sure to tell it to
her.’

The sword clanked for the third time, and the king said angrily: ‘Well,
if you want him so much you can have him; only never let me see his face
again.’ And he made a sign to the hangman. The bandage was removed from
the young man’s eyes, and the cords from his wrists, and he took his
seat in the golden coach beside the king of the Magyars. Then the
coachman whipped up his horses, and they set out for Buda.

The king talked very pleasantly for a few miles, and when he thought
that his new companion was quite at ease with him, he asked him what was
the secret which had brought him into such trouble. ‘That I cannot tell
you,’ answered the youth, ‘until it comes true.’

‘You will tell my daughter,’ said the king, smiling.

‘I will tell nobody,’ replied the youth, and as he spoke the sword
clanked loudly. The king said no more, but trusted to his daughter’s
beauty to get the secret from him.

The journey to Buda was long, and it was several days before they
arrived there. The beautiful princess happened to be picking roses in
the garden, when her father’s coach drove up.

‘Oh, what a handsome youth! Have you brought him from fairyland?’ cried
she, when they all stood upon the marble steps in front of the castle.

‘I have brought him from the gallows,’ answered the king; rather vexed
at his daughter’s words, as never before had she consented to speak to
any man.

‘I don’t care where you brought him from,’ said the spoilt girl. ‘I will
marry him and nobody else, and we will live together till we die.’

‘You will tell another tale,’ replied the king, ‘when you ask him his
secret. After all he is no better than a servant.’

‘That is nothing to me,’ said the princess, ‘for I love him. He will
tell his secret to me, and will find a place in the middle of my heart.’

But the king shook his head, and gave orders that the lad was to be
lodged in the summer-house.

One day, about a week later, the princess put on her finest dress, and
went to pay him a visit. She looked so beautiful that, at the sight of
her, the book dropped from his hand, and he stood up speechless. ‘Tell
me,’ she said, coaxingly, ‘what is this wonderful secret? Just whisper
it in my ear, and I will give you a kiss.’

‘My angel,’ he answered, ‘be wise, and ask no questions, if you wish to
get safely back to your father’s palace; I have kept my secret all these
years, and do not mean to tell it now.’

However, the girl would not listen, and went on pressing him, till at
last he slapped her face so hard that her nose bled. She shrieked with
pain and rage, and ran screaming back to the palace, where her father
was waiting to hear if she had succeeded. ‘I will starve you to death,
you son of a dragon,’ cried he, when he saw her dress streaming with
blood; and he ordered all the masons and bricklayers in the town to come
before him.

‘Build me a tower as fast as you can,’ he said, ‘and see that there is
room for a stool and a small table, and for nothing else. The men set
to work, and in two hours the tower was built, and they proceeded to the
palace to inform the king that his commands were fulfilled. On the way
they met the princess, who began to talk to one of the masons, and when
the rest were out of hearing she asked if he could manage to make a hole
in the tower, which nobody could see, large enough for a bottle of wine
and some food to pass through.

‘To be sure I can,’ said the mason, turning back, and in a few minutes
the hole was bored.

At sunset a large crowd assembled to watch the youth being led to the
tower, and after his misdeeds had been proclaimed he was solemnly walled
up. But every morning the princess passed him in food through the hole,
and every third day the king sent his secretary to climb up a ladder
and look down through a little window to see if he was dead. But the
secretary always brought back the report that he was fat and rosy.

‘There is some magic about this,’ said the king.

This state of affairs lasted some time, till one day a messenger arrived
from the Sultan bearing a letter for the king, and also three canes. ‘My
master bids me say,’ said the messenger, bowing low, ‘that if you cannot
tell him which of these three canes grows nearest the root, which in the
middle, and which at the top, he will declare war against you.

The king was very much frightened when he heard this, and though he took
the canes and examined them closely, he could see no difference between
them. He looked so sad that his daughter noticed it, and inquired the
reason.

‘Alas! my daughter,’ he answered, ‘how can I help being sad? The Sultan
has sent me three canes, and says that if I cannot tell him which of
them grows near the root, which in the middle, and which at the top, he
will make war upon me. And you know that his army is far greater than
mine.’

‘Oh, do not despair, my father,’ said she. ‘We shall be sure to find out
the answer’; and she ran away to the tower, and told the young man what
had occurred.

‘Go to bed as usual,’ replied he, ‘and when you wake, tell your father
that you have dreamed that the canes must be placed in warm water. After
a little while one will sink to the bottom; that is the one that grows
nearest the root. The one which neither sinks nor comes to the surface
is the cane that is cut from the middle; and the one that floats is from
the top.’

So, the next morning, the princess told her father of her dream, and by
her advice he cut notches in each of the canes when he took them out of
the water, so that he might make no mistake when he handed them back to
the messenger. The Sultan could not imagine how he had found out, but he
did not declare war.

The following year the Sultan again wanted to pick a quarrel with the
king of the Magyars, so he sent another messenger to him with three
foals, begging him to say which of the animals was born in the morning,
which at noon, and which in the evening. If an answer was not ready in
three days, war would be declared at once. The king’s heart sank when he
read the letter. He could not expect his daughter to be lucky enough to
dream rightly a second time, and as a plague had been raging through
the country, and had carried off many of his soldiers, his army was even
weaker than before. At this thought his face became so gloomy that his
daughter noticed it, and inquired what was the matter.

‘I have had another letter from the Sultan,’ replied the king, ‘and
he says that if I cannot tell him which of three foals was born in the
morning, which at noon, and which in the evening, he will declare war at
once.’

‘Oh, don’t be cast down,’ said she, ‘something is sure to happen’; and
she ran down to the tower to consult the youth.

‘Go home, idol of my heart, and when night comes, pretend to scream out
in your sleep, so that your father hears you. Then tell him that you
have dreamt that he was just being carried off by the Turks because he
could not answer the question about the foals, when the lad whom he
had shut up in the tower ran up and told them which was foaled in the
morning, which at noon, and which in the evening.’

So the princess did exactly as the youth had bidden her; and no sooner
had she spoken than the king ordered the tower to be pulled down, and
the prisoner brought before him.

‘I did not think that you could have lived so long without food,’ said
he, ‘and as you have had plenty of time to repent your wicked conduct,
I will grant you pardon, on condition that you help me in a sore strait.
Read this letter from the Sultan; you will see that if I fail to answer
his question about the foals, a dreadful war will be the result.’

The youth took the letter and read it through. ‘Yes, I can help you,’
replied he; ‘but first you must bring me three troughs, all exactly
alike. Into one you must put oats, into another wheat, and into the
third barley. The foal which eats the oats is that which was foaled in
the morning; the foal which eats the wheat is that which was foaled at
noon; and the foal which eats the barley is that which was foaled at
night.’ The king followed the youth’s directions, and, marking the
foals, sent them back to Turkey, and there was no war that year.

Now the Sultan was very angry that both his plots to get possession of
Hungary had been such total failures, and he sent for his aunt, who was
a witch, to consult her as to what he should do next.

‘It is not the king who has answered your questions,’ observed the aunt,
when he had told his story. ‘He is far too stupid ever to have done
that! The person who has found out the puzzle is the son of a poor
woman, who, if he lives, will become King of Hungary. Therefore, if you
want the crown yourself, you must get him here and kill him.’

After this conversation another letter was written to the Court of
Hungary, saying that if the youth, now in the palace, was not sent
to Turkey within three days, a large army would cross the border. The
king’s heart was sorrowful as he read, for he was grateful to the lad
for what he had done to help him; but the boy only laughed, and bade the
king fear nothing, but to search the town instantly for two youths just
like each other, and he would paint himself a mask that was just like
them. And the sword at his side clanked loudly.

After a long search twin brothers were found, so exactly resembling
each other that even their own mother could not tell the difference. The
youth painted a mask that was the precise copy of them, and when he had
put it on, no one would have known one boy from the other. They set out
at once for the Sultan’s palace, and when they reached it, they were
taken straight into his presence. He made a sign for them to come near;
they all bowed low in greeting. He asked them about their journey; they
answered his questions all together, and in the same words. If one sat
down to supper, the others sat down at the same instant. When one got
up, the others got up too, as if there had been only one body between
them. The Sultan could not detect any difference between them, and he
told his aunt that he would not be so cruel as to kill all three.

‘Well, you will see a difference to-morrow,’ replied the witch, ‘for one
will have a cut on his sleeve. That is the youth you must kill.’ And one
hour before midnight, when witches are invisible, she glided into the
room where all three lads were sleeping in the same bed. She took out
a pair of scissors and cut a small piece out of the boy’s coat-sleeve
which was hanging on the wall, and then crept silently from the room.
But in the morning the youth saw the slit, and he marked the sleeves of
his two companions in the same way, and all three went down to breakfast
with the Sultan. The old witch was standing in the window and pretended
not to see them; but all witches have eyes in the backs of their heads,
and she knew at once that not one sleeve but three were cut, and they
were all as alike as before. After breakfast, the Sultan, who was
getting tired of the whole affair and wanted to be alone to invent some
other plan, told them they might return home. So, bowing low with one
accord, they went.

The princess welcomed the boy back joyfully, but the poor youth was not
allowed to rest long in peace, for one day a fresh letter arrived from
the Sultan, saying that he had discovered that the young man was a very
dangerous person, and that he must be sent to Turkey at once, and alone.
The girl burst into tears when the boy told her what was in the letter
which her father had bade her to carry to him. ‘Do not weep, love of
my heart,’ said the boy, ‘all will be well. I will start at sunrise
to-morrow.’

So next morning at sunrise the youth set forth, and in a few days he
reached the Sultan’s palace. The old witch was waiting for him at the
gate, and whispered as he passed: ‘This is the last time you will ever
enter it.’ But the sword clanked, and the lad did not even look at her.
As he crossed the threshold fifteen armed Turks barred his way, with the
Sultan at their head. Instantly the sword darted forth and cut off the
heads of everyone but the Sultan, and then went quietly back to its
scabbard. The witch, who was looking on, saw that as long as the youth
had possession of the sword, all her schemes would be in vain, and tried
to steal the sword in the night, but it only jumped out of its scabbard
and sliced off her nose, which was of iron. And in the morning, when the
Sultan brought a great army to capture the lad and deprive him of his
sword, they were all cut to pieces, while he remained without a scratch.

Meanwhile the princess was in despair because the days slipped by, and
the young man did not return, and she never rested until her father let
her lead some troops against the Sultan. She rode proudly before them,
dressed in uniform; but they had not left the town more than a mile
behind them, when they met the lad and his little sword. When he told
them what he had done they shouted for joy, and carried him back in
triumph to the palace; and the king declared that as the youth had shown
himself worthy to become his son-in-law, he should marry the princess
and succeed to the throne at once, as he himself was getting old, and
the cares of government were too much for him. But the young man said he
must first go and see his mother, and the king sent him in state, with a
troop of soldiers as his bodyguard.

The old woman was quite frightened at seeing such an array draw up
before her little house, and still more surprised when a handsome young
man, whom she did not know, dismounted and kissed her hand, saying:
‘Now, dear mother, you shall hear my secret at last! I dreamed that I
should become King of Hungary, and my dream has come true. When I was
a child, and you begged me to tell you, I had to keep silence, or the
Magyar king would have killed me. And if you had not beaten me nothing
would have happened that has happened, and I should not now be King of
Hungary.’

[From the Folk Tales of the Magyars.]




The Prince And The Dragon

Once upon a time there lived an emperor who had three sons. They were
all fine young men, and fond of hunting, and scarcely a day passed
without one or other of them going out to look for game.

One morning the eldest of the three princes mounted his horse and set
out for a neighbouring forest, where wild animals of all sorts were to
be found. He had not long left the castle, when a hare sprang out of a
thicket and dashed across the road in front. The young man gave chase
at once, and pursued it over hill and dale, till at last the hare took
refuge in a mill which was standing by the side of a river. The prince
followed and entered the mill, but stopped in terror by the door, for,
instead of a hare, before him stood a dragon, breathing fire and flame.
At this fearful sight the prince turned to fly, but a fiery tongue
coiled round his waist, and drew him into the dragon’s mouth, and he was
seen no more.

A week passed away, and when the prince never came back everyone in the
town began to grow uneasy. At last his next brother told the emperor
that he likewise would go out to hunt, and that perhaps he would find
some clue as to his brother’s disappearance. But hardly had the castle
gates closed on the prince than the hare sprang out of the bushes as
before, and led the huntsman up hill and down dale, till they reached
the mill. Into this the hare flew with the prince at his heels, when,
lo! instead of the hare, there stood a dragon breathing fire and flame;
and out shot a fiery tongue which coiled round the prince’s waist, and
lifted him straight into the dragon’s mouth, and he was seen no more.

Days went by, and the emperor waited and waited for the sons who never
came, and could not sleep at night for wondering where they were and
what had become of them. His youngest son wished to go in search of his
brothers, but for long the emperor refused to listen to him, lest he
should lose him also. But the prince prayed so hard for leave to make
the search, and promised so often that he would be very cautious and
careful, that at length the emperor gave him permission, and ordered the
best horse in the stables to be saddled for him.

Full of hope the young prince started on his way, but no sooner was
he outside the city walls than a hare sprang out of the bushes and ran
before him, till they reached the mill. As before, the animal dashed in
through the open door, but this time he was not followed by the prince.
Wiser than his brothers, the young man turned away, saying to himself:
‘There are as good hares in the forest as any that have come out of it,
and when I have caught them, I can come back and look for you.’

For many hours he rode up and down the mountain, but saw nothing, and at
last, tired of waiting, he went back to the mill. Here he found an old
woman sitting, whom he greeted pleasantly.

‘Good morning to you, little mother,’ he said; and the old woman
answered: ‘Good morning, my son.’

‘Tell me, little mother,’ went on the prince, ‘where shall I find my
hare?’

‘My son,’ replied the old woman, ‘that was no hare, but a dragon who has
led many men hither, and then has eaten them all.’ At these words the
prince’s heart grew heavy, and he cried, ‘Then my brothers must have
come here, and have been eaten by the dragon!’

‘You have guessed right,’ answered the old woman; ‘and I can give you no
better counsel than to go home at once, before the same fate overtakes
you.’

‘Will you not come with me out of this dreadful place?’ said the young
man.

‘He took me prisoner, too,’ answered she, ‘and I cannot shake off his
chains.’

‘Then listen to me,’ cried the prince. ‘When the dragon comes back,
ask him where he always goes when he leaves here, and what makes him so
strong; and when you have coaxed the secret from him, tell me the next
time I come.’

So the prince went home, and the old woman remained in the mill, and as
soon as the dragon returned she said to him:

‘Where have you been all this time--you must have travelled far?’

‘Yes, little mother, I have indeed travelled far.’ answered he. Then the
old woman began to flatter him, and to praise his cleverness; and
when she thought she had got him into a good temper, she said: ‘I have
wondered so often where you get your strength from; I do wish you would
tell me. I would stoop and kiss the place out of pure love!’ The dragon
laughed at this, and answered:

‘In the hearthstone yonder lies the secret of my strength.’

Then the old woman jumped up and kissed the hearth; whereat the dragon
laughed the more, and said:

‘You foolish creature! I was only jesting. It is not in the hearthstone,
but in that tall tree that lies the secret of my strength.’ Then the
old woman jumped up again and put her arms round the tree, and kissed it
heartily. Loudly laughed the dragon when he saw what she was doing.

‘Old fool,’ he cried, as soon as he could speak, ‘did you really believe
that my strength came from that tree?’

‘Where is it then?’ asked the old woman, rather crossly, for she did not
like being made fun of.

‘My strength,’ replied the dragon, ‘lies far away; so far that you could
never reach it. Far, far from here is a kingdom, and by its capital city
is a lake, and in the lake is a dragon, and inside the dragon is a wild
boar, and inside the wild boar is a pigeon, and inside the pigeon a
sparrow, and inside the sparrow is my strength.’ And when the old woman
heard this, she thought it was no use flattering him any longer, for
never, never, could she take his strength from him.

The following morning, when the dragon had left the mill, the prince
came back, and the old woman told him all that the creature had said. He
listened in silence, and then returned to the castle, where he put on
a suit of shepherd’s clothes, and taking a staff in his hand, he went
forth to seek a place as tender of sheep.

For some time he wandered from village to village and from town to town,
till he came at length to a large city in a distant kingdom, surrounded
on three sides by a great lake, which happened to be the very lake in
which the dragon lived. As was his custom, he stopped everybody whom he
met in the streets that looked likely to want a shepherd and begged them
to engage him, but they all seemed to have shepherds of their own, or
else not to need any. The prince was beginning to lose heart, when a man
who had overheard his question turned round and said that he had better
go and ask the emperor, as he was in search of some one to see after his
flocks.

‘Will you take care of my sheep?’ said the emperor, when the young man
knelt before him.

‘Most willingly, your Majesty,’ answered the young man, and he listened
obediently while the emperor told him what he was to do.

‘Outside the city walls,’ went on the emperor, ‘you will find a large
lake, and by its banks lie the richest meadows in my kingdom. When you
are leading out your flocks to pasture, they will all run straight to
these meadows, and none that have gone there have ever been known to
come back. Take heed, therefore, my son, not to suffer your sheep to go
where they will, but drive them to any spot that you think best.’

With a low bow the prince thanked the emperor for his warning, and
promised to do his best to keep the sheep safe. Then he left the palace
and went to the market-place, where he bought two greyhounds, a hawk,
and a set of pipes; after that he took the sheep out to pasture. The
instant the animals caught sight of the lake lying before them, they
trotted off as fast as their legs would go to the green meadows lying
round it. The prince did not try to stop them; he only placed his hawk
on the branch of a tree, laid his pipes on the grass, and bade the
greyhounds sit still; then, rolling up his sleeves and trousers, he
waded into the water crying as he did so: ‘Dragon! dragon! if you are
not a coward, come out and fight with me!’ And a voice answered from the
depths of the lake:

‘I am waiting for you, O prince’; and the next minute the dragon reared
himself out of the water, huge and horrible to see. The prince sprang
upon him and they grappled with each other and fought together till the
sun was high, and it was noonday. Then the dragon gasped:

‘O prince, let me dip my burning head once into the lake, and I will
hurl you up to the top of the sky.’ But the prince answered, ‘Oh, ho! my
good dragon, do not crow too soon! If the emperor’s daughter were only
here, and would kiss me on the forehead, I would throw you up higher
still!’ And suddenly the dragon’s hold loosened, and he fell back into
the lake.

As soon as it was evening, the prince washed away all signs of the
fight, took his hawk upon his shoulder, and his pipes under his arm, and
with his greyhounds in front and his flock following after him he set
out for the city. As they all passed through the streets the people
stared in wonder, for never before had any flock returned from the lake.

The next morning he rose early, and led his sheep down the road to the
lake. This time, however, the emperor sent two men on horseback to ride
behind him, with orders to watch the prince all day long. The horsemen
kept the prince and his sheep in sight, without being seen themselves.
As soon as they beheld the sheep running towards the meadows, they
turned aside up a steep hill, which overhung the lake. When the shepherd
reached the place he laid, as before, his pipes on the grass and bade
the greyhounds sit beside them, while the hawk he perched on the branch
of the tree. Then he rolled up his trousers and his sleeves, and waded
into the water crying:

‘Dragon! dragon! if you are not a coward, come out and fight with me!’
And the dragon answered:

‘I am waiting for you, O prince,’ and the next minute he reared himself
out of the water, huge and horrible to see. Again they clasped each
other tight round the body and fought till it was noon, and when the sun
was at its hottest, the dragon gasped:

‘O prince, let me dip my burning head once in the lake, and I will hurl
you up to the top of the sky.’ But the prince answered:

‘Oh, ho! my good dragon, do not crow too soon! If the emperor’s daughter
were only here, and would kiss me on the forehead, I would throw you up
higher still!’ And suddenly the dragon’s hold loosened, and he fell back
into the lake.

As soon as it was evening the prince again collected his sheep, and
playing on his pipes he marched before them into the city. When he
passed through the gates all the people came out of their houses to
stare in wonder, for never before had any flock returned from the lake.

Meanwhile the two horsemen had ridden quickly back, and told the emperor
all that they had seen and heard. The emperor listened eagerly to their
tale, then called his daughter to him and repeated it to her.

‘To-morrow,’ he said, when he had finished, ‘you shall go with the
shepherd to the lake, and then you shall kiss him on the forehead as he
wishes.’

But when the princess heard these words, she burst into tears, and
sobbed out:

‘Will you really send me, your only child, to that dreadful place, from
which most likely I shall never come back?’

‘Fear nothing, my little daughter, all will be well. Many shepherds have
gone to that lake and none have ever returned; but this one has in these
two days fought twice with the dragon and has escaped without a wound.
So I hope to-morrow he will kill the dragon altogether, and deliver this
land from the monster who has slain so many of our bravest men.’

Scarcely had the sun begun to peep over the hills next morning, when
the princess stood by the shepherd’s side, ready to go to the lake.
The shepherd was brimming over with joy, but the princess only wept
bitterly. ‘Dry your tears, I implore you,’ said he. ‘If you will just do
what I ask you, and when the time comes, run and kiss my forehead, you
have nothing to fear.’

Merrily the shepherd blew on his pipes as he marched at the head of his
flock, only stopping every now and then to say to the weeping girl at
his side:

‘Do not cry so, Heart of Gold; trust me and fear nothing.’ And so they
reached the lake.

In an instant the sheep were scattered all over the meadows, and the
prince placed his hawk on the tree, and his pipes on the grass, while he
bade his greyhounds lie beside them. Then he rolled up his trousers and
his sleeves, and waded into the water, calling:

‘Dragon! dragon! if you are not a coward, come forth, and let us have
one more fight together.’ And the dragon answered: ‘I am waiting for
you, O prince’; and the next minute he reared himself out of the water,
huge and horrible to see. Swiftly he drew near to the bank, and the
prince sprang to meet him, and they grasped each other round the body
and fought till it was noon. And when the sun was at its hottest, the
dragon cried:

‘O prince, let me dip my burning head in the lake, and I will hurl you
to the top of the sky.’ But the prince answered:

‘Oh, ho! my good dragon, do not crow too soon! If the emperor’s daughter
were only here, and she would kiss my forehead, I would throw you higher
still.’

Hardly had he spoken, when the princess, who had been listening, ran
up and kissed him on the forehead. Then the prince swung the dragon
straight up into the clouds, and when he touched the earth again, he
broke into a thousand pieces. Out of the pieces there sprang a wild boar
and galloped away, but the prince called his hounds to give chase, and
they caught the boar and tore it to bits. Out of the pieces there sprang
a hare, and in a moment the greyhounds were after it, and they caught
it and killed it; and out of the hare there came a pigeon. Quickly the
prince let loose his hawk, which soared straight into the air, then
swooped upon the bird and brought it to his master. The prince cut open
its body and found the sparrow inside, as the old woman had said.

‘Now,’ cried the prince, holding the sparrow in his hand, ‘now you shall
tell me where I can find my brothers.’

‘Do not hurt me,’ answered the sparrow, ‘and I will tell you with all my
heart.’ Behind your father’s castle stands a mill, and in the mill are
three slender twigs. Cut off these twigs and strike their roots with
them, and the iron door of a cellar will open. In the cellar you will
find as many people, young and old, women and children, as would fill a
kingdom, and among them are your brothers.’

By this time twilight had fallen, so the prince washed himself in the
lake, took the hawk on his shoulder and the pipes under his arm, and
with his greyhounds before him and his flock behind him, marched gaily
into the town, the princess following them all, still trembling
with fright. And so they passed through the streets, thronged with a
wondering crowd, till they reached the castle.

Unknown to anyone, the emperor had stolen out on horseback, and had
hidden himself on the hill, where he could see all that happened. When
all was over, and the power of the dragon was broken for ever, he rode
quickly back to the castle, and was ready to receive the prince with
open arms, and to promise him his daughter to wife. The wedding took
place with great splendour, and for a whole week the town was hung with
coloured lamps, and tables were spread in the hall of the castle for all
who chose to come and eat. And when the feast was over, the prince
told the emperor and the people who he really was, and at this everyone
rejoiced still more, and preparations were made for the prince and
princess to return to their own kingdom, for the prince was impatient to
set free his brothers.

The first thing he did when he reached his native country was to hasten
to the mill, where he found the three twigs as the sparrow had told him.
The moment that he struck the root the iron door flew open, and from the
cellar a countless multitude of men and women streamed forth. He bade
them go one by one wheresoever they would, while he himself waited by
the door till his brothers passed through. How delighted they were to
meet again, and to hear all that the prince had done to deliver them
from their enchantment. And they went home with him and served him
all the days of their lives, for they said that he only who had proved
himself brave and faithful was fit to be king.

[From Volksmarehen der Serben.]




Little Wildrose

Once upon a time the things in this story happened, and if they had not
happened then the story would never have been told. But that was the
time when wolves and lambs lay peacefully together in one stall, and
shepherds dined on grassy banks with kings and queens.

Once upon a time, then, my dear good children, there lived a man. Now
this man was really a hundred years old, if not fully twenty years more.
And his wife was very old too--how old I do not know; but some said she
was as old as the goddess Venus herself. They had been very happy all
these years, but they would have been happier still if they had had any
children; but old though they were they had never made up their minds to
do without them, and often they would sit over the fire and talk of how
they would have brought up their children if only some had come to their
house.

One day the old man seemed sadder and more thoughtful than was common
with him, and at last he said to his wife: ‘Listen to me, old woman!’

‘What do you want?’ asked she.

‘Get me some money out of the chest, for I am going a long journey--all
through the world--to see if I cannot find a child, for my heart aches
to think that after I am dead my house will fall into the hands of a
stranger. And this let me tell you: that if I never find a child I shall
not come home again.’

Then the old man took a bag and filled it with food and money, and
throwing it over his shoulders, bade his wife farewell.

For long he wandered, and wandered, and wandered, but no child did he
see; and one morning his wanderings led him to a forest which was so
thick with trees that no light could pass through the branches. The old
man stopped when he saw this dreadful place, and at first was afraid to
go in; but he remembered that, after all, as the proverb says: ‘It is
the unexpected that happens,’ and perhaps in the midst of this black
spot he might find the child he was seeking. So summoning up all his
courage he plunged boldly in.

How long he might have been walking there he never could have told you,
when at last he reached the mouth of a cave where the darkness seemed a
hundred times darker than the wood itself. Again he paused, but he felt
as if something was driving him to enter, and with a beating heart he
stepped in.

For some minutes the silence and darkness so appalled him that he stood
where he was, not daring to advance one step. Then he made a great
effort and went on a few paces, and suddenly, far before him, he saw
the glimmer of a light. This put new heart into him, and he directed his
steps straight towards the faint rays, till he could see, sitting by it,
an old hermit, with a long white beard.

The hermit either did not hear the approach of his visitor, or pretended
not to do so, for he took no notice, and continued to read his book.
After waiting patiently for a little while, the old man fell on his
knees, and said: ‘Good morning, holy father!’ But he might as well have
spoken to the rock. ‘Good morning, holy father,’ he said again, a little
louder than before, and this time the hermit made a sign to him to
come nearer. ‘My son,’ whispered he, in a voice that echoed through
the cavern, ‘what brings you to this dark and dismal place? Hundreds of
years have passed since my eyes have rested on the face of a man, and I
did not think to look on one again.’.

‘My misery has brought me here,’ replied the old man; ‘I have no child,
and all our lives my wife and I have longed for one. So I left my home,
and went out into the world, hoping that somewhere I might find what I
was seeking.’

Then the hermit picked up an apple from the ground, and gave it to him,
saying: ‘Eat half of this apple, and give the rest to your wife, and
cease wandering through the world.’

The old man stooped and kissed the feet of the hermit for sheer joy,
and left the cave. He made his way through the forest as fast as the
darkness would let him, and at length arrived in flowery fields,
which dazzled him with their brightness. Suddenly he was seized with a
desperate thirst, and a burning in his throat. He looked for a stream
but none was to be seen, and his tongue grew more parched every moment.
At length his eyes fell on the apple, which all this while he had been
holding in his hand, and in his thirst he forgot what the hermit had
told him, and instead of eating merely his own half, he ate up the old
woman’s also; after that he went to sleep.

When he woke up he saw something strange lying on a bank a little way
off, amidst long trails of pink roses. The old man got up, rubbed his
eyes, and went to see what it was, when, to his surprise and joy, it
proved to be a little girl about two years old, with a skin as pink and
white as the roses above her. He took her gently in his arms, but she
did not seem at all frightened, and only jumped and crowed with delight;
and the old man wrapped his cloak round her, and set off for home as
fast as his legs would carry him.

When they were close to the cottage where they lived he laid the child
in a pail that was standing near the door, and ran into the house,
crying: ‘Come quickly, wife, quickly, for I have brought you a daughter,
with hair of gold and eyes like stars!’

At this wonderful news the old woman flew downstairs, almost tumbling
down ill her eagerness to see the treasure; but when her husband led
her to the pail it was perfectly empty! The old man was nearly beside
himself with horror, while his wife sat down and sobbed with grief and
disappointment. There was not a spot round about which they did not
search, thinking that somehow the child might have got out of the pail
and hidden itself for fun; but the little girl was not there, and there
was no sign of her.

‘Where can she be?’ moaned the old man, in despair. ‘Oh, why did I ever
leave her, even for a moment? Have the fairies taken her, or has some
wild beast carried her off?’ And they began their search all over again;
but neither fairies nor wild beasts did they meet with, and with sore
hearts they gave it up at last and turned sadly into the hut.

And what had become of the baby? Well, finding herself left alone in a
strange place she began to cry with fright, and an eagle hovering near,
heard her, and went to see what the sound came from. When he beheld
the fat pink and white creature he thought of his hungry little ones
at home, and swooping down he caught her up in his claws and was soon
flying with her over the tops of the trees. In a few minutes he reached
the one in which he had built his nest, and laying little Wildrose (for
so the old man had called her) among his downy young eaglets, he flew
away. The eaglets naturally were rather surprised at this strange
animal, so suddenly popped down in their midst, but instead of beginning
to eat her, as their father expected, they nestled up close to her and
spread out their tiny wings to shield her from the sun.

Now, in the depths of the forest where the eagle had built his nest,
there ran a stream whose waters were poisonous, and on the banks of
this stream dwelt a horrible lindworm with seven heads. The lindworm had
often watched the eagle flying about the top of the tree, carrying food
to his young ones and, accordingly, he watched carefully for the moment
when the eaglets began to try their wings and to fly away from the
nest. Of course, if the eagle himself was there to protect them even the
lindworm, big and strong as he was, knew that he could do nothing; but
when he was absent, any little eaglets who ventured too near the ground
would be sure to disappear down the monster’s throat. Their brothers,
who had been left behind as too young and weak to see the world, knew
nothing of all this, but supposed their turn would soon come to see the
world also. And in a few days their eyes, too, opened and their wings
flapped impatiently, and they longed to fly away above the waving
tree-tops to mountain and the bright sun beyond. But that very midnight
the lindworm, who was hungry and could not wait for his supper, came out
of the brook with a rushing noise, and made straight for the tree. Two
eyes of flame came creeping nearer, nearer, and two fiery tongues were
stretching themselves out closer, closer, to the little birds who were
trembling and shuddering in the farthest corner of the nest. But just
as the tongues had almost reached them, the lindworm gave a fearful cry,
and turned and fell backwards. Then came the sound of battle from the
ground below, and the tree shook, though there was no wind, and roars
and snarls mixed together, till the eaglets felt more frightened
than ever, and thought their last hour had come. Only Wildrose was
undisturbed, and slept sweetly through it all.

In the morning the eagle returned and saw traces of a fight below the
tree, and here and there a handful of yellow mane lying about, and here
and there a hard scaly substance; when he saw that he rejoiced greatly,
and hastened to the nest.

‘Who has slain the lindworm?’ he asked of his children; there were so
many that he did not at first miss the two which the lindworm had eaten.
But the eaglets answered that they could not tell, only that they had
been in danger of their lives, and at the last moment they had been
delivered. Then the sunbeam had struggled through the thick branches and
caught Wildrose’s golden hair as she lay curled up in the corner, and
the eagle wondered, as he looked, whether the little girl had brought
him luck, and it was her magic which had killed his enemy.

‘Children,’ he said, ‘I brought her here for your dinner, and you have
not touched her; what is the meaning of this?’ But the eaglets did not
answer, and Wildrose opened her eyes, and seemed seven times lovelier
than before.

From that day Wildrose lived like a little princess. The eagle flew
about the wood and collected the softest, greenest moss he could find to
make her a bed, and then he picked with his beak all the brightest and
prettiest flowers in the fields or on the mountains to decorate it. So
cleverly did he manage it that there was not a fairy in the whole of the
forest who would not have been pleased to sleep there, rocked to and fro
by the breeze on the treetops. And when the little ones were able to fly
from their nest he taught them where to look for the fruits and berries
which she loved.

So the time passed by, and with each year Wildrose grew taller and more
beautiful, and she lived happily in her nest and never wanted to go out
of it, only standing at the edge in the sunset, and looking upon the
beautiful world. For company she had all the birds in the forest, who
came and talked to her, and for playthings the strange flowers which
they brought her from far, and the butterflies which danced with her.
And so the days slipped away, and she was fourteen years old.

One morning the emperor’s son went out to hunt, and he had not ridden
far, before a deer started from under a grove of trees, and ran
before him. The prince instantly gave chase, and where the stag led he
followed, till at length he found himself in the depths of the forest,
where no man before had trod.

The trees were so thick and the wood so dark, that he paused for a
moment and listened, straining his ears to catch some sound to break
a silence which almost frightened him. But nothing came, not even the
baying of a hound or the note of a horn. He stood still, and wondered if
he should go on, when, on looking up, a stream of light seemed to flow
from the top of a tall tree. In its rays he could see the nest with the
young eaglets, who were watching him over the side. The prince fitted
an arrow into his bow and took his aim, but, before he could let fly,
another ray of light dazzled him; so brilliant was it, that his bow
dropped, and he covered his face with his hands. When at last he
ventured to peep, Wildrose, with her golden hair flowing round her, was
looking at him. This was the first time she had seen a man.

‘Tell me how I can reach you?’ cried he; but Wildrose smiled and shook
her head, and sat down quietly.

The prince saw that it was no use, and turned and made his way out of
the forest. But he might as well have stayed there, for any good he was
to his father, so full was his heart of longing for Wildrose. Twice
he returned to the forest in the hopes of finding her, but this time
fortune failed him, and he went home as sad as ever.

At length the emperor, who could not think what had caused this change,
sent for his son and asked him what was the matter. Then the prince
confessed that the image of Wildrose filled his soul, and that he would
never be happy without her. At first the emperor felt rather distressed.
He doubted whether a girl from a tree top would make a good empress;
but he loved his son so much that he promised to do all he could to find
her. So the next morning heralds were sent forth throughout the whole
land to inquire if anyone knew where a maiden could be found who lived
in a forest on the top of a tree, and to promise great riches and a
place at court to any person who should find her. But nobody knew. All
the girls in the kingdom had their homes on the ground, and laughed at
the notion of being brought up in a tree. ‘A nice kind of empress she
would make,’ they said, as the emperor had done, tossing their heads
with disdain; for, having read many books, they guessed what she was
wanted for.

The heralds were almost in despair, when an old woman stepped out of the
crowd and came and spoke to them. She was not only very old, but she was
very ugly, with a hump on her back and a bald head, and when the heralds
saw her they broke into rude laughter. ‘I can show you the maiden who
lives in the tree-top,’ she said, but they only laughed the more loudly.

‘Get away, old witch!’ they cried, ‘you will bring us bad luck’; but the
old woman stood firm, and declared that she alone knew where to find the
maiden.

‘Go with her,’ said the eldest of the heralds at last. ‘The emperor’s
orders are clear, that whoever knew anything of the maiden was to come
at once to court. Put her in the coach and take her with us.’

So in this fashion the old woman was brought to court.

‘You have declared that you can bring hither the maiden from the wood?’
said the emperor, who was seated on his throne.

‘Yes, your Majesty, and I will keep my word,’ said she.

‘Then bring her at once,’ said the emperor.

‘Give me first a kettle and a tripod,’ asked the old w omen, and the
emperor ordered them to be brought instantly. The old woman picked them
up, and tucking them under her arm went on her way, keeping at a little
distance behind the royal huntsmen, who in their turn followed the
prince.

Oh, what a noise that old woman made as she walked along! She chattered
to herself so fast and clattered her kettle so loudly that you would
have thought that a whole campful of gipsies must be coming round the
next corner. But when they reached the forest, she bade them all wait
outside, and entered the dark wood by herself.

She stopped underneath the tree where the maiden dwelt and, gathering
some dry sticks, kindled a fire. Next, she placed the tripod over it,
and the kettle on top. But something was the matter with the kettle. As
fast as the old woman put it where it was to stand, that kettle was sure
to roll off, falling to the ground with a crash.

It really seemed bewitched, and no one knows what might have happened
if Wildrose, who had been all the time peeping out of her nest, had not
lost patience at the old woman’s stupidity, and cried out: ‘The tripod
won’t stand on that hill, you must move it!’

‘But where am I to move it to, my child?’ asked the old woman, looking
up to the nest, and at the same moment trying to steady the kettle with
one hand and the tripod with the other.

‘Didn’t I tell you that it was no good doing that,’ said Wildrose, more
impatiently than before. ‘Make a fire near a tree and hang the kettle
from one of the branches.’

The old woman took the kettle and hung it on a little twig, which broke
at once, and the kettle fell to the ground.

‘If you would only show me how to do it, perhaps I should understand,’
said she.

Quick as thought, the maiden slid down the smooth trunk of the tree, and
stood beside the stupid old woman, to teach her how things ought to be
done. But in an instant the old woman had caught up the girl and swung
her over her shoulders, and was running as fast as she could go to the
edge of the forest, where she had left the prince. When he saw them
coming he rushed eagerly to meet them, and he took the maiden in his
arms and kissed her tenderly before them all. Then a golden dress was
put on her, and pearls were twined in her hair, and she took her seat in
the emperor’s carriage which was drawn by six of the whitest horses in
the world, and they carried her, without stopping to draw breath, to the
gates of the palace. And in three days the wedding was celebrated, and
the wedding feast was held, and everyone who saw the bride declared that
if anybody wanted a perfect wife they must go to seek her on top of a
tree.

[ Adapted from file Roumanian.]




Tiidu The Piper

Once upon a time there lived a poor man who had more children than
bread to feed them with. However, they were strong and willing, and soon
learned to make themselves of use to their father and mother, and when
they were old enough they went out to service, and everyone was very
glad to get them for servants, for they worked hard and were always
cheerful. Out of all the ten or eleven, there was only one who gave his
parents any trouble, and this was a big lazy boy whose name was Tiidu.
Neither scoldings nor beatings nor kind words had any effect on him, and
the older he grew the idler he got. He spent his winters crouching close
to a warm stove, and his summers asleep under a shady tree; and if he
was not doing either of these things he was playing tunes on his flute.

One day he was sitting under a bush playing so sweetly that you might
easily have mistaken the notes for those of a bird, when an old man
passed by. ‘What trade do you wish to follow, my son?’ he asked in a
friendly voice, stopping as he did so in front of the youth.

‘If I were only a rich man, and had no need to work,’ replied the boy,
‘I should not follow any. I could not bear to be anybody’s servant, as
all my brothers and sisters are.’

The old man laughed as he heard this answer, and said: ‘But I do not
exactly see where your riches are to come from if you do not work for
them. Sleeping cats catch no mice. He who wishes to become rich must
use either his hands or his head, and be ready to toil night and day, or
else--’

But here the youth broke in rudely:

‘Be silent, old man! I have been told all that a hundred times over;
and it runs off me like water off a duck’s back. No one will ever make a
worker out of me.’

‘You have one gift,’ replied the old man, taking no notice of this
speech, ‘and if you would only go about and play the pipes, you would
easily earn, not only your daily bread, but a little money into the
bargain. Listen to me; get yourself a set of pipes, and learn to play on
them as well as you do on your flute, and wherever there are men to hear
you, I promise you will never lack money.’

‘But where am I to get the pipes from?’ asked the youth.

‘Blow on your flute for a few days,’ replied the old man, ‘and you will
soon be able to buy your pipes. By-and-by I will come back again and see
if you have taken my advice, and whether you are likely to grow rich.’
And so saying he went his way.

Tiidu stayed where he was a little longer, thinking of all the old man
had told him, and the more he thought the surer he felt that the old
man was right. He determined to try whether his plan would really bring
luck; but as he did not like being laughed at he resolved not to tell
anyone a word about it. So next morning he left home--and never came
back! His parents did not take his loss much to heart, but were rather
glad that their useless son had for once shown a little spirit, and they
hoped that time and hardship might cure Tiidu of his idle folly.

For some weeks Tiidu wandered from one village to another, and proved
for himself the truth of the old man’s promise. The people he met were
all friendly and kind, and enjoyed his flute-playing, giving him his
food in return, and even a few pence. These pence the youth hoarded
carefully till he had collected enough to buy a beautiful pair of pipes.
Then he felt himself indeed on the high road to riches. Nowhere could
pipes be found as fine as his, or played in so masterly a manner.
Tiidu’s pipes set everybody’s legs dancing. Wherever there was a
marriage, a christening, or a feast of any kind, Tiidu must be there, or
the evening would be a failure. In a few years he had become so noted a
piper that people would travel far and wide to hear him.

One day he was invited to a christening where many rich men from the
neighbouring town were present, and all agreed that never in all their
lives had they heard such playing as his. They crowded round him, and
praised him, and pressed him to come to their homes, declaring that it
was a shame not to give their friends the chance of hearing such music.
Of course all this delighted Tiidu, who accepted gladly, and left their
houses laden with money and presents of every kind; one great lord
clothed him in a magnificent dress, a second hung a chain of pearls
round his neck, while a third handed him a set of new pipes encrusted
in silver. As for the ladies, the girls twisted silken scarves round his
plumed hat, and their mothers knitted him gloves of all colours, to keep
out the cold. Any other man in Tiidu’s place would have been contented
and happy in this life; but his craving for riches gave him no rest,
and only goaded him day by day to fresh exertions, so that even his own
mother would not have known him for the lazy boy who was always lying
asleep in one place or the other.

Now Tiidu saw quite clearly that he could only hope to become rich by
means of his pipes, and set about thinking if there was nothing he could
do to make the money flow in faster. At length he remembered having
heard some stories of a kingdom in the Kungla country, where musicians
of all sorts were welcomed and highly paid; but where it was, or how
it was reached, he could not recollect, however hard he thought. In
despair, he wandered along the coast, hoping to see some ship or sailing
boat that would take him where he wished to go, and at length he reached
the town of Narva, where several merchantmen were lying at anchor. To
his great joy, he found that one of them was sailing for Kungla in a few
days, and he hastily went on board, and asked for the captain. But the
cost of the passage was more than the prudent Tiidu cared to pay, and
though he played his best on his pipes, the captain refused to lower his
price, and Tiidu was just thinking of returning on shore when his usual
luck flew to his aid. A young sailor, who had heard him play, came
secretly to him, and offered to hide him on board, in the absence of the
captain. So the next night, as soon as it was dark, Tiidu stepped softly
on deck, and was hidden by his friend down in the hold in a corner
between two casks. Unseen by the rest of the crew the sailor managed to
bring him food and drink, and when they were well out of sight of land
he proceeded to carry out a plan he had invented to deliver Tiidu
from his cramped quarters. At midnight, while he was keeping watch and
everyone else was sleeping, the man bade his friend Tiidu follow him on
deck, where he tied a rope round Tiidu’s body, fastening the other end
carefully to one of the ship’s ropes. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I will throw you
into the sea, and you must shout for help; and when you see the sailors
coming untie the rope from your waist, and tell them that you have swum
after the ship all the way from shore.’

At first Tiidu did not much like this scheme, for the sea ran high,
but he was a good swimmer, and the sailor assured him that there was no
danger. As soon as he was in the water, his friend hastened to rouse
his mates, declaring that he was sure that there was a man in the sea,
following the ship. They all came on deck, and what was their surprise
when they recognised the person who had bargained about a passage the
previous day with the captain.

‘Are you a ghost, or a dying man?’ they asked him trembling, as they
stooped over the side of the ship.

‘I shall soon indeed be a dead man if you do not help me,’ answered
Tiidu, ‘for my strength is going fast.’

Then the captain seized a rope and flung it out to him, and Tiidu held
it between his teeth, while, unseen by the sailors; he loosed the one
tied round his waist.

‘Where have you come from?’ said the captain, when Tiidu was brought up
on board the ship.

‘I have followed you from the harbour,’ answered he, ‘and have been
often in sore dread lest my strength should fail me. I hoped that by
swimming after the ship I might at last reach Kungla, as I had no money
to pay my passage.’ The captain’s heart melted at these words, and he
said kindly: ‘You may be thankful that you were not drowned. I will land
you at Kungla free of payment, as you are so anxious to get there. So he
gave him dry clothes to wear, and a berth to sleep in, and Tiidu and his
friend secretly made merry over their cunning trick.

For the rest of the voyage the ship’s crew treated Tiidu as something
higher than themselves, seeing that in all their lives they had never
met with any man that could swim for as many hours as he had done. This
pleased Tiidu very much, though he knew that he had really done nothing
to deserve it, and in return he delighted them by tunes on his pipes.
When, after some days, they cast anchor at Kungla, the story of his
wonderful swim brought him many friends, for everybody wished to hear
him tell the tale himself. This might have been all very well, had not
Tiidu lived in dread that some day he would be asked to give proof of
his marvellous swimming powers, and then everything would be found out.
Meanwhile he was dazzled with the splendour around him, and more than
ever he longed for part of the riches, about which the owners seemed to
care so little.

He wandered through the streets for many days, seeking some one who
wanted a servant; but though more than one person would have been glad
to engage him, they seemed to Tiidu not the sort of people to help him
to get rich quickly. At last, when he had almost made up his mind that
he must accept the next place offered him, he happened to knock at the
door of a rich merchant who was in need of a scullion, and gladly agreed
to do the cook’s bidding, and it was in this merchant’s house that he
first learned how great were the riches of the land of Kungla. All the
vessels which in other countries are made of iron, copper, brass, or
tin, in Kungla were made of silver, or even of gold. The food was cooked
in silver saucepans, the bread baked in a silver oven, while the dishes
and their covers were all of gold. Even the very pigs’ troughs were of
silver too. But the sight of these things only made Tiidu more covetous
than before. ‘What is the use of all this wealth that I have constantly
before my eyes,’ thought he, ‘if none of it is mine? I shall never grow
rich by what I earn as a scullion, even though I am paid as much in a
month as I should get elsewhere in a year.’

By this time he had been in his place for two years, and had put by
quite a large sum of money. His passion of saving had increased to such
a pitch that it was only by his master’s orders that he ever bought any
new clothes, ‘For,’ said the merchant, ‘I will not have dirty people in
my house.’ So with a heavy heart Tiidu spent some of his next month’s
wages on a cheap coat.

One day the merchant held a great feast in honour of the christening of
his youngest child, and he gave each of his servants a handsome garment
for the occasion. The following Sunday, Tiidu, who liked fine clothes
when he did not have to pay for them, put on his new coat, and went for
a walk to some beautiful pleasure gardens, which were always full of
people on a sunny day. He sat down under a shady tree, and watched the
passers-by, but after a little he began to feel rather lonely, for he
knew nobody and nobody knew him. Suddenly his eyes fell on the figure of
an old man, which seemed familiar to him, though he could not tell when
or where he had seen it. He watched the figure for some time, till at
length the old man left the crowded paths, and threw himself on the soft
grass under a lime tree, which stood at some distance from where Tiidu
was sitting. Then the young man walked slowly past, in order that he
might look at him more closely, and as he did so the old man smiled, and
held out his hand.

‘What have you done with your pipes?’ asked he; and then in a moment
Tiidu knew him. Taking his arm he drew him into a quiet place and told
him all that had happened since they had last met. The old man shook his
head as he listened, and when Tiidu had finished his tale, he said: ‘A
fool you are, and a fool you will always be! Was there ever such a piece
of folly as to exchange your pipes for a scullion’s ladle? You could
have made as much by the pipes in a day as your wages would have come
to in half a year. Go home and fetch your pipes, and play them here, and
you will soon see if I have spoken the truth.’

Tiidu did not like this advice--he was afraid that the people would
laugh at him; and, besides, it was long since he had touched his
pipes--but the old man persisted, and at last Tiidu did as he was told.

‘Sit down on the bank by me,’ said the old man, when he came back, ‘and
begin to play, and in a little while the people will flock round you.’
Tiidu obeyed, at first without much heart; but somehow the tone of the
pipes was sweeter than he had remembered, and as he played, the crowd
ceased to walk and chatter, and stood still and silent round him. When
he had played for some time he took off his hat and passed it round, and
dollars, and small silver coins, and even gold pieces, came tumbling
in. Tiidu played a couple more tunes by way of thanks, then turned to
go home, hearing on all sides murmurs of ‘What a wonderful piper! Come
back, we pray you, next Sunday to give us another treat.’

‘What did I tell you?’ said the old man, as they passed through the
garden gate. ‘Was it not pleasanter to play for a couple of hours on
the pipes than to be stirring sauces all day long? For the second time
I have shown you the path to follow; try to learn wisdom, and take the
bull by the horns, lest your luck should slip from you! I can be your
guide no longer, therefore listen to what I say, and obey me. Go every
Sunday afternoon to those gardens; and sit under the lime tree and play
to the people, and bring a felt hat with a deep crown, and lay it on the
ground at your feet, so that everyone can throw some money into it.
If you are invited to play at a feast, accept willingly, but beware of
asking a fixed price; say you will take whatever they may feel inclined
to give. You will get far more money in the end. Perhaps, some day,
our paths may cross, and then I shall see how far you have followed my
advice. Till then, farewell’; and the old man went his way.

As before, his words came true, though Tiidu could not at once do
his bidding, as he had first to fulfil his appointed time of service.
Meanwhile he ordered some fine clothes, in which he played every Sunday
in the gardens, and when he counted his gains in the evening they were
always more than on the Sunday before. At length he was free to do as
he liked, and he had more invitations to play than he could manage to
accept, and at night, when the citizens used to go and drink in the inn,
the landlord always begged Tiidu to come and play to them. Thus he grew
so rich that very soon he had his silver pipes covered with gold, so
that they glistened in the light of the sun or the fire. In all Kungla
there was no prouder man than Tiidu.

In a few years he had saved such a large sum of money that he was
considered a rich man even in Kungla, where everybody was rich. And then
he had leisure to remember that he had once had a home, and a family,
and that he should like to see them both again, and show them how well
he could play. This time he would not need to hide in the ship’s hold,
but could hire the best cabin if he wished to, or even have a vessel
all to himself. So he packed all his treasures in large chests, and sent
them on board the first ship that was sailing to his native land, and
followed them with a light heart. The wind at starting was fair, but it
soon freshened, and in the night rose to a gale. For two days they ran
before it, and hoped that by keeping well out to sea they might be able
to weather the storm, when, suddenly, the ship struck on a rock, and
began to fill. Orders were given to lower the boats, and Tiidu with
three sailors got into one of them, but before they could push away from
the ship a huge wave overturned it, and all four were flung into the
water. Luckily for Tiidu an oar was floating near him, and with its help
he was able to keep on the surface of the water; and when the sun rose,
and the mist cleared away, he saw that he was not far from shore. By
hard swimming, for the sea still ran high, he managed to reach it, and
pulled himself out of the water, more dead than alive. Then he flung
himself down on the ground and fell fast asleep.

When he awoke he got up to explore the island, and see if there were any
men upon it; but though he found streams and fruit trees in abundance,
there was no trace either of man or beast. Then, tired with his
wanderings he sat down and began to think.

For perhaps the first time in his life his thoughts did not instantly
turn to money. It was not on his lost treasures that his mind dwelt, but
on his conduct to his parents: his laziness and disobedience as a boy;
his forgetfulness of them as a man. ‘If wild animals were to come and
tear me to pieces,’ he said to himself bitterly, ‘it would be only what
I deserve! My gains are all at the bottom of the sea--well! lightly won,
lightly lost--but it is odd that I feel I should not care for that if
only my pipes were left me.’ Then he rose and walked a little further,
till he saw a tree with great red apples shining amidst the leaves,
and he pulled some down, and ate them greedily. After that he stretched
himself out on the soft moss and went to sleep.

In the morning he ran to the nearest stream to wash himself, but to his
horror, when he caught sight of his face, he saw his nose had grown the
colour of an apple, and reached nearly to his waist. He started back
thinking he was dreaming, and put up his hand; but, alas! the dreadful
thing was true. ‘Oh, why does not some wild beast devour me?’ he cried
to himself; ‘never, never, can I go again amongst my fellow-men! If only
the sea had swallowed me up, how much happier it had been for me!’ And
he hid his head in his hands and wept. His grief was so violent, that it
exhausted him, and growing hungry he looked about for something to eat.
Just above him was a bough of ripe, brown nuts, end he picked them and
ate a handful. To his surprise, as he was eating them, he felt his nose
grow shorter and shorter, and after a while he ventured to feel it
with his hand, and even to look in the stream again! Yes, there was no
mistake, it was as short as before, or perhaps a little shorter. In his
joy at this discovery Tiidu did a very bold thing. He took one of the
apples out of his pocket, and cautiously bit a piece out of it. In an
instant his nose was as long as his chin, and in a deadly fear lest
it should stretch further, he hastily swallowed a nut, and awaited the
result with terror. Supposing that the shrinking of his nose had only
been an accident before! Supposing that that nut and no other was able
to cause its shrinking! In that case he had, by his own folly, in not
letting well alone, ruined his life completely. But, no! he had guessed
rightly, for in no more time than his nose had taken to grow long did it
take to return to its proper size. ‘This may make my fortune,’ he said
joyfully to himself; and he gathered some of the apples, which he put
into one pocket, and a good supply of nuts which he put into the other.
Next day he wove a basket out of some rushes, so that if he ever left
the island he might be able to carry his treasures about.

That night he dreamed that his friend the old man appeared to him and
said: ‘Because you did not mourn for your lost treasure, but only for
your pipes, I will give you a new set to replace them.’ And, behold! in
the morning when he got up a set of pipes was lying in the basket. With
what joy did he seize them and begin one of his favourite tunes; and as
he played hope sprang up in his heart, and he looked out to sea, to try
to detect the sign of a sail. Yes! there it was, making straight for
the island; and Tiidu, holding his pipes in his hand, dashed down to the
shore.

The sailors knew the island to be uninhabited, and were much surprised
to see a man standing on the beach, waving his arms in welcome to them.
A boat was put off, and two sailors rowed to the shore to discover how
he came there, and if he wished to be taken away. Tiidu told them the
story of his shipwreck, and the captain promised that he should come on
board, and sail with them back to Kungla; and thankful indeed was Tiidu
to accept the offer, and to show his gratitude by playing on his pipes
whenever he was asked to do so.

They had a quick voyage, and it was not long before Tiidu found himself
again in the streets of the capital of Kungla, playing as he went along.
The people had heard no music like his since he went away, and they
crowded round him, and in their joy gave him whatever money they had in
their pockets. His first care was to buy himself some new clothes, which
he sadly needed, taking care, however, that they should be made after a
foreign fashion. When they were ready, he set out one day with a small
basket of his famous apples, and went up to the palace. He did not have
to wait long before one of the royal servants passed by and bought all
the apples, begging as he did so that the merchant should return and
bring some more. This Tiidu promised, and hastened away as if he had a
mad bull behind him, so afraid was he that the man should begin to eat
an apple at once.

It is needless to say that for some days he took no more apples back to
the palace, but kept well away on the other side of the town, wearing
other clothes, and disguised by a long black beard, so that even his own
mother would not have known him.

The morning after his visit to the castle the whole city was in an
uproar about the dreadful misfortune that had happened to the Royal
Family, for not only the king but his wife and children, had eaten of
the stranger’s apples, and all, so said the rumour, were very ill. The
most famous doctors and the greatest magicians were hastily summoned to
the palace, but they shook their heads and came away again; never had
they met with such a disease in all the course of their experience.
By-and-bye a story went round the town, started no one knew how, that
the malady was in some way connected with the nose; and men rubbed their
own anxiously, to be sure that nothing catching was in the air.

Matters had been in this state for more than a week when it reached the
ears of the king that a man was living in an inn on the other side
of the town who declared himself able to cure all manner of diseases.
Instantly the royal carriage was commanded to drive with all speed and
bring back this magician, offering him riches untold if he could restore
their noses to their former length. Tiidu had expected this summons,
and had sat up all night changing his appearance, and so well had he
succeeded that not a trace remained either of the piper or of the apple
seller. He stepped into the carriage, and was driven post haste to the
king, who was feverishly counting every moment, for both his nose and
the queen’s were by this time more than a yard long, and they did not
know where they would stop.

Now Tiidu thought it would not look well to cure the royal family by
giving them the raw nuts; he felt that it might arouse suspicion. So he
had carefully pounded them into a powder, and divided the powder up into
small doses, which were to be put on the tongue and swallowed at once.
He gave one of these to the king and another to the queen, and told them
that before taking them they were to get into bed in a dark room and not
to move for some hours, after which they might be sure that they would
come out cured.

The king’s joy was so great at this news that he would gladly have given
Tiidu half of his kingdom; but the piper was no longer so greedy of
money as he once was, before he had been shipwrecked on the island. If
he could get enough to buy a small estate and live comfortably on it for
the rest of his life, that was all he now cared for. However, the king
ordered his treasure to pay him three times as much as he asked, and
with this Tiidu went down to the harbour and engaged a small ship to
carry him back to his native country. The wind was fair, and in ten days
the coast, which he had almost forgotten, stood clear before him. In
a few hours he was standing in his old home, where his father, three
sisters, and two brothers gave him a hearty welcome. His mother and his
other brothers had died some years before.

When the meeting was over, he began to make inquiries about a small
estate that was for sale near the town, and after he had bought it the
next thing was to find a wife to share it with him. This did not take
long either; and people who were at the wedding feast declared that the
best part of the whole day was the hour when Tiidu played to them on the
pipes before they bade each other farewell and returned to their homes.

[From Esthnische Mahrchen.]




Paperarelloo

Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen who had one son. The
king loved the boy very much, but the queen, who was a wicked woman,
hated the sight of him; and this was the more unlucky for, when he was
twelve years old, his father died, and he was left alone in the world.

Now the queen was very angry because the people, who knew how bad she
was, seated her son on the throne instead of herself, and she
never rested till she had formed a plan to get him out of the way.
Fortunately, however, the young king was wise and prudent, and knew her
too well to trust her.

One day, when his mourning was over, he gave orders that everything
should be made ready for a grand hunt. The queen pretended to be greatly
delighted that he was going to amuse himself once more, and declared
that she would accompany him. ‘No, mother, I cannot let you come,’ he
answered; ‘the ground is rough, and you are not strong.’ But he might as
well have spoken to the winds: when the horn was sounded at daybreak the
queen was there with the rest.

All that day they rode, for game was plentiful, but towards evening the
mother and son found themselves alone in a part of the country that was
strange to them. They wandered on for some time, without knowing where
they were going, till they met with a man whom they begged to give them
shelter. ‘Come with me,’ said the man gladly, for he was an ogre, and
fed on human flesh; and the king and his mother went with him, and he
led them to his house. When they got there they found to what a dreadful
place they had come, and, falling on their knees, they offered him great
sums of money, if he would only spare their lives. The ogre’s heart was
moved at the sight of the queen’s beauty, and he promised that he would
do her no harm; but he stabbed the boy at once, and binding his body on
a horse, turned him loose in the forest.

The ogre had happened to choose a horse which he had bought only the day
before, and he did not know it was a magician, or he would not have been
so foolish as to fix upon it on this occasion. The horse no sooner had
been driven off with the prince’s body on its back than it galloped
straight to the home of the fairies, and knocked at the door with its
hoof. The fairies heard the knock, but were afraid to open till they
had peeped from an upper window to see that it was no giant or ogre who
could do them harm. ‘Oh, look, sister!’ cried the first to reach the
window, ‘it is a horse that has knocked, and on its back there is bound
a dead boy, the most beautiful boy in all the world!’ Then the fairies
ran to open the door, and let in the horse and unbound the ropes which
fastened the young king on its back. And they gathered round to admire
his beauty, and whispered one to the other: ‘We will make him alive
again, and will keep him for our brother.’ And so they did, and for many
years they all lived together as brothers and sisters.

By-and-by the boy grew into a man, as boys will, and then the oldest of
the fairies said to her sisters: ‘Now I will marry him, and he shall
be really your brother.’ So the young king married the fairy, and they
lived happily together in the castle; but though he loved his wife he
still longed to see the world.

At length this longing grew so strong on him that he could bear it no
more; and, calling the fairies together, he said to them: ‘Dear wife and
sisters, I must leave you for a time, and go out and see the world. But
I shall think of you often, and one day I shall come back to you.’

The fairies wept and begged him to stay, but he would not listen, and
at last the eldest, who was his wife, said to him: ‘If you really will
abandon us, take this lock of my hair with you; you will find it useful
in time of need.’ So she cut off a long curl, and handed it to him.

The prince mounted his horse, and rode on all day without stopping once.
Towards evening he found himself in a desert, and, look where he would,
there was no such thing as a house or a man to be seen. ‘What am I to do
now?’ he thought. ‘If I go to sleep here wild beasts will come and eat
me! Yet both I and my horse are worn out, and can go no further.’ Then
suddenly he remembered the fairy’s gift, and taking out the curl he said
to it: ‘I want a castle here, and servants, and dinner, and everything
to make me comfortable tonight; and besides that, I must have a stable
and fodder for my horse.’ And in a moment the castle was before him just
as he had wished.

In this way he travelled through many countries, till at last he came
to a land that was ruled over by a great king. Leaving his horse outside
the walls, he clad himself in the dress of a poor man, and went up
to the palace. The queen, who was looking out of the window, saw him
approaching, and filled with pity sent a servant to ask who he was and
what he wanted. ‘I am a stranger here,’ answered the young king, ‘and
very poor. I have come to beg for some work.’ ‘We have everybody we
want,’ said the queen, when the servant told her the young man’s reply.
‘We have a gate-keeper, and a hall porter, and servants of all sorts
in the palace; the only person we have not got is a goose-boy. Tell him
that he can be our goose-boy if he likes.’ The youth answered that he
was quite content to be goose-boy; and that was how he got his nickname
of Paperarello. And in order that no one should guess that he was any
better than a goose-boy should be, he rubbed his face and his rags over
with mud, and made himself altogether such a disgusting object that
every one crossed over to the other side of the road when he was seen
coming.

‘Do go and wash yourself, Paperarello!’ said the queen sometimes, for he
did his work so well that she took an interest in him. ‘Oh, I should not
feel comfortable if I was clean, your Majesty,’ answered he, and went
whistling after his geese.

It happened one day that, owing to some accident to the great flour
mills which supplied the city, there was no bread to be had, and the
king’s army had to do without. When the king heard of it, he sent for
the cook, and told him that by the next morning he must have all the
bread that the oven, heated seven times over, could bake. ‘But, your
Majesty, it is not possible,’ cried the poor man in despair. ‘The mills
have only just begun working, and the flour will not be ground till
evening, and how can I heat the oven seven times in one night?’ ‘That
is your affair,’ answered the King, who, when he took anything into his
head, would listen to nothing. ‘If you succeed in baking the bread you
shall have my daughter to wife, but if you fail your head will pay for
it.’

Now Paperarello, who was passing through the hall where the king was
giving his orders, heard these words, and said: ‘Your Majesty, have no
fears; I will bake your bread.’ ‘Very well,’ answered the king; ‘but
if you fail, you will pay for it with your head!’ and signed that both
should leave his presence.

The cook was still trembling with the thought of what he had escaped,
but to his surprise Paperarello did not seem disturbed at all, and when
night came he went to sleep as usual. ‘Paperarello,’ cried the other
servants, when they saw him quietly taking off his clothes, ‘you cannot
go to bed; you will need every moment of the night for your work.
Remember, the king is not to be played with!’

‘I really must have some sleep first,’ replied Paperarello, stretching
himself and yawning; and he flung himself on his bed, and was fast
asleep in a moment. In an hour’s time, the servants came and shook him
by the shoulder. ‘Paperarello, are you mad?’ said they. ‘Get up, or you
will lose your head.’ ‘Oh, do let me sleep a little more, answered he.
And this was all he would say, though the servants returned to wake him
many times in the night.

At last the dawn broke, and the servants rushed to his room, crying:
‘Paperarello! Paperarello! get up, the king is coming. You have baked no
bread, and of a surety he will have your head.’

‘Oh, don’t scream so,’ replied Paperarello, jumping out of bed as
he spoke; and taking the lock of hair in his hand, he went into the
kitchen. And, behold! there stood the bread piled high--four, five, six
ovens full, and the seventh still waiting to be taken out of the oven.
The servants stood and stared in surprise, and the king said: ‘Well
done, Paperarello, you have won my daughter.’ And he thought to himself:
‘This fellow must really be a magician.’

But when the princess heard what was in store for her she wept bitterly,
and declared that never, never would she marry that dirty Paperarello!
However, the king paid no heed to her tears and prayers, and before many
days were over the wedding was celebrated with great splendour, though
the bridegroom had not taken the trouble to wash himself, and was as
dirty as before.

When night came he went as usual to sleep among his geese, and the
princess went to the king and said: ‘Father, I entreat you to have that
horrible Paperarello put to death.’ ‘No, no!’ replied her father, ‘he is
a great magician, and before I put him to death, I must first find out
the secret of his power, and then--we shall see.’

Soon after this a war broke out, and everybody about the palace was very
busy polishing up armour and sharpening swords, for the king and his
sons were to ride at the head of the army. Then Paperarello left his
geese, and came and told the king that he wished to go to fight also.
The king gave him leave, and told him that he might go to the stable and
take any horse he liked from the stables. So Paperarello examined
the horses carefully, but instead of picking out one of the splendid
well-groomed creatures, whose skin shone like satin, he chose a poor
lame thing, put a saddle on it, and rode after the other men-at-arms who
were attending the king. In a short time he stopped, and said to them:
‘My horse can go no further; you must go on to the war without me, and
I will stay here, and make some little clay soldiers, and will play at a
battle.’ The men laughed at him for being so childish, and rode on after
their master.

Scarcely were they out of sight than Paperarello took out his curl, and
wished himself the best armour, the sharpest sword, and the swiftest
horse in the world, and the next minute was riding as fast as he could
to the field of battle. The fight had already begun, and the enemy was
getting the best of it, when Paperarello rode up, and in a moment the
fortunes of the day had changed. Right and left this strange knight
laid about him, and his sword pierced the stoutest breast-plate, and the
strongest shield. He was indeed ‘a host in himself,’ and his foes fled
before him thinking he was only the first of a troop of such warriors,
whom no one could withstand. When the battle was over, the king sent for
him to thank him for his timely help, and to ask what reward he should
give him. ‘Nothing but your little finger, your Majesty,’ was
his answer; and the king cut off his little finger and gave it to
Paperarello, who bowed and hid it in his surcoat. Then he left the
field, and when the soldiers rode back they found him still sitting in
the road making whole rows of little clay dolls.

The next day the king went out to fight another battle, and again
Paperarello appeared, mounted on his lame horse. As on the day before,
he halted on the road, and sat down to make his clay soldiers; then a
second time he wished himself armour, sword, and a horse, all sharper
and better than those he had previously had, and galloped after the
rest. He was only just in time: the enemy had almost beaten the king’s
army back, and men whispered to each other that if the strange knight
did not soon come to their aid, they would be all dead men. Suddenly
someone cried: ‘Hold on a little longer, I see him in the distance; and
his armour shines brighter, and his horse runs swifter, than yesterday.’
Then they took fresh heart and fought desperately on till the knight
came up, and threw himself into the thick of the battle. As before, the
enemy gave way before him, and in a few minutes the victory remained
with the king.

The first thing that the victor did was to send for the knight to thank
him for his timely help, and to ask what gift he could bestow on him in
token of gratitude. ‘Your Majesty’s ear,’ answered the knight; and as
the king could not go back from his word, he cut it off and gave it to
him. Paperarello bowed, fastened the ear inside his surcoat and rode
away. In the evening, when they all returned from the battle, there he
was, sitting in the road, making clay dolls.

On the third day the same thing happened, and this time he asked for the
king’s nose as the reward of his aid. Now, to lose one’s nose, is worse
even than losing one’s ear or one’s finger, and the king hesitated as to
whether he should comply. However, he had always prided himself on being
an honourable man, so he cut off his nose, and handed it to Paperarello.
Paperarello bowed, put the nose in his surcoat, and rode away. In the
evening, when the king returned from the battle, he found Paperarello
sitting in the road making clay dolls. And Paperarello got up and said
to him: ‘Do you know who I am? I am your dirty goose-boy, yet you have
given me your finger, and your ear, and your nose.’

That night, when the king sat at dinner, Paperarello came in, and laying
down the ear, and the nose, and the finger on the table, turned and
said to the nobles and courtiers who were waiting on the king: ‘I am the
invincible knight, who rode three times to your help, and I also am a
king’s son, and no goose-boy as you all think.’ And he went away and
washed himself, and dressed himself in fine clothes and entered the hall
again, looking so handsome that the proud princess fell in love with
him on the spot. But Paperarello took no notice of her, and said to the
king: ‘It was kind of you to offer me your daughter in marriage, and for
that I thank you; but I have a wife at home whom I love better, and it
is to her that I am going. But as a token of farewell, I wish that your
ear, and nose, and finger may be restored to their proper places.’ So
saying, he bade them all goodbye, and went back to his home and his
fairy bride, with whom he lived happily till the end of his life.

[From Sicilianisohen Mahrchen.]




The Gifts Of The Magician

Once upon a time there was an old man who lived in a little hut in the
middle of a forest. His wife was dead, and he had only one son, whom he
loved dearly. Near their hut was a group of birch trees, in which some
black-game had made their nests, and the youth had often begged his
father’s permission to shoot the birds, but the old man always strictly
forbade him to do anything of the kind.

One day, however, when the father had gone to a little distance to
collect some sticks for the fire, the boy fetched his bow, and shot at a
bird that was just flying towards its nest. But he had not taken proper
aim, and the bird was only wounded, and fluttered along the ground. The
boy ran to catch it, but though he ran very fast, and the bird seemed to
flutter along very slowly, he never could quite come up with it; it was
always just a little in advance. But so absorbed was he in the chase
that he did not notice for some time that he was now deep in the forest,
in a place where he had never been before. Then he felt it would be
foolish to go any further, and he turned to find his way home.

He thought it would be easy enough to follow the path along which he had
come, but somehow it was always branching off in unexpected directions.
He looked about for a house where he might stop and ask his way, but
there was not a sign of one anywhere, and he was afraid to stand still,
for it was cold, and there were many stories of wolves being seen in
that part of the forest. Night fell, and he was beginning to start at
every sound, when suddenly a magician came running towards him, with
a pack of wolves snapping at his heels. Then all the boy’s courage
returned to him. He took his bow, and aiming an arrow at the largest
wolf, shot him through the heart, and a few more arrows soon put the
rest to flight. The magician was full of gratitude to his deliverer, and
promised him a reward for his help if the youth would go back with him
to his house.

‘Indeed there is nothing that would be more welcome to me than a night’s
lodging,’ answered the boy; ‘I have been wandering all day in the
forest, and did not know how to get home again.

‘Come with me, you must be hungry as well as tired,’ said the magician,
and led the way to his house, where the guest flung himself on a bed,
and went fast asleep. But his host returned to the forest to get some
food, for the larder was empty.

While he was absent the housekeeper went to the boy’s room and tried
to wake him. She stamped on the floor, and shook him and called to him,
telling him that he was in great danger, and must take flight at once.
But nothing would rouse him, and if he did ever open his eyes he shut
them again directly.

Soon after, the magician came back from the forest, and told the
housekeeper to bring them something to eat. The meal was quickly ready,
and the magician called to the boy to come down and eat it, but he
could not be wakened, and they had to sit down to supper without him.
By-and-by the magician went out into the wood again for some more
hunting, and on his return he tried afresh to waken the youth. But
finding it quite impossible, he went back for the third time to the
forest.

While he was absent the boy woke up and dressed himself. Then he came
downstairs and began to talk to the housekeeper. The girl had heard
how he had saved her master’s life, so she said nothing more about his
running away, but instead told him that if the magician offered him the
choice of a reward, he was to ask for the horse which stood in the third
stall of the stable.

By-and-by the old man came back and they all sat down to dinner. When
they had finished the magician said: ‘Now, my son, tell me what you will
have as the reward of your courage?’

‘Give me the horse that stands in the third stall of your stable,’
answered the youth. ‘For I have a long way to go before I get home, and
my feet will not carry me so far.’

‘Ah! my son,’ replied the magician, ‘it is the best horse in my stable
that you want! Will not anything else please you as well?’

But the youth declared that it was the horse, and the horse only, that
he desired, and in the end the old man gave way. And besides the horse,
the magician gave him a zither, a fiddle, and a flute, saying: ‘If you
are in danger, touch the zither; and if no one comes to your aid, then
play on the fiddle; but if that brings no help, blow on the flute.’

The youth thanked the magician, and fastening his treasures about him
mounted the horse and rode off. He had already gone some miles when,
to his great surprise, the horse spoke, and said: ‘It is no use your
returning home just now, your father will only beat you. Let us visit a
few towns first, and something lucky will be sure to happen to us.’

This advice pleased the boy, for he felt himself almost a man by this
time, and thought it was high time he saw the world. When they entered
the capital of the country everyone stopped to admire the beauty of the
horse. Even the king heard of it, and came to see the splendid creature
with his own eyes. Indeed, he wanted directly to buy it, and told the
youth he would give any price he liked. The young man hesitated for a
moment, but before he could speak, the horse contrived to whisper to
him:

‘Do not sell me, but ask the king to take me to his stable, and feed me
there; then his other horses will become just as beautiful as I.’

The king was delighted when he was told what the horse had said,
and took the animal at once to the stables, and placed it in his own
particular stall. Sure enough, the horse had scarcely eaten a mouthful
of corn out of the manger, when the rest of the horses seemed to have
undergone a transformation. Some of them were old favourites which the
king had ridden in many wars, and they bore the signs of age and of
service. But now they arched their heads, and pawed the ground with
their slender legs as they had been wont to do in days long gone by. The
king’s heart beat with delight, but the old groom who had had the care
of them stood crossly by, and eyed the owner of this wonderful creature
with hate and envy. Not a day passed without his bringing some story
against the youth to his master, but the king understood all about the
matter and paid no attention. At last the groom declared that the
young man had boasted that he could find the king’s war horse which had
strayed into the forest several years ago, and had not been heard of
since. Now the king had never ceased to mourn for his horse, so this
time he listened to the tale which the groom had invented, and sent for
the youth. ‘Find me my horse in three days,’ said he, ‘or it will be the
worse for you.’

The youth was thunderstruck at this command, but he only bowed, and went
off at once to the stable.

‘Do not worry yourself,’ answered his own horse. ‘Ask the king to give
you a hundred oxen, and to let them be killed and cut into small pieces.
Then we will start on our journey, and ride till we reach a certain
river. There a horse will come up to you, but take no notice of him.
Soon another will appear, and this also you must leave alone, but when
the third horse shows itself, throw my bridle over it.’

Everything happened just as the horse had said, and the third horse was
safely bridled. Then the other horse spoke again: ‘The magician’s raven
will try to eat us as we ride away, but throw it some of the oxen’s
flesh, and then I will gallop like the wind, and carry you safe out of
the dragon’s clutches.’

So the young man did as he was told, and brought the horse back to the
king.

The old stableman was very jealous, when he heard of it, and wondered
what he could do to injure the youth in the eyes of his royal master.
At last he hit upon a plan, and told the king that the young man had
boasted that he could bring home the king’s wife, who had vanished many
months before, without leaving a trace behind her. Then the king bade
the young man come into his presence, and desired him to fetch the queen
home again, as he had boasted he could do. And if he failed, his head
would pay the penalty.

The poor youth’s heart stood still as he listened. Find the queen? But
how was he to do that, when nobody in the palace had been able to do
so! Slowly he walked to the stable, and laying his head on his horse’s
shoulder, he said: ‘The king has ordered me to bring his wife home
again, and how can I do that when she disappeared so long ago, and no
one can tell me anything about her?’

‘Cheer up!’ answered the horse, ‘we will manage to find her. You have
only got to ride me back to the same river that we went to yesterday,
and I will plunge into it and take my proper shape again. For I am the
king’s wife, who was turned into a horse by the magician from whom you
saved me.’

Joyfully the young man sprang into the saddle and rode away to the banks
of the river. Then he threw himself off, and waited while the horse
plunged in. The moment it dipped its head into the water its black skin
vanished, and the most beautiful woman in the world was floating on the
water. She came smiling towards the youth, and held out her hand, and
he took it and led her back to the palace. Great was the king’s surprise
and happiness when he beheld his lost wife stand before him, and in
gratitude to her rescuer he loaded him with gifts.

You would have thought that after this the poor youth would have been
left in peace; but no, his enemy the stableman hated him as much as
ever, and laid a new plot for his undoing. This time he presented
himself before the king and told him that the youth was so puffed up
with what he had done that he had declared he would seize the king’s
throne for himself.

At this news the king waxed so furious that he ordered a gallows to be
erected at once, and the young man to be hanged without a trial. He was
not even allowed to speak in his own defence, but on the very steps of
the gallows he sent a message to the king and begged, as a last favour,
that he might play a tune on his zither. Leave was given him, and taking
the instrument from under his cloak he touched the strings. Scarcely had
the first notes sounded than the hangman and his helper began to dance,
and the louder grew the music the higher they capered, till at last they
cried for mercy. But the youth paid no heed, and the tunes rang out more
merrily than before, and by the time the sun set they both sank on the
ground exhausted, and declared that the hanging must be put off till
to-morrow.

The story of the zither soon spread through the town, and on the
following morning the king and his whole court and a large crowd of
people were gathered at the foot of the gallows to see the youth hanged.
Once more he asked a favour--permission to play on his fiddle, and this
the king was graciously pleased to grant. But with the first notes, the
leg of every man in the crowd was lifted high, and they danced to the
sound of the music the whole day till darkness fell, and there was no
light to hang the musician by.

The third day came, and the youth asked leave to play on his flute. ‘No,
no,’ said the king, ‘you made me dance all day yesterday, and if I do
it again it will certainly be my death. You shall play no more tunes.
Quick! the rope round his neck.’

At these words the young man looked so sorrowful that the courtiers said
to the king: ‘He is very young to die. Let him play a tune if it will
make him happy.’ So, very unwillingly, the king gave him leave; but
first he had himself bound to a big fir tree, for fear that he should be
made to dance.

When he was made fast, the young man began to blow softly on his flute,
and bound though he was, the king’s body moved to the sound, up and
down the fir tree till his clothes were in tatters, and the skin nearly
rubbed off his back. But the youth had no pity, and went on blowing,
till suddenly the old magician appeared and asked: ‘What danger are you
in, my son, that you have sent for me?’

‘They want to hang me,’ answered the young man; ‘the gallows are all
ready and the hangman is only waiting for me to stop playing.’

‘Oh, I will put that right,’ said the magician; and taking the gallows,
he tore it up and flung it into the air, and no one knows where it came
down. ‘Who has ordered you to be hanged?’ asked he.

The young man pointed to the king, who was still bound to the fir; and
without wasting words the magician took hold of the tree also, and
with a mighty heave both fir and man went spinning through the air, and
vanished in the clouds after the gallows.

Then the youth was declared to be free, and the people elected him for
their king; and the stable helper drowned himself from envy, for, after
all, if it had not been for him the young man would have remained poor
all the days of his life.

[From Finnische Mahrchen.]




The Strong Prince

Once upon a time there lived a king who was so fond of wine that he
could not go to sleep unless he knew he had a great flaskful tied to his
bed-post. All day long he drank till he was too stupid to attend to his
business, and everything in the kingdom went to rack and ruin. But one
day an accident happened to him, and he was struck on the head by a
falling bough, so that he fell from his horse and lay dead upon the
ground.

His wife and son mourned his loss bitterly, for, in spite of his faults,
he had always been kind to them. So they abandoned the crown and forsook
their country, not knowing or caring where they went.

At length they wandered into a forest, and being very tired, sat down
under a tree to eat some bread that they had brought with them. When
they had finished the queen said: ‘My son, I am thirsty; fetch me some
water.’

The prince got up at once and went to a brook which he heard gurgling
near at hand. He stooped and filled his hat with the water, which he
brought to his mother; then he turned and followed the stream up to
its source in a rock, where it bubbled out clear and fresh and cold. He
knelt down to take a draught from the deep pool below the rock, when he
saw the reflection of a sword hanging from the branch of a tree over his
head. The young man drew back with a start; but in a moment he climbed
the tree, cutting the rope which held the sword, and carried the weapon
to his mother.

The queen was greatly surprised at the sight of anything so splendid in
such a lonely place, and took it in her hands to examine it closely.
It was of curious workmanship, wrought with gold, and on its handle was
written: ‘The man who can buckle on this sword will become stronger than
other men.’ The queen’s heart swelled with joy as she read these words,
and she bade her son lose no time in testing their truth. So he fastened
it round his waist, and instantly a glow of strength seemed to run
through his veins. He took hold of a thick oak tree and rooted it up as
easily as if it had been a weed.

This discovery put new life into the queen and her son, and they
continued their walk through the forest. But night was drawing on, and
the darkness grew so thick that it seemed as if it could be cut with a
knife. They did not want to sleep in the wood, for they were afraid of
wolves and other wild beasts, so they groped their way along, hand in
hand, till the prince tripped over something which lay across the path.
He could not see what it was, but stooped down and tried to lift it.
The thing was very heavy, and he thought his back would break under the
strain. At last with a great heave he moved it out of the road, and as
it fell he knew it was a huge rock. Behind the rock was a cave which it
was quite clear was the home of some robbers, though not one of the band
was there.

Hastily putting out the fire which burned brightly at the back, and
bidding his mother come in and keep very still, the prince began to pace
up and down, listening for the return of the robbers. But he was very
sleepy, and in spite of all his efforts he felt he could not keep awake
much longer, when he heard the sound of the robbers returning, shouting
and singing as they marched along. Soon the singing ceased, and
straining his ears he heard them discussing anxiously what had become of
their cave, and why they could not see the fire as usual. ‘This must
be the place,’ said a voice, which the prince took to be that of the
captain. ‘Yes, I feel the ditch before the entrance. Someone forgot to
pile up the fire before we left and it has burnt itself out! But it is
all right. Let every man jump across, and as he does so cry out “Hop! I
am here.” I will go last. Now begin.’

The man who stood nearest jumped across, but he had no time to give the
call which the captain had ordered, for with one swift, silent stroke
of the prince’s sword, his head rolled into a corner. Then the young man
cried instead, ‘Hop! I am here.’

The second man, hearing the signal, leapt the ditch in confidence, and
was met by the same fate, and in a few minutes eleven of the robbers lay
dead, and there remained only the captain.

Now the captain had wound round his neck the shawl of his lost wife,
and the stroke of the prince’s sword fell harmless. Being very cunning,
however, he made no resistance, and rolled over as if he were as dead as
the other men. Still, the prince was no fool, and wondered if indeed he
was as dead as he seemed to be; but the captain lay so stiff and stark,
that at last he was taken in.

The prince next dragged the headless bodies into a chamber in the cave,
and locked the door. Then he and his mother ransacked the place for some
food, and when they had eaten it they lay down and slept in peace.

With the dawn they were both awake again, and found that, instead of
the cave which they had come to the night before, they now were in a
splendid castle, full of beautiful rooms. The prince went round all
these and carefully locked them up, bidding his mother take care of the
keys while he was hunting.

Unfortunately, the queen, like all women, could not bear to think that
there was anything which she did not know. So the moment that her son
had turned his back, she opened the doors of all the rooms, and peeped
in, till she came to the one where the robbers lay. But if the sight
of the blood on the ground turned her faint, the sight of the robber
captain walking up and down was a greater shock still. She quickly
turned the key in the lock, and ran back to the chamber she had slept
in.

Soon after her son came in, bringing with him a large bear, which he had
killed for supper. As there was enough food to last them for many days,
the prince did not hunt the next morning, but, instead, began to explore
the castle. He found that a secret way led from it into the forest; and
following the path, he reached another castle larger and more splendid
than the one belonging to the robbers. He knocked at the door with
his fist, and said that he wanted to enter; but the giant, to whom the
castle belonged, only answered: ‘I know who you are. I have nothing to
do with robbers.’

‘I am no robber,’ answered the prince. ‘I am the son of a king, and I
have killed all the band. If you do not open to me at once I will break
in the door, and your head shall go to join the others.’

He waited a little, but the door remained shut as tightly as before.
Then he just put his shoulder to it, and immediately the wood began
to crack. When the giant found that it was no use keeping it shut, he
opened it, saying: ‘I see you are a brave youth. Let there be peace
between us.’

And the prince was glad to make peace, for he had caught a glimpse of
the giant’s beautiful daughter, and from that day he often sought the
giant’s house.

Now the queen led a dull life all alone in the castle, and to amuse
herself she paid visits to the robber captain, who flattered her till at
last she agreed to marry him. But as she was much afraid of her son,
she told the robber that the next time the prince went to bathe in
the river, he was to steal the sword from its place above the bed,
for without it the young man would have no power to punish him for his
boldness.

The robber captain thought this good counsel, and the next morning, when
the young man went to bathe, he unhooked the sword from its nail and
buckled it round his waist. On his return to the castle, the prince
found the robber waiting for him on the steps, waving the sword above
his head, and knowing that some horrible fate was in store, fell on his
knees and begged for mercy. But he might as well have tried to squeeze
blood out of a stone. The robber, indeed, granted him his life, but
took out both his eyes, which he thrust into the prince’s hand, saying
brutally:

‘Here, you had better keep them! You may find them useful!’

Weeping, the blind youth felt his way to the giant’s house, and told him
all the story.

The giant was full of pity for the poor young man, but inquired
anxiously what he had done with the eyes. The prince drew them out of
his pocket, and silently handed them to the giant, who washed them well,
and then put them back in the prince’s head. For three days he lay in
utter darkness; then the light began to come back, till soon he saw as
well as ever.

But though he could not rejoice enough over the recovery of his eyes, he
bewailed bitterly the loss of his sword, and that it should have fallen
to the lot of his bitter enemy.

‘Never mind, my friend,’ said the giant, ‘I will get it back for you.’
And he sent for the monkey who was his head servant.

‘Tell the fox and the squirrel that they are to go with you, and fetch
me back the prince’s sword,’ ordered he.

The three servants set out at once, one seated on the back of the
others, the ape, who disliked walking, being generally on top. Directly
they came to the window of the robber captain’s room, the monkey sprang
from the backs of the fox and the squirrel, and climbed in. The room was
empty, and the sword hanging from a nail. He took it down, and buckling
it round his waist, as he had seen the prince do, swung himself down
again, and mounting on the backs of his two companions, hastened to
his master. The giant bade him give the sword to the prince, who girded
himself with it, and returned with all speed to the castle.

‘Come out, you rascal! come out, you villain!’ cried he, ‘and answer
to me for the wrong you have done. I will show you who is the master in
this house!’

The noise he made brought the robber into the room. He glanced up to
where the sword usually hung, but it was gone; and instinctively he
looked at the prince’s hand, where he saw it gleaming brightly. In his
turn he fell on his knees to beg for mercy, but it was too late. As he
had done to the prince, so the prince did to him, and, blinded, he was
thrust forth, and fell down a deep hole, where he is to this day. His
mother the prince sent back to her father, and never would see her
again. After this he returned to the giant, and said to him:

‘My friend, add one more kindness to those you have already heaped on
me. Give me your daughter as my wife.’

So they were married, and the wedding feast was so splendid that there
was not a kingdom in the world that did not hear of it. And the prince
never went back to his father’s throne, but lived peacefully with his
wife in the forest, where, if they are not dead, they are living still.

[From Ungarische Volksmarchen.]




The Treasure Seeker

Once, long ago, in a little town that lay in the midst of high hills and
wild forests, a party of shepherds sat one night in the kitchen of the
inn talking over old times, and telling of the strange things that had
befallen them in their youth.

Presently up spoke the silver-haired Father Martin.

‘Comrades,’ said he, ‘you have had wonderful adventures; but I will tell
you something still more astonishing that happened to myself. When I was
a young lad I had no home and no one to care for me, and I wandered from
village to village all over the country with my knapsack on my back;
but as soon as I was old enough I took service with a shepherd in the
mountains, and helped him for three years. One autumn evening as we
drove the flock homeward ten sheep were missing, and the master bade me
go and seek them in the forest. I took my dog with me, but he could find
no trace of them, though we searched among the bushes till night fell;
and then, as I did not know the country and could not find my way home
in the dark, I decided to sleep under a tree. At midnight my dog became
uneasy, and began to whine and creep close to me with his tail between
his legs; by this I knew that something was wrong, and, looking about, I
saw in the bright moonlight a figure standing beside me. It seemed to be
a man with shaggy hair, and a long beard which hung down to his knees.
He had a garland upon his head, and a girdle of oak-leaves about his
body, and carried an uprooted fir-tree in his right hand. I shook like
an aspen leaf at the sight, and my spirit quaked for fear. The strange
being beckoned with his hand that I should follow him; but as I did not
stir from the spot he spoke in a hoarse, grating voice: “Take courage,
fainthearted shepherd. I am the Treasure Seeker of the mountain. If you
will come with me you shall dig up much gold.”

‘Though I was still deadly cold with terror I plucked up my courage and
said: “Get away from me, evil spirit; I do not desire your treasures.”

‘At this the spectre grinned in my face and cried mockingly:

‘“Simpleton! Do you scorn your good fortune? Well, then, remain a
ragamuffin all your days.”

‘He turned as if to go away from me, then came back again and said:
“Bethink yourself, bethink yourself, rogue. I will fill your knapsack--I
will fill your pouch.”

‘“Away from me, monster,” I answered, “I will have nothing to do with
you.”

‘When the apparition saw that I gave no heed to him he ceased to urge
me, saying only: “Some day you will rue this,” and looked at me sadly.
Then he cried: “Listen to what I say, and lay it well to heart, it may
be of use to you when you come to your senses. A vast treasure of gold
and precious stones lies in safety deep under the earth. At twilight and
at high noon it is hidden, but at midnight it may be dug up. For seven
hundred years have I watched over it, but now my time has come; it is
common property, let him find it who can. So I thought to give it into
your hand, having a kindness for you because you feed your flock upon my
mountain.”

‘Thereupon the spectre told me exactly where the treasure lay, and how
to find it. It might be only yesterday so well do I remember every word
he spoke.

‘“Go towards the little mountains,” said he, “and ask there for the
Black King’s Valley, and when you come to a tiny brook follow the stream
till you reach the stone bridge beside the saw-mill. Do not cross the
bridge, but keep to your right along the bank till a high rock stands
before you. A bow-shot from that you will discover a little hollow like
a grave. When you find this hollow dig it out; but it will be hard work,
for the earth has been pressed down into it with care. Still, work away
till you find solid rock on all sides of you, and soon you will come to
a square slab of stone; force it out of the wall, and you will stand at
the entrance of the treasure house. Into this opening you must crawl,
holding a lamp in your mouth. Keep your hands free lest you knock your
nose against a stone, for the way is steep and the stones sharp. If it
bruises your knees never mind; you are on the road to fortune. Do not
rest till you reach a wide stairway, down which you will go till you
come out into a spacious hall, in which there are three doors; two of
them stand open, the third is fastened with locks and bolts of iron. Do
not go through the door to the right lest you disturb the bones of the
lords of the treasure. Neither must you go through the door to the left,
it leads to the snake’s chamber, where adders and serpents lodge; but
open the fast-closed door by means of the well-known spring-root, which
you must on no account forget to take with you, or all your trouble will
be for naught, for no crowbar or mortal tools will help you. If you want
to procure the root ask a wood-seller; it is a common thing for hunters
to need, and it is not hard to find. If the door bursts open suddenly
with great crackings and groanings do not be afraid, the noise is caused
by the power of the magic root, and you will not be hurt. Now trim your
lamp that it may not fail you, for you will be nearly blinded by the
flash and glitter of the gold and precious stones on the walls and
pillars of the vault; but beware how you stretch out a hand towards the
jewels! In the midst of the cavern stands a copper chest, in that
you will find gold and silver, enough and to spare, and you may help
yourself to your heart’s content. If you take as much as you can carry
you will have sufficient to last your lifetime, and you may return three
times; but woe betide you if you venture to come a fourth time. You
would have your trouble for your pains, and would be punished for your
greediness by falling down the stone steps and breaking your leg. Do
not neglect each time to heap back the loose earth which concealed the
entrance of the king’s treasure chamber.”

‘As the apparition left off speaking my dog pricked up his ears and
began to bark. I heard the crack of a carter’s whip and the noise
of wheels in the distance, and when I looked again the spectre had
disappeared.’

So ended the shepherd’s tale; and the landlord who was listening with
the rest, said shrewdly:

‘Tell us now, Father Martin, did you go to the mountain and find what
the spirit promised you; or is it a fable?’

‘Nay, nay,’ answered the graybeard. ‘I cannot tell if the spectre
lied, for never a step did I go towards finding the hollow, for two
reasons:--one was that my neck was too precious for me to risk it in
such a snare as that; the other, that no one could ever tell me where
the spring-root was to be found.’

Then Blaize, another aged shepherd, lifted up his voice.

“Tis a pity, Father Martin, that your secret has grown old with you.
If you had told it forty years ago truly you would not long have been
lacking the spring-root. Even though you will never climb the mountain
now, I will tell you, for a joke, how it is to be found. The easiest
way to get it is by the help of a black woodpecker. Look, in the spring,
where she builds her nest in a hole in a tree, and when the time comes
for her brood to fly off block up the entrance to the nest with a hard
sod, and lurk in ambush behind the tree till the bird returns to feed
her nestlings. When she perceives that she cannot get into her nest she
will fly round the tree uttering cries of distress, and then dart off
towards the sun-setting. When you see her do this, take a scarlet cloak,
or if that be lacking to you, buy a few yards of scarlet cloth,
and hurry back to the tree before the woodpecker returns with the
spring-root in her beak. So soon as she touches with the root the sod
that blocks the nest, it will fly violently out of the hole. Then spread
the red cloth quickly under the tree, so that the woodpecker may think
it is a fire, and in her terror drop the root. Some people really light
a fire and strew spikenard blossoms in it; but that is a clumsy method,
for if the flames do not shoot up at the right moment away will fly the
woodpecker, carrying the root with her.”

The party had listened with interest to this speech, but by the time it
was ended the hour was late, and they went their ways homeward, leaving
only one man who had sat unheeded in a corner the whole evening through.

Master Peter Bloch had once been a prosperous innkeeper, and a
master-cook; but he had gone steadily down in the world for some time,
and was now quite poor.

Formerly he had been a merry fellow, fond of a joke, and in the art of
cooking had no equal in the town. He could make fish-jelly, and quince
fritters, and even wafer-cakes; and he gilded the ears of all his
boars’ heads. Peter had looked about him for a wife early in life, but
unluckily his choice fell upon a woman whose evil tongue was well known
in the town. Ilse was hated by everybody, and the young folks would go
miles out of their way rather than meet her, for she had some ill-word
for everyone. Therefore, when Master Peter came along, and let himself
be taken in by her boasted skill as a housewife, she jumped at his
offer, and they were married the next day. But they had not got home
before they began to quarrel. In the joy of his heart Peter had tasted
freely of his own good wine, and as the bride hung upon his arm he
stumbled and fell, dragging her down with him; whereupon she beat him
soundly, and the neighbours said truly that things did not promise
well for Master Peter’s comfort. Even when the ill-matched couple were
presently blessed with children, his happiness was but short lived, the
savage temper of his quarrelsome wife seemed to blight them from the
first, and they died like little kids in a cold winter.

Though Master Peter had no great wealth to leave behind him, still
it was sad to him to be childless; and he would bemoan himself to his
friends, when he laid one baby after another in the grave, saying: ‘The
lightning has been among the cherry-blossoms again, so there will be no
fruit to grow ripe.’

But, by-and-by, he had a little daughter so strong and healthy that
neither her mother’s temper nor her father’s spoiling could keep her
from growing up tall and beautiful. Meanwhile the fortunes of the family
had changed. From his youth up, Master Peter had hated trouble; when he
had money he spent it freely, and fed all the hungry folk who asked him
for bread. If his pockets were empty he borrowed of his neighbours, but
he always took good care to prevent his scolding wife from finding out
that he had done so. His motto was: ‘It will all come right in the end’;
but what it did come to was ruin for Master Peter. He was at his wits’
end to know how to earn an honest living, for try as he might ill-luck
seemed to pursue him, and he lost one post after another, till at last
all he could do was to carry sacks of corn to the mill for his wife, who
scolded him well if he was slow about it, and grudged him his portion of
food.

This grieved the tender heart of his pretty daughter, who loved him
dearly, and was the comfort of his life.

Peter was thinking of her as he sat in the inn kitchen and heard
the shepherds talking about the buried treasure, and for her sake he
resolved to go and seek for it. Before he rose from the landlord’s
arm-chair his plan was made, and Master Peter went home more joyful and
full of hope than he had been for many a long day; but on the way
he suddenly remembered that he was not yet possessed of the magic
spring-root, and he stole into the house with a heavy heart, and threw
himself down upon his hard straw bed. He could neither sleep nor rest;
but as soon as it was light he got up and wrote down exactly all that
was to be done to find the treasure, that he might not forget anything,
and when it lay clear and plain before his eyes he comforted himself
with the thought that, though he must do the rough work for his wife
during one more winter at least, he would not have to tread the path to
the mill for the rest of his life. Soon he heard his wife’s harsh
voice singing its morning song as she went about her household affairs,
scolding her daughter the while. She burst open his door while he was
still dressing: ‘Well, Toper!’ was her greeting, ‘have you been drinking
all night, wasting money that you steal from my housekeeping? For shame,
drunkard!’

Master Peter, who was well used to this sort of talk, did not disturb
himself, but waited till the storm blew over, then he said calmly:

‘Do not be annoyed, dear wife. I have a good piece of business in hand
which may turn out well for us.’

‘You with a good business?’ cried she, ‘you are good for nothing but
talk!’

‘I am making my will,’ said he, ‘that when my hour comes my house may be
in order.’

These unexpected words cut his daughter to the heart; she remembered
that all night long she had dreamed of a newly dug grave, and at this
thought she broke out into loud lamentations. But her mother only cried:
‘Wretch! have you not wasted goods and possessions, and now do you talk
of making a will?’

And she seized him like a fury, and tried to scratch out his eyes. But
by-and-by the quarrel was patched up, and everything went on as before.
From that day Peter saved up every penny that his daughter Lucia gave
him on the sly, and bribed the boys of his acquaintance to spy out a
black woodpecker’s nest for him. He sent them into the woods and fields,
but instead of looking for a nest they only played pranks on him. They
led him miles over hill and vale, stock and stone, to find a raven’s
brood, or a nest of squirrels in a hollow tree, and when he was angry
with them they laughed in his face and ran away. This went on for
some time, but at last one of the boys spied out a woodpecker in the
meadow-lands among the wood-pigeons, and when he had found her nest in
a half-dead alder tree, came running to Peter with the news of his
discovery. Peter could hardly believe his good fortune, and went quickly
to see for himself if it was really true; and when he reached the tree
there certainly was a bird flying in and out as if she had a nest in
it. Peter was overjoyed at this fortunate discovery, and instantly set
himself to obtain a red cloak. Now in the whole town there was only
one red cloak, and that belonged to a man of whom nobody ever willingly
asked a favour--Master Hammerling the hangman. It cost Master Peter
many struggles before he could bring himself to visit such a person, but
there was no help for it, and, little as he liked it, he ended by making
his request to the hangman, who was flattered that so respectable a man
as Peter should borrow his robe of office, and willingly lent it to him.

Peter now had all that was necessary to secure the magic root; he
stopped up the entrance to the nest, and everything fell out exactly as
Blaize had foretold. As soon as the woodpecker came back with the root
in her beak out rushed Master Peter from behind the tree and displayed
the fiery red cloak so adroitly that the terrified bird dropped the root
just where it could be easily seen. All Peter’s plans had succeeded, and
he actually held in his hand the magic root--that master-key which would
unlock all doors, and bring its possessor unheard-of luck. His thoughts
now turned to the mountain, and he secretly made preparations for his
journey. He took with him only a staff, a strong sack, and a little box
which his daughter Lucia had given him.

It happened that on the very day Peter had chosen for setting out, Lucia
and her mother went off early to the town, leaving him to guard the
house; but in spite of that he was on the point of taking his departure
when it occurred to him that it might be as well first to test the
much-vaunted powers of the magic root for himself. Dame Ilse had a
strong cupboard with seven locks built into the wall of her room, in
which she kept all the money she had saved, and she wore the key of it
always hung about her neck. Master Peter had no control at all of the
money affairs of the household, so the contents of this secret hoard
were quite unknown to him, and this seemed to be a good opportunity for
finding out what they were. He held the magic root to the keyhole, and
to his astonishment heard all the seven locks creaking and turning, the
door flew suddenly wide open, and his greedy wife’s store of gold pieces
lay before his eyes. He stood still in sheer amazement, not knowing
which to rejoice over most--this unexpected find, or the proof of the
magic root’s real power; but at last he remembered that it was quite
time to be starting on his journey. So, filling his pockets with the
gold, he carefully locked the empty cupboard again and left the house
without further delay. When Dame Ilse and her daughter returned they
wondered to find the house door shut, and Master Peter nowhere to be
seen. They knocked and called, but nothing stirred within but the house
cat, and at last the blacksmith had to be fetched to open the door. Then
the house was searched from garret to cellar, but no Master Peter was to
be found.

‘Who knows?’ cried Dame Ilse at last, ‘the wretch may have been idling
in some tavern since early morning.’

Then a sudden thought startled her, and she felt for her keys. Suppose
they had fallen into her good-for-nothing husband’s hands and he had
helped himself to her treasure! But no, the keys were safe in their
usual place, and the cupboard looked quite untouched. Mid-day came,
then evening, then midnight, and still no Master Peter appeared, and the
matter became really serious. Dame Ilse knew right well what a torment
she had been to her husband, and remorse caused her the gloomiest
forebodings.

‘Ah! Lucia,’ she cried, ‘I greatly fear that your father has done
himself a mischief.’ And they sat till morning weeping over their own
fancies.

As soon as it was light they searched every corner of the house again,
and examined every nail in the wall and every beam; but, luckily, Master
Peter was not hanging from any of them. After that the neighbours went
out with long poles to fish in every ditch and pond, but they found
nothing, and then Dame Ilse gave up the idea of ever seeing her husband
again and very soon consoled herself, only wondering how the sacks of
corn were to be carried to the mill in future. She decided to buy
a strong ass to do the work, and having chosen one, and after some
bargaining with the owner as to its price, she went to the cupboard
in the wall to fetch the money. But what were her feelings when she
perceived that every shelf lay empty and bare before her! For a moment
she stood bewildered, then broke into such frightful ravings that Lucia
ran to her in alarm; but as soon as she heard of the disappearance of
the money she was heartily glad, and no longer feared that her father
had come to any harm, but understood that he must have gone out into the
world to seek his fortune in some new way.

About a month after this, someone knocked at Dame Ilse’s door one day,
and she went to see if it was a customer for meal; but in stepped
a handsome young man, dressed like a duke’s son, who greeted her
respectfully, and asked after her pretty daughter as if he were an old
friend, though she could not remember having ever set eyes upon him
before.

However, she invited him to step into the house and be seated while he
unfolded his business. With a great air of mystery he begged permission
to speak to the fair Lucia, of whose skill in needlework he had heard so
much, as he had a commission to give her. Dame Ilse had her own opinion
as to what kind of commission it was likely to be--brought by a young
stranger to a pretty maiden; however, as the meeting would be under her
own eye, she made no objection, but called to her industrious daughter,
who left off working and came obediently; but when she saw the stranger
she stopped short, blushing, and casting down her eyes. He looked at her
fondly, and took her hand, which she tried to draw away, crying:

‘Ah! Friedlin, why are you here? I thought you were a hundred miles
away. Are you come to grieve me again?’

‘No, dearest girl,’ answered he; ‘I am come to complete your happiness
and my own. Since we last met my fortune has utterly changed; I am
no longer the poor vagabond that I was then. My rich uncle has died,
leaving me money and goods in plenty, so that I dare to present myself
to your mother as a suitor for your hand. That I love you I know well;
if you can love me I am indeed a happy man.’

Lucia’s pretty blue eyes had looked up shyly as he spoke, and now a
smile parted her rosy lips; and she stole a glance at her mother to see
what she thought about it all; but the dame stood lost in amazement to
find that her daughter, whom she could have declared had never been out
of her sight, was already well acquainted with the handsome stranger,
and quite willing to be his bride. Before she had done staring, this
hasty wooer had smoothed his way by covering the shining table with gold
pieces as a wedding gift to the bride’s mother, and had filled Lucia’s
apron into the bargain; after which the dame made no difficulties, and
the matter was speedily settled.

While Ilse gathered up the gold and hid it away safely, the lovers
whispered together, and what Friedlin told her seemed to make Lucia
every moment more happy and contented.

Now a great hurry-burly began in the house, and preparations for the
wedding went on apace. A few days later a heavily laden waggon drove up,
and out of it came so many boxes and bales that Dame Ilse was lost in
wonder at the wealth of her future son-in-law. The day for the wedding
was chosen, and all their friends and neighbours were bidden to the
feast. As Lucia was trying on her bridal wreath she said to her mother:
‘This wedding-garland would please me indeed if father Peter could lead
me to the church. If only he could come back again! Here we are rolling
in riches while he may be nibbling at hunger’s table.’ And the very idea
of such a thing made her weep, while even Dame Ilse said:

‘I should not be sorry myself to see him come back--there is always
something lacking in a house when the good man is away.’

But the fact was that she was growing quite tired of having no one to
scold. And what do you think happened?

On the very eve of the wedding a man pushing a wheelbarrow arrived at
the city gate, and paid toll upon a barrel of nails which it contained,
and then made the best of his way to the bride’s dwelling and knocked at
the door.

The bride herself peeped out of the window to see who it could be, and
there stood father Peter! Then there was great rejoicing in the house;
Lucia ran to embrace him, and even Dame Ilse held out her hand in
welcome, and only said: ‘Rogue, mend your ways,’ when she remembered the
empty treasure cupboard. Father Peter greeted the bridegroom, looking
at him shrewdly, while the mother and daughter hastened to say all
they knew in his favour, and appeared to be satisfied with him as a
son-in-law. When Dame Ilse had set something to eat before her husband,
she was curious to hear his adventures, and questioned him eagerly as to
why he had gone away.

‘God bless my native place,’ said he. ‘I have been marching through the
country, and have tried every kind of work, but now I have found a job
in the iron trade; only, so far, I have put more into it than I have
earned by it. This barrel of nails is my whole fortune, which I wish to
give as my contribution towards the bride’s house furnishing.’

This speech roused Dame Ilse to anger, and she broke out into such
shrill reproaches that the bystanders were fairly deafened, and Friedlin
hastily offered Master Peter a home with Lucia and himself, promising
that he should live in comfort, and be always welcome. So Lucia had her
heart’s desire, and father Peter led her to the church next day, and
the marriage took place very happily. Soon afterwards the young people
settled in a fine house which Friedlin had bought, and had a garden and
meadows, a fishpond, and a hill covered with vines, and were as happy as
the day was long. Father Peter also stayed quietly with them, living, as
everybody believed, upon the generosity of his rich son-in law. No one
suspected that his barrel of nails was the real ‘Horn of Plenty,’ from
which all this prosperity overflowed.

Peter had made the journey to the treasure mountain successfully,
without being found out by anybody. He had enjoyed himself by the way,
and taken his own time, until he actually reached the little brook in
the valley which it had cost him some trouble to find. Then he pressed
on eagerly, and soon came to the little hollow in the wood; down he
went, burrowing like a mole into the earth; the magic root did its work,
and at last the treasure lay before his eyes. You may imagine how gaily
Peter filled his sack with as much gold as he could carry, and how
he staggered up the seventy-seven steps with a heart full of hope and
delight. He did not quite trust the gnome’s promises of safety, and
was in such haste to find himself once more in the light of day that
he looked neither to the right nor the left, and could not afterwards
remember whether the walls and pillars had sparkled with jewels or not.

However, all went well--he neither saw nor heard anything alarming; the
only thing that happened was that the great iron-barred door shut with
a crash as soon as he was fairly outside it, and then he remembered
that he had left the magic root behind him, so he could not go back for
another load of treasure. But even that did not trouble Peter much; he
was quite satisfied with what he had already. After he had faithfully
done everything according to Father Martin’s instructions, and pressed
the earth well back into the hollow, he sat down to consider how he
could bring his treasure back to his native place, and enjoy it there,
without being forced to share it with his scolding wife, who would
give him no peace if she once found out about it. At last, after
much thinking, he hit upon a plan. He carried his sack to the nearest
village, and there bought a wheelbarrow, a strong barrel, and a quantity
of nails. Then he packed his gold into the barrel, covered it well with
a layer of nails, hoisted it on to the wheelbarrow with some difficulty,
and set off with it upon his homeward way. At one place upon the road
he met a handsome young man who seemed by his downcast air to be in some
great trouble. Father Peter, who wished everybody to be as happy as he
was himself, greeted him cheerfully, and asked where he was going, to
which he answered sadly:

‘Into the wide world, good father, or out of it, where ever my feet may
chance to carry me.’

‘Why out of it?’ said Peter. ‘What has the world been doing to you?’

‘It has done nothing to me, nor I to it,’ he replied. ‘Nevertheless
there is not anything left in it for me.’

Father Peter did his best to cheer the young man up, and invited him to
sup with him at the first inn they came to, thinking that perhaps hunger
and poverty were causing the stranger’s trouble. But when good food was
set before him he seemed to forget to eat. So Peter perceived that what
ailed his guest was sorrow of heart, and asked him kindly to tell him
his story.

‘Where is the good, father?’ said he. ‘You can give me neither help nor
comfort.’

‘Who knows?’ answered Master Peter. ‘I might be able to do something
for you. Often enough in life help comes to us from the most unexpected
quarter.’

The young man, thus encouraged, began his tale.

‘I am,’ said he, ‘a crossbow-man in the service of a noble count, in
whose castle I was brought up. Not long ago my master went on a journey,
and brought back with him, amongst other treasures, the portrait of a
fair maiden so sweet and lovely that I lost my heart at first sight of
it, and could think of nothing but how I might seek her out and marry
her. The count had told me her name, and where she lived, but laughed at
my love, and absolutely refused to give me leave to go in search of her,
so I was forced to run away from the castle by night. I soon reached the
little town where the maiden dwelt; but there fresh difficulties awaited
me. She lived under the care of her mother, who was so severe that she
was never allowed to look out of the window, or set her foot outside the
door alone, and how to make friends with her I did not know. But at last
I dressed myself as an old woman, and knocked boldly at her door. The
lovely maiden herself opened it, and so charmed me that I came near
forgetting my disguise; but I soon recovered my wits, and begged her
to work a fine table-cloth for me, for she is reported to be the best
needlewoman in all the country round. Now I was free to go and see her
often under the presence of seeing how the work was going oil, and one
day, when her mother had gone to the town, I ventured to throw off my
disguise, and tell her of my love. She was startled at first; but I
persuaded her to listen to me, and I soon saw that I was not displeasing
to her, though she scolded me gently for my disobedience to my master,
and my deceit in disguising myself. But when I begged her to marry me,
she told me sadly that her mother would scorn a penniless wooer, and
implored me to go away at once, lest trouble should fall upon her.

‘Bitter as it was to me, I was forced to go when she bade me, and I have
wandered about ever since, with grief gnawing at my heart; for how can
a masterless man, without money or goods, ever hope to win the lovely
Lucia?’

Master Peter, who had been listening attentively, pricked up his ears
at the sound of his daughter’s name, and very soon found out that it was
indeed with her that this young man was so deeply in love.

‘Your story is strange indeed,’ said he. ‘But where is the father of
this maiden--why do you not ask him for her hand? He might well take
your part, and be glad to have you for his son-in-law.’

‘Alas!’ said the young man, ‘her father is a wandering good-for-naught,
who has forsaken wife and child, and gone off--who knows where? The wife
complains of him bitterly enough, and scolds my dear maiden when she
takes her father’s part.’

Father Peter was somewhat amused by this speech; but he liked the young
man well, and saw that he was the very person he needed to enable him
to enjoy his wealth in peace, without being separated from his dear
daughter.

‘If you will take my advice,’ said he, ‘I promise you that you shall
marry this maiden whom you love so much, and that before you are many
days older.’

‘Comrade,’ cried Friedlin indignantly, for he thought Peter did but jest
with him, ‘it is ill done to mock at an unhappy man; you had better find
someone else who will let himself be taken in with your fine promises.’
And up he sprang, and was going off hastily, when Master Peter caught
him by the arm.

‘Stay, hothead!’ he cried; ‘it is no jest, and I am prepared to make
good my words.’

Thereupon he showed him the treasure hidden under the nails, and
unfolded to him his plan, which was that Friedlin should play the part
of the rich son-in-law, and keep a still tongue, that they might enjoy
their wealth together in peace.

The young man was overjoyed at this sudden change in his fortunes, and
did not know how to thank father Peter for his generosity. They took
the road again at dawn the next morning, and soon reached a town, where
Friedlin equipped himself as a gallant wooer should. Father Peter filled
his pockets with gold for the wedding dowry, and agreed with him that
when all was settled he should secretly send him word that Peter might
send off the waggon load of house plenishings with which the rich
bridegroom was to make such a stir in the little town where the bride
lived. As they parted, father Peter’s last commands to Friedlin were to
guard well their secret, and not even to tell it to Lucia till she was
his wife.

Master Peter long enjoyed the profits of his journey to the mountain,
and no rumour of it ever got abroad. In his old age his prosperity was
so great that he himself did not know how rich he was; but it was always
supposed that the money was Friedlin’s. He and his beloved wife lived in
the greatest happiness and peace, and rose to great honour in the town.
And to this day, when the citizens wish to describe a wealthy man, they
say: ‘As rich as Peter Bloch’s son-in-law!’




The Cottager And His Cat

Once upon a time there lived an old man and his wife in a dirty,
tumble-down cottage, not very far from the splendid palace where the
king and queen dwelt. In spite of the wretched state of the hut, which
many people declared was too bad even for a pig to live in, the old man
was very rich, for he was a great miser, and lucky besides, and would
often go without food all day sooner than change one of his beloved gold
pieces.

But after a while he found that he had starved himself once too often.
He fell ill, and had no strength to get well again, and in a few days he
died, leaving his wife and one son behind him.

The night following his death, the son dreamed that an unknown man
appeared to him and said: ‘Listen to me; your father is dead and your
mother will soon die, and all their riches will belong to you. Half of
his wealth is ill-gotten, and this you must give back to the poor from
whom he squeezed it. The other half you must throw into the sea. Watch,
however, as the money sinks into the water, and if anything should swim,
catch it and keep it, even if it is nothing more than a bit of paper.’

Then the man vanished, and the youth awoke.

The remembrance of his dream troubled him greatly. He did not want to
part with the riches that his father had left him, for he had known all
his life what it was to be cold and hungry, and now he had hoped for a
little comfort and pleasure. Still, he was honest and good-hearted, and
if his father had come wrongfully by his wealth he felt he could never
enjoy it, and at last he made up his mind to do as he had been bidden.
He found out who were the people who were poorest in the village, and
spent half of his money in helping them, and the other half he put in
his pocket. From a rock that jutted right out into the sea he flung it
in. In a moment it was out of sight, and no man could have told the
spot where it had sunk, except for a tiny scrap of paper floating on
the water. He stretched down carefully and managed to reach it, and
on opening it found six shillings wrapped inside. This was now all the
money he had in the world.

The young man stood and looked at it thoughtfully. ‘Well, I can’t do
much with this,’ he said to himself; but, after all, six shillings were
better than nothing, and he wrapped them up again and slipped them into
his coat.

He worked in his garden for the next few weeks, and he and his mother
contrived to live on the fruit and vegetables he got out of it, and then
she too died suddenly. The poor fellow felt very sad when he had laid
her in her grave, and with a heavy heart he wandered into the forest,
not knowing where he was going. By-and-by he began to get hungry, and
seeing a small hut in front of him, he knocked at the door and asked if
they could give him some milk. The old woman who opened it begged him
to come in, adding kindly, that if he wanted a night’s lodging he might
have it without its costing him anything.

Two women and three men were at supper when he entered, and silently
made room for him to sit down by them. When he had eaten he began to
look about him, and was surprised to see an animal sitting by the fire
different from anything he had ever noticed before. It was grey in
colour, and not very big; but its eyes were large and very bright, and
it seemed to be singing in an odd way, quite unlike any animal in the
forest. ‘What is the name of that strange little creature?’ asked he.
And they answered, ‘We call it a cat.’

‘I should like to buy it--if it is not too dear,’ said the young man;
‘it would be company for me.’ And they told him that he might have it
for six shillings, if he cared to give so much. The young man took out
his precious bit of paper, handed them the six shillings, and the next
morning bade them farewell, with the cat lying snugly in his cloak.

For the whole day they wandered through meadows and forests, till in the
evening they reached a house. The young fellow knocked at the door
and asked the old man who opened it if he could rest there that night,
adding that he had no money to pay for it. ‘Then I must give it to you,’
answered the man, and led him into a room where two women and two men
were sitting at supper. One of the women was the old man’s wife, the
other his daughter. He placed the cat on the mantel shelf, and they all
crowded round to examine this strange beast, and the cat rubbed itself
against them, and held out its paw, and sang to them; and the women were
delighted, and gave it everything that a cat could eat, and a great deal
more besides.

After hearing the youth’s story, and how he had nothing in the world
left him except his cat, the old man advised him to go to the palace,
which was only a few miles distant, and take counsel of the king, who
was kind to everyone, and would certainly be his friend. The young man
thanked him, and said he would gladly take his advice; and early next
morning he set out for the royal palace.

He sent a message to the king to beg for an audience, and received a
reply that he was to go into the great hall, where he would find his
Majesty.

The king was at dinner with his court when the young man entered, and
he signed to him to come near. The youth bowed low, and then gazed in
surprise at the crowd of little black creatures who were running about
the floor, and even on the table itself. Indeed, they were so bold that
they snatched pieces of food from the King’s own plate, and if he drove
them away, tried to bite his hands, so that he could not eat his food,
and his courtiers fared no better.

‘What sort of animals are these?’ asked the youth of one of the ladies
sitting near him.

‘They are called rats,’ answered the king, who had overheard the
question, ‘and for years we have tried some way of putting an end to
them, but it is impossible. They come into our very beds.’

At this moment something was seen flying through the air. The cat was on
the table, and with two or three shakes a number of rats were lying
dead round him. Then a great scuffling of feet was heard, and in a few
minutes the hall was clear.

For some minutes the King and his courtiers only looked at each other in
astonishment. ‘What kind of animal is that which can work magic of this
sort?’ asked he. And the young man told him that it was called a cat,
and that he had bought it for six shillings.

And the King answered: ‘Because of the luck you have brought me, in
freeing my palace from the plague which has tormented me for many years,
I will give you the choice of two things. Either you shall be my Prime
Minister, or else you shall marry my daughter and reign after me. Say,
which shall it be?’

‘The princess and the kingdom,’ said the young man.

And so it was.

[From Islandische Marchen.]




The Prince Who Would Seek Immortality

Once upon a time, in the very middle of the middle of a large kingdom,
there was a town, and in the town a palace, and in the palace a king.
This king had one son whom his father thought was wiser and cleverer
than any son ever was before, and indeed his father had spared no pains
to make him so. He had been very careful in choosing his tutors and
governors when he was a boy, and when he became a youth he sent him to
travel, so that he might see the ways of other people, and find that
they were often as good as his own.

It was now a year since the prince had returned home, for his father
felt that it was time that his son should learn how to rule the kingdom
which would one day be his. But during his long absence the prince
seemed to have changed his character altogether. From being a merry and
light-hearted boy, he had grown into a gloomy and thoughtful man. The
king knew of nothing that could have produced such an alteration.
He vexed himself about it from morning till night, till at length an
explanation occurred to him--the young man was in love!

Now the prince never talked about his feelings--for the matter of that
he scarcely talked at all; and the father knew that if he was to come to
the bottom of the prince’s dismal face, he would have to begin. So one
day, after dinner, he took his son by the arm and led him into another
room, hung entirely with the pictures of beautiful maidens, each one
more lovely than the other.

‘My dear boy,’ he said, ‘you are very sad; perhaps after all your
wanderings it is dull for you here all alone with me. It would be much
better if you would marry, and I have collected here the portraits
of the most beautiful women in the world of a rank equal to your own.
Choose which among them you would like for a wife, and I will send an
embassy to her father to ask for her hand.’

‘Alas! your Majesty,’ answered the prince, ‘it is not love or marriage
that makes me so gloomy; but the thought, which haunts me day and night,
that all men, even kings, must die. Never shall I be happy again till
I have found a kingdom where death is unknown. And I have determined to
give myself no rest till I have discovered the Land of Immortality.

The old king heard him with dismay; things were worse than he thought.
He tried to reason with his son, and told him that during all these
years he had been looking forward to his return, in order to resign his
throne and its cares, which pressed so heavily upon him. But it was
in vain that he talked; the prince would listen to nothing, and the
following morning buckled on his sword and set forth on his journey.

He had been travelling for many days, and had left his fatherland behind
him, when close to the road he came upon a huge tree, and on its topmost
bough an eagle was sitting shaking the branches with all his might. This
seemed so strange and so unlike an eagle, that the prince stood still
with surprise, and the bird saw him and flew to the ground. The moment
its feet touched the ground he changed into a king.

‘Why do you look so astonished?’ he asked.

‘I was wondering why you shook the boughs so fiercely,’ answered the
prince.

‘I am condemned to do this, for neither I nor any of my kindred can die
till I have rooted up this great tree,’ replied the king of the eagles.
‘But it is now evening, and I need work no more to-day. Come to my house
with me, and be my guest for the night.’

The prince accepted gratefully the eagle’s invitation, for he was tired
and hungry. They were received at the palace by the king’s beautiful
daughter, who gave orders that dinner should be laid for them at
once. While they were eating, the eagle questioned his guest about
his travels, and if he was wandering for pleasure’s sake, or with any
special aim. Then the prince told him everything, and how he could never
turn back till he had discovered the Land of Immortality.

‘Dear brother,’ said the eagle, ‘you have discovered it already, and it
rejoices my heart to think that you will stay with us. Have you not just
heard me say that death has no power either over myself or any of my
kindred till that great tree is rooted up? It will take me six hundred
years’ hard work to do that; so marry my daughter and let us all live
happily together here. After all, six hundred years is an eternity!’

‘Ah, dear king,’ replied the young man, ‘your offer is very tempting!
But at the end of six hundred years we should have to die, so we should
be no better off! No, I must go on till I find the country where there
is no death at all.’

Then the princess spoke, and tried to persuade the guest to change his
mind, but he sorrowfully shook his head. At length, seeing that his
resolution was firmly fixed, she took from a cabinet a little box which
contained her picture, and gave it to him saying:

‘As you will not stay with us, prince, accept this box, which will
sometimes recall us to your memory. If you are tired of travelling
before you come to the Land of Immortality, open this box and look at
my picture, and you will be borne along either on earth or in the air,
quick as thought, or swift as the whirlwind.’

The prince thanked her for her gift, which he placed in his tunic, and
sorrowfully bade the eagle and his daughter farewell.

Never was any present in the world as useful as that little box, and
many times did he bless the kind thought of the princess. One evening it
had carried him to the top of a high mountain, where he saw a man with a
bald head, busily engaged in digging up spadefuls of earth and throwing
them in a basket. When the basket was full he took it away and returned
with an empty one, which he likewise filled. The prince stood and
watched him for a little, till the bald-headed man looked up and said to
him: ‘Dear brother, what surprises you so much?’

‘I was wondering why you were filling the basket,’ replied the prince.

‘Oh!’ replied the man, ‘I am condemned to do this, for neither I nor any
of my family can die till I have dug away the whole of this mountain and
made it level with the plain. But, come, it is almost dark, and I shall
work no longer.’ And he plucked a leaf from a tree close by, and from a
rough digger he was changed into a stately bald-headed king. ‘Come home
with me,’ he added; ‘you must be tired and hungry, and my daughter will
have supper ready for us.’ The prince accepted gladly, and they went
back to the palace, where the bald-headed king’s daughter, who was still
more beautiful than the other princess, welcomed them at the door and
led the way into a large hall and to a table covered with silver dishes.
While they were eating, the bald-headed king asked the prince how he had
happened to wander so far, and the young man told him all about it, and
how he was seeking the Land of Immortality. ‘You have found it already,’
answered the king, ‘for, as I said, neither I nor my family can die
till I have levelled this great mountain; and that will take full eight
hundred years longer. Stay here with us and marry my daughter. Eight
hundred years is surely long enough to live.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ answered the prince; ‘but, all the same, I would rather
go and seek the land where there is no death at all.’

So next morning he bade them farewell, though the princess begged him to
stay with all her might; and when she found that she could not persuade
him she gave him as a remembrance a gold ring. This ring was still more
useful than the box, because when one wished oneself at any place one
was there directly, without even the trouble of flying to it through the
air. The prince put it on his finger, and thanking her heartily, went
his way.

He walked on for some distance, and then he recollected the ring and
thought he would try if the princess had spoken truly as to its powers.
‘I wish I was at the end of the world,’ he said, shutting his eyes, and
when he opened them he was standing in a street full of marble palaces.
The men who passed him were tall and strong, and their clothes were
magnificent. He stopped some of them and asked in all the twenty-seven
languages he knew what was the name of the city, but no one answered
him. Then his heart sank within him; what should he do in this strange
place if nobody could understand anything? he said. Suddenly his eyes
fell upon a man dressed after the fashion of his native country, and he
ran up to him and spoke to him in his own tongue. ‘What city is this, my
friend?’ he inquired.

‘It is the capital city of the Blue Kingdom,’ replied the man, ‘but the
king himself is dead, and his daughter is now the ruler.’

With this news the prince was satisfied, and begged his countryman to
show him the way to the young queen’s palace. The man led him through
several streets into a large square, one side of which was occupied by a
splendid building that seemed borne up on slender pillars of soft green
marble. In front was a flight of steps, and on these the queen was
sitting wrapped in a veil of shining silver mist, listening to the
complaints of her people and dealing out justice. When the prince
came up she saw directly that he was no ordinary man, and telling her
chamberlain to dismiss the rest of her petitioners for that day, she
signed to the prince to follow her into the palace. Luckily she had been
taught his language as a child, so they had no difficulty in talking
together.

The prince told all his story and how he was journeying in search of
the Land of Immortality. When he had finished, the princess, who had
listened attentively, rose, and taking his arm, led him to the door of
another room, the floor of which was made entirely of needles, stuck so
close together that there was not room for a single needle more.

‘Prince,’ she said, turning to him, ‘you see these needles? Well, know
that neither I nor any of my family can die till I have worn out these
needles in sewing. It will take at least a thousand years for that. Stay
here, and share my throne; a thousand years is long enough to live!’

‘Certainly,’ answered he; ‘still, at the end of the thousand years I
should have to die! No, I must find the land where there is no death.’

The queen did all she could to persuade him to stay, but as her words
proved useless, at length she gave it up. Then she said to him: ‘As you
will not stay, take this little golden rod as a remembrance of me. It
has the power to become anything you wish it to be, when you are in
need.’

So the prince thanked her, and putting the rod in his pocket, went his
way.

Scarcely had he left the town behind him when he came to a broad river
which no man might pass, for he was standing at the end of the world,
and this was the river which flowed round it. Not knowing what to do
next, he walked a little distance up the bank, and there, over his head,
a beautiful city was floating in the air. He longed to get to it, but
how? neither road nor bridge was anywhere to be seen, yet the city drew
him upwards, and he felt that here at last was the country which he
sought. Suddenly he remembered the golden rod which the mist-veiled
queen had given him. With a beating heart he flung it to the ground,
wishing with all his might that it should turn into a bridge, and
fearing that, after all, this might prove beyond its power. But no,
instead of the rod, there stood a golden ladder, leading straight up to
the city of the air. He was about to enter the golden gates, when there
sprang at him a wondrous beast, whose like he had never seen. ‘Out sword
from the sheath,’ cried the prince, springing back with a cry. And the
sword leapt from the scabbard and cut off some of the monster’s heads,
but others grew again directly, so that the prince, pale with terror,
stood where he was, calling for help, and put his sword back in the
sheath again.

The queen of the city heard the noise and looked from her window to see
what was happening. Summoning one of her servants, she bade him go and
rescue the stranger, and bring him to her. The prince thankfully obeyed
her orders, and entered her presence.

The moment she looked at him, the queen also felt that he was no
ordinary man, and she welcomed him graciously, and asked him what had
brought him to the city. In answer the prince told all his story, and
how he had travelled long and far in search of the Land of Immortality.

‘You have found it,’ said she, ‘for I am queen over life and over death.
Here you can dwell among the immortals.’

A thousand years had passed since the prince first entered the city,
but they had flown so fast that the time seemed no more than six months.
There had not been one instant of the thousand years that the prince was
not happy till one night when he dreamed of his father and mother. Then
the longing for his home came upon him with a rush, and in the morning
he told the Queen of the Immortals that he must go and see his father
and mother once more. The queen stared at him with amazement, and cried:
‘Why, prince, are you out of your senses? It is more than eight hundred
years since your father and mother died! There will not even be their
dust remaining.’

‘I must go all the same,’ said he.

‘Well, do not be in a hurry,’ continued the queen, understanding that
he would not be prevented. ‘Wait till I make some preparations for your
journey.’ So she unlocked her great treasure chest, and took out two
beautiful flasks, one of gold and one of silver, which she hung round
his neck. Then she showed him a little trap-door in one corner of the
room, and said: ‘Fill the silver flask with this water, which is below
the trap-door. It is enchanted, and whoever you sprinkle with the water
will become a dead man at once, even if he had lived a thousand years.
The golden flask you must fill with the water here,’ she added, pointing
to a well in another corner. ‘It springs from the rock of eternity; you
have only to sprinkle a few drops on a body and it will come to life
again, if it had been a thousand years dead.’

The prince thanked the queen for her gifts, and, bidding her farewell,
went on his journey.

He soon arrived in the town where the mist-veiled queen reigned in her
palace, but the whole city had changed, and he could scarcely find his
way through the streets. In the palace itself all was still, and he
wandered through the rooms without meeting anyone to stop him. At
last he entered the queen’s own chamber, and there she lay, with her
embroidery still in her hands, fast asleep. He pulled at her dress, but
she did not waken. Then a dreadful idea came over him, and he ran to
the chamber where the needles had been kept, but it was quite empty. The
queen had broken the last over the work she held in her hand, and with
it the spell was broken too, and she lay dead.

Quick as thought the prince pulled out the golden flask, and sprinkled
some drops of the water over the queen. In a moment she moved gently,
and raising her head, opened her eyes.

‘Oh, my dear friend, I am so glad you wakened me; I must have slept a
long while!’

‘You would have slept till eternity,’ answered the prince, ‘if I had not
been here to waken you.’

At these words the queen remembered about the needles. She knew now that
she had been dead, and that the prince had restored her to life. She
gave him thanks from her heart for what he had done, and vowed she would
repay him if she ever got a chance.

The prince took his leave, and set out for the country of the
bald-headed king. As he drew near the place he saw that the whole
mountain had been dug away, and that the king was lying dead on the
ground, his spade and bucket beside him. But as soon as the water from
the golden flask touched him he yawned and stretched himself, and slowly
rose to his feet. ‘Oh, my dear friend, I am so glad to see you,’ cried
he, ‘I must have slept a long while!’

‘You would have slept till eternity if I had not been here to waken
you,’ answered the prince. And the king remembered the mountain, and the
spell, and vowed to repay the service if he ever had a chance.

Further along the road which led to his old home the prince found the
great tree torn up by its roots, and the king of the eagles sitting dead
on the ground, with his wings outspread as if for flight. A flutter ran
through the feathers as the drops of water fell on them, and the eagle
lifted his beak from the ground and said: ‘Oh, how long I must have
slept! How can I thank you for having awakened me, my dear, good
friend!’

‘You would have slept till eternity if I had not been here to waken
you’; answered the prince. Then the king remembered about the tree, and
knew that he had been dead, and promised, if ever he had the chance, to
repay what the prince had done for him.

At last he reached the capital of his father’s kingdom, but on reaching
the place where the royal palace had stood, instead of the marble
galleries where he used to play, there lay a great sulphur lake, its
blue flames darting into the air. How was he to find his father and
mother, and bring them back to life, if they were lying at the bottom
of that horrible water? He turned away sadly and wandered back into
the streets, hardly knowing where he was going; when a voice behind him
cried: ‘Stop, prince, I have caught you at last! It is a thousand years
since I first began to seek you.’ And there beside him stood the old,
white-bearded, figure of Death. Swiftly he drew the ring from his
finger, and the king of the eagles, the bald-headed king, and the
mist-veiled queen, hastened to his rescue. In an instant they had seized
upon Death and held him tight, till the prince should have time to reach
the Land of Immortality. But they did not know how quickly Death could
fly, and the prince had only one foot across the border, when he felt
the other grasped from behind, and the voice of Death calling: ‘Halt!
now you are mine.’

The Queen of the Immortals was watching from her window, and cried to
Death that he had no power in her kingdom, and that he must seek his
prey elsewhere.

‘Quite true,’ answered Death; ‘but his foot is in my kingdom, and that
belongs to me!’

‘At any rate half of him is mine,’ replied the Queen, ‘and what good can
the other half do you? Half a man is no use, either to you or to me! But
this once I will allow you to cross into my kingdom, and we will decide
by a wager whose he is.’

And so it was settled. Death stepped across the narrow line that
surrounds the Land of Immortality, and the queen proposed the wager
which was to decide the prince’s fate. ‘I will throw him up into the
sky,’ she said, ‘right to the back of the morning star, and if he falls
down into this city, then he is mine. But if he should fall outside the
walls, he shall belong to you.’

In the middle of the city was a great open square, and here the queen
wished the wager to take place. When all was ready, she put her foot
under the foot of the prince and swung him into the air. Up, up, he
went, high amongst the stars, and no man’s eyes could follow him. Had
she thrown him up straight? the queen wondered anxiously, for, if not,
he would fall outside the walls, and she would lose him for ever. The
moments seemed long while she and Death stood gazing up into the air,
waiting to know whose prize the prince would be. Suddenly they both
caught sight of a tiny speck no bigger than a wasp, right up in the
blue. Was he coming straight? No! Yes! But as he was nearing the city,
a light wind sprang up, and swayed him in the direction of the wall.
Another second and he would have fallen half over it, when the queen
sprang forward, seized him in her arms, and flung him into the castle.
Then she commanded her servants to cast Death out of the city, which
they did, with such hard blows that he never dared to show his face
again in the Land of Immortality.

[From Ungarischen Volksmurchen.]





The Stone-Cutter

Once upon a time there lived a stone-cutter, who went every day to
a great rock in the side of a big mountain and cut out slabs for
gravestones or for houses. He understood very well the kinds of stones
wanted for the different purposes, and as he was a careful workman
he had plenty of customers. For a long time he was quite happy and
contented, and asked for nothing better than what he had.

Now in the mountain dwelt a spirit which now and then appeared to
men, and helped them in many ways to become rich and prosperous. The
stone-cutter, however, had never seen this spirit, and only shook his
head, with an unbelieving air, when anyone spoke of it. But a time was
coming when he learned to change his opinion.

One day the stone-cutter carried a gravestone to the house of a rich
man, and saw there all sorts of beautiful things, of which he had never
even dreamed. Suddenly his daily work seemed to grow harder and heavier,
and he said to himself: ‘Oh, if only I were a rich man, and could sleep
in a bed with silken curtains and golden tassels, how happy I should
be!’

And a voice answered him: ‘Your wish is heard; a rich man you shall be!’

At the sound of the voice the stone-cutter looked round, but could see
nobody. He thought it was all his fancy, and picked up his tools and
went home, for he did not feel inclined to do any more work that day.
But when he reached the little house where he lived, he stood still with
amazement, for instead of his wooden hut was a stately palace filled
with splendid furniture, and most splendid of all was the bed, in every
respect like the one he had envied. He was nearly beside himself with
joy, and in his new life the old one was soon forgotten.

It was now the beginning of summer, and each day the sun blazed more
fiercely. One morning the heat was so great that the stone-cutter could
scarcely breathe, and he determined he would stay at home till the
evening. He was rather dull, for he had never learned how to amuse
himself, and was peeping through the closed blinds to see what was going
on in the street, when a little carriage passed by, drawn by servants
dressed in blue and silver. In the carriage sat a prince, and over his
head a golden umbrella was held, to protect him from the sun’s rays.

‘Oh, if I were only a prince!’ said the stone-cutter to himself, as the
carriage vanished round the corner. ‘Oh, if I were only a prince, and
could go in such a carriage and have a golden umbrella held over me, how
happy I should be!’

And the voice of the mountain spirit answered: ‘Your wish is heard; a
prince you shall be.’

And a prince he was. Before his carriage rode one company of men and
another behind it; servants dressed in scarlet and gold bore him along,
the coveted umbrella was held over his head, everything heart could
desire was his. But yet it was not enough. He looked round still for
something to wish for, and when he saw that in spite of the water he
poured on his grass the rays of the sun scorched it, and that in spite
of the umbrella held over his head each day his face grew browner and
browner, he cried in his anger: ‘The sun is mightier than I; oh, if I
were only the sun!’

And the mountain spirit answered: ‘Your wish is heard; the sun you shall
be.’

And the sun he was, and felt himself proud in his power. He shot his
beams above and below, on earth and in heaven; he burnt up the grass in
the fields and scorched the faces of princes as well as of poorer folk.
But in a short time he began to grow tired of his might, for there
seemed nothing left for him to do. Discontent once more filled his soul,
and when a cloud covered his face, and hid the earth from him, he cried
in his anger: ‘Does the cloud hold captive my rays, and is it mightier
than I? Oh, that I were a cloud, and mightier than any!’

And the mountain spirit answered: ‘Your wish is heard; a cloud you shall
be!’

And a cloud he was, and lay between the sun and the earth. He caught the
sun’s beams and held them, and to his joy the earth grew green again
and flowers blossomed. But that was not enough for him, and for days and
weeks he poured forth rain till the rivers overflowed their banks, and
the crops of rice stood in water. Towns and villages were destroyed by
the power of the rain, only the great rock on the mountain side remained
unmoved. The cloud was amazed at the sight, and cried in wonder: ‘Is the
rock, then, mightier than I? Oh, if I were only the rock!’

And the mountain spirit answered: ‘Your wish is heard; the rock you
shall be!

And the rock he was, and gloried in his power. Proudly he stood, and
neither the heat of the sun nor the force of the rain could move him.
‘This is better than all!’ he said to himself. But one day he heard a
strange noise at his feet, and when he looked down to see what it could
be, he saw a stone-cutter driving tools into his surface. Even while he
looked a trembling feeling ran all through him, and a great block broke
off and fell upon the ground. Then he cried in his wrath: ‘Is a mere
child of earth mightier than a rock? Oh, if I were only a man!’

And the mountain spirit answered: ‘Your wish is heard. A man once more
you shall be!’

And a man he was, and in the sweat of his brow he toiled again at his
trade of stone-cutting. His bed was hard and his food scanty, but he
had learned to be satisfied with it, and did not long to be something
or somebody else. And as he never asked for things he had not got, or
desired to be greater and mightier than other people, he was happy at
last, and heard the voice of the mountain spirit no longer.

[From Japanische Mahrchen.]




The Gold-Bearded Man

Once upon a time there lived a great king who had a wife and one son
whom he loved very much. The boy was still young when, one day, the king
said to his wife: ‘I feel that the hour of my death draws near, and I
want you to promise that you will never take another husband but will
give up your life to the care of our son.’

The queen burst into tears at these words, and sobbed out that she would
never, never marry again, and that her son’s welfare should be her first
thought as long as she lived. Her promise comforted the troubled heart
of the king, and a few days after he died, at peace with himself and
with the world.

But no sooner was the breath out of his body, than the queen said to
herself, ‘To promise is one thing, and to keep is quite another.’ And
hardly was the last spadeful of earth flung over the coffin than she
married a noble from a neighbouring country, and got him made king
instead of the young prince. Her new husband was a cruel, wicked man,
who treated his stepson very badly, and gave him scarcely anything to
eat, and only rags to wear; and he would certainly have killed the boy
but for fear of the people.

Now by the palace grounds there ran a brook, but instead of being a
water-brook it was a milk-brook, and both rich and poor flocked to it
daily and drew as much milk as they chose. The first thing the new king
did when he was seated on the throne, was to forbid anyone to go near
the brook, on pain of being seized by the watchmen. And this was purely
spite, for there was plenty of milk for everybody.

For some days no one dared venture near the banks of the stream, but at
length some of the watchmen noticed that early in the mornings, just at
dawn, a man with a gold beard came down to the brook with a pail, which
he filled up to the brim with milk, and then vanished like smoke before
they could get near enough to see who he was. So they went and told the
king what they had seen.

At first the king would not believe their story, but as they persisted
it was quite true, he said that he would go and watch the stream that
night himself. With the earliest streaks of dawn the gold-bearded man
appeared, and filled his pail as before. Then in an instant he had
vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him up.

The king stood staring with eyes and mouth open at the place where the
man had disappeared. He had never seen him before, that was certain; but
what mattered much more was how to catch him, and what should be done
with him when he was caught? He would have a cage built as a prison for
him, and everyone would talk of it, for in other countries thieves were
put in prison, and it was long indeed since any king had used a cage. It
was all very well to plan, and even to station a watchman behind every
bush, but it was of no use, for the man was never caught. They would
creep up to him softly on the grass, as he was stooping to fill his
pail, and just as they stretched out their hands to seize him, he
vanished before their eyes. Time after time this happened, till the king
grew mad with rage, and offered a large reward to anyone who could tell
him how to capture his enemy.

The first person that came with a scheme was an old soldier who promised
the king that if he would only put some bread and bacon and a flask of
wine on the bank of the stream, the gold-bearded man would be sure to
eat and drink, and they could shake some powder into the wine, which
would send him to sleep at once. After that there was nothing to do but
to shut him in the cage.

This idea pleased the king, and he ordered bread and bacon and a flask
of drugged wine to be placed on the bank of the stream, and the watchers
to be redoubled. Then, full of hope, he awaited the result.

Everything turned out just as the soldier had said. Early next morning
the gold-bearded man came down to the brook, ate, drank, and fell sound
asleep, so that the watchers easily bound him, and carried him off to
the palace. In a moment the king had him fast in the golden cage, and
showed him, with ferocious joy, to the strangers who were visiting his
court. The poor captive, when he awoke from his drunken sleep, tried
to talk to them, but no one would listen to him, so he shut himself up
altogether, and the people who came to stare took him for a dumb man of
the woods. He wept and moaned to himself all day, and would hardly touch
food, though, in dread that he should die and escape his tormentors, the
king ordered his head cook to send him dishes from the royal table.

The gold-bearded man had been in captivity about a month, when the king
was forced to make war upon a neighbouring country, and left the palace,
to take command of his army. But before he went he called his stepson to
him and said:

‘Listen, boy, to what I tell you. While I am away I trust the care of my
prisoner to you. See that he has plenty to eat and drink, but be careful
that he does not escape, or even walk about the room. If I return and
find him gone, you will pay for it by a terrible death.’

The young prince was thankful that his stepfather was going to the war,
and secretly hoped he might never come back. Directly he had ridden
off the boy went to the room where the cage was kept, and never left it
night and day. He even played his games beside it.

One day he was shooting at a mark with a silver bow; one of his arrows
fell into the golden cage.

‘Please give me my arrow,’ said the prince, running up to him; but the
gold-bearded man answered:

‘No, I shall not give it to you unless you let me out of my cage.’

‘I may not let you out,’ replied the boy, ‘for if I do my stepfather
says that I shall have to die a horrible death when he returns from the
war. My arrow can be of no use to you, so give it to me.’

The man handed the arrow through the bars, but when he had done so he
begged harder than ever that the prince would open the door and set
him free. Indeed, he prayed so earnestly that the prince’s heart was
touched, for he was a tender-hearted boy who pitied the sorrows of other
people. So he shot back the bolt, and the gold-bearded man stepped out
into the world.

‘I will repay you a thousand fold for that good deed.’ said the man, and
then he vanished. The prince began to think what he should say to the
king when he came back; then he wondered whether it would be wise to
wait for his stepfather’s return and run the risk of the dreadful death
which had been promised him. ‘No,’ he said to himself, ‘I am afraid to
stay. Perhaps the world will be kinder to me than he has been.’

Unseen he stole out when twilight fell, and for many days he wandered
over mountains and through forests and valleys without knowing where he
was going or what he should do. He had only the berries for food, when,
one morning, he saw a wood-pigeon sitting on a bough. In an instant he
had fitted an arrow to his bow, and was taking aim at the bird, thinking
what a good meal he would make off him, when his weapon fell to the
ground at the sound of the pigeon’s voice:

‘Do not shoot, I implore you, noble prince! I have two little sons at
home, and they will die of hunger if I am not there to bring them food.’

And the young prince had pity, and unstrung his bow.

‘Oh, prince, I will repay your deed of mercy, said the grateful
wood-pigeon.

‘Poor thing! how can you repay me?’ asked the prince.

‘You have forgotten,’ answered the wood-pigeon, ‘the proverb that runs,
“mountain and mountain can never meet, but one living creature can
always come across another.”’ The boy laughed at this speech and went
his way.

By-and-by he reached the edge of a lake, and flying towards some rushes
which grew near the shore he beheld a wild duck. Now, in the days that
the king, his father, was alive, and he had everything to eat he could
possibly wish for, the prince always had wild duck for his birthday
dinner, so he quickly fitted an arrow to his bow and took a careful aim.

‘Do not shoot, I pray you, noble prince!’ cried the wild duck; ‘I have
two little sons at home; they will die of hunger if I am not there to
bring them food.’

And the prince had pity, and let fall his arrow and unstrung his bow.

‘Oh, prince! I will repay your deed of mercy,’ exclaimed the grateful
wild duck.

‘You poor thing! how can you repay me?’ asked the prince.

‘You have forgotten,’ answered the wild duck, ‘the proverb that runs,
“mountain and mountain can never meet, but one living creature can
always come across another.”’ The boy laughed at this speech and went
his way.

He had not wandered far from the shores of the lake, when he noticed a
stork standing on one leg, and again he raised his bow and prepared to
take aim.

‘Do not shoot, I pray you, noble prince,’ cried the stork; ‘I have two
little sons at home; they will die of hunger if I am not there to bring
them food.’

Again the prince was filled with pity, and this time also he did not
shoot.

‘Oh, prince, I will repay your deed of mercy,’ cried the stork.

‘You poor stork! how can you repay me?’ asked the prince.

‘You have forgotten,’ answered the stork, ‘the proverb that runs,
“mountain and mountain can never meet, but one living creature can
always come across another.”’

The boy laughed at hearing these words again, and walked slowly on. He
had not gone far, when he fell in with two discharged soldiers.

‘Where are you going, little brother?’ asked one.

‘I am seeking work,’ answered the prince.

‘So are we,’ replied the soldier. ‘We can all go together.’

The boy was glad of company and they went on, and on, and on, through
seven kingdoms, without finding anything they were able to do. At length
they reached a palace, and there was the king standing on the steps.

‘You seem to be looking for something,’ said he.

‘It is work we want,’ they all answered.

So the king told the soldiers that they might become his coachmen; but
he made the boy his companion, and gave him rooms near his own. The
soldiers were dreadfully angry when they heard this, for of course they
did not know that the boy was really a prince; and they soon began to
lay their heads together to plot his ruin.

Then they went to the king.

‘Your Majesty,’ they said, ‘we think it our duty to tell you that your
new companion has boasted to us that if he were only your steward he
would not lose a single grain of corn out of the storehouses. Now, if
your Majesty would give orders that a sack of wheat should be mixed with
one of barley, and would send for the youth, and command him to separate
the grains one from another, in two hours’ time, you would soon see what
his talk was worth.’

The king, who was weak, listened to what these wicked men had told him,
and desired the prince to have the contents of the sack piled into two
heaps by the time that he returned from his council. ‘If you succeed,’
he added, ‘you shall be my steward, but if you fail, I will put you to
death on the spot.’

The unfortunate prince declared that he had never made any such boast as
was reported; but it was all in vain. The king did not believe him, and
turning him into an empty room, bade his servants carry in the huge sack
filled with wheat and barley, and scatter them in a heap on the floor.

The prince hardly knew where to begin, and indeed if he had had a
thousand people to help him, and a week to do it in, he could never have
finished his task. So he flung himself on the ground in despair, and
covered his face with his hands.

While he lay thus, a wood-pigeon flew in through the window.

‘Why are you weeping, noble prince?’ asked the wood-pigeon.

‘How can I help weeping at the task set me by the king. For he says, if
I fail to do it, I shall die a horrible death.’

‘Oh, there is really nothing to cry about,’ answered the wood-pigeon
soothingly. ‘I am the king of the wood-pigeons, whose life you spared
when you were hungry. And now I will repay my debt, as I promised.’ So
saying he flew out of the window, leaving the prince with some hope in
his heart.

In a few minutes he returned, followed by a cloud of wood-pigeons, so
dense that it seemed to fill the room. Their king showed them what they
had to do, and they set to work so hard that the grain was sorted into
two heaps long before the council was over. When the king came back
he could not believe his eyes; but search as he might through the
two heaps, he could not find any barley among the wheat, or any wheat
amongst the barley. So he praised the prince for his industry and
cleverness, and made him his steward at once.

This made the two soldiers more envious still, and they began to hatch
another plot.

‘Your Majesty,’ they said to the king, one day, as he was standing on
the steps of the palace, ‘that fellow has been boasting again, that if
he had the care of your treasures not so much as a gold pin should ever
be lost. Put this vain fellow to the proof, we pray you, and throw the
ring from the princess’s finger into the brook, and bid him find it. We
shall soon see what his talk is worth.’

And the foolish king listened to them, and ordered the prince to be
brought before him.

‘My son,’ he said, ‘I have heard that you have declared that if I made
you keeper of my treasures you would never lose so much as a gold pin.
Now, in order to prove the truth of your words, I am going to throw the
ring from the princess’s finger into the brook, and if you do not find
it before I come back from council, you will have to die a horrible
death.’

It was no use denying that he had said anything of the kind. The king
did not believe him; in fact he paid no attention at all, and hurried
off, leaving the poor boy speechless with despair in the corner.
However, he soon remembered that though it was very unlikely that he
should find the ring in the brook, it was impossible that he should find
it by staying in the palace.

For some time the prince wandered up and down peering into the bottom of
the stream, but though the water was very clear, nothing could he see of
the ring. At length he gave it up in despair, and throwing himself down
at the foot of the tree, he wept bitterly.

‘What is the matter, dear prince?’ said a voice just above him, and
raising his head, he saw the wild duck.

‘The king of this country declares I must die a horrible death if I
cannot find the princess’s ring which he has thrown into the brook,’
answered the prince.

‘Oh, you must not vex yourself about that, for I can help you,’ replied
the bird. ‘I am the king of the wild ducks, whose life you spared,
and now it is my turn to save yours.’ Then he flew away, and in a few
minutes a great flock of wild ducks were swimming all up and down the
stream looking with all their might, and long before the king came back
from his council there it was, safe on the grass beside the prince.

At this sight the king was yet more astonished at the cleverness of his
steward, and at once promoted him to be the keeper of his jewels.

Now you would have thought that by this time the king would have been
satisfied with the prince, and would have left him alone; but people’s
natures are very hard to change, and when the two envious soldiers
came to him with a new falsehood, he was as ready to listen to them as
before.

‘Gracious Majesty,’ said they, ‘the youth whom you have made keeper of
your jewels has declared to us that a child shall be born in the palace
this night, which will be able to speak every language in the world and
to play every instrument of music. Is he then become a prophet, or a
magician, that he should know things which have not yet come to pass?’

At these words the king became more angry than ever. He had tried to
learn magic himself, but somehow or other his spells would never work,
and he was furious to hear that the prince claimed a power that he did
not possess. Stammering with rage, he ordered the youth to be brought
before him, and vowed that unless this miracle was accomplished he would
have the prince dragged at a horse’s tail until he was dead.

In spite of what the soldiers had said, the boy knew no more magic than
the king did, and his task seemed more hopeless than before. He lay
weeping in the chamber which he was forbidden to leave, when suddenly he
heard a sharp tapping at the window, and, looking up, he beheld a stork.

‘What makes you so sad, prince?’ asked he.

‘Someone has told the king that I have prophesied that a child shall be
born this night in the palace, who can speak all the languages in the
world and play every musical instrument. I am no magician to bring these
things to pass, but he says that if it does not happen he will have me
dragged through the city at a horse’s tail till I die.’

‘Do not trouble yourself,’ answered the stork. ‘I will manage to find
such a child, for I am the king of the storks whose life you spared, and
now I can repay you for it.’

The stork flew away and soon returned carrying in his beak a baby
wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid it down near a lute. In an
instant the baby stretched out its little hands and began to play a tune
so beautiful that even the prince forgot his sorrows as he listened.
Then he was given a flute and a zither, but he was just as well able
to draw music from them; and the prince, whose courage was gradually
rising, spoke to him in all the languages he knew. The baby answered him
in all, and no one could have told which was his native tongue!

The next morning the king went straight to the prince’s room, and saw
with his own eyes the wonders that baby could do. ‘If your magic can
produce such a baby,’ he said, ‘you must be greater than any wizard that
ever lived, and shall have my daughter in marriage.’ And, being a king,
and therefore accustomed to have everything the moment he wanted it,
he commanded the ceremony to be performed without delay, and a splendid
feast to be made for the bride and bridegroom. When it was over, he said
to the prince:

‘Now that you are really my son, tell me by what arts you were able to
fulfil the tasks I set you?’

‘My noble father-in-law,’ answered the prince, ‘I am ignorant of all
spells and arts. But somehow I have always managed to escape the death
which has threatened me.’ And he told the king how he had been forced to
run away from his stepfather, and how he had spared the three birds, and
had joined the two soldiers, who had from envy done their utmost to ruin
him.

The king was rejoiced in his heart that his daughter had married a
prince, and not a common man, and he chased the two soldiers away with
whips, and told them that if they ever dared to show their faces across
the borders of his kingdom, they should die the same death he had
prepared for the prince.

[From Ungarische Mahrchen]




Tritill, Litill, And The Birds

Once upon a time there lived a princess who was so beautiful and so good
that everybody loved her. Her father could hardly bear her out of his
sight, and he almost died of grief when, one day, she disappeared, and
though the whole kingdom was searched through and through, she could
not be found in any corner of it. In despair, the king ordered a
proclamation to be made that whoever could bring her back to the palace
should have her for his wife. This made the young men start afresh on
the search, but they were no more successful than before, and returned
sorrowfully to their homes.

Now there dwelt, not far from the palace, an old man who had three sons.
The two eldest were allowed by their parents to do just as they liked,
but the youngest was always obliged to give way to his brothers. When
they were all grown up, the eldest told his father that he was tired
of leading such a quiet life, and that he meant to go away and see the
world.

The old people were very unhappy at the thought that they must part with
him, but they said nothing, and began to collect all that he would
want for his travels, and were careful to add a pair of new boots. When
everything was ready, he bade them farewell, and started merrily on his
way.

For some miles his road lay through a wood, and when he left it he
suddenly came out on a bare hillside. Here he sat down to rest, and
pulling out his wallet prepared to eat his dinner.

He had only eaten a few mouthfuls when an old man badly dressed passed
by, and seeing the food, asked if the young man could not spare him a
little.

‘Not I, indeed!’ answered he; ‘why I have scarcely enough for myself. If
you want food you must earn it.’ And the beggar went on.

After the young man had finished his dinner he rose and walked on for
several hours, till he reached a second hill, where he threw himself
down on the grass, and took some bread and milk from his wallet. While
he was eating and drinking, there came by an old man, yet more wretched
than the first, and begged for a few mouthfuls. But instead of food he
only got hard words, and limped sadly away.

Towards evening the young man reached an open space in the wood, and by
this time he thought he would like some supper. The birds saw the food,
and flew round his head in numbers hoping for some crumbs, but he threw
stones at them, and frightened them off. Then he began to wonder where
he should sleep. Not in the open space he was in, for that was bare and
cold, and though he had walked a long way that day, and was tired, he
dragged himself up, and went on seeking for a shelter.

At length he saw a deep sort of hole or cave under a great rock, and
as it seemed quite empty, he went in, and lay down in a corner. About
midnight he was awakened by a noise, and peeping out he beheld a
terrible ogress approaching. He implored her not to hurt him, but to
let him stay there for the rest of the night, to which she consented, on
condition that he should spend the next day in doing any task which she
might choose to set him. To this the young man willingly agreed, and
turned over and went to sleep again. In the morning, the ogress bade him
sweep the dust out of the cave, and to have it clean before her return
in the evening, otherwise it would be the worse for him. Then she left
the cave.

The young man took the spade, and began to clean the floor of the cave,
but try as he would to move it the dirt still stuck to its place. He
soon gave up the task, and sat sulkily in the corner, wondering what
punishment the ogress would find for him, and why she had set him to do
such an impossible thing.

He had not long to wait, after the ogress came home, before he knew what
his punishment was to be! She just gave one look at the floor of the
cave, then dealt him a blow on the head which cracked his skull, and
there was an end of him.

Meanwhile his next brother grew tired of staying at home, and let his
parents have no rest till they had consented that he also should be
given some food and some new boots, and go out to see the world. On his
road, he also met the two old beggars, who prayed for a little of his
bread and milk, but this young man had never been taught to help other
people, and had made it a rule through his life to keep all he had to
himself. So he turned a deaf ear and finished his dinner.

By-and-by he, too, came to the cave, and was bidden by the ogress to
clean the floor, but he was no more successful than his brother, and his
fate was the same.

Anyone would have thought that when the old people had only one son left
that at least they would have been kind to him, even if they did not
love him. But for some reason they could hardly bear the sight of him,
though he tried much harder to make them comfortable than his brothers
had ever done. So when he asked their leave to go out into the world
they gave it at once, and seemed quite glad to be rid of him. They felt
it was quite generous of them to provide him with a pair of new boots
and some bread and milk for his journey.

Besides the pleasure of seeing the world, the youth was very anxious to
discover what had become of his brothers, and he determined to trace, as
far as he could, the way that they must have gone. He followed the road
that led from his father’s cottage to the hill, where he sat down to
rest, saying to himself: ‘I am sure my brothers must have stopped here,
and I will do the same.’

He was hungry as well as tired, and took out some of the food his
parents had given him. He was just going to begin to eat when the old
man appeared, and asked if he could not spare him a little. The young
man at once broke off some of the bread, begging the old man to sit down
beside him, and treating him as if he was an old friend. At last the
stranger rose, and said to him: ‘If ever you are in trouble call me, and
I will help you. My name is Tritill.’ Then he vanished, and the young
man could not tell where he had gone.

However, he felt he had now rested long enough, and that he had better
be going his way. At the next hill he met with the second old man, and
to him also he gave food and drink. And when this old man had finished
he said, like the first: ‘If you ever want help in the smallest thing
call to me. My name is Litill.’

The young man walked on till he reached the open space in the wood,
where he stopped for dinner. In a moment all the birds in the world
seemed flying round his head, and he crumbled some of his bread for
them and watched them as they darted down to pick it up. When they had
cleared off every crumb the largest bird with the gayest plumage said to
him: ‘If you are in trouble and need help say, “My birds, come to me!”
 and we will come.’ Then they flew away.

Towards evening the young man reached the cave where his brothers had
met their deaths, and, like them, he thought it would be a good place
to sleep in. Looking round, he saw some pieces of the dead men’s clothes
and of their bones. The sight made him shiver, but he would not move
away, and resolved to await the return of the ogress, for such he knew
she must be.

Very soon she came striding in, and he asked politely if she would give
him a night’s lodging. She answered as before, that he might stay on
condition that he should do any work that she might set him to next
morning. So the bargain being concluded, the young man curled himself up
in his corner and went to sleep.

The dirt lay thicker than ever on the floor of the cave when the young
man took the spade and began his work. He could not clear it any more
than his brothers had done, and at last the spade itself stuck in
the earth so that he could not pull it out. The youth stared at it
in despair, then the old beggar’s words flashed into his mind, and he
cried: ‘Tritill, Tritill, come and help me!’

And Tritill stood beside him and asked what he wanted. The youth told
him all his story, and when he had finished, the old man said: ‘Spade
and shovel do your duty,’ and they danced about the cave till, in a
short time, there was not a speck of dust left on the floor. As soon as
it was quite clean Tritill went his way.

With a light heart the young man awaited the return of the ogress. When
she came in she looked carefully round, and then said to him: ‘You did
not do that quite alone. However, as the floor is clean I will leave
your head on.’

The following morning the ogress told the young man that he must take
all the feathers out of her pillows and spread them to dry in the sun.
But if one feather was missing when she came back at night his head
should pay for it.’

The young man fetched the pillows, and shook out all the feathers, and
oh! what quantities of them there were! He was thinking to himself,
as he spread them out carefully, how lucky it was that the sun was so
bright and that there was no wind, when suddenly a breeze sprang up,
and in a moment the feathers were dancing high in the air. At first the
youth tried to collect them again, but he soon found that it was no use,
and he cried in despair: ‘Tritill, Litill, and all my birds, come and
help me!’

He had hardly said the words when there they all were; and when the
birds had brought all the feathers back again, Tritill, and Litill, and
he, put them away in the pillows, as the ogress had bidden him. But one
little feather they kept out, and told the young man that if the ogress
missed it he was to thrust it up her nose. Then they all vanished,
Tritill, Litill, and the birds.

Directly the ogress returned home she flung herself with all her weight
on the bed, and the whole cave quivered under her. The pillows were soft
and full instead of being empty, which surprised her, but that did not
content her. She got up, shook out the pillow-cases one by one, and
began to count the feathers that were in each. ‘If one is missing I will
have your head,’ said she, and at that the young man drew the feather
from his pocket and thrust it up her nose, crying ‘If you want your
feather, here it is.’

‘You did not sort those feathers alone,’ answered the ogress calmly;
‘however, this time I will let that pass.’

That night the young man slept soundly in his corner, and in the morning
the ogress told him that his work that day would be to slay one of her
great oxen, to cook its heart, and to make drinking cups of its horns,
before she returned home ‘There are fifty oxen,’ added she, ‘and
you must guess which of the herd I want killed. If you guess right,
to-morrow you shall be free to go where you will, and you shall choose
besides three things as a reward for your service. But if you slay the
wrong ox your head shall pay for it.’

Left alone, the young man stood thinking for a little. Then he called:
‘Tritill, Litill, come to my help!’

In a moment he saw them, far away, driving the biggest ox the youth had
ever seen. When they drew near, Tritill killed it, Litill took out its
heart for the young man to cook, and both began quickly to turn the
horns into drinking cups. The work went merrily on, and they talked
gaily, and the young man told his friends of the payment promised him
by the ogress if he had done her bidding. The old men warned him that
he must ask her for the chest which stood at the foot of her bed, for
whatever lay on the top of the bed, and for what lay under the side of
the cave. The young man thanked them for their counsel, and Tritill and
Litill then took leave of him, saying that for the present he would need
them no more.

Scarcely had they disappeared when the ogress came back, and found
everything ready just as she had ordered. Before she sat down to eat the
bullock’s heart she turned to the young man, and said: ‘You did not do
that all alone, my friend; but, nevertheless, I will keep my word, and
to-morrow you shall go your way.’ So they went to bed and slept till
dawn.

When the sun rose the ogress awoke the young man, and called to him to
choose any three things out of her house.

‘I choose,’ answered he, ‘the chest which stands at the foot of your
bed; whatever lies on the top of the bed, and whatever is under the side
of the cave.’

‘You did not choose those things by yourself, my friend,’ said the
ogress; ‘but what I have promised, that will I do.’

And then she gave him his reward.

‘The thing which lay on the top of the bed’ turned out to be the lost
princess. ‘The chest which stood at the foot of the bed’ proved full of
gold and precious stones; and ‘what was under the side of the cave’ he
found to be a great ship, with oars and sails that went of itself as
well on land as in the water. ‘You are the luckiest man that ever was
born,’ said the ogress as she went out of the cave as usual.

With much difficulty the youth put the heavy chest on his shoulders and
carried it on board the ship, the princess walking by his side. Then he
took the helm and steered the vessel back to her father’s kingdom. The
king’s joy at receiving back his lost daughter was so great that he
almost fainted, but when he recovered himself he made the young man tell
him how everything had really happened. ‘You have found her, and you
shall marry her,’ said the king; and so it was done. And this is the end
of the story.

[From Ungarische Mahrchen.]




The Three Robes

Long, long ago, a king and queen reigned over a large and powerful
country. What their names were nobody knows, but their son was called
Sigurd, and their daughter Lineik, and these young people were famed
throughout the whole kingdom for their wisdom and beauty.

There was only a year between them, and they loved each other so much
that they could do nothing apart. When they began to grow up the king
gave them a house of their own to live in, with servants and carriages,
and everything they could possibly want.

For many years they all lived happily together, and then the queen fell
ill, and knew that she would never get better.

‘Promise me two things,’ she said one day to the king; ‘one, that if
you marry again, as indeed you must, you will not choose as your wife a
woman from some small state or distant island, who knows nothing of the
world, and will be taken up with thoughts of her grandeur. But rather
seek out a princess of some great kingdom, who has been used to courts
all her life, and holds them at their true worth. The other thing I have
to ask is, that you will never cease to watch over our children, who
will soon become your greatest joy.’

These were the queen’s last words, and a few hours later she was dead.
The king was so bowed down with sorrow that he would not attend even to
the business of the kingdom, and at last his Prime Minister had to tell
him that the people were complaining that they had nobody to right their
wrongs. ‘You must rouse yourself, sir,’ went on the minister, ‘and put
aside your own sorrows for the sake of your country.’

‘You do not spare me,’ answered the king; ‘but what you say is just, and
your counsel is good. I have heard that men say, likewise, that it will
be for the good of my kingdom for me to marry again, though my heart
will never cease to be with my lost wife. But it was her wish also;
therefore, to you I entrust the duty of finding a lady fitted to share
my throne; only, see that she comes neither from a small town nor a
remote island.’

So an embassy was prepared, with the minister at its head, to visit the
greatest courts in the world, and to choose out a suitable princess. But
the vessel which carried them had not been gone many days when a thick
fog came on, and the captain could see neither to the right nor to the
left. For a whole month the ship drifted about in darkness, till at
length the fog lifted and they beheld a cliff jutting out just in front.
On one side of the cliff lay a sheltered bay, in which the vessel was
soon anchored, and though they did not know where they were, at any rate
they felt sure of fresh fruit and water.

The minister left the rest of his followers on board the ship, and
taking a small boat rowed himself to land, in order to look about him
and to find out if the island was really as deserted as it seemed.

He had not gone far, when he heard the sound of music, and, turning
in its direction, he saw a woman of marvellous beauty sitting on a low
stool playing on a harp, while a girl beside her sang. The minister
stopped and greeted the lady politely, and she replied with
friendliness, asking him why he had come to such an out-of-the way
place. In answer he told her of the object of his journey.

‘I am in the same state as your master,’ replied the lady; ‘I was
married to a mighty king who ruled over this land, till Vikings
[sea-robbers] came and slew him and put all the people to death. But I
managed to escape, and hid myself here with my daughter.’

And the daughter listened, and said softly to her mother: ‘Are you
speaking the truth now?’

‘Remember your promise,’ answered the mother angrily, giving her a pinch
which was unseen by the minister.

‘What is your name, madam?’ asked he, much touched by this sad story.

‘Blauvor,’ she replied ‘and my daughter is called Laufer’; and then she
inquired the name of the minister, and of the king his master. After
this they talked of many things, and the lady showed herself learned
in all that a woman should know, and even in much that men only were
commonly taught. ‘What a wife she would make for the king,’ thought the
minister to himself, and before long he had begged the honour of her
hand for his master. She declared at first that she was too unworthy to
accept the position offered her, and that the minister would soon repent
his choice; but this only made him the more eager, and in the end he
gained her consent, and prevailed on her to return with him at once to
his own country.

The minister then conducted the mother and daughter back to the ship;
the anchor was raised, the sails spread, and a fair wind was behind
them.

Now that the fog had lifted they could see as they looked back that,
except just along the shore, the island was bare and deserted and not
fit for men to live in; but about that nobody cared. They had a quick
voyage, and in six days they reached the land, and at once set out for
the capital, a messenger being sent on first by the minister to inform
the king of what had happened.

When his Majesty’s eyes fell on the two beautiful women, clad in dresses
of gold and silver, he forgot his sorrows and ordered preparations for
the wedding to be made without delay. In his joy he never remembered to
inquire in what kind of country the future queen had been found. In fact
his head was so turned by the beauty of the two ladies that when the
invitations were sent by his orders to all the great people in the
kingdom, he did not even recollect his two children, who remained shut
up in their own house!

After the marriage the king ceased to have any will of his own and
did nothing without consulting his wife. She was present at all his
councils, and her opinion was asked before making peace or war. But when
a few months had passed the king began to have doubts as to whether the
minister’s choice had really been a wise one, and he noticed that his
children lived more and more in their palace and never came near their
stepmother.

It always happens that if a person’s eyes are once opened they see a
great deal more than they ever expected; and soon it struck the king
that the members of his court had a way of disappearing one after the
other without any reason. At first he had not paid much attention to the
fact, but merely appointed some fresh person to the vacant place. As,
however, man after man vanished without leaving any trace, he began to
grow uncomfortable and to wonder if the queen could have anything to do
with it.

Things were in this state when, one day, his wife said to him that it
was time for him to make a progress through his kingdom and see that his
governors were not cheating him of the money that was his due. ‘And
you need not be anxious about going,’ she added, ‘for I will rule the
country while you are away as carefully as you could yourself.’

The king had no great desire to undertake this journey, but the queen’s
will was stronger than his, and he was too lazy to make a fight for it.
So he said nothing and set about his preparations, ordering his finest
ship to be ready to carry him round the coast. Still his heart was
heavy, and he felt uneasy, though he could not have told why; and the
night before he was to start he went to the children’s palace to take
leave of his son and daughter.

He had not seen them for some time, and they gave him a warm welcome,
for they loved him dearly and he had always been kind to them. They
had much to tell him, but after a while he checked their merry talk and
said:

‘If I should never come back from this journey I fear that it may not
be safe for you to stay here; so directly there are no more hopes of my
return go instantly and take the road eastwards till you reach a high
mountain, which you must cross. Once over the mountain keep along by the
side of a little bay till you come to two trees, one green and the other
red, standing in a thicket, and so far back from the road that without
looking for them you would never see them. Hide each in the trunk of one
of the trees and there you will be safe from all your enemies.’

With these words the king bade them farewell and entered sadly into
his ship. For a few days the wind was fair, and everything seemed going
smoothly; then, suddenly, a gale sprang up, and a fearful storm of
thunder and lightning, such as had never happened within the memory of
man. In spite of the efforts of the frightened sailors the vessel was
driven on the rocks, and not a man on board was saved.

That very night Prince Sigurd had a dream, in which he thought his
father appeared to him in dripping clothes, and, taking the crown from
his head, laid it at his son’s feet, leaving the room as silently as he
had entered it.

Hastily the prince awoke his sister Lineik, and they agreed that their
father must be dead, and that they must lose no time in obeying his
orders and putting themselves in safety. So they collected their jewels
and a few clothes and left the house without being observed by anyone.


They hurried on till they arrived at the mountain without once looking
back. Then Sigurd glanced round and saw that their stepmother was
following them, with an expression on her face which made her uglier
than the ugliest old witch. Between her and them lay a thick wood, and
Sigurd stopped for a moment to set it on fire; then he and his sister
hastened on more swiftly than before, till they reached the grove with
the red and green trees, into which they jumped, and felt that at last
they were safe.

Now, at that time there reigned over Greece a king who was very rich
and powerful, although his name has somehow been forgotten. He had two
children, a son and a daughter, who were more beautiful and accomplished
than any Greeks had been before, and they were the pride of their
father’s heart.

The prince had no sooner grown out of boyhood than he prevailed on his
father to make war during the summer months on a neighbouring nation,
so as to give him a chance of making himself famous. In winter, however,
when it was difficult to get food and horses in that wild country, the
army was dispersed, and the prince returned home.

During one of these wars he had heard reports of the Princess Lineik’s
beauty, and he resolved to seek her out, and to ask for her hand in
marriage. All this Blauvor, the queen, found out by means of her black
arts, and when the prince drew near the capital she put a splendid dress
on her own daughter and then went to meet her guest.

She bade him welcome to her palace, and when they had finished supper
she told him of the loss of her husband, and how there was no one left
to govern the kingdom but herself.

‘But where is the Princess Lineik?’ asked the prince when she had ended
her tale.

‘Here,’ answered the queen, bringing forward the girl, whom she had
hitherto kept in the background.

The prince looked at her and was rather disappointed. The maiden was
pretty enough, but not much out of the common.

‘Oh, you must not wonder at her pale face and heavy eyes,’ said the
queen hastily, for she saw what was passing in his mind. ‘She has never
got over the loss of both father and mother.’

‘That shows a good heart,’ thought the prince; ‘and when she is happy
her beauty will soon come back.’ And without any further delay he begged
the queen to consent to their betrothal, for the marriage must take
place in his own country.

The queen was enchanted. She had hardly expected to succeed so soon, and
she at once set about her preparations. Indeed she wished to travel with
the young couple, to make sure that nothing should go wrong; but here
the prince was firm, that he would take no one with him but Laufer, whom
he thought was Lineik.

They soon took leave of the queen, and set sail in a splendid ship; but
in a short time a dense fog came on, and in the dark the captain steered
out of his course, and they found themselves in a bay which was quite
strange to all the crew. The prince ordered a boat to be lowered, and
went on shore to look about him, and it was not long before he noticed
the two beautiful trees, quite different from any that grew in Greece.
Calling one of the sailors, he bade him cut them down, and carry them on
board the ship. This was done, and as the sky was now clear they put out
to sea, and arrived in Greece without any more adventures.

The news that the prince had brought home a bride had gone before them,
and they were greeted with flowery arches and crowns of coloured lights.
The king and queen met them on the steps of the palace, and conducted
the girl to the women’s house, where she would have to remain until her
marriage. The prince then went to his own rooms and ordered that the
trees should be brought in to him.

The next morning the prince bade his attendants bring his future bride
to his own apartments, and when she came he gave her silk which she was
to weave into three robes--one red, one green, and one blue--and these
must all be ready before the wedding. The blue one was to be done first
and the green last, and this was to be the most splendid of all, ‘for I
will wear it at our marriage,’ said he.

Left alone, Laufer sat and stared at the heap of shining silk before
her. She did not know how to weave, and burst into tears as she thought
that everything would be discovered, for Lineik’s skill in weaving was
as famous as her beauty. As she sat with her face hidden and her body
shaken by sobs, Sigurd in his tree heard her and was moved to pity.
‘Lineik, my sister,’ he called, softly, ‘Laufer is weeping; help her, I
pray you.’

‘Have you forgotten the wrongs her mother did to us’ answered Lineik,
‘and that it is owing to her that we are banished from home?’

But she was not really unforgiving, and very soon she slid quietly out
of her hiding-place, and taking the silk from Laufer’s hands began to
weave it. So quick and clever was she that the blue dress was not only
woven but embroidered, and Lineik was safe back in her tree before the
prince returned.

‘It is the most beautiful work I have ever seen,’ said he, taking up a
bit. ‘And I am sure that the red one will be still better, because the
stuff is richer,’ and with a low bow he left the room.

Laufer had hoped secretly that when the prince had seen the blue dress
finished he would have let her off the other two; but when she found she
was expected to fulfil the whole task, her heart sank and she began to
cry loudly. Again Sigurd heard her, and begged Lineik to come to her
help, and Lineik, feeling sorry for her distress, wove and embroidered
the second dress as she had done the first, mixing gold thread and
precious stones till you could hardly see the red of the stuff. When it
was done she glided into her tree just as the prince came in.

‘You are as quick as you are clever,’ said he, admiringly. ‘This looks
as if it had been embroidered by the fairies! But as the green robe must
outshine the other two I will give you three days in which to finish it.
After it is ready we will be married at once.’

Now, as he spoke, there rose up in Laufer’s mind all the unkind things
that she and her mother had done to Lineik. Could she hope that they
would be forgotten, and that Lineik would come to her rescue for the
third time? And perhaps Lineik, who had not forgotten the past either,
might have left her alone, to get on as best she could, had not Sigurd,
her brother, implored her to help just once more. So Lineik again slid
out of her tree, and, to Laufer’s great relief, set herself to work.
When the shining green silk was ready she caught the sun’s rays and the
moon’s beams on the point of her needle and wove them into a pattern
such as no man had ever seen. But it took a long time, and on the third
morning, just as she was putting the last stitches into the last flower
the prince came in.

Lineik jumped up quickly, and tried to get past him back to her tree;
but the folds of the silk were wrapped round her, and she would have
fallen had not the prince caught her.

‘I have thought for some time that all was not quite straight here,’
said he. ‘Tell me who you are, and where you come from?’

Lineik then told her name and her story. When she had ended the prince
turned angrily to Laufer, and declared that, as a punishment for her
wicked lies, she deserved to die a shameful death.

But Laufer fell at his feet and begged for mercy. It was her mother’s
fault, she said: ‘It was she, and not I, who passed me off as the
Princess Lineik. The only lie I have ever told you was about the robes,
and I do not deserve death for that.’

She was still on her knees when Prince Sigurd entered the room.
He prayed the Prince of Greece to forgive Laufer, which he did,
on condition that Lineik would consent to marry him. ‘Not till my
stepmother is dead,’ answered she, ‘for she has brought misery to all
that came near her.’ Then Laufer told them that Blauvor was not the wife
of a king, but an ogress who had stolen her from a neighbouring palace
and had brought her up as her daughter. And besides being an ogress she
was also a witch, and by her black arts had sunk the ship in which the
father of Sigurd and Lineik had set sail. It was she who had caused
the disappearance of the courtiers, for which no one could account, by
eating them during the night, and she hoped to get rid of all the people
in the country, and then to fill the land with ogres and ogresses like
herself.

So Prince Sigurd and the Prince of Greece collected an army swiftly,
and marched upon the town where Blauvor had her palace. They came so
suddenly that no one knew of it, and if they had, Blauvor had eaten most
of the strong men; and others, fearful of something they could not tell
what, had secretly left the place. Therefore she was easily captured,
and the next day was beheaded in the market-place. Afterwards the two
princes marched back to Greece.

Lineik had no longer any reason for putting off her wedding, and married
the Prince of Greece at the same time that Sigurd married the princess.
And Laufer remained with Lineik as her friend and sister, till they
found a husband for her in a great nobleman; and all three couples lived
happily until they died.

[From Islandische Muhrchen Poestion Wien.]





The Six Hungry Beasts

Once upon a time there lived a man who dwelt with his wife in a little
hut, far away from any neighbours. But they did not mind being alone,
and would have been quite happy, if it had not been for a marten, who
came every night to their poultry yard, and carried off one of their
fowls. The man laid all sorts of traps to catch the thief, but instead
of capturing the foe, it happened that one day he got caught himself,
and falling down, struck his head against a stone, and was killed.

Not long after the marten came by on the look out for his supper. Seeing
the dead man lying there, he said to himself: ‘That is a prize, this
time I have done well’; and dragging the body with great difficulty to
the sledge which was waiting for him, drove off with his booty. He
had not driven far when he met a squirrel, who bowed and said:
‘Good-morning, godfather! what have you got behind you?’

The marten laughed and answered: ‘Did you ever hear anything so strange?
The old man that you see here set traps about his hen-house, thinking
to catch me but he fell into his own trap, and broke his own neck. He is
very heavy; I wish you would help me to draw the sledge.’ The squirrel
did as he was asked, and the sledge moved slowly along.

By-and-by a hare came running across a field, but stopped to see what
wonderful thing was coming. ‘What have you got there?’ she asked, and
the marten told his story and begged the hare to help them pull.

The hare pulled her hardest, and after a while they were joined by a
fox, and then by a wolf, and at length a bear was added to the company,
and he was of more use than all the other five beasts put together.
Besides, when the whole six had supped off the man he was not so heavy
to draw.

The worst of it was that they soon began to get hungry again, and the
wolf, who was the hungriest of all, said to the rest:

‘What shall we eat now, my friends, as there is no more man?’

‘I suppose we shall have to eat the smallest of us,’ replied the bear,
and the marten turned round to seize the squirrel who was much smaller
than any of the rest. But the squirrel ran up a tree like lightning,
and the marten remembering, just in time, that he was the next in size,
slipped quick as thought into a hole in the rocks.

‘What shall we eat now?’ asked the wolf again, when he had recovered
from his surprise.

‘We must eat the smallest of us,’ repeated the bear, stretching out
a paw towards the hare; but the hare was not a hare for nothing, and
before the paw had touched her, she had darted deep into the wood.

Now that the squirrel, the marten, and the hare had all gone, the fox
was the smallest of the three who were left, and the wolf and the bear
explained that they were very sorry, but they would have to eat him.
Michael, the fox, did not run away as the others had done, but smiled
in a friendly manner, and remarked: ‘Things taste so stale in a valley;
one’s appetite is so much better up on a mountain.’ The wolf and the
bear agreed, and they turned out of the hollow where they had been
walking, and chose a path that led up the mountain side. The fox trotted
cheerfully by his two big companions, but on the way he managed to
whisper to the wolf: ‘Tell me, Peter, when I am eaten, what will you
have for your next dinner?’

This simple question seemed to put out the wolf very much. What would
they have for their next dinner, and, what was more important still, who
would there be to eat it? They had made a rule always to dine off the
smallest of the party, and when the fox was gone, why of course, he was
smaller than the bear.

These thoughts flashed quickly through his head, and he said hastily:

‘Dear brothers, would it not be better for us to live together as
comrades, and everyone to hunt for the common dinner? Is not my plan a
good one?’

‘It is the best thing I have ever heard,’ answered the fox; and as they
were two to one the bear had to be content, though in his heart he would
much have preferred a good dinner at once to any friendship.

For a few days all went well; there was plenty of game in the forest,
and even the wolf had as much to eat as he could wish. One morning the
fox as usual was going his rounds when he noticed a tall, slender
tree, with a magpie’s nest in one of the top branches. Now the fox was
particularly fond of young magpies, and he set about making a plan by
which he could have one for dinner. At last he hit upon something which
he thought would do, and accordingly he sat down near the tree and began
to stare hard at it.

‘What are you looking at, Michael?’ asked the magpie, who was watching
him from a bough.

‘I’m looking at this tree. It has just struck me what a good tree it
would be to cut my new snow-shoes out of.’ But at this answer the magpie
screeched loudly, and exclaimed: ‘Oh, not this tree, dear brother, I
implore you! I have built my nest on it, and my young ones are not yet
old enough to fly.’

‘It will not be easy to find another tree that would make such good
snow-shoes,’ answered the fox, cocking his head on one side, and gazing
at the tree thoughtfully; ‘but I do not like to be ill-natured, so
if you will give me one of your young ones I will seek my snow-shoes
elsewhere.’

Not knowing what to do the poor magpie had to agree, and flying back,
with a heavy heart, he threw one of his young ones out of the nest. The
fox seized it in his mouth and ran off in triumph, while the magpie,
though deeply grieved for the loss of his little one, found some comfort
in the thought that only a bird of extraordinary wisdom would have
dreamed of saving the rest by the sacrifice of the one. But what do you
think happened? Why, a few days later, Michael the fox might have been
seen sitting under the very same tree, and a dreadful pang shot through
the heart of the magpie as he peeped at him from a hole in the nest.

‘What are you looking at?’ he asked in a trembling voice.

‘At this tree. I was just thinking what good snowshoes it would make,’
answered the fox in an absent voice, as if he was not thinking of what
he was saying.

‘Oh, my brother, my dear little brother, don’t do that,’ cried the
magpie, hopping about in his anguish. ‘You know you promised only a few
days ago that you would get your snow-shoes elsewhere.’

‘So I did; but though I have searched through the whole forest, there
is not a single tree that is as good as this. I am very sorry to put you
out, but really it is not my fault. The only thing I can do for you is
to offer to give up my snow-shoes altogether if you will throw me down
one of your young ones in exchange.’

And the poor magpie, in spite of his wisdom, was obliged to throw
another of his little ones out of the nest; and this time he was not
able to console himself with the thought that he had been much cleverer
than other people.

He sat on the edge of his nest, his head drooping and his feathers all
ruffled, looking the picture of misery. Indeed he was so different from
the gay, jaunty magpie whom every creature in the forest knew, that a
crow who was flying past, stopped to inquire what was the matter. ‘Where
are the two young ones who are not in the nest?’ asked he.

‘I had to give them to the fox,’ replied the magpie in a quivering
voice; ‘he has been here twice in the last week, and wanted to cut down
my tree for the purpose of making snow-shoes out of it, and the only way
I could buy him off was by giving him two of my young ones.’

Oh, you fool,’ cried the crow, ‘the fox was only trying to frighten you.
He could not have cut down the tree, for he has neither axe nor knife.
Dear me, to think that you have sacrificed your young ones for nothing!
Dear, dear! how could you be so very foolish!’ And the crow flew away,
leaving the magpie overcome with shame and sorrow.

The next morning the fox came to his usual place in front of the tree,
for he was hungry, and a nice young magpie would have suited him very
well for dinner. But this time there was no cowering, timid magpie to do
his bidding, but a bird with his head erect and a determined voice.

‘My good fox,’ said the magpie putting his head on one side and looking
very wise--‘my good fox, if you take my advice, you will go home as fast
as you can. There is no use your talking about making snow-shoes out of
this tree, when you have neither knife nor axe to cut it down with!’

‘Who has been teaching you wisdom?’ asked the fox, forgetting his
manners in his surprise at this new turn of affairs.

‘The crow, who paid me a visit yesterday,’ answered the magpie.

‘The crow was it?’ said the fox, ‘well, the crow had better not meet me
for the future, or it may be the worse for him.’

As Michael, the cunning beast, had no desire to continue the
conversation, he left the forest; but when he came to the high road he
laid himself at full length on the ground, stretching himself out, just
as if he was dead. Very soon he noticed, out of the corner of his eye,
that the crow was flying towards him, and he kept stiller and stiffer
than ever, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. The crow, who
wanted her supper very badly, hopped quickly towards him, and was
stooping forward to peck at his tongue when the fox gave a snap, and
caught him by the wing. The crow knew that it was of no use struggling,
so he said:

‘Ah, brother, if you are really going to eat me, do it, I beg of you, in
good style. Throw me first over this precipice, so that my feathers may
be strewn here and there, and that all who see them may know that your
cunning is greater than mine.’ This idea pleased the fox, for he had
not yet forgiven the crow for depriving him of the young magpies, so
he carried the crow to the edge of the precipice and threw him over,
intending to go round by a path he knew and pick him up at the bottom.
But no sooner had the fox let the crow go than he soared up into the
air, and hovering just out of teach of his enemy’s jaws, he cried with a
laugh: ‘Ah, fox! you know well how to catch, but you cannot keep.’

With his tail between his legs, the fox slunk into the forest. He did
not know where to look for a dinner, as he guessed that the crow would
have flown back before him, and put every one on their guard. The
notion of going to bed supperless was very unpleasant to him, and he was
wondering what in the world he should do, when he chanced to meet with
his old friend the bear.

This poor animal had just lost his wife, and was going to get some one
to mourn over her, for he felt her loss greatly. He had hardly left his
comfortable cave when he had come across the wolf, who inquired where he
was going. ‘I am going to find a mourner,’ answered the bear, and told
his story.

‘Oh, let me mourn for you,’ cried the wolf.

‘Do you understand how to howl?’ said the bear.

‘Oh, certainly, godfather, certainly,’ replied the wolf; but the bear
said he should like to have a specimen of his howling, to make sure that
he knew his business. So the wolf broke forth in his song of lament:
‘Hu, hu, hu, hum, hoh,’ he shouted, and he made such a noise that the
bear put up his paws to his ears, and begged him to stop.

‘You have no idea how it is done. Be off with you,’ said he angrily.

A little further down the road the hare was resting in a ditch, but when
she saw the bear, she came out and spoke to him, and inquired why he
looked so sad. The bear told her of the loss of his wife, and of his
search after a mourner that could lament over her in the proper style.
The hare instantly offered her services, but the bear took care to ask
her to give him a proof of her talents, before he accepted them. ‘Pu,
pu, pu, pum, poh,’ piped the hare; but this time her voice was so small
that the bear could hardly hear her. ‘That is not what I want,’ he said,
‘I will bid you good morning.’

It was after this that the fox came up, and he also was struck with
the bear’s altered looks, and stopped. ‘What is the matter with you,
godfather?’ asked he, ‘and where are you going?’

‘I am going to find a mourner for my wife,’ answered the bear.

‘Oh, do choose me,’ cried the fox, and the bear looked at him
thoughtfully.

‘Can you howl well?’ he said.

‘Yes, beautifully, just listen,’ and the fox lifted up his voice and
sang weeping: ‘Lou, lou, lou! the famous spinner, the baker of good
cakes, the prudent housekeeper is torn from her husband! Lou, lou, lou!
she is gone! she is gone!’

‘Now at last I have found some one who knows the art of lamentation,’
exclaimed the bear, quite delighted; and he led the fox back to his
cave, and bade him begin his lament over the dead wife who was lying
stretched out on her bed of grey moss. But this did not suit the fox at
all.

‘One cannot wail properly in this cave,’ he said, ‘it is much too damp.
You had better take the body to the storehouse. It will sound much finer
there.’ So the bear carried his wife’s body to the storehouse, while
he himself went back to the cave to cook some pap for the mourner. From
time to time he paused and listened for the sound of wailing, but he
heard nothing. At last he went to the door of the storehouse, and called
to the fox:

‘Why don’t you howl, godfather? What are you about?’

And the fox, who, instead of weeping over the dead bear, had been
quietly eating her, answered:

‘There only remain now her legs and the soles of her feet. Give me five
minutes more and they will be gone also!’

When the bear heard that he ran back for the kitchen ladle, to give
the traitor the beating he deserved. But as he opened the door of the
storehouse, Michael was ready for him, and slipping between his legs,
dashed straight off into the forest. The bear, seeing that the traitor
had escaped, flung the ladle after him, and it just caught the tip of
his tail, and that is how there comes to be a spot of white on the tails
of all foxes.

[From Finnische Mahrchen.]




How The Beggar Boy Turned Into Count Piro

Once upon a time there lived a man who had only one son, a lazy, stupid
boy, who would never do anything he was told. When the father was dying,
he sent for his son and told him that he would soon be left alone in
the world, with no possessions but the small cottage they lived in and a
pear tree which grew behind it, and that, whether he liked it or not, he
would have to work, or else he would starve. Then the old man died.

But the boy did not work; instead, he idled about as before, contenting
himself with eating the pears off his tree, which, unlike other pear
trees before or since, bore fruit the whole year round. Indeed, the
pears were so much finer than any you could get even in the autumn, that
one day, in the middle of the winter, they attracted the notice of a fox
who was creeping by.

‘Dear me; what lovely pears!’ he said to the youth. ‘Do give me a basket
of them. It will bring you luck!’

‘Ah, little fox, but if I give you a basketful, what am I to eat?’ asked
the boy.

‘Oh, trust me, and do what I tell you,’ said the fox; ‘I know it will
bring you luck.’ So the boy got up and picked some of the ripest pears
and put them into a rush basket. The fox thanked him, and, taking the
basket in his mouth, trotted off to the king’s palace and made his way
straight to the king.

‘Your Majesty, my master sends you a few of his best pears, and begs you
will graciously accept them,’ he said, laying the basket at the feet of
the king.

‘Pears! at this season?’ cried the king, peering down to look at them;
‘and, pray, who is your master?’

‘The Count Piro,’ answered the fox.

‘But how does he manage to get pears in midwinter?’ asked the king.

‘Oh, he has everything he wants,’ replied the fox; ‘he is richer even
than you are, your Majesty.’

‘Then what can I send him in return for his pears?’ said the king.

‘Nothing, your Majesty, or you would hurt his feelings,’ answered the
fox.

‘Well, tell him how heartily I thank him, and how much I shall enjoy
them.’ And the fox went away.

He trotted back to the cottage with his empty basket and told his tale,
but the youth did not seem as pleased to hear as the fox was to tell.

‘But, my dear little fox,’ said he, ‘you have brought me nothing in
return, and I am so hungry!’

‘Let me alone,’ replied the fox; ‘I know what I am doing. You will see,
it will bring you luck.’

A few days after this the fox came back again.

‘I must have another basket of pears,’ said he.

‘Ah, little fox, what shall I eat if you take away all my pears?’
answered the youth.

‘Be quiet, it will be all right,’ said the fox; and taking a bigger
basket than before, he filled it quite full of pears. Then he picked it
up in his mouth, and trotted off to the palace.

‘Your Majesty, as you seemed to like the first basket of pears, I have
brought you some more,’ said he, ‘with my master, the Count Piro’s
humble respects.’

‘Now, surely it is not possible to grow such pears with deep snow on the
ground?’ cried the king.

‘Oh, that never affects them,’ answered the fox lightly; ‘he is rich
enough to do anything. But to-day he sends me to ask if you will give
him your daughter in marriage?’

‘If he is so much richer than I am,’ said the king, ‘I shall be obliged
to refuse. My honour would not permit me to accept his offer.’

‘Oh, your Majesty, you must not think that,’ replied the fox; ‘and do
not let the question of a dowry trouble you. The Count Piro would not
dream of asking anything but the hand of the princess.’

‘Is he really so rich that he can do without a dowry?’ asked the king.

‘Did I not tell your Majesty that he was richer than you?’ answered the
fox reproachfully.

‘Well, beg him to come here, that we may talk together,’ said the king.

So the fox went back to the young man and said: ‘I have told the king
that you are Count Piro, and have asked his daughter in marriage.’

‘Oh, little fox, what have you done?’ cried the youth in dismay; ‘when
the king sees me he will order my head to be cut off.’

‘Oh, no, he won’t!’ replied the fox; ‘just do as I tell you.’ And he
went off to the town, and stopped at the house of the best tailor.

‘My master, the Count Piro, begs that you will send him at once the
finest coat that you have in your shop,’ said the fox, putting on his
grandest air, ‘and if it fits him I will call and pay for it to-morrow!
Indeed, as he is in a great hurry, perhaps it might be as well if I took
it round myself.’ The tailor was not accustomed to serve counts, and
he at once got out all the coats he had ready. The fox chose out a
beautiful one of white and silver, bade the tailor tie it up in a
parcel, and carrying the string in his teeth, he left the shop, and went
to a horse-dealer’s, whom he persuaded to send his finest horse round to
the cottage, saying that the king had bidden his master to the palace.

Very unwillingly the young man put on the coat and mounted the horse,
and rode up to meet the king, with the fox running before him.

‘What am I to say to his Majesty, little fox?’ he asked anxiously; ‘you
know that I have never spoken to a king before.’

‘Say nothing,’ answered the fox, ‘but leave the talking to me. “Good
morning, your Majesty,” will be all that is necessary for you.’

By this time they had reached the palace, and the king came to the door
to receive Count Piro, and led him to the great hall, where a feast was
spread. The princess was already seated at the table, but was as dumb as
Count Piro himself.

‘The Count speaks very little,’ the king said at last to the fox, and
the fox answered: ‘He has so much to think about in the management of
his property that he cannot afford to talk like ordinary people.’ The
king was quite satisfied, and they finished dinner, after which Count
Piro and the fox took leave.

The next morning the fox came round again.

‘Give me another basket of pears,’ he said.

‘Very well, little fox; but remember it may cost me my life,’ answered
the youth.

‘Oh, leave it to me, and do as I tell you, and you will see that in the
end it will bring you luck,’ answered the fox; and plucking the pears he
took them up to the king.

‘My master, Count Piro, sends you these pears,’ he said, ‘and asks for
an answer to his proposal.’

‘Tell the count that the wedding can take place whenever he pleases,’
answered the king, and, filled with pride, the fox trotted back to
deliver his message.

‘But I can’t bring the princess here, little fox?’ cried the young man
in dismay.

‘You leave everything to me,’ answered the fox; ‘have I not managed
well so far?’

And up at the palace preparations were made for a grand wedding, and the
youth was married to the princess.

After a week of feasting, the fox said to the king: ‘My master wishes to
take his young bride home to his own castle.’

‘Very well, I will accompany them,’ replied the king; and he ordered his
courtiers and attendants to get ready, and the best horses in his stable
to be brought out for himself, Count Piro and the princess. So they all
set out, and rode across the plain, the little fox running before them.

He stopped at the sight of a great flock of sheep, which was feeding
peacefully on the rich grass. ‘To whom do these sheep belong?’ asked he
of the shepherd. ‘To an ogre,’ replied the shepherd.

‘Hush,’ said the fox in a mysterious manner. ‘Do you see that crowd
of armed men riding along? If you were to tell them that those sheep
belonged to an ogre, they would kill them, and then the ogre would kill
you! If they ask, just say the sheep belong to Count Piro; it will be
better for everybody.’ And the fox ran hastily on, as he did not wish to
be seen talking to the shepherd.

Very soon the king came up.

‘What beautiful sheep!’ he said, drawing up his horse. ‘I have none so
fine in my pastures. Whose are they?’

‘Count Piro’s,’ answered the shepherd, who did not know the king.

‘Well, he must be a very rich man,’ thought the king to himself, and
rejoiced that he had such a wealthy son-in-law.

Meanwhile the fox had met with a huge herd of pigs, snuffling about the
roots of some trees.

‘To whom do these pigs belong?’ he asked of the swineherd.

‘To an ogre,’ replied he.

‘Hush!’ whispered the fox, though nobody could hear him; ‘do you see
that troop of armed men riding towards us? If you tell them that the
pigs belong to the ogre they will kill them, and then the ogre will kill
you! If they ask, just say that the pigs belong to Count Piro; it will
be better for everybody.’ And he ran hastily on.

Soon after the king rode up.

‘What fine pigs!’ he said, reining in his horse. ‘They are fatter than
any I have got on my farms. Whose are they?’

‘Count Piro’s,’ answered the swineherd, who did not know the king; and
again the king felt he was lucky to have such a rich son-in-law.

This time the fox ran faster than before, and in a flowery meadow he
found a troop of horses feeding. ‘Whose horses are these?’ he asked of
the man who was watching them.

‘An ogre’s,’ replied he.

‘Hush!’ whispered the fox, ‘do you see that crowd of armed men coming
towards us? If you tell them the horses belong to an ogre they will
drive them off, and then the ogre will kill you! If they ask, just say
they are Count Piro’s; it will be better for everybody.’ And he ran on
again.

In a few minutes the king rode up.

‘Oh, what lovely creatures! how I wish they were mine!’ he exclaimed.
‘Whose are they?’

Count Piro’s,’ answered the man, who did not know the king; and the
king’s heart leapt as he thought that if they belonged to his rich
son-in-law they were as good as his.

At last the fox came to the castle of the ogre himself. He ran up the
steps, with tears falling from his eyes, and crying:

‘Oh, you poor, poor people, what a sad fate is yours!’

‘What has happened?’ asked the ogre, trembling with fright.

‘Do you see that troop of horsemen who are riding along the road? They
are sent by the king to kill you!’

‘Oh, dear little fox, help us, we implore you!’ cried the ogre and his
wife.

‘Well, I will do what I can,’ answered the fox. ‘The best place is for
you both to hide in the big oven, and when the soldiers have gone by I
will let you out.’

The ogre and ogress scrambled into the oven as quick as thought, and the
fox banged the door on them; just as he did so the king came up.

‘Do us the honour to dismount, your Majesty,’ said the fox, bowing low.
‘This is the palace of Count Piro!’

‘Why it is more splendid than my own!’ exclaimed the king, looking round
on all the beautiful things that filled the hall. But why are there no
servants?’

‘His Excellency the Count Piro wished the princess to choose them for
herself,’ answered the fox, and the king nodded his approval. He then
rode on, leaving the bridal pair in the castle. But when it was dark and
all was still, the fox crept downstairs and lit the kitchen fire, and
the ogre and his wife were burned to death. The next morning the fox
said to Count Piro:

‘Now that you are rich and happy, you have no more need of me; but,
before I go, there is one thing I must ask of you in return: when I die,
promise me that you will give me a magnificent coffin, and bury me with
due honours.’

‘Oh, little, little fox, don’t talk of dying,’ cried the princess,
nearly weeping, for she had taken a great liking to the fox.

After some time the fox thought he would see if the Count Piro was
really grateful to him for all he had done, and went back to the castle,
where he lay down on the door-step, and pretended to be dead. The
princess was just going out for a walk, and directly she saw him lying
there, she burst into tears and fell on her knees beside him.

‘My dear little fox, you are not dead,’ she wailed; ‘you poor, poor
little creature, you shall have the finest coffin in the world!’

‘A coffin for an animal?’ said Count Piro. ‘What nonsense! just take him
by the leg and throw him into the ditch.’

Then the fox sprang up and cried: ‘You wretched, thankless beggar; have
you forgotten that you owe all your riches to me?’

Count Piro was frightened when he heard these words, as he thought that
perhaps the fox might have power to take away the castle, and leave him
as poor as when he had nothing to eat but the pears off his tree. So he
tried to soften the fox’s anger, saying that he had only spoken in joke,
as he had known quite well that he was not really dead. For the sake
of the princess, the fox let himself be softened, and he lived in the
castle for many years, and played with Count Piro’s children. And when
he actually did die, his coffin was made of silver, and Count Piro and
his wife followed him to the grave.

[From Sicilianische Mahrchen.]




The Rogue And The Herdsman

In a tiny cottage near the king’s palace there once lived an old man,
his wife, and his son, a very lazy fellow, who would never do a stroke
of work. He could not be got even to look after their one cow, but left
her to look after herself, while he lay on a bank and went to sleep in
the sun. For a long time his father bore with him, hoping that as he
grew older he might gain more sense; but at last the old man’s patience
was worn out, and he told his son that he should not stay at house in
idleness, and must go out into the world to seek his fortune.

The young man saw that there was no help for it, and he set out with
a wallet full of food over his shoulder. At length he came to a large
house, at the door of which he knocked.

‘What do you want?’ asked the old man who opened it. And the youth told
him how his father had turned him out of his house because he was so
lazy and stupid, and he needed shelter for the night.

‘That you shall have,’ replied the man; ‘but to-morrow I shall give you
some work to do, for you must know that I am the chief herdsman of the
king.’

The youth made no answer to this. He felt, if he was to be made to work
after all, that he might as well have stayed where he was. But as he did
not see any other way of getting a bed, he went slowly in.

The herdsman’s two daughters and their mother were sitting at supper,
and invited him to join them. Nothing more was said about work, and when
the meal was over they all went to bed.

In the morning, when the young man was dressed, the herdsman called to
him and said:

‘Now listen, and I will tell you what you have to do.’

‘What is it?’ asked the youth, sulkily.

‘Nothing less than to look after two hundred pigs,’ was the reply.

‘Oh, I am used to that,’ answered the youth.

‘Yes; but this time you will have to do it properly,’ said the herdsman;
and he took the youth to the place where the pigs were feeding, and told
him to drive them to the woods on the side of the mountain. This the
young man did, but as soon as they reached the outskirts of the mountain
they grew quite wild, and would have run away altogether, had they not
luckily gone towards a narrow ravine, from which the youth easily drove
them home to his father’s cottage.

‘Where do all these pigs come from, and how did you get them?’ asked the
old man in surprise, when his son knocked at the door of the hut he had
left only the day before.

‘They belong to the king’s chief herdsman,’ answered his son. ‘He gave
them to me to look after, but I knew I could not do it, so I drove them
straight to you. Now make the best of your good fortune, and kill them
and hang them up at once.’

‘What are you talking about?’ cried the father, pale with horror. ‘We
should certainly both be put to death if I did any such thing.’

‘No, no; do as I tell you, and I will get out of it somehow,’ replied
the young man. And in the end he had his way. The pigs were killed,
and laid side by side in a row. Then he cut off the tails and tied them
together with a piece of cord, and swinging the bundle over his back,
he returned to the place where they should have been feeding. Here there
was a small swamp, which was just what he wanted, and finding a large
stone, he fastened the rope to it, and sank it in the swamp, after which
he arranged the tails carefully one by one, so that only their points
were seen sticking out of the water. When everything was in order, he
hastened home to his master with such a sorrowful face that the herdsman
saw at once that something dreadful had happened.

‘Where are the pigs?’ asked he.

‘Oh, don’t speak of them!’ answered the young man; ‘I really can hardly
tell you. The moment they got into the field they became quite mad, and
each ran in a different direction. I ran too, hither and thither, but as
fast as I caught one, another was off, till I was in despair. At last,
however, I collected them all and was about to drive them back, when
suddenly they rushed down the hill into the swamp, where they vanished
completely, leaving only the points of their tails, which you can see
for yourself.’

‘You have made up that story very well,’ replied the herdsman.

‘No, it is the real truth; come with me and I’ll prove it.’ And they
went together to the spot, and there sure enough were the points of
the tails sticking up out of the water. The herdsman laid hold of the
nearest, and pulled at it with all his might, but it was no use, for
the stone and the rope held them all fast. He called to the young man to
help him, but the two did not succeed any better than the one had done.

‘Yes, your story was true after all; it is a wonderful thing,’ said the
herdsman. ‘But I see it is no fault of yours, and I must put up with
my loss as well as I can. Now let us return home, for it is time for
supper.

Next morning the herdsman said to the young man: ‘I have got some other
work for you to do. To-day you must take a hundred sheep to graze; but
be careful that no harm befalls them.’

‘I will do my best,’ replied the youth. And he opened the gate of the
fold, where the sheep had been all night, and drove them out into the
meadow. But in a short time they grew as wild as the pigs had done, and
scattered in all directions. The young man could not collect them, try
as he would, and he thought to himself that this was the punishment for
his laziness in refusing to look after his father’s one cow.

At last, however, the sheep seemed tired of running about, and then
the youth managed to gather them together, and drove them, as before,
straight to his father’s house.

‘Whose sheep are these, and what are they doing here?’ asked the old man
in wonder, and his son told him. But when the tale was ended the father
shook his head.

‘Give up these bad ways and take them back to your master,’ said he.

‘No, no,’ answered the youth; ‘I am not so stupid as that! We will kill
them and have them for dinner.’

‘You will lose your life if you do,’ replied the father.

‘Oh, I am not sure of that!’ said the son, ‘and, anyway, I will have my
will for once.’ And he killed all the sheep and laid them on the grass.
But he cut off the head of the ram which always led the flock and had
bells round its horns. This he took back to the place where they should
have been feeding, for here he had noticed a high rock, with a patch of
green grass in the middle and two or three thick bushes growing on the
edge. Up this rock he climbed with great difficulty, and fastened the
ram’s head to the bushes with a cord, leaving only the tips of the horns
with the bells visible. As there was a soft breeze blowing, the bushes
to which the head was tied moved gently, and the bells rang. When all
was done to his liking he hastened quickly back to his master.

‘Where are the sheep?’ asked the herdsman as the young man ran panting
up the steps.

‘Oh! don’t speak of them,’ answered he. ‘It is only by a miracle that I
am here myself.’

‘Tell me at once what has happened,’ said the herdsman sternly.

The youth began to sob, and stammered out: ‘I--I hardly know how to tell
you! They--they--they were so--so troublesome--that I could not manage
them at all. They--ran about in--in all directions, and I--I--ran after
them and nearly died of fatigue. Then I heard a--a noise, which I--I
thought was the wind. But--but--it was the sheep, which, be--before my
very eyes, were carried straight up--up into the air. I stood watching
them as if I was turned to stone, but there kept ringing in my ears the
sound of the bells on the ram which led them.’

‘That is nothing but a lie from beginning to end,’ said the herdsman.

‘No, it is as true as that there is a sun in heaven,’ answered the young
man.

‘Then give me a proof of it,’ cried his master.

‘Well, come with me,’ said the youth. By this time it was evening and
the dusk was falling. The young man brought the herdsman to the foot of
the great rock, but it was so dark you could hardly see. Still the sound
of sheep bells rang softly from above, and the herdsman knew them to be
those he had hung on the horns of his ram.

‘Do you hear?’ asked the youth.

‘Yes, I hear; you have spoken the truth, and I cannot blame you for what
has happened. I must bear the loss as best as I can.’

He turned and went home, followed by the young man, who felt highly
pleased with his own cleverness.

‘I should not be surprised if the tasks I set you were too difficult,
and that you were tired of them,’ said the herdsman next morning; ‘but
to-day I have something quite easy for you to do. You must look after
forty oxen, and be sure you are very careful, for one of them has
gold-tipped horns and hoofs, and the king reckons it among his greatest
treasures.’

The young man drove out the oxen into the meadow, and no sooner had they
got there than, like the sheep and the pigs, they began to scamper in
all directions, the precious bull being the wildest of all. As the youth
stood watching them, not knowing what to do next, it came into his head
that his father’s cow was put out to grass at no great distance; and he
forthwith made such a noise that he quite frightened the oxen, who were
easily persuaded to take the path he wished. When they heard the cow
lowing they galloped all the faster, and soon they all arrived at his
father’s house.

The old man was standing before the door of his hut when the great herd
of animals dashed round a corner of the road, with his son and his own
cow at their head.

‘Whose cattle are these, and why are they here?’ he asked; and his son
told him the story.

‘Take them back to your master as soon as you can,’ said the old man;
but the son only laughed, and said:

‘No, no; they are a present to you! They will make you fat!’

For a long while the old man refused to have anything to do with such a
wicked scheme; but his son talked him over in the end, and they killed
the oxen as they had killed the sheep and the pigs. Last of all they
came to the king’s cherished ox.

The son had a rope ready to cast round its horns, and throw it to the
ground, but the ox was stronger than the rope, and soon tore it in
pieces. Then it dashed away to the wood, the youth following; over
hedges and ditches they both went, till they reached the rocky pass
which bordered the herdsman’s land. Here the ox, thinking itself safe,
stopped to rest, and thus gave the young man a chance to come up with
it. Not knowing how to catch it, he collected all the wood he could
find and made a circle of fire round the ox, who by this time had fallen
asleep, and did not wake till the fire had caught its head, and it was
too late for it to escape. Then the young man, who had been watching,
ran home to his master.

‘You have been away a long while,’ said the herdsman. ‘Where are the
cattle?’

The young man gasped, and seemed as if he was unable to speak. At last
he answered:

‘It is always the same story! The oxen are--gone--gone!’

‘G-g-gone?’ cried the herdsman. ‘Scoundrel, you lie!’

‘I am telling you the exact truth,’ answered the young man. ‘Directly
we came to the meadow they grew so wild that I could not keep them
together. Then the big ox broke away, and the others followed till they
all disappeared down a deep hole into the earth. It seemed to me that I
heard sounds of bellowing, and I thought I recognised the voice of the
golden horned ox; but when I got to the place from which the sounds had
come, I could neither see nor hear anything in the hole itself, though
there were traces of a fire all round it.’

‘Wretch!’ cried the herdsman, when he had heard this story, ‘even if you
did not lie before, you are lying now.’

‘No, master, I am speaking the truth. Come and see for yourself.’

‘If I find you have deceived me, you are a dead man, said the herdsman;
and they went out together.

‘What do you call that?’ asked the youth. And the herdsman looked and
saw the traces of a fire, which seemed to have sprung up from under the
earth.

‘Wonder upon wonder,’ he exclaimed, ‘so you really did speak the truth
after all! Well, I cannot reproach you, though I shall have to pay
heavily to my royal master for the value of that ox. But come, let us
go home! I will never set you to herd cattle again, henceforward I will
give you something easier to do.’

‘I have thought of exactly the thing for you,’ said the herdsman as they
walked along, ‘and it is so simple that you cannot make a mistake. Just
make me ten scythes, one for every man, for I want the grass mown in one
of my meadows to-morrow.’

At these words the youth’s heart sank, for he had never been trained
either as a smith or a joiner. However, he dared not say no, but smiled
and nodded.

Slowly and sadly he went to bed, but he could not sleep, for wondering
how the scythes were to be made. All the skill and cunning he had shown
before was of no use to him now, and after thinking about the scythes
for many hours, there seemed only one way open to him. So, listening
to make sure that all was still, he stole away to his parents, and told
them the whole story. When they had heard everything, they hid him where
no one could find him.

Time passed away, and the young man stayed at home doing all his parents
bade him, and showing himself very different from what he had been
before he went out to see the world; but one day he said to his father
that he should like to marry, and have a house of his own.

‘When I served the king’s chief herdsman,’ added he, ‘I saw his
daughter, and I am resolved to try if I cannot win her for my wife.’

‘It will cost you your life, if you do,’ answered the father, shaking
his head.

‘Well, I will do my best,’ replied his son; ‘but first give me the sword
which hangs over your bed!’

The old man did not understand what good the sword would do, however he
took it down, and the young man went his way.

Late in the evening he arrived at the house of the herdsman, and knocked
at the door, which was opened by a little boy.

‘I want to speak to your master,’ said he.

‘So it is you?’ cried the herdsman, when he had received the message.
‘Well, you can sleep here to-night if you wish.’

‘I have come for something else besides a bed,’ replied the young man,
drawing his sword, ‘and if you do not promise to give me your youngest
daughter as my wife I will stab you through the heart.’

What could the poor man do but promise? And he fetched his youngest
daughter, who seemed quite pleased at the proposed match, and gave the
youth her hand.

Then the young man went home to his parents, and bade them get ready
to welcome his bride. And when the wedding was over he told his
father-in-law, the herdsman, what he had done with the sheep, and pigs,
and cattle. By-and-by the story came to the king’s ears, and he thought
that a man who was so clever was just the man to govern the country; so
he made him his minister, and after the king himself there was no one so
great as he.

[From Islandische Mahrchen.]




Eisenkopf

Once upon a time there lived an old man who had only one son, whom he
loved dearly; but they were very poor, and often had scarcely enough to
eat. Then the old man fell ill, and things grew worse than ever, so he
called his son and said to him:

‘My dear boy, I have no longer any food to give you, and you must go
into the world and get it for yourself. It does not matter what work you
do, but remember if you do it well and are faithful to your master, you
will always have your reward.’

So Peter put a piece of black bread in his knapsack, and strapping it
on his back, took a stout stick in his hand, and set out to seek his
fortune. For a long while he travelled on and on, and nobody seemed to
want him; but one day he met an old man, and being a polite youth, he
took off his hat and said: ‘Good morning,’ in a pleasant voice. ‘Good
morning,’ answered the old man; ‘and where are you going?’

‘I am wandering through the country trying to get work,’ replied Peter.

‘Then stay with me, for I can give you plenty,’ said the old man, and
Peter stayed.

His work did not seem hard, for he had only two horses and a cow to see
after, and though he had been hired for a year, the year consisted of
but three days, so that it was not long before he received his wages. In
payment the old man gave him a nut, and offered to keep him for another
year; but Peter was home-sick; and, besides, he would rather have been
paid ever so small a piece of money than a nut; for, thought he, nuts
grow on every tree, and I can gather as many as I like. However, he did
not say this to the old man, who had been kind to him, but just bade him
farewell.

The nearer Peter drew to his father’s house the more ashamed he felt at
having brought back such poor wages. What could one nut do for him? Why,
it would not buy even a slice of bacon. It was no use taking it home, he
might as well eat it. So he sat down on a stone and cracked it with his
teeth, and then took it out of his mouth to break off the shell. But
who could ever guess what came out of that nut? Why, horses and oxen
and sheep stepped out in such numbers that they seemed as if they would
stretch to the world’s end! The sight gave Peter such a shock that he
wrung his hands in dismay. What was he to do with all these creatures,
where was he to put them? He stood and gazed in terror, and at this
moment Eisenkopf came by.

‘What is the matter, young man?’ asked he.

‘Oh, my friend, there is plenty the matter,’ answered Peter. ‘I have
gained a nut as my wages, and when I cracked it this crowd of beasts
came out, and I don’t know what to do with them all!’

‘Listen to me, my son,’ said Eisenkopf. ‘If you will promise never to
marry I will drive them all back into the nut again.’

In his trouble Peter would have promised far harder things than this,
so he gladly gave the promise Eisenkopf asked for; and at a whistle from
the stranger the animals all began crowding into the nut again, nearly
tumbling over each other in their haste. When the last foot had got
inside, the two halves of the shell shut close. Then Peter put it in his
pocket and went on to the house.

No sooner had he reached it than he cracked his nut for the second time,
and out came the horses, sheep, and oxen again. Indeed Peter thought
that there were even more of them than before. The old man could not
believe his eyes when he saw the multitudes of horses, oxen and sheep
standing before his door.

‘How did you come by all these?’ he gasped, as soon as he could speak;
and the son told him the whole story, and of the promise he had given
Eisenkopf.

The next day some of the cattle were driven to market and sold, and with
the money the old man was able to buy some of the fields and gardens
round his house, and in a few months had grown the richest and most
prosperous man in the whole village. Everything seemed to turn to gold
in his hands, till one day, when he and his son were sitting in the
orchard watching their herds of cattle grazing in the meadows, he
suddenly said: ‘Peter, my boy, it is time that you were thinking of
marrying.’

‘But, my dear father, I told you I can never marry, because of the
promise I gave to Eisenkopf.’

‘Oh, one promises here and promises there, but no one ever thinks of
keeping such promises. If Eisenkopf does not like your marrying, he will
have to put up with it all the same! Besides, there stands in the stable
a grey horse which is saddled night and day; and if Eisenkopf should
show his face, you have only got to jump on the horse’s back and ride
away, and nobody on earth can catch you. When all is safe you will come
back again, and we shall live as happily as two fish in the sea.’

And so it all happened. The young man found a pretty, brown-skinned girl
who was willing to have him for a husband, and the whole village came
to the wedding feast. The music was at its gayest, and the dance at its
merriest, when Eisenkopf looked in at the window.

‘Oh, ho, my brother! what is going on here? It has the air of being a
wedding feast. Yet I fancied--was I mistaken?--that you had given me a
promise that you never would marry.’ But Peter had not waited for the
end of this speech. Scarcely had he seen Eisenkopf than he darted like
the wind to the stable and flung himself on the horse’s back. In another
moment he was away over the mountain, with Eisenkopf running fast behind
him.

On they went through thick forests where the sun never shone, over
rivers so wide that it took a whole day to sail across them, up hills
whose sides were all of glass; on they went through seven times seven
countries till Peter reined in his horse before the house of an old
woman.

‘Good day, mother,’ said he, jumping down and opening the door.

‘Good day, my son,’ answered she, ‘and what are you doing here, at the
world’s end?’

‘I am flying for my life, mother, flying to the world which is beyond
all worlds; for Eisenkopf is at my heels.’

‘Come in and rest then, and have some food, for I have a little dog who
will begin to howl when Eisenkopf is still seven miles off.’

So Peter went in and warmed himself and ate and drank, till suddenly the
dog began to howl.

‘Quick, my son, quick, you must go,’ cried the old woman. And the
lightning itself was not quicker than Peter.

‘Stop a moment,’ cried the old woman again, just as he was mounting his
horse, ‘take this napkin and this cake, and put them in your bag where
you can get hold of them easily.’ Peter took them and put them into his
bag, and waving his thanks for her kindness, he was off like the wind.

Round and round he rode, through seven times seven countries, through
forests still thicker, and rivers still wider, and mountains still more
slippery than the others he had passed, till at length he reached a
house where dwelt another old woman.

‘Good day, mother,’ said he.

‘Good day, my son! What are you seeking here at the world’s end?’

‘I am flying for my life, mother, flying to the world that is beyond all
worlds, for Eisenkopf is at my heels.’

‘Come in, my son, and have some food. I have a little dog who will begin
to howl when Eisenkopf is still seven miles off; so lie on this bed and
rest yourself in peace.’

Then she went to the kitchen and baked a number of cakes, more than
Peter could have eaten in a whole month. He had not finished a quarter
of them, when the dog began to howl.

‘Now, my son, you must go,’ cried the old woman ‘but first put these
cakes and this napkin in your bag, where you can easily get at them.’ So
Peter thanked her and was off like the wind.

On he rode, through seven times seven countries, till he came to the
house of a third old woman, who welcomed him as the others had done. But
when the dog howled, and Peter sprang up to go, she said, as she gave
him the same gifts for his journey: ‘You have now three cakes and three
napkins, for I know that my sisters have each given you one. Listen to
me, and do what I tell you. Ride seven days and nights straight before
you, and on the eighth morning you will see a great fire. Strike it
three times with the three napkins and it will part in two. Then ride
into the opening, and when you are in the middle of the opening, throw
the three cakes behind your back with your left hand.’

Peter thanked her for her counsel, and was careful to do exactly all the
old woman had told him. On the eighth morning he reached a fire so large
that he could see nothing else on either side, but when he struck it
with the napkins it parted, and stood on each hand like a wall. As he
rode through the opening he threw the cakes behind him. From each cake
there sprang a huge dog, and he gave them the names of World’s-weight,
Ironstrong, and Quick-ear. They bayed with joy at the sight of him,
and as Peter turned to pat them, he beheld Eisenkopf at the edge of the
fire, but the opening had closed up behind Peter, and he could not get
through.

‘Stop, you promise-breaker,’ shrieked he; ‘you have slipped through my
hands once, but wait till I catch you again!’

Then he lay down by the fire and watched to see what would happen.

When Peter knew that he had nothing more to fear from Eisenkopf, he rode
on slowly till he came to a small white house. Here he entered and found
himself in a room where a gray-haired woman was spinning and a beautiful
girl was sitting in the window combing her golden hair. ‘What brings you
here, my son?’ asked the old woman.

‘I am seeking for a place, mother,’ answered Peter.

‘Stay with me, then, for I need a servant,’ said the old woman.

‘With pleasure, mother,’ replied he.

After that Peter’s life was a very happy one. He sowed and ploughed all
day, except now and then when he took his dogs and went to hunt. And
whatever game he brought back the maiden with the golden hair knew how
to dress it.

One day the old woman had gone to the town to buy some flour, and Peter
and the maiden were left alone in the house. They fell into talk, and
she asked him where his home was, and how he had managed to come through
the fire. Peter then told her the whole story, and of his striking the
flames with the three napkins as he had been told to do. The maiden
listened attentively and wondered in herself whether what he said was
true. So after Peter had gone out to the fields, she crept up to his
room and stole the napkins and then set off as fast as she could to the
fire by a path she knew of over the hill.

At the third blow she gave the flames divided, and Eisenkopf, who had
been watching and hoping for a chance of this kind, ran down the opening
and stood before her. At this sight the maiden was almost frightened
to death, but with a great effort she recovered herself and ran home as
fast as her legs would carry her, closely pursued by Eisenkopf. Panting
for breath she rushed into the house and fell fainting on the floor; but
Eisenkopf entered behind her, and hid himself in the kitchen under the
hearth.

Not long after, Peter came in and picked up the three napkins which the
maiden had dropped on the threshold. He wondered how they got there, for
he knew he had left them in his room; but what was his horror when he
saw the form of the fainting girl lying where she had dropped, as still
and white as if she had been dead. He lifted her up and carried her
to her bed, where she soon revived, but she did not tell Peter about
Eisenkopf, who had been almost crushed to death under the hearth-stone
by the body of World’s-weight.

The next morning Peter locked up his dogs and went out into the forest
alone. Eisenkopf, however, had seen him go, and followed so closely at
his heels that Peter had barely time to clamber up a tall tree, where
Eisenkopf could not reach him. ‘Come down at once, you gallows bird,’ he
cried. ‘Have you forgotten your promise that you never would marry?’

‘Oh, I know it is all up with me,’ answered Peter, ‘but let me call out
three times.’

‘You can call a hundred times if you like,’ returned Eisenkopf, ‘for now
I have got you in my power, and you shall pay for what you have done.’

‘Iron-strong, World’s-weight, Quick-ear, fly to my help!’ cried Peter;
and Quick-ear heard, and said to his brothers: ‘Listen, our master is
calling us.’

‘You are dreaming, fool,’ answered World’s-weight; ‘why he has not
finished his breakfast.’ And he gave Quick-ear a slap with his paw, for
he was young and needed to be taught sense.

‘Iron-strong, World’s-weight, Quick-ear, fly to my help!’ cried Peter
again.

This time World’s-weight heard also, and he said, ‘Ah, now our master is
really calling.’

‘How silly you are!’ answered Iron-strong; ‘you know that at this hour
he is always eating.’ And he gave World’s-weight a cuff, because he was
old enough to know better.

Peter sat trembling on the tree dreading lest his dogs had never heard,
or else that, having heard, they had refused to come. It was his last
chance, so making a mighty effort he shrieked once more:

‘Iron-strong, World’s-weight, Quick-ear, fly to my help, or I am a dead
man!’

And Iron-strong heard, and said: ‘Yes, he is certainly calling, we must
go at once.’ And in an instant he had burst open the door, and all three
were bounding away in the direction of the voice. When they reached the
foot of the tree Peter just said: ‘At him!’ And in a few minutes there
was nothing left of Eisenkopf.

As soon as his enemy was dead Peter got down and returned to the house,
where he bade farewell to the old woman and her daughter, who gave him
a beautiful ring, all set with diamonds. It was really a magic ring, but
neither Peter nor the maiden knew that.

Peter’s heart was heavy as he set out for home. He had ceased to love
the wife whom he had left at his wedding feast, and his heart had gone
out to the golden-haired girl. However, it was no use thinking of that,
so he rode forward steadily.

The fire had to be passed through before he had gone very far, and when
he came to it, Peter shook the napkins three times in the flames and a
passage opened for trim. But then a curious thing happened; the three
dogs, who had followed at his heels all the way, now became three cakes
again, which Peter put into his bag with the napkins. After that he
stopped at the houses of the three old women, and gave each one back her
napkin and her cake.

‘Where is my wife?’ asked Peter, when he reached home.

‘Oh, my dear son, why did you ever leave us? After you had vanished, no
one knew where, your poor wife grew more and more wretched, and would
neither eat nor drink. Little by little she faded away, and a month ago
we laid her in her grave, to hide her sorrows under the earth.’

At this news Peter began to weep, for he had loved his wife before he
went away and had seen the golden-haired maiden.

He went sorrowfully about his work for the space of half a year, when,
one night, he dreamed that he moved the diamond ring given him by the
maiden from his right hand and put it on the wedding finger of the left.
The dream was so real that he awoke at once and changed the ring from
one hand to the other. And as he did so guess what he saw? Why, the
golden-haired girl standing before him. And he sprang up and kissed her,
and said: ‘Now you are mine for ever and ever, and when we die we will
both be buried in one grave.’

And so they were.

[From Ungarische Mahrchen.]




The Death Of Abu Nowas And Of His Wife

Once upon a time there lived a man whose name was Abu Nowas, and he was
a great favourite with the Sultan of the country, who had a palace in
the same town where Abu Nowas dwelt.

One day Abu Nowas came weeping into the hall of the palace where the
Sultan was sitting, and said to him: ‘Oh, mighty Sultan, my wife is
dead.’

‘That is bad news,’ replied the Sultan; ‘I must get you another wife.’
And he bade his Grand Vizir send for the Sultana.

‘This poor Abu Nowas has lost his wife,’ said he, when she entered the
hall.

‘Oh, then we must get him another,’ answered the Sultana; ‘I have a
girl that will suit him exactly,’ and clapped her hands loudly. At this
signal a maiden appeared and stood before her.

‘I have got a husband for you,’ said the Sultana.

‘Who is he?’ asked the girl.

‘Abu Nowas, the jester,’ replied the Sultana.

‘I will take him,’ answered the maiden; and as Abu Nowas made no
objection, it was all arranged. The Sultana had the most beautiful
clothes made for the bride, and the Sultan gave the bridegroom his
wedding suit, and a thousand gold pieces into the bargain, and soft
carpets for the house.

So Abu Nowas took his wife home, and for some time they were very
happy, and spent the money freely which the Sultan had given them, never
thinking what they should do for more when that was gone. But come to an
end it did, and they had to sell their fine things one by one, till at
length nothing was left but a cloak apiece, and one blanket to cover
them. ‘We have run through our fortune,’ said Abu Nowas, ‘what are we
to do now? I am afraid to go back to the Sultan, for he will command
his servants to turn me from the door. But you shall return to your
mistress, and throw yourself at her feet and weep, and perhaps she will
help us.’

‘Oh, you had much better go,’ said the wife. ‘I shall not know what to
say.’

‘Well, then, stay at home, if you like,’ answered Abu Nowas, ‘and I will
ask to be admitted to the Sultan’s presence, and will tell him, with
sobs, that my wife is dead, and that I have no money for her burial.
When he hears that perhaps he will give us something.’

‘Yes, that is a good plan,’ said the wife; and Abu Nowas set out.

The Sultan was sitting in the hall of justice when Abu Nowas entered,
his eyes streaming with tears, for he had rubbed some pepper into them.
They smarted dreadfully, and he could hardly see to walk straight, and
everyone wondered what was the matter with him.

‘Abu Nowas! What has happened?’ cried the Sultan.

‘Oh, noble Sultan, my wife is dead,’ wept he.

‘We must all die,’ answered the Sultan; but this was not the reply for
which Abu Nowas had hoped.

‘True, O Sultan, but I have neither shroud to wrap her in, nor money
to bury her with,’ went on Abu Nowas, in no wise abashed by the way the
Sultan had received his news.

‘Well, give him a hundred pieces of gold,’ said the Sultan, turning to
the Grand Vizir. And when the money was counted out Abu Nowas bowed low,
and left the hall, his tears still flowing, but with joy in his heart.

‘Have you got anything?’ cried his wife, who was waiting for him
anxiously.

‘Yes, a hundred gold pieces,’ said he, throwing down the bag, ‘but that
will not last us any time. Now you must go to the Sultana, clothed in
sackcloth and robes of mourning, and tell her that your husband, Abu
Nowas, is dead, and you have no money for his burial. When she hears
that, she will be sure to ask you what has become of the money and the
fine clothes she gave us on our marriage, and you will answer, “before
he died he sold everything.”’

The wife did as she was told, and wrapping herself in sackcloth went up
to the Sultana’s own palace, and as she was known to have been one of
Subida’s favourite attendants, she was taken without difficulty into the
private apartments.

‘What is the matter?’ inquired the Sultana, at the sight of the dismal
figure.

‘My husband lies dead at home, and he has spent all our money, and sold
everything, and I have nothing left to bury him with,’ sobbed the wife.

Then Subida took up a purse containing two hundred gold pieces, and
said: ‘Your husband served us long and faithfully. You must see that he
has a fine funeral.’

The wife took the money, and, kissing the feet of the Sultana, she
joyfully hastened home. They spent some happy hours planning how they
should spend it, and thinking how clever they had been. ‘When the Sultan
goes this evening to Subida’s palace,’ said Abu Nowas, ‘she will be sure
to tell him that Abu Nowas is dead. “Not Abu Nowas, it is his wife,” he
will reply, and they will quarrel over it, and all the time we shall be
sitting here enjoying ourselves. Oh, if they only knew, how angry they
would be!’

As Abu Nowas had foreseen, the Sultan went, in the evening after his
business was over, to pay his usual visit to the Sultana.


‘Poor Abu Nowas is dead!’ said Subida when he entered the room.

‘It is not Abu Nowas, but his wife who is dead,’ answered the Sultan.

‘No; really you are quite wrong. She came to tell me herself only a
couple of hours ago,’ replied Subida, ‘and as he had spent all their
money, I gave her something to bury him with.’

‘You must be dreaming,’ exclaimed the Sultan. ‘Soon after midday Abu
Nowas came into the hall, his eyes streaming with tears, and when I
asked him the reason he answered that his wife was dead, and they had
sold everything they had, and he had nothing left, not so much as would
buy her a shroud, far less for her burial.’

For a long time they talked, and neither would listen to the other, till
the Sultan sent for the door-keeper and bade him go instantly to the
house of Abu Nowas and see if it was the man or his wife who was dead.
But Abu Nowas happened to be sitting with his wife behind the latticed
window, which looked on the street, and he saw the man coming, and
sprang up at once. ‘There is the Sultan’s door-keeper! They have sent
him here to find out the truth. Quick! throw yourself on the bed and
pretend that you are dead.’ And in a moment the wife was stretched out
stiffly, with a linen sheet spread across her, like a corpse.

She was only just in time, for the sheet was hardly drawn across her
when the door opened and the porter came in. ‘Has anything happened?’
asked he.

‘My poor wife is dead,’ replied Abu Nowas. ‘Look! she is laid out here.’
And the porter approached the bed, which was in a corner of the room,
and saw the stiff form lying underneath.

‘We must all die,’ said he, and went back to the Sultan.

‘Well, have you found out which of them is dead?’ asked the Sultan.

‘Yes, noble Sultan; it is the wife,’ replied the porter.

‘He only says that to please you,’ cried Subida in a rage; and calling
to her chamberlain, she ordered him to go at once to the dwelling of Abu
Nowas and see which of the two was dead. ‘And be sure you tell the truth
about it,’ added she, ‘or it will be the worse for you.’

As her chamberlain drew near the house, Abu Nowas caught sight of him.
‘There is the Sultana’s chamberlain,’ he exclaimed in a fright. ‘Now it
is my turn to die. Be quick and spread the sheet over me.’ And he laid
himself on the bed, and held his breath when the chamberlain came in.
‘What are you weeping for?’ asked the man, finding the wife in tears.

‘My husband is dead,’ answered she, pointing to the bed; and the
chamberlain drew back the sheet and beheld Abu Nowas lying stiff and
motionless. Then he gently replaced the sheet and returned to the
palace.

‘Well, have you found out this time?’ asked the Sultan.

‘My lord, it is the husband who is dead.’

‘But I tell you he was with me only a few hours ago,’ cried the Sultan
angrily. ‘I must get to the bottom of this before I sleep! Let my golden
coach be brought round at once.’

The coach was before the door in another five minutes, and the Sultan
and Sultana both got in. Abu Nowas had ceased being a dead man, and was
looking into the street when he saw the coach coming. ‘Quick! quick!’ he
called to his wife. ‘The Sultan will be here directly, and we must both
be dead to receive him.’ So they laid themselves down, and spread the
sheet over them, and held their breath. At that instant the Sultan
entered, followed by the Sultana and the chamberlain, and he went up
to the bed and found the corpses stiff and motionless. ‘I would give a
thousand gold pieces to anyone who would tell me the truth about this,’
cried he, and at the words Abu Nowas sat up. ‘Give them to me, then,’
said he, holding out his hand. ‘You cannot give them to anyone who needs
them more.’

‘Oh, Abu Nowas, you impudent dog!’ exclaimed the Sultan, bursting into
a laugh, in which the Sultana joined. ‘I might have known it was one of
your tricks!’ But he sent Abu Nowas the gold he had promised, and let us
hope that it did not fly so fast as the last had done.

[From Tunische Mahrchen.]




Motiratika

Once upon a time, in a very hot country, a man lived with his wife in
a little hut, which was surrounded by grass and flowers. They were
perfectly happy together till, by-and-by, the woman fell ill and refused
to take any food. The husband tried to persuade her to eat all sorts
of delicious fruits that he had found in the forest, but she would
have none of them, and grew so thin he feared she would die. ‘Is there
nothing you would like?’ he said at last in despair.

‘Yes, I think I could eat some wild honey,’ answered she. The husband
was overjoyed, for he thought this sounded easy enough to get, and he
went off at once in search of it.

He came back with a wooden pan quite full, and gave it to his wife. ‘I
can’t eat that,’ she said, turning away in disgust. ‘Look! there are
some dead bees in it! I want honey that is quite pure.’ And the man
threw the rejected honey on the grass, and started off to get some
fresh. When he got back he offered it to his wife, who treated it as
she had done the first bowlful. ‘That honey has got ants in it: throw it
away,’ she said, and when he brought her some more, she declared it was
full of earth. In his fourth journey he managed to find some that she
would eat, and then she begged him to get her some water. This took him
some time, but at length he came to a lake whose waters were sweetened
with sugar. He filled a pannikin quite full, and carried it home to his
wife, who drank it eagerly, and said that she now felt quite well. When
she was up and had dressed herself, her husband lay down in her place,
saying: ‘You have given me a great deal of trouble, and now it is my
turn!’

‘What is the matter with you?’ asked the wife.

‘I am thirsty and want some water,’ answered he; and she took a large
pot and carried it to the nearest spring, which was a good way off.
‘Here is the water,’ she said to her husband, lifting the heavy pot from
her head; but he turned away in disgust.

‘You have drawn it from the pool that is full of frogs and willows;
you must get me some more.’ So the woman set out again and walked still
further to another lake.

‘This water tastes of rushes,’ he exclaimed, ‘go and get some fresh.’
But when she brought back a third supply he declared that it seemed made
up of water-lilies, and that he must have water that was pure, and not
spoilt by willows, or frogs, or rushes. So for the fourth time she put
her jug on her head, and passing all the lakes she had hitherto tried,
she came to another, where the water was golden like honey. She stooped
down to drink, when a horrible head bobbed up on the surface.

‘How dare you steal my water?’ cried the head.

‘It is my husband who has sent me,’ she replied, trembling all over.
‘But do not kill me! You shall have my baby, if you will only let me
go.’

‘How am I to know which is your baby?’ asked the Ogre.

‘Oh, that is easily managed. I will shave both sides of his head, and
hang some white beads round his neck. And when you come to the hut you
have only to call “Motikatika!” and he will run to meet you, and you can
eat him.’

‘Very well,’ said the ogre, ‘you can go home.’ And after filling the pot
she returned, and told her husband of the dreadful danger she had been
in.

Now, though his mother did not know it, the baby was a magician and he
had heard all that his mother had promised the ogre; and he laughed to
himself as he planned how to outwit her.

The next morning she shaved his head on both sides, and hung the white
beads round his neck, and said to him: ‘I am going to the fields to
work, but you must stay at home. Be sure you do not go outside, or some
wild beast may eat you.’

‘Very well,’ answered he.

As soon as his mother was out of sight, the baby took out some magic
bones, and placed them in a row before him. ‘You are my father,’ he told
one bone, ‘and you are my mother. You are the biggest,’ he said to
the third, ‘so you shall be the ogre who wants to eat me; and you,’ to
another, ‘are very little, therefore you shall be me. Now, then, tell me
what I am to do.’

‘Collect all the babies in the village the same size as yourself,’
answered the bones; ‘shave the sides of their heads, and hang white
beads round their necks, and tell them that when anybody calls
“Motikatika,” they are to answer to it. And be quick for you have no
time to lose.’

Motikatika went out directly, and brought back quite a crowd of babies,
and shaved their heads and hung white beads round their little black
necks, and just as he had finished, the ground began to shake, and the
huge ogre came striding along, crying: ‘Motikatika! Motikatika!’

‘Here we are! here we are!’ answered the babies, all running to meet
him.

‘It is Motikatika I want,’ said the ogre.

‘We are all Motikatika,’ they replied. And the ogre sat down in
bewilderment, for he dared not eat the children of people who had done
him no wrong, or a heavy punishment would befall him. The children
waited for a little, wondering, and then they went away.

The ogre remained where he was, till the evening, when the woman
returned from the fields.

‘I have not seen Motikatika,’ said he.

‘But why did you not call him by his name, as I told you?’ she asked.

‘I did, but all the babies in the village seemed to be named
Motikatika,’ answered the ogre; ‘you cannot think the number who came
running to me.’

The woman did not know what to make of it, so, to keep him in a good
temper, she entered the hut and prepared a bowl of maize, which she
brought him.

‘I do not want maize, I want the baby,’ grumbled he ‘and I will have
him.’

‘Have patience,’ answered she; ‘I will call him, and you can eat him at
once.’ And she went into the hut and cried, ‘Motikatika!’

‘I am coming, mother,’ replied he; but first he took out his bones, and,
crouching down on the ground behind the hut, asked them how he should
escape the ogre.

‘Change yourself into a mouse,’ said the bones; and so he did, and the
ogre grew tired of waiting, and told the woman she must invent some
other plan.

‘To-morrow I will send him into the field to pick some beans for me, and
you will find him there, and can eat him.’

‘Very well,’ replied the ogre, ‘and this time I will take care to have
him,’ and he went back to his lake.

Next morning Motikatika was sent out with a basket, and told to pick
some beans for dinner. On the way to the field he took out his bones and
asked them what he was to do to escape from the ogre. ‘Change yourself
into a bird and snap off the beans,’ said the bones. And the ogre chased
away the bird, not knowing that it was Motikatika.

The ogre went back to the hut and told the woman that she had deceived
him again, and that he would not be put off any longer.

‘Return here this evening,’ answered she, ‘and you will find him in bed
under this white coverlet. Then you can carry him away, and eat him at
once.’

But the boy heard, and consulted his bones, which said: ‘Take the red
coverlet from your father’s bed, and put yours on his,’ and so he did.
And when the ogre came, he seized Motikatika’s father and carried him
outside the hut and ate him. When his wife found out the mistake, she
cried bitterly; but Motikatika said: ‘It is only just that he should be
eaten, and not I; for it was he, and not I, who sent you to fetch the
water.’

[Adapted from the Ba-Ronga (H. Junod).]




Niels And The Giants

On one of the great moors over in Jutland, where trees won’t grow
because the soil is so sandy and the wind so strong, there once lived
a man and his wife, who had a little house and some sheep, and two sons
who helped them to herd them. The elder of the two was called Rasmus,
and the younger Niels. Rasmus was quite content to look after sheep, as
his father had done before him, but Niels had a fancy to be a hunter,
and was not happy till he got hold of a gun and learned to shoot. It was
only an old muzzle-loading flint-lock after all, but Niels thought it a
great prize, and went about shooting at everything he could see. So much
did he practice that in the long run he became a wonderful shot, and was
heard of even where he had never been seen. Some people said there was
very little in him beyond this, but that was an idea they found reason
to change in the course of time.

The parents of Rasmus and Niels were good Catholics, and when they were
getting old the mother took it into her head that she would like to go
to Rome and see the Pope. The others didn’t see much use in this, but
she had her way in the end: they sold all the sheep, shut up the house,
and set out for Rome on foot. Niels took his gun with him.

‘What do you want with that?’ said Rasmus; ‘we have plenty to carry
without it.’ But Niels could not be happy without his gun, and took it
all the same.

It was in the hottest part of summer that they began their journey, so
hot that they could not travel at all in the middle of the day, and they
were afraid to do it by night lest they might lose their way or fall
into the hands of robbers. One day, a little before sunset, they came to
an inn which lay at the edge of a forest.

‘We had better stay here for the night,’ said Rasmus.

‘What an idea!’ said Niels, who was growing impatient at the slow
progress they were making. ‘We can’t travel by day for the heat, and we
remain where we are all night. It will be long enough before we get to
Rome if we go on at this rate.’

Rasmus was unwilling to go on, but the two old people sided with Niels,
who said, ‘The nights aren’t dark, and the moon will soon be up. We can
ask at the inn here, and find out which way we ought to take.’

So they held on for some time, but at last they came to a small opening
in the forest, and here they found that the road split in two. There was
no sign-post to direct them, and the people in the inn had not told them
which of the two roads to take.

‘What’s to be done now?’ said Rasmus. ‘I think we had better have stayed
at the inn.’

‘There’s no harm done,’ said Niels. ‘The night is warm, and we can wait
here till morning. One of us will keep watch till midnight, and then
waken the other.’

Rasmus chose to take the first watch, and the others lay down to sleep.
It was very quiet in the forest, and Rasmus could hear the deer and
foxes and other animals moving about among the rustling leaves. After
the moon rose he could see them occasionally, and when a big stag came
quite close to him he got hold of Niels’ gun and shot it.

Niels was wakened by the report. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘I’ve just shot a stag,’ said Rasmus, highly pleased with himself.

‘That’s nothing,’ said Niels. ‘I’ve often shot a sparrow, which is a
much more difficult thing to do.’

It was now close on midnight, so Niels began his watch, and Rasmus went
to sleep. It began to get colder, and Niels began to walk about a little
to keep himself warm. He soon found that they were not far from the edge
of the forest, and when he climbed up one of the trees there he could
see out over the open country beyond. At a little distance he saw a
fire, and beside it there sat three giants, busy with broth and beef.
They were so huge that the spoons they used were as large as spades, and
their forks as big as hay-forks: with these they lifted whole bucketfuls
of broth and great joints of meat out of an enormous pot which was set
on the ground between them. Niels was startled and rather scared at
first, but he comforted himself with the thought that the giants were
a good way off, and that if they came nearer he could easily hide among
the bushes. After watching them for a little, however, he began to get
over his alarm, and finally slid down the tree again, resolved to get
his gun and play some tricks with them.

When he had climbed back to his former position, he took good aim, and
waited till one of the giants was just in the act of putting a large
piece of meat into his mouth. Bang! went Niels’ gun, and the bullet
struck the handle of the fork so hard that the point went into the
giant’s chin, instead of his mouth.

‘None of your tricks,’ growled the giant to the one who sat next him.
‘What do you mean by hitting my fork like that, and making me prick
myself?’

‘I never touched your fork,’ said the other. ‘Don’t try to get up a
quarrel with me.’

‘Look at it, then,’ said the first. ‘Do you suppose I stuck it into my
own chin for fun?’

The two got so angry over the matter that each offered to fight the
other there and then, but the third giant acted as peace-maker, and they
again fell to their eating.

While the quarrel was going on, Niels had loaded the gun again, and
just as the second giant was about to put a nice tit-bit into his mouth,
bang! went the gun again, and the fork flew into a dozen pieces.

This giant was even more furious than the first had been, and words were
just coming to blows, when the third giant again interposed.

‘Don’t be fools,’ he said to them; ‘what’s the good of beginning to
fight among ourselves, when it is so necessary for the three of us to
work together and get the upper hand over the king of this country. It
will be a hard enough task as it is, but it will be altogether hopeless
if we don’t stick together. Sit down again, and let us finish our meal;
I shall sit between you, and then neither of you can blame the other.’

Niels was too far away to hear their talk, but from their gestures he
could guess what was happening, and thought it good fun.

‘Thrice is lucky,’ said he to himself; ‘I’ll have another shot yet.’

This time it was the third giant’s fork that caught the bullet, and
snapped in two.

‘Well,’ said he, ‘if I were as foolish as you two, I would also fly into
a rage, but I begin to see what time of day it is, and I’m going off
this minute to see who it is that’s playing these tricks with us.’

So well had the giant made his observations, that though Niels climbed
down the tree as fast as he could, so as to hide among the bushes, he
had just got to the ground when the enemy was upon him.

‘Stay where you are,’ said the giant, ‘or I’ll put my foot on you, and
there won’t be much of you left after that.’

Niels gave in, and the giant carried him back to his comrades.

‘You don’t deserve any mercy at our hands,’ said his captor ‘but as you
are such a good shot you may be of great use to us, so we shall spare
your life, if you will do us a service. Not far from here there stands a
castle, in which the king’s daughter lives; we are at war with the king,
and want to get the upper hand of him by carrying off the princess, but
the castle is so well guarded that there is no getting into it. By our
skill in magic we have cast sleep on every living thing in the castle,
except a little black dog, and, as long as he is awake, we are no better
off than before; for, as soon as we begin to climb over the wall, the
little dog will hear us, and its barking will waken all the others
again. Having got you, we can place you where you will be able to shoot
the dog before it begins to bark, and then no one can hinder us from
getting the princess into our hands. If you do that, we shall not only
let you off, but reward you handsomely.’

Niels had to consent, and the giants set out for the castle at once.
It was surrounded by a very high rampart, so high that even the giants
could not touch the top of it. ‘How am I to get over that?’ said Niels.

‘Quite easily,’ said the third giant; ‘I’ll throw you up on it.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Niels. ‘I might fall down on the other side, or break
my leg or neck, and then the little dog wouldn’t get shot after all.’

‘No fear of that,’ said the giant; ‘the rampart is quite wide on the
top, and covered with long grass, so that you will come down as softly
as though you fell on a feather-bed.’

Niels had to believe him, and allowed the giant to throw him up. He came
down on his feet quite unhurt, but the little black dog heard the dump,
and rushed out of its kennel at once. It was just opening its mouth to
bark, when Niels fired, and it fell dead on the spot.

‘Go down on the inside now,’ said the giant, ‘and see if you can open
the gate to us.’

Niels made his way down into the courtyard, but on his way to the outer
gate he found himself at the entrance to the large hall of the castle.
The door was open, and the hall was brilliantly lighted, though there
was no one to be seen. Niels went in here and looked round him: on the
wall there hung a huge sword without a sheath, and beneath it was a
large drinking-horn, mounted with silver. Niels went closer to look at
these, and saw that the horn had letters engraved on the silver rim:
when he took it down and turned it round, he found that the inscription
was:--

     Whoever drinks the wine I hold
     Can wield the sword that hangs above;
     Then let him use it for the right,
     And win a royal maiden’s love.

Niels took out the silver stopper of the horn, and drank some of the
wine, but when he tried to take down the sword he found himself unable
to move it. So he hung up the horn again, and went further in to the
castle. ‘The giants can wait a little,’ he said.

Before long he came to an apartment in which a beautiful princess lay
asleep in a bed, and on a table by her side there lay a gold-hemmed
handkerchief. Niels tore this in two, and put one half in his pocket,
leaving the other half on the table. On the floor he saw a pair of
gold-embroidered slippers, and one of these he also put in his pocket.
After that he went back to the hall, and took down the horn again.
‘Perhaps I have to drink all that is in it before I can move the sword,’
he thought; so he put it to his lips again and drank till it was quite
empty. When he had done this, he could wield the sword with the greatest
of ease, and felt himself strong enough to do anything, even to fight
the giants he had left outside, who were no doubt wondering why he had
not opened the gate to them before this time. To kill the giants, he
thought, would be using the sword for the right; but as to winning
the love of the princess, that was a thing which the son of a poor
sheep-farmer need not hope for.

When Niels came to the gate of the castle, he found that there was a
large door and a small one, so he opened the latter.

‘Can’t you open the big door?’ said the giants; ‘we shall hardly be able
to get in at this one.’

‘The bars are too heavy for me to draw,’ said Niels; ‘if you stoop a
little you can quite well come in here.’ The first giant accordingly
bent down and entered in a stooping posture, but before he had time to
straighten his back again Niels made a sweep with the sword, and oft
went the giant’s head. To push the body aside as it fell was quite easy
for Niels, so strong had the wine made him, and the second giant as he
entered met the same reception. The third was slower in coming, so Niels
called out to him: ‘Be quick,’ he said, ‘you are surely the oldest of
the three, since you are so slow in your movements, but I can’t wait
here long; I must get back to my own people as soon as possible.’ So the
third also came in, and was served in the same way. It appears from the
story that giants were not given fair play!

By this time day was beginning to break, and Niels thought that his
folks might already be searching for him, so, instead of waiting to see
what took place at the castle, he ran off to the forest as fast as he
could, taking the sword with him. He found the others still asleep, so
he woke them up, and they again set out on their journey. Of the night’s
adventures he said not a word, and when they asked where he got the
sword, he only pointed in the direction of the castle, and said, ‘Over
that way.’ They thought he had found it, and asked no more questions.

When Niels left the castle, he shut the door behind him, and it closed
with such a bang that the porter woke up. He could scarcely believe
his eyes when he saw the three headless giants lying in a heap in the
courtyard, and could not imagine what had taken place. The whole castle
was soon aroused, and then everybody wondered at the affair: it was soon
seen that the bodies were those of the king’s great enemies, but how
they came to be there and in that condition was a perfect mystery. Then
it was noticed that the drinking-horn was empty and the sword gone,
while the princess reported that half of her handkerchief and one of her
slippers had been taken away. How the giants had been killed seemed a
little clearer now, but who had done it was as great a puzzle as before.
The old knight who had charge of the castle said that in his opinion
it must have been some young knight, who had immediately set off to the
king to claim the hand of the princess. This sounded likely, but the
messenger who was sent to the Court returned with the news that no one
there knew anything about the matter.

‘We must find him, however,’ said the princess; ‘for if he is willing to
marry me I cannot in honour refuse him, after what my father put on the
horn.’ She took council with her father’s wisest men as to what ought to
be done, and among other things they advised her to build a house beside
the highway, and put over the door this inscription:--‘Whoever will tell
the story of his life, may stay here three nights for nothing.’ This was
done, and many strange tales were told to the princess, but none of the
travellers said a word about the three giants.

In the meantime Niels and the others tramped on towards Rome. Autumn
passed, and winter was just beginning when they came to the foot of
a great range of mountains, towering up to the sky. ‘Must we go over
these?’ said they. ‘We shall be frozen to death or buried in the snow.’

‘Here comes a man,’ said Niels; ‘let us ask him the way to Rome.’ They
did so, and were told that there was no other way.

‘And is it far yet?’ said the old people, who were beginning to be worn
out by the long journey. The man held up his foot so that they could see
the sole of his shoe; it was worn as thin as paper, and there was a hole
in the middle of it.

‘These shoes were quite new when I left Rome,’ he said, ‘and look at
them now; that will tell you whether you are far from it or not.’

This discouraged the old people so much that they gave up all thought of
finishing the journey, and only wished to get back to Denmark as quickly
as they could. What with the winter and bad roads they took longer to
return than they had taken to go, but in the end they found themselves
in sight of the forest where they had slept before.

‘What’s this?’ said Rasmus. ‘Here’s a big house built since we passed
this way before.’

‘So it is,’ said Peter; ‘let’s stay all night in it.’

‘No, we can’t afford that,’ said the old people; ‘it will be too dear
for the like of us.’

However, when they saw what was written above the door, they were
all well pleased to get a night’s lodging for nothing. They were well
received, and had so much attention given to them, that the old people
were quite put out by it. After they had got time to rest themselves,
the princess’s steward came to hear their story.

‘You saw what was written above the door,’ he said to the father. ‘Tell
me who you are and what your history has been.’

‘Dear me, I have nothing of any importance to tell you,’ said the old
man, ‘and I am sure we should never have made so bold as to trouble you
at all if it hadn’t been for the youngest of our two sons here.’

‘Never mind that,’ said the steward; ‘you are very welcome if you will
only tell me the story of your life.’

‘Well, well, I will,’ said he, ‘but there is nothing to tell about it.
I and my wife have lived all our days on a moor in North Jutland, until
this last year, when she took a fancy to go to Rome. We set out with our
two sons but turned back long before we got there, and are now on our
way home again. That’s all my own story, and our two sons have lived
with us all their days, so there is nothing more to be told about them
either.’

‘Yes there is,’ said Rasmus; ‘when we were on our way south, we slept in
the wood near here one night, and I shot a stag.’

The steward was so much accustomed to hearing stories of no importance
that he thought there was no use going further with this, but reported
to the princess that the newcomers had nothing to tell.

‘Did you question them all?’ she said.

‘Well, no; not directly,’ said he; ‘but the father said that none of
them could tell me any more than he had done.’

‘You are getting careless,’ said the princess; ‘I shall go and talk to
them myself.’

Niels knew the princess again as soon as she entered the room, and was
greatly alarmed, for he immediately supposed that all this was a device
to discover the person who had run away with the sword, the slipper and
the half of the handkerchief, and that it would fare badly with him if
he were discovered. So he told his story much the same as the others did
(Niels was not very particular), and thought he had escaped all further
trouble, when Rasmus put in his word. ‘You’ve forgotten something,
Niels,’ he said; ‘you remember you found a sword near here that night I
shot the stag.’

‘Where is the sword?’ said the princess.

‘I know,’ said the steward, ‘I saw where he laid it down when they came
in;’ and off he went to fetch it, while Niels wondered whether he
could make his escape in the meantime. Before he had made up his
mind, however, the steward was back with the sword, which the princess
recognised at once.

‘Where did you get this?’ she said to Niels.

Niels was silent, and wondered what the usual penalty was for a poor
sheep-farmer’s son who was so unfortunate as to deliver a princess and
carry off things from her bed-room.

‘See what else he has about him,’ said the princess to the steward,
and Niels had to submit to be searched: out of one pocket came a
gold-embroidered slipper, and out of another the half of a gold-hemmed
handkerchief.

‘That is enough,’ said the princess; ‘now we needn’t ask any more
questions. Send for my father the king at once.’

‘Please let me go,’ said Niels; ‘I did you as much good as harm, at any
rate.’

‘Why, who said anything about doing harm?’ said the princess. ‘You must
stay here till my father comes.’

The way in which the princess smiled when she said this gave Niels some
hope that things might not be bad for him after all, and he was yet more
encouraged when he thought of the words engraver on the horn, though the
last line still seemed too good to be true. However, the arrival of the
king soon settled the matter: the princess was willing and so was Niels,
and in a few days the wedding bells were ringing. Niels was made an earl
by that time, and looked as handsome as any of them when dressed in all
his robes. Before long the old king died, and Niels reigned after him;
but whether his father and mother stayed with him, or went back to
the moor in Jutland, or were sent to Rome in a carriage and four,
is something that all the historians of his reign have forgotten to
mention.




Shepherd Paul

Once upon a time a shepherd was taking his flock out to pasture, when he
found a little baby lying in a meadow, left there by some wicked person,
who thought it was too much trouble to look after it. The shepherd was
fond of children, so he took the baby home with him and gave it plenty
of milk, and by the time the boy was fourteen he could tear up oaks
as if they were weeds. Then Paul, as the shepherd had called him, grew
tired of living at home, and went out into the world to try his luck.

He walked on for many miles, seeing nothing that surprised him, but in
an open space of the wood he was astonished at finding a man combing
trees as another man would comb flax.

‘Good morning, friend,’ said Paul; ‘upon my word, you must be a strong
man!’

The man stopped his work and laughed. ‘I am Tree Comber,’ he answered
proudly; ‘and the greatest wish of my life is to wrestle with Shepherd
Paul.’

‘May all your wishes be fulfilled as easily, for I am Shepherd Paul,
and can wrestle with you at once,’ replied the lad; and he seized Tree
Comber and flung him with such force to the ground that he sank up
to his knees in the earth. However, in a moment he was up again, and
catching hold of Paul, threw him so that he sank up to his waist; but
then it was Paul’s turn again, and this time the man was buried up to
his neck. ‘That is enough,’ cried he; ‘I see you are a smart fellow, let
us become friends.’

‘Very good,’ answered Paul, and they continued their journey together.

By-and-by they reached a man who was grinding stones to powder in his
hands, as if they had been nuts.

‘Good morning,’ said Paul politely; ‘upon my word, you must be a strong
fellow!’

‘I am Stone Crusher,’ answered the man, and the greatest wish of my life
is to wrestle with Shepherd Paul.’

‘May all your wishes be as easily fulfilled, for I am Shepherd Paul, and
will wrestle with you at once,’ and the sport began. After a short time
the man declared himself beaten, and begged leave to go with them; so
they all three travelled together.

A little further on they came upon a man who was kneading iron as if
it had been dough. ‘Good morning,’ said Paul, ‘you must be a strong
fellow.’

‘I am Iron Kneader, and should like to fight Shepherd Paul,’ answered
he.

‘Let us begin at once then,’ replied Paul; and on this occasion also,
Paul got the better of his foe, and they all four continued their
journey.

At midday they entered a forest, and Paul stopped suddenly. ‘We three
will go and look for game,’ he said, ‘and you, Tree Comber, will stay
behind and prepare a good supper for us.’ So Tree Comber set to work to
boil and roast, and when dinner was nearly ready, a little dwarf with
a pointed beard strolled up to the place. ‘What are you cooking?’ asked
he, ‘give me some of it.’

‘I’ll give you some on your back, if you like,’ answered Tree Comber
rudely. The dwarf took no notice, but waited patiently till the dinner
was cooked, then suddenly throwing Tree Comber on the ground, he ate
up the contents of the saucepan and vanished. Tree Comber felt rather
ashamed of himself, and set about boiling some more vegetables, but
they were still very hard when the hunters returned, and though they
complained of his bad cooking, he did not tell them about the dwarf.

Next day Stone Crusher was left behind, and after him Iron Kneader, and
each time the dwarf appeared, and they fared no better than Tree Comber
had done. The fourth day Paul said to them: ‘My friends, there must be
some reason why your cooking has always been so bad, now you shall go
and hunt and I will stay behind.’ So they went off, amusing themselves
by thinking what was in store for Paul.

He set to work at once, and had just got all his vegetables simmering in
the pot when the dwarf appeared as before, and asked to have some of the
stew. ‘Be off,’ cried Paul, snatching up the saucepan as he spoke. The
dwarf tried to get hold of his collar, but Paul seized him by the
beard, and tied him to a big tree so that he could not stir, and went
on quietly with his cooking. The hunters came back early, longing to see
how Paul had got on, and, to their surprise, dinner was quite ready for
them.

‘You are great useless creatures,’ said he, ‘who couldn’t even outwit
that little dwarf. When we have finished supper I will show you what I
have done with him!’ But when they reached the place where Paul had left
the dwarf, neither he nor the tree was to be seen, for the little fellow
had pulled it up by the roots and run away, dragging it after him. The
four friends followed the track of the tree and found that it ended in
a deep hole. ‘He must have gone down here,’ said Paul, ‘and I will go
after him. See! there is a basket that will do for me to sit in, and a
cord to lower me with. But when I pull the cord again, lose no time in
drawing the basket up.’

And he stepped into the basket, which was lowered by his friends.

At last it touched the ground and he jumped out and looked about him. He
was in a beautiful valley, full of meadows and streams, with a splendid
castle standing by. As the door was open he walked in, but a lovely
maiden met him and implored him to go back, for the owner of the castle
was a dragon with six heads, who had stolen her from her home and
brought her down to this underground spot. But Paul refused to listen to
all her entreaties, and declared that he was not afraid of the dragon,
and did not care how many heads he had; and he sat down calmly to wait
for him.

In a little while the dragon came in, and all the long teeth in his six
heads chattered with anger at the sight of the stranger.

‘I am Shepherd Paul,’ said the young man, ‘and I have come to fight you,
and as I am in a hurry we had better begin at once.’

‘Very good,’ answered the dragon. ‘I am sure of my supper, but let us
have a mouthful of something first, just to give us an appetite.’

Whereupon he began to eat some huge boulders as if they had been cakes,
and when he had quite finished, he offered Paul one. Paul was not fond
of boulders, but he took a wooden knife and cut one in two, then
he snatched up both halves in his hands and threw them with all his
strength at the dragon, so that two out of the six heads were smashed
in. At this the dragon, with a mighty roar, rushed upon Paul, but he
sprang on one side, and with a swinging blow cut off two of the other
heads. Then, seizing the monster by the neck, he dashed the remaining
heads against the rock.

When the maiden heard that the dragon was dead, she thanked her
deliverer with tears in her eyes, but told him that her two younger
sisters were in the power of dragons still fiercer and more horrible
than this one. He vowed that his sword should never rest in its sheath
till they were set free, and bade the girl come with him, and show him
the way.

The maiden gladly consented to go with him, but first she gave him a
golden rod, and bade him strike the castle with it. He did so, and it
instantly changed into a golden apple, which he put in his pocket. After
that, they started on their search.

They had not gone far before they reached the castle where the second
girl was confined by the power of the dragon with twelve heads, who had
stolen her from her home. She was overjoyed at the sight of her sister
and of Paul, and brought him a shirt belonging to the dragon, which made
every one who wore it twice as strong as they were before. Scarcely had
he put it on when the dragon came back, and the fight began. Long and
hard was the struggle, but Paul’s sword and his shirt helped him, and
the twelve heads lay dead upon the ground.

Then Paul changed the castle into an apple, which he put into his
pocket, and set out with the two girls in search of the third castle.

It was not long before they found it, and within the walls was the third
sister, who was younger and prettier than either of the other two. Her
husband had eighteen heads, but when he quitted the lower regions for
the surface of the earth, he left them all at home except one, which he
changed for the head of a little dwarf, with a pointed beard.

The moment that Paul knew that this terrible dragon was no other than
the dwarf whom he had tied to the tree, he longed more than ever to fly
at his throat. But the thought of the eighteen heads warned him to be
careful, and the third sister brought him a silk shirt which would make
him ten times stronger than he was before.

He had scarcely put it on, when the whole castle began to shake
violently, and the dragon flew up the steps into the hall.

‘Well, my friend, so we meet once more! Have you forgotten me? I am
Shepherd Paul, and I have come to wrestle with you, and to free your
wife from your clutches.’

‘Ah, I am glad to see you again,’ said the dragon. ‘Those were my two
brothers whom you killed, and now your blood shall pay for them.’ And he
went into his room to look for his shirt and to drink some magic wine,
but the shirt was on Paul’s back, and as for the wine, the girl had
given a cupful to Paul and then had allowed the rest to run out of the
cask.

At this the dragon grew rather frightened, but in a moment had
recollected his eighteen heads, and was bold again.

‘Come on,’ he cried, rearing himself up and preparing to dart all his
heads at once at Paul. But Paul jumped underneath, and gave an upward
cut so that six of the heads went rolling down. They were the best heads
too, and very soon the other twelve lay beside them. Then Paul changed
the castle into an apple, and put it in his pocket. Afterwards he and
the three girls set off for the opening which led upwards to the earth.

The basket was still there, dangling from the rope, but it was only big
enough to hold the three girls, so Paul sent them up, and told them to
be sure and let down the basket for him. Unluckily, at the sight of the
maidens’ beauty, so far beyond anything they had ever seen, the friends
forgot all about Paul, and carried the girls straight away into a far
country, so that they were not much better off than before. Meanwhile
Paul, mad with rage at the ingratitude of the three sisters, vowed he
would be revenged upon them, and set about finding some way of getting
back to earth. But it was not very easy, and for months, and months, and
months, he wandered about underground, and, at the end, seemed no nearer
to fulfilling his purpose than he was at the beginning.

At length, one day, he happened to pass the nest of a huge griffin,
who had left her young ones all alone. Just as Paul came along a cloud
containing fire instead of rain burst overhead, and all the little
griffins would certainly have been killed had not Paul spread his cloak
over the nest and saved them. When their father returned the young ones
told him what Paul had done, and he lost no time in flying after Paul,
and asking how he could reward him for his goodness.

‘By carrying me up to the earth,’ answered Paul; and the griffin agreed,
but first went to get some food to eat on the way, as it was a long
journey.

‘Now get on my back,’ he said to Paul, ‘and when I turn my head to the
right, cut a slice off the bullock that hangs on that side, and put it
in my mouth, and when I turn my head to the left, draw a cupful of wine
from the cask that hangs on that side, and pour it down my throat.’

For three days and three nights Paul and the griffin flew upwards, and
on the fourth morning it touched the ground just outside the city where
Paul’s friends had gone to live. Then Paul thanked him and bade him
farewell, and he returned home again.

At first Paul was too tired to do anything but sleep, but as soon as
he was rested he started off in search of the three faithless ones, who
almost died from fright at the sight of him, for they had thought he
would never come back to reproach them for their wickedness.

‘You know what to expect,’ Paul said to them quietly. ‘You shall never
see me again. Off with you!’ He next took the three apples out of his
pocket and placed them all in the prettiest places he could find; after
which he tapped them with his golden rod, and they became castles again.
He gave two of the castles to the eldest sisters, and kept the other
for himself and the youngest, whom he married, and there they are living
still.

[From Ungarische Mahrchen.]




How The Wicked Tanuki Was Punished

The hunters had hunted the wood for so many years that no wild animal
was any more to be found in it. You might walk from one end to the other
without ever seeing a hare, or a deer, or a boar, or hearing the cooing
of the doves in their nest. If they were not dead, they had flown
elsewhere. Only three creatures remained alive, and they had hidden
themselves in the thickest part of the forest, high up the mountain.
These were a grey-furred, long-tailed tanuki, his wife the fox, who was
one of his own family, and their little son.

The fox and the tanuki were very clever, prudent beasts, and they also
were skilled in magic, and by this means had escaped the fate of their
unfortunate friends. If they heard the twang of an arrow or saw the
glitter of a spear, ever so far off, they lay very still, and were
not to be tempted from their hiding-place, if their hunger was ever so
great, or the game ever so delicious. ‘We are not so foolish as to risk
our lives,’ they said to each other proudly. But at length there came
a day when, in spite of their prudence, they seemed likely to die of
starvation, for no more food was to be had. Something had to be done,
but they did not know what.

Suddenly a bright thought struck the tanuki. ‘I have got a plan,’ he
cried joyfully to his wife. ‘I will pretend to be dead, and you must
change yourself into a man, and take me to the village for sale. It will
be easy to find a buyer, tanukis’ skins are always wanted; then buy
some food with the money and come home again. I will manage to escape
somehow, so do not worry about me.’

The fox laughed with delight, and rubbed her paws together with
satisfaction. ‘Well, next time I will go,’ she said, ‘and you can sell
me.’ And then she changed herself into a man, and picking up the stiff
body of the tanuki, set off towards the village. She found him rather
heavy, but it would never have done to let him walk through the wood and
risk his being seen by somebody.

As the tanaki had foretold, buyers were many, and the fox handed him
over to the person who offered the largest price, and hurried to get
some food with the money. The buyer took the tanuki back to his house,
and throwing him into a corner went out. Directly the tanaki found he
was alone, he crept cautiously through a chink of the window, thinking,
as he did so, how lucky it was that he was not a fox, and was able to
climb. Once outside, he hid himself in a ditch till it grew dusk, and
then galloped away into the forest.

While the food lasted they were all three as happy as kings; but there
soon arrived a day when the larder was as empty as ever. ‘It is my turn
now to pretend to be dead,’ cried the fox. So the tanuki changed himself
into a peasant, and started for the village, with his wife’s body
hanging over his shoulder. A buyer was not long in coming forward, and
while they were making the bargain a wicked thought darted into the
tanuki’s head, that if he got rid of the fox there would be more food
for him and his son. So as he put the money in his pocket he whispered
softly to the buyer that the fox was not really dead, and that if he did
not take care she might run away from him. The man did not need twice
telling. He gave the poor fox a blow on the head, which put an end to
her, and the wicked tanuki went smiling to the nearest shop.

In former times he had been very fond of his little son; but since he
had betrayed his wife he seemed to have changed all in a moment, for he
would not give him as much as a bite, and the poor little fellow would
have starved had he not found some nuts and berries to eat, and he
waited on, always hoping that his mother would come back.

At length some notion of the truth began to dawn on him; but he was
careful to let the old tanuki see nothing, though in his own mind he
turned over plans from morning till night, wondering how best he might
avenge his mother.

One morning, as the little tanuki was sitting with his father, he
remembered, with a start, that his mother had taught him all she knew of
magic, and that he could work spells as well as his father, or perhaps
better. ‘I am as good a wizard as you,’ he said suddenly, and a cold
chill ran through the tanuki as he heard him, though he laughed, and
pretended to think it a joke. But the little tanaki stuck to his point,
and at last the father proposed they should have a wager.

‘Change yourself into any shape you like,’ said he, ‘and I will
undertake to know you. I will go and wait on the bridge which leads over
the river to the village, and you shall transform yourself into anything
you please, but I will know you through any disguise.’ The little tanuki
agreed, and went down the road which his father had pointed out. But
instead of transforming himself into a different shape, he just hid
himself in a corner of the bridge, where he could see without being
seen.

He had not been there long when his father arrived and took up his place
near the middle of the bridge, and soon after the king came by, followed
by a troop of guards and all his court.

‘Ah! he thinks that now he has changed himself into a king I shall
not know him,’ thought the old tanuki, and as the king passed in his
splendid carriage, borne by his servants, he jumped upon it crying: ‘I
have won my wager; you cannot deceive me.’ But in reality it was he who
had deceived himself. The soldiers, conceiving that their king was being
attacked, seized the tanuki by the legs and flung him over into the
river, and the water closed over him.

And the little tanoki saw it all, and rejoiced that his mother’s death
had been avenged. Then he went back to the forest, and if he has not
found it too lonely, he is probably living there still.

[From Japanische Mahrchen.]




The Crab And The Monkey

There was once a crab who lived in a hole on the shady side of a
mountain. She was a very good housewife, and so careful and industrious
that there was no creature in the whole country whose hole was so neat
and clean as hers, and she took great pride in it.

One day she saw lying near the mouth of her hole a handful of cooked
rice which some pilgrim must have let fall when he was stopping to eat
his dinner. Delighted at this discovery, she hastened to the spot, and
was carrying the rice back to her hole when a monkey, who lived in some
trees near by, came down to see what the crab was doing. His eyes shone
at the sight of the rice, for it was his favourite food, and like the
sly fellow he was, he proposed a bargain to the crab. She was to give
him half the rice in exchange for the kernel of a sweet red kaki fruit
which he had just eaten. He half expected that the crab would laugh in
his face at this impudent proposal, but instead of doing so she only
looked at him for a moment with her head on one side and then said that
she would agree to the exchange. So the monkey went off with his rice,
and the crab returned to her hole with the kernel.

For some time the crab saw no more of the monkey, who had gone to pay a
visit on the sunny side of the mountain; but one morning he happened to
pass by her hole, and found her sitting under the shadow of a beautiful
kaki tree.

‘Good day,’ he said politely, ‘you have some very fine fruit there! I am
very hungry, could you spare me one or two?’

‘Oh, certainly,’ replied the crab, ‘but you must forgive me if I cannot
get them for you myself. I am no tree-climber.’

‘Pray do not apologise,’ answered the monkey. ‘Now that I have your
permission I can get them myself quite easily.’ And the crab consented
to let him go up, merely saying that he must throw her down half the
fruit.

In another moment he was swinging himself from branch to branch, eating
all the ripest kakis and filling his pockets with the rest, and the poor
crab saw to her disgust that the few he threw down to her were either
not ripe at all or else quite rotten.

‘You are a shocking rogue,’ she called in a rage; but the monkey took no
notice, and went on eating as fast as he could. The crab understood that
it was no use her scolding, so she resolved to try what cunning would
do.

‘Sir Monkey,’ she said, ‘you are certainly a very good climber, but now
that you have eaten so much, I am quite sure you would never be able
to turn one of your somersaults.’ The monkey prided himself on turning
better somersaults than any of his family, so he instantly went head
over heels three times on the bough on which he was sitting, and all the
beautiful kakis that he had in his pockets rolled to the ground. Quick
as lightning the crab picked them up and carried a quantity of them into
her house, but when she came up for another the monkey sprang on her,
and treated her so badly that he left her for dead. When he had beaten
her till his arm ached he went his way.

It was a lucky thing for the poor crab that she had some friends to come
to her help or she certainly would have died then and there. The wasp
flew to her, and took her back to bed and looked after her, and then he
consulted with a rice-mortar and an egg which had fallen out of a nest
near by, and they agreed that when the monkey returned, as he was
sure to do, to steal the rest of the fruit, that they would punish him
severely for the manner in which he had behaved to the crab. So the
mortar climbed up to the beam over the front door, and the egg lay
quite still on the ground, while the wasp set down the water-bucket in a
corner. Then the crab dug itself a deep hole in the ground, so that not
even the tip of her claws might be seen.

Soon after everything was ready the monkey jumped down from his tree,
and creeping to the door began a long hypocritical speech, asking pardon
for all he had done. He waited for an answer of some sort, but none
came. He listened, but all was still; then he peeped, and saw no one;
then he went in. He peered about for the crab, but in vain; however, his
eyes fell on the egg, which he snatched up and set on the fire. But in
a moment the egg had burst into a thousand pieces, and its sharp shell
struck him in the face and scratched him horribly. Smarting with pain he
ran to the bucket and stooped down to throw some water over his head. As
he stretched out his hand up started the wasp and stung him on the nose.
The monkey shrieked and ran to the door, but as he passed through down
fell the mortar and struck him dead. ‘After that the crab lived happily
for many years, and at length died in peace under her own kaki tree.

 [From Japanische Mahrchen.]




The Horse Gullfaxi And The Sword Gunnfoder

Many many years ago there lived a king and queen who had one only son,
called Sigurd. When the little boy was only ten years old the queen, his
mother, fell ill and died, and the king, who loved her dearly, built a
splendid monument to his wife’s memory, and day after day he sat by it
and bewailed his sad loss.

One morning, as he sat by the grave, he noticed a richly dressed lady
close to him. He asked her name and she answered that it was Ingiborg,
and seemed surprised to see the king there all alone. Then he told her
how he had lost his queen, and how he came daily to weep at her grave.
In return, the lady informed him that she had lately lost her husband,
and suggested that they might both find it a comfort if they made
friends.

This pleased the king so much that he invited her to his palace, where
they saw each other often; and after a time he married her.

After the wedding was over he soon regained his good spirits, and used
to ride out hunting as in old days; but Sigurd, who was very fond of his
stepmother, always stayed at home with her.

One evening Ingiborg said to Sigurd: ‘To-morrow your father is going out
hunting, and you must go with him.’ But Sigurd said he would much rather
stay at home, and the next day when the king rode off Sigurd refused to
accompany him. The stepmother was very angry, but he would not listen,
and at last she assured him that he would be sorry for his disobedience,
and that in future he had better do as he was told.

After the hunting party had started she hid Sigurd under her bed, and
bade him be sure to lie there till she called him.

Sigurd lay very still for a long while, and was just thinking it was no
good staying there any more, when he felt the floor shake under him as
if there were an earthquake, and peeping out he saw a great giantess
wading along ankle deep through the ground and ploughing it up as she
walked.

‘Good morning, Sister Ingiborg,’ cried she as she entered the room, ‘is
Prince Sigurd at home?’

‘No,’ said Ingiborg; ‘he rode off to the forest with his father this
morning.’ And she laid the table for her sister and set food before her.
After they had both done eating the giantess said: ‘Thank you, sister,
for your good dinner--the best lamb, the best can of beer and the best
drink I have ever had; but--is not Prince Sigurd at home?’

Ingiborg again said ‘No’; and the giantess took leave of her and went
away. When she was quite out of sight Ingiborg told Sigurd to come out
of his hiding-place.

The king returned home at night, but his wife told him nothing of what
had happened, and the next morning she again begged the prince to go
out hunting with his father. Sigurd, however, replied as before, that he
would much rather stay at home.

So once more the king rode off alone. This time Ingiborg hid Sigurd
under the table, and scolded him well for not doing as she bade him.
For some time he lay quite still, and then suddenly the floor began to
shake, and a giantess came along wading half way to her knees through
the ground.

As she entered the house she asked, as the first one had done: ‘Well,
Sister Ingiborg, is Prince Sigurd at home?’

‘No,’ answered Ingiborg,’ he rode off hunting with his father this
morning’; and going to the cupboard she laid the table for her sister.
When they had finished their meal the giantess rose and said: ‘Thank you
for all these nice dishes, and for the best lamb, the best can of beer
and the nicest drink I have ever had; but--is Prince Sigurd really not
at home?’

‘No, certainly not!’ replied Ingiborg; and with that they took leave of
each other.

When she was well out of sight Sigurd crept from under the table, and
his stepmother declared that it was most important that he should not
stay at home next day; but he said he did not see what harm could come
of it, and he did not mean to go out hunting, and the next morning, when
the king prepared to start, Ingiborg implored Sigurd to accompany his
father. But it was all no use, he was quite obstinate and would not
listen to a word she said. ‘You will have to hide me again,’ said he,
so no sooner had the king gone than Ingiborg hid Sigurd between the wall
and the panelling, and by-and-by there was heard once more a sound like
an earthquake, as a great giantess, wading knee deep through the ground,
came in at the door.

‘Good day, Sister Ingiborg!’ she cried, in a voice like thunder; ‘is
Prince Sigurd at home?’

‘Oh, no,’ answered Ingiborg, ‘he is enjoying himself out there in the
forest. I expect it will be quite dark before he comes back again.’

‘That’s a lie!’ shouted the giantess. And they squabbled about it till
they were tired, after which Ingiborg laid the table; and when the
giantess had done eating she said: ‘Well, I must thank you for all these
good things, and for the best lamb, the best can of beer and the best
drink I have had for a long time; but--are you quite sure Prince Sigurd
is not at home?’

‘Quite,’ said Ingiborg. ‘I’ve told you already that he rode off with his
father this morning to hunt in the forest.’

At this the giantess roared out with a terrible voice: ‘If he is near
enough to hear my words, I lay this spell on him: Let him be half
scorched and half withered; and may he have neither rest nor peace till
he finds me.’ And with these words she stalked off.

For a moment Ingiborg stood as if turned to stone, then she fetched
Sigurd from his hiding-place, and, to her horror, there he was, half
scorched and half withered.

‘Now you see what has happened through your own obstinacy,’ said she;
‘but we must lose no time, for your father will soon be coming home.’

Going quickly into the next room she opened a chest and took out a ball
of string and three gold rings, and gave them to Sigurd, saying: ‘If you
throw this ball on the ground it will roll along till it reaches some
high cliffs. There you will see a giantess looking out over the rocks.
She will call down to you and say: “Ah, this is just what I wanted!
Here is Prince Sigurd. He shall go into the pot to-night”; but don’t be
frightened by her. She will draw you up with a long boat-hook, and you
must greet her from me, and give her the smallest ring as a present.
This will please her, and she will ask you to wrestle with her. When you
are exhausted, she will offer you a horn to drink out of, and though she
does not know it, the wine will make you so strong that you will easily
be able to conquer her. After that she will let you stay there all
night. The same thing will happen with my two other sisters. But, above
all, remember this: should my little dog come to you and lay his paws on
you, with tears running down his face, then hurry home, for my life will
be in danger. Now, good-bye, and don’t forget your stepmother.’

Then Ingiborg dropped the ball on the ground, and Sigurd bade her
farewell.

That same evening the ball stopped rolling at the foot of some high
rocks, and on glancing up, Sigurd saw the giantess looking out at the
top.

‘Ah, just what I wanted!’ she cried out when she saw him; ‘here is
Prince Sigurd. He shall go into the pot to-night. Come up, my friend,
and wrestle with me.’

With these words she reached out a long boat hook and hauled him up the
cliff. At first Sigurd was rather frightened, but he remembered what
Ingiborg had said, and gave the giantess her sister’s message and the
ring.

The giantess was delighted, and challenged him to wrestle with her.
Sigurd was fond of all games, and began to wrestle with joy; but he was
no match for the giantess, and as she noticed that he was getting faint
she gave him a horn to drink out of, which was very foolish on her part,
as it made Sigurd so strong that he soon overthrew her.

‘You may stay here to-night,’ said she; and he was glad of the rest.

Next morning Sigurd threw down the ball again and away it rolled for
some time, till it stopped at the foot of another high rock. Then he
looked up and saw another giantess, even bigger and uglier than the
first one, who called out to him: ‘Ah, this is just what I wanted! Here
is Prince Sigurd. He shall go into the pot to-night. Come up quickly and
wrestle with me.’ And she lost no time in hauling him up.

The prince gave her his stepmother’s message and the second largest
ring. The giantess was greatly pleased when she saw the ring, and at
once challenged Sigurd to wrestle with her.

They struggled for a long time, till at last Sigurd grew faint; so she
handed him a horn to drink from, and when he had drunk he became so
strong that he threw her down with one hand.

On the third morning Sigurd once more laid down his ball, and it rolled
far away, till at last it stopped under a very high rock indeed, over
the top of which the most hideous giantess that ever was seen looked
down.

When she saw who was there she cried out: ‘Ah, this is just what I
wanted! Here comes Prince Sigurd. Into the pot he goes this very night.
Come up here, my friend, and wrestle with me.’ And she hauled him up
just as her sisters had done.

Sigurd then gave her his stepmother’s message and the last and largest
ring. The sight of the red gold delighted the giantess, and she
challenged Sigurd to a wrestling match. This time the fight was fierce
and long, but when at length Sigurd’s strength was failing the giantess
gave him something to drink, and after he had drunk it he soon brought
her to her knees. ‘You have beaten me,’ she gasped, so now, listen to
me. ‘Not far from here is a lake. Go there; you will find a little girl
playing with a boat. Try to make friends with her, and give her this
little gold ring. You are stronger than ever you were, and I wish you
good luck.’

With these words they took leave of each other, and Sigurd wandered on
till he reached the lake, where he found the little girl playing with
a boat, just as he had been told. He went up to her and asked what her
name was.

She was called Helga, she answered, and she lived near by.

So Sigurd gave her the little gold ring, and proposed that they should
have a game. The little girl was delighted, for she had no brothers or
sisters, and they played together all the rest of the day.

When evening came Sigurd asked leave to go home with her, but Helga at
first forbade him, as no stranger had ever managed to enter their house
without being found out by her father, who was a very fierce giant.

However, Sigurd persisted, and at length she gave way; but when they
came near the door she held her glove over him and Sigurd was at once
transformed into a bundle of wool. Helga tucked the bundle under her arm
and threw it on the bed in her room.

Almost at the same moment her father rushed in and hunted round in every
corner, crying out: ‘This place smells of men. What’s that you threw on
the bed, Helga?’

‘A bundle of wool,’ said she.

‘Oh, well, perhaps it was that I smelt,’ said the old man, and troubled
himself no more.

The following day Helga went out to play and took the bundle of wool
with her under her arm. When she reached the lake she held her glove
over it again and Sigurd resumed his own shape.

They played the whole day, and Sigurd taught Helga all sorts of games
she had never even heard of. As they walked home in the evening she
said: ‘We shall be able to play better still to-morrow, for my father
will have to go to the town, so we can stay at home.’

When they were near the house Helga again held her glove over Sigurd,
and once more he was turned into a bundle of wool, and she carried him
in without his being seen.

Very early next morning Helga’s father went to the town, and as soon
as he was well out of the way the girl held up her glove and Sigurd was
himself again. Then she took him all over the house to amuse him, and
opened every room, for her father had given her the keys before he left;
but when they came to the last room Sigurd noticed one key on the bunch
which had not been used and asked which room it belonged to.’

Helga grew red and did not answer.

‘I suppose you don’t mind my seeing the room which it opens?’ asked
Sigurd, and as he spoke he saw a heavy iron door and begged Helga to
unlock it for him. But she told him she dared not do so, at least if she
did open the door it must only be a very tiny chink; and Sigurd declared
that would do quite well.

The door was so heavy, that it took Helga some time to open it, and
Sigurd grew so impatient that he pushed it wide open and walked in.
There he saw a splendid horse, all ready saddled, and just above it
hung a richly ornamented sword on the handle of which was engraved
these words: ‘He who rides this horse and wears this sword will find
happiness.’

At the sight of the horse Sigurd was so filled with wonder that he was
not able to speak, but at last he gasped out: ‘Oh, do let me mount him
and ride him round the house! Just once; I promise not to ask any more.’

‘Ride him round the house!’ cried Helga, growing pale at the mere idea.
‘Ride Gullfaxi! Why father would never, never forgive me, if I let you
do that.’

‘But it can’t do him any harm,’ argued Sigurd; ‘you don’t know how
careful I will be. I have ridden all sorts of horses at home, and have
never fallen off not once. Oh, Helga, do!’

‘Well, perhaps, if you come back directly,’ replied Helga, doubtfully;
‘but you must be very quick, or father will find out!’

But, instead of mounting Gullfaxi, as she expected, Sigurd stood still.

‘And the sword,’ he said, looking fondly up to the place where it hung.
‘My father is a king, but he has not got any sword so beautiful as that.
Why, the jewels in the scabbard are more splendid than the big ruby in
his crown! Has it got a name? Some swords have, you know.’

‘It is called “Gunnfjoder,” the “Battle Plume,”’ answered Helga, ‘and
“Gullfaxi” means “Golden Mane.” I don’t suppose, if you are to get on
the horse at all, it would matter your taking the sword too. And if you
take the sword you will have to carry the stick and the stone and the
twig as well.’

‘They are easily carried,’ said Sigurd, gazing at them with scorn; ‘what
wretched dried-up things! Why in the world do you keep them?’

‘Bather says that he would rather lose Gullfaxi than lose them,’ replied
Helga, ‘for if the man who rides the horse is pursued he has only to
throw the twig behind him and it will turn into a forest, so thick that
even a bird could hardly fly through. But if his enemy happens to know
magic, and can throw down the forest, the man has only to strike the
stone with the stick, and hailstones as large as pigeons’ eggs will rain
down from the sky and will kill every one for twenty miles round.’

Having said all this she allowed Sigurd to ride ‘just once’ round the
house, taking the sword and other things with him. But when he had
ridden round, instead of dismounting, he suddenly turned the horse’s
head and galloped away.

Soon after this Helga’s father came home and found his daughter in
tears. He asked what was the matter, and when he heard all that had
happened, he rushed off as fast as he could to pursue Sigurd.

Now, as Sigurd happened to look behind him he saw the giant coming after
him with great strides, and in all haste he threw the twig behind him.
Immediately such a thick wood sprang up at once between him and his
enemy that the giant was obliged to run home for an axe with which to
cut his way through.

The next time Sigurd glanced round, the giant was so near that he almost
touched Gullfaxi’s tail. In an agony of fear Sigurd turned quickly in
his saddle and hit the stone with the stick. No sooner had he done this
than a terrible hailstorm burst behind, and the giant was killed on the
spot.

But had Sigurd struck the stone without turning round, the hail would
have driven right into his face and killed him instead.

After the giant was dead Sigurd rode on towards his own home, and on the
way he suddenly met his stepmother’s little dog, running to meet him,
with tears pouring down its face. He galloped on as hard as he could,
and on arriving found nine men-servants in the act of tying Queen
Ingiborg to a post in the courtyard of the palace, where they intended
to burn her.

Wild with anger Prince Sigurd sprang from his horse and, sword in hand,
fell on the men and killed them all. Then he released his stepmother,
and went in with her to see his father.

The king lay in bed sick with sorrow, and neither eating nor drinking,
for he thought that his son had been killed by the queen. He could
hardly believe his own eyes for joy when he saw the prince, and Sigurd
told him all his adventures.

After that Prince Sigurd rode back to fetch Helga, and a great feast was
made which lasted three days; and every one said no bride was ever seen
so beautiful as Helga, and they lived happily for many, many years, and
everybody loved them.

[From Islandische Mahrchen.]




The Story Of The Sham Prince, Or The Ambitious Tailor

Once upon a time there lived a respectable young tailor called Labakan,
who worked for a clever master in Alexandria. No one could call
Labakan either stupid or lazy, for he could work extremely well and
quickly--when he chose; but there was something not altogether right
about him. Sometimes he would stitch away as fast as if he had a red-hot
needle and a burning thread, and at other times he would sit lost in
thought, and with such a queer look about him that his fellow-workmen
used to say, ‘Labakan has got on his aristocratic face today.’

On Fridays he would put on his fine robe which he had bought with the
money he had managed to save up, and go to the mosque. As he came back,
after prayers, if he met any friend who said ‘Good-day,’ or ‘How are
you, friend Labakan?’ he would wave his hand graciously or nod in a
condescending way; and if his master happened to say to him, as he
sometimes did, ‘Really, Labakan, you look like a prince,’ he was
delighted, and would answer, ‘Have you noticed it too?’ or ‘Well, so I
have long thought.’

Things went on like this for some time, and the master put up with
Labakan’s absurdities because he was, on the whole, a good fellow and a
clever workman.

One day, the sultan’s brother happened to be passing through Alexandria,
and wanted to have one of his state robes altered, so he sent for the
master tailor, who handed the robe over to Labakan as his best workman.

In the evening, when every one had left the workshop and gone home, a
great longing drove Labakan back to the place where the royal robe hung.
He stood a long time gazing at it, admiring the rich material and the
splendid embroidery in it. At last he could hold out no longer. He felt
he must try it on, and lo! and behold, it fitted as though it had been
made for him.

‘Am not I as good a prince as any other?’ he asked himself, as he
proudly paced up and down the room. ‘Has not the master often said that
I seemed born to be a prince?’

It seemed to him that he must be the son of some unknown monarch, and at
last he determined to set out at once and travel in search of his proper
rank.

He felt as if the splendid robe had been sent him by some kind fairy,
and he took care not to neglect such a precious gift. He collected all
his savings, and, concealed by the darkness of the night, he passed
through the gates of Alexandria.

The new prince excited a good deal of curiosity where ever he went, for
his splendid robe and majestic manner did not seem quite suitable to a
person travelling on foot. If anyone asked questions, he only replied
with an important air of mystery that he had his own reasons for not
riding.

However, he soon found out that walking made him ridiculous, so at last
he bought a quiet, steady old horse, which he managed to get cheap.

One day, as he was ambling along upon Murva (that was the horse’s name),
a horseman overtook him and asked leave to join him, so that they might
both beguile the journey with pleasant talk. The newcomer was a bright,
cheerful, good-looking young man, who soon plunged into conversation and
asked many questions. He told Labakan that his own name was Omar, that
he was a nephew of Elfi Bey, and was travelling in order to carry out a
command given him by his uncle on his death bed. Labakan was not quite
so open in his confidences, but hinted that he too was of noble birth
and was travelling for pleasure.

The two young men took a fancy to each other and rode on together. On
the second day of their journey Labakan questioned Omar as to the orders
he had to carry out, and to his surprise heard this tale.

Elfi Bey, Pacha of Cairo, had brought up Omar from his earliest
childhood, and the boy had never known his parents. On his deathbed Elfi
Bey called Omar to him, and then told him that he was not his nephew,
but the son of a great king, who, having been warned of coming dangers
by his astrologers, had sent the young prince away and made a vow not to
see him till his twenty-second birthday.

Elfi Bey did not tell Omar his father’s name, but expressly desired him
to be at a great pillar four days’ journey east of Alexandria on the
fourth day of the coming month, on which day he would be twenty-two
years old. Here he would meet some men, to whom he was to hand a dagger
which Elfi Bey gave him, and to say ‘Here am I for whom you seek.’

If they answered: ‘Praised be the Prophet who has preserved you,’ he was
to follow them, and they would take him to his father.

Labakan was greatly surprised and interested by this story, but after
hearing it he could not help looking on Prince Omar with envious eyes,
angry that his friend should have the position he himself longed so much
for. He began to make comparisons between the prince and himself, and
was obliged to confess that he was a fine-looking young man with very
good manners and a pleasant expression.

At the same time, he felt sure that had he been in the prince’s place
any royal father might have been glad to own him.

These thoughts haunted him all day, and he dreamt them all night. He
woke very early, and as he saw Omar sleeping quietly, with a happy smile
on his face, a wish arose in his mind to take by force or by cunning the
things which an unkind fate had denied him.

The dagger which was to act as a passport was sticking in Omar’s girdle.
Labakan drew it gently out, and hesitated for a moment whether or not to
plunge it into the heart of the sleeping prince. However, he shrank from
the idea of murder, so he contented himself with placing the dagger in
his own belt, and, saddling Omar’s swift horse for himself, was many
miles away before the prince woke up to realise his losses.

For two days Labakan rode on steadily, fearing lest, after all, Omar
might reach the meeting place before him. At the end of the second day
he saw the great pillar at a distance. It stood on a little hill in
the middle of a plain, and could be seen a very long way off. Labakan’s
heart beat fast at the sight. Though he had had some time in which to
think over the part he meant to play his conscience made him rather
uneasy. However, the thought that he must certainly have been born to be
a king supported him, and he bravely rode on.

The neighbourhood was quite bare and desert, and it was a good thing
that the new prince had brought food for some time with him, as two days
were still wanting till the appointed time.

Towards the middle of the next day he saw a long procession of horses
and camels coming towards him. It halted at the bottom of the hill, and
some splendid tents were pitched. Everything looked like the escort of
some great man. Labakan made a shrewd guess that all these people had
come here on his account; but he checked his impatience, knowing that
only on the fourth day could his wishes be fulfilled.

The first rays of the rising sun woke the happy tailor. As he began to
saddle his horse and prepare to ride to the pillar, he could not help
having some remorseful thoughts of the trick he had played and the
blighted hopes of the real prince. But the die was cast, and his vanity
whispered that he was as fine looking a young man as the proudest king
might wish his son to be, and that, moreover, what had happened had
happened.

With these thoughts he summoned up all his courage sprang on his horse,
and in less than a quarter of an hour was at the foot of the hill. Here
he dismounted, tied the horse to a bush, and, drawing out Prince Omar’s
dagger climbed up the hill.

At the foot of the pillar stood six men round a tall and stately person.
His superb robe of cloth of gold was girt round him by a white cashmere
shawl, and his white, richly jewelled turban showed that he was a man of
wealth and high rank.

Labakan went straight up to him, and, bending low, handed him the
dagger, saying: ‘Here am I whom you seek.’

‘Praised be the Prophet who has preserved you! replied the old man with
tears of joy. ‘Embrace me, my dear son Omar!’

The proud tailor was deeply moved by these solemn words, and with
mingled shame and joy sank into the old king’s arms.

But his happiness was not long unclouded. As he raised his head he saw a
horseman who seemed trying to urge a tired or unwilling horse across the
plain.

Only too soon Labakan recognised his own old horse, Murva, and the real
Prince Omar, but having once told a lie he made up his mind not to own
his deceit.

At last the horseman reached the foot of the hill. Here he flung himself
from the saddle and hurried up to the pillar.

‘Stop!’ he cried, ‘whoever you may be, and do not let a disgraceful
impostor take you in. My name is Omar, and let no one attempt to rob me
of it.’

This turn of affairs threw the standers-by into great surprise. The old
king in particular seemed much moved as he looked from one face to the
other. At last Labakan spoke with forced calmness, ‘Most gracious lord
and father, do not let yourself be deceived by this man. As far as I
know, he is a half-crazy tailor’s apprentice from Alexandria, called
Labakan, who really deserves more pity than anger.’

These words infuriated the prince. Foaming with rage, he tried to press
towards Labakan, but the attendants threw themselves upon him and held
him fast, whilst the king said, ‘Truly, my dear son, the poor fellow is
quite mad. Let him be bound and placed on a dromedary. Perhaps we may be
able to get some help for him.’

The prince’s first rage was over, and with tears he cried to the king,
‘My heart tells me that you are my father, and in my mother’s name I
entreat you to hear me.’

‘Oh! heaven forbid!’ was the reply. ‘He is talking nonsense again. How
can the poor man have got such notions into his head?’

With these words the king took Labakan’s arm to support him down the
hill. They both mounted richly caparisoned horses and rode across the
plain at the head of their followers.

The unlucky prince was tied hand and foot, and fastened on a dromedary,
a guard riding on either side and keeping a sharp look-out on him.

The old king was Sached, Sultan of the Wachabites. For many years he
had had no children, but at length the son he had so long wished for
was born. But the sooth-sayers and magicians whom he consulted as to the
child’s future all said that until he was twenty-two years old he stood
in danger of being injured by an enemy. So, to make all safe, the sultan
had confided the prince to his trusty friend Elfi Bey, and deprived
himself of the happiness of seeing him for twenty-two years. All this
the sultan told Labakan, and was much pleased by his appearance and
dignified manner.

When they reached their own country they were received with every
sign of joy, for the news of the prince’s safe return had spread
like wildfire, and every town and village was decorated, whilst the
inhabitants thronged to greet them with cries of joy and thankfulness.
All this filled Labakan’s proud heart with rapture, whilst the
unfortunate Omar followed in silent rage and despair.

At length they arrived in the capital, where the public rejoicings were
grander and more brilliant than anywhere else. The queen awaited them
in the great hall of the palace, surrounded by her entire court. It was
getting dark, and hundreds of coloured hanging lamps were lit to turn
night into day.

The brightest hung round the throne on which the queen sat, and which
stood above four steps of pure gold inlaid with great amethysts. The
four greatest nobles in the kingdom held a canopy of crimson silk over
the queen, and the Sheik of Medina fanned her with a peacock-feather
fan.

In this state she awaited her husband and her son. She, too, had not
seen Omar since his birth, but so many dreams had shown her what he
would look like that she felt she would know him among a thousand.

And now the sound of trumpets and drums and of shouts and cheers outside
announced the long looked for moment. The doors flew open, and between
rows of low-bending courtiers and servants the king approached the
throne, leading his pretended son by the hand.

‘Here,’ said he, ‘is he for whom you have been longing so many years.’

But the queen interrupted him, ‘That is not my son!’ she cried. ‘That is
not the face the Prophet has shown me in my dreams!’

Just as the king was about to reason with her, the door was thrown
violently open, and Prince Omar rushed in, followed by his keepers,
whom he had managed to get away from. He flung himself down before the
throne, panting out, ‘Here will I die; kill me at once, cruel father,
for I cannot bear this shame any longer.’

Everyone pressed round the unhappy man, and the guards were about to
seize him, when the queen, who at first was dumb with surprise, sprang
up from her throne.

‘Hold!’ cried she. ‘This and no other is the right one; this is the one
whom my eyes have never yet seen, but whom my heart recognises.’

The guards had stepped back, but the king called to them in a furious
voice to secure the madman.

‘It is I who must judge,’ he said in tones of command; ‘and this matter
cannot be decided by women’s dreams, but by certain unmistakable signs.
This one’ (pointing to Labakan) ‘is my son, for it was he who brought me
the token from my friend Elfi--the dagger.’

‘He stole it from me,’ shrieked Omar; ‘he betrayed my unsuspicious
confidence.’

But the king would not listen to his son’s voice, for he had always been
accustomed to depend on his own judgment. He let the unhappy Omar be
dragged from the hall, whilst he himself retired with Labakan to his
own rooms, full of anger with the queen his wife, in spite of their many
years of happy life together.

The queen, on her side, was plunged in grief, for she felt certain that
an impostor had won her husband’s heart and taken the place of her real
son.

When the first shock was over she began to think how she could manage
to convince the king of his mistake. Of course it would be a difficult
matter, as the man who declared he was Omar had produced the dagger as a
token, besides talking of all sorts of things which happened when he
was a child. She called her oldest and wisest ladies about her and asked
their advice, but none of them had any to give. At last one very clever
old woman said: ‘Did not the young man who brought the dagger call him
whom your majesty believes to be your son Labakan, and say he was a
crazy tailor?’

‘Yes,’ replied the queen; ‘but what of that?’

‘Might it not be,’ said the old lady, ‘that the impostor has called
your real son by his own name? If this should be the case, I know of a
capital way to find out the truth.’

And she whispered some words to the queen, who seemed much pleased, and
went off at once to see the king.

Now the queen was a very wise woman, so she pretended to think she might
have made a mistake, and only begged to be allowed to put a test to the
two young men to prove which was the real prince.

The king, who was feeling much ashamed of the rage he had been in with
his dear wife, consented at once, and she said: ‘No doubt others would
make them ride or shoot, or something of that sort, but every one learns
these things. I wish to set them a task which requires sharp wits and
clever hands, and I want them to try which of them can best make a
kaftan and pair of trousers.’

The king laughed. ‘No, no, that will never do. Do you suppose my son
would compete with that crazy tailor as to which could make the best
clothes? Oh, dear, no, that won’t do at all.’

But the queen claimed his promise, and as he was a man of his word the
king gave in at last. He went to his son and begged that he would humour
his mother, who had set her heart on his making a kaftan.

The worthy Labakan laughed to himself. ‘If that is all she wants,’
thought he, ‘her majesty will soon be pleased to own me.’

Two rooms were prepared, with pieces of material, scissors, needles and
threads, and each young man was shut up in one of them.

The king felt rather curious as to what sort of garment his son would
make, and the queen, too, was very anxious as to the result of her
experiment.

On the third day they sent for the two young men and their work. Labakan
came first and spread out his kaftan before the eyes of the astonished
king. ‘See, father,’ he said; ‘see, my honoured mother, if this is not a
masterpiece of work. I’ll bet the court tailor himself cannot do better.

The queen smiled and turned to Omar: ‘And what have you done, my son?’

Impatiently he threw the stuff and scissors down on the floor. ‘I have
been taught how to manage a horse, to draw a sword, and to throw a lance
some sixty paces, but I never learnt to sew, and such a thing would have
been thought beneath the notice of the pupil of Elfi Bey, the ruler of
Cairo.’

‘Ah, true son of your father,’ cried the queen; ‘if only I might embrace
you and call you son! Forgive me, my lord and husband,’ she added,
turning to the king, ‘for trying to find out the truth in this way.
Do you not see yourself now which is the prince and which the tailor?
Certainly this kaftan is a very fine one, but I should like to know what
master taught this young man how to make clothes.’

The king sat deep in thought, looking now at his wife and now at
Labakan, who was doing his best to hide his vexation at his own
stupidity. At last the king said: ‘Even this trial does not satisfy me;
but happily I know of a sure way to discover whether or not I have been
deceived.’

He ordered his swiftest horse to be saddled, mounted, and rode off alone
into a forest at some little distance. Here lived a kindly fairy called
Adolzaide, who had often helped the kings of his race with her good
advice, and to her he betook himself.

In the middle of the forest was a wide open space surrounded by great
cedar trees, and this was supposed to be the fairy’s favourite spot.
When the king reached this place he dismounted, tied his horse to the
tree, and standing in the middle of the open place said: ‘If it is true
that you have helped my ancestors in their time of need, do not despise
their descendant, but give me counsel, for that of men has failed me.’

He had hardly finished speaking when one of the cedar trees opened, and
a veiled figure all dressed in white stepped from it.

‘I know your errand, King Sached,’ she said; ‘it is an honest one, and
I will give you my help. Take these two little boxes and let the two
men who claim to be your son choose between them. I know that the real
prince will make no mistake.’

She then handed him two little boxes made of ivory set with gold and
pearls. On the lid of each (which the king vainly tried to open) was an
inscription in diamonds. On one stood the words ‘Honour and Glory,’ and
on the other ‘Wealth and Happiness.’

‘It would be a hard choice,’ thought the king as he rode home.

He lost no time in sending for the queen and for all his court, and when
all were assembled he made a sign, and Labakan was led in. With a proud
air he walked up to the throne, and kneeling down, asked:

‘What does my lord and father command?’

The king replied: ‘My son, doubts have been thrown on your claim to that
name. One of these boxes contains the proofs of your birth. Choose for
yourself. No doubt you will choose right.’

He then pointed to the ivory boxes, which were placed on two little
tables near the throne.

Labakan rose and looked at the boxes. He thought for some minutes, and
then said: ‘My honoured father, what can be better than the happiness of
being your son, and what nobler than the riches of your love. I choose
the box with the words “Wealth and Happiness.”’

‘We shall see presently if you have chosen the right one. For the
present take a seat there beside the Pacha of Medina,’ replied the king.

Omar was next led in, looking sad and sorrowful. He threw himself down
before the throne and asked what was the king’s pleasure. The king
pointed out the two boxes to him, and he rose and went to the tables. He
carefully read the two mottoes and said: ‘The last few days have shown
me how uncertain is happiness and how easily riches vanish away. Should
I lose a crown by it I make my choice of “Honour and Glory.”’

He laid his hand on the box as he spoke, but the king signed to him to
wait, and ordered Labakan to come to the other table and lay his hand on
the box he had chosen.

Then the king rose from his throne, and in solemn silence all present
rose too, whilst he said: ‘Open the boxes, and may Allah show us the
truth.’

The boxes were opened with the greatest ease. In the one Omar had chosen
lay a little gold crown and sceptre on a velvet cushion. In Labakan’s
box was found--a large needle with some thread!

The king told the two young men to bring him their boxes. They did so.
He took the crown in his hand, and as he held it, it grew bigger and
bigger, till it was as large as a real crown. He placed it on the head
of his son Omar, kissed him on the forehead, and placed him on his right
hand. Then, turning to Labakan, he said: ‘There is an old proverb, “The
cobbler sticks to his last.” It seems as though you were to stick to
your needle. You have not deserved any mercy, but I cannot be harsh on
this day. I give you your life, but I advise you to leave this country
as fast as you can.’

Full of shame, the unlucky tailor could not answer. He flung himself
down before Omar, and with tears in his eyes asked: ‘Can you forgive me,
prince?’

‘Go in peace,’ said Omar as he raised him.

‘Oh, my true son!’ cried the king as he clasped the prince in his arms,
whilst all the pachas and emirs shouted, ‘Long live Prince Omar!’

In the midst of all the noise and rejoicing Labakan slipped off with his
little box under his arm. He went to the stables, saddled his old horse,
Murva, and rode out of the gate towards Alexandria. Nothing but the
ivory box with its diamond motto was left to show him that the last few
weeks had not been a dream.

When he reached Alexandria he rode up to his old master’s door. When he
entered the shop, his master came forward to ask what was his pleasure,
but as soon as he saw who it was he called his workmen, and they all
fell on Labakan with blows and angry words, till at last he fell, half
fainting, on a heap of old clothes.

The master then scolded him soundly about the stolen robe, but in vain
Labakan told him he had come to pay for it and offered three times its
price. They only fell to beating him again, and at last pushed him out
of the house more dead than alive.

He could do nothing but remount his horse and ride to an inn. Here he
found a quiet place in which to rest his bruised and battered limbs and
to think over his many misfortunes. He fell asleep fully determined to
give up trying to be great, but to lead the life of an honest workman.

Next morning he set to work to fulfil his good resolutions. He sold his
little box to a jeweller for a good price, bought a house and opened a
workshop. Then he hung up a sign with, ‘Labakan, Tailor,’ over his door,
and sat down to mend his own torn clothes with the very needle which had
been in the ivory box.

After a while he was called away, and when he went back to his work he
found a wonderful thing had happened! The needle was sewing away all by
itself and making the neatest little stitches, such as Labakan had never
been able to make even at his best.

Certainly even the smallest gift of a kind fairy is of great value, and
this one had yet another advantage, for the thread never came to an end,
however much the needle sewed.

Labakan soon got plenty of customers. He used to cut out the clothes,
make the first stitch with the magic needle, and then leave it to do the
rest. Before long the whole town went to him, for his work was both so
good and so cheap. The only puzzle was how he could do so much, working
all alone, and also why he worked with closed doors.

And so the promise on the ivory box of ‘Wealth and Happiness’ came true
for him, and when he heard of all the brave doings of Prince Omar, who
was the pride and darling of his people and the terror of his enemies,
the ex-prince thought to himself, ‘After all, I am better off as a
tailor, for “Honour and Glory” are apt to be very dangerous things.’




The Colony Of Cats

Long, long ago, as far back as the time when animals spoke, there lived
a community of cats in a deserted house they had taken possession of not
far from a large town. They had everything they could possibly desire
for their comfort, they were well fed and well lodged, and if by any
chance an unlucky mouse was stupid enough to venture in their way, they
caught it, not to eat it, but for the pure pleasure of catching it. The
old people of the town related how they had heard their parents speak
of a time when the whole country was so overrun with rats and mice
that there was not so much as a grain of corn nor an ear of maize to be
gathered in the fields; and it might be out of gratitude to the cats who
had rid the country of these plagues that their descendants were allowed
to live in peace. No one knows where they got the money to pay for
everything, nor who paid it, for all this happened so very long ago.
But one thing is certain, they were rich enough to keep a servant; for
though they lived very happily together, and did not scratch nor fight
more than human beings would have done, they were not clever enough to
do the housework themselves, and preferred at all events to have some
one to cook their meat, which they would have scorned to eat raw. Not
only were they very difficult to please about the housework, but most
women quickly tired of living alone with only cats for companions,
consequently they never kept a servant long; and it had become a saying
in the town, when anyone found herself reduced to her last penny: ‘I
will go and live with the cats,’ and so many a poor woman actually did.

Now Lizina was not happy at home, for her mother, who was a widow, was
much fonder of her elder daughter; so that often the younger one fared
very badly, and had not enough to eat, while the elder could have
everything she desired, and if Lizina dared to complain she was certain
to have a good beating.

At last the day came when she was at the end of her courage and
patience, and exclaimed to her mother and sister:

‘As you hate me so much you will be glad to be rid of me, so I am going
to live with the cats!’

‘Be off with you!’ cried her mother, seizing an old broom-handle from
behind the door. Poor Lizina did not wait to be told twice, but ran off
at once and never stopped till she reached the door of the cats’ house.
Their cook had left them that very morning, with her face all scratched,
the result of such a quarrel with the head of the house that he had very
nearly scratched out her eyes. Lizina therefore was warmly welcomed,
and she set to work at once to prepare the dinner, not without many
misgivings as to the tastes of the cats, and whether she would be able
to satisfy them.

Going to and fro about her work, she found herself frequently hindered
by a constant succession of cats who appeared one after another in the
kitchen to inspect the new servant; she had one in front of her
feet, another perched on the back of her chair while she peeled the
vegetables, a third sat on the table beside her, and five or six others
prowled about among the pots and pans on the shelves against the wall.
The air resounded with their purring, which meant that they were pleased
with their new maid, but Lizina had not yet learned to understand
their language, and often she did not know what they wanted her to do.
However, as she was a good, kindhearted girl, she set to work to pick
up the little kittens which tumbled about on the floor, she patched
up quarrels, and nursed on her lap a big tabby--the oldest of the
community--which had a lame paw. All these kindnesses could hardly fail
to make a favourable impression on the cats, and it was even better
after a while, when she had had time to grow accustomed to their strange
ways. Never had the house been kept so clean, the meats so well served,
nor the sick cats so well cared for. After a time they had a visit from
an old cat, whom they called their father, who lived by himself in a
barn at the top of the hill, and came down from time to time to inspect
the little colony. He too was much taken with Lizina, and inquired, on
first seeing her: ‘Are you well served by this nice, black-eyed little
person?’ and the cats answered with one voice: ‘Oh, yes, Father Gatto,
we have never had so good a servant!’

At each of his visits the answer was always the same; but after a time
the old cat, who was very observant, noticed that the little maid had
grown to look sadder and sadder. ‘What is the matter, my child has any
one been unkind to you?’ he asked one day, when he found her crying in
her kitchen. She burst into tears and answered between her sobs: ‘Oh,
no! they are all very good to me; but I long for news from home, and I
pine to see my mother and my sister.’

Old Gatto, being a sensible old cat, understood the little servant’s
feelings. ‘You shall go home,’ he said, ‘and you shall not come back
here unless you please. But first you must be rewarded for all your kind
services to my children. Follow me down into the inner cellar, where you
have never yet been, for I always keep it locked and carry the key away
with me.’

Lizina looked round her in astonishment as they went down into the
great vaulted cellar underneath the kitchen. Before her stood the big
earthenware water jars, one of which contained oil, the other a liquid
shining like gold. ‘In which of these jars shall I dip you?’ asked
Father Gatto, with a grin that showed all his sharp white teeth, while
his moustaches stood out straight on either side of his face. The little
maid looked at the two jars from under her long dark lashes: ‘In the oil
jar,’ she answered timidly, thinking to herself: ‘I could not ask to be
bathed in gold.’

But Father Gatto replied: ‘No, no; you have deserved something better
than that.’ And seizing her in his strong paws he plunged her into the
liquid gold. Wonder of wonders! when Lizina came out of the jar she
shone from head to foot like the sun in the heavens on a fine summer’s
day. Her pretty pink cheeks and long black hair alone kept their natural
colour, otherwise she had become like a statue of pure gold. Father
Gatto purred loudly with satisfaction. ‘Go home,’ he said, ‘and see
your mother and sisters; but take care if you hear the cock crow to turn
towards it; if on the contrary the ass brays, you must look the other
way.’

The little maid, having gratefully kissed the white paw of the old cat,
set off for home; but just as she got near her mother’s house the cock
crowed, and quickly she turned towards it. Immediately a beautiful
golden star appeared on her forehead, crowning her glossy black hair.
At the same time the ass began to bray, but Lizina took care not to look
over the fence into the field where the donkey was feeding. Her
mother and sister, who were in front of their house, uttered cries of
admiration and astonishment when they saw her, and their cries became
still louder when Lizina, taking her handkerchief from her pocket, drew
out also a handful of gold.

For some days the mother and her two daughters lived very happily
together, for Lizina had given them everything she had brought away
except her golden clothing, for that would not come off, in spite of all
the efforts of her sister, who was madly jealous of her good fortune.
The golden star, too, could not be removed from her forehead. But all
the gold pieces she drew from her pockets had found their way to her
mother and sister.

‘I will go now and see what I can get out of the pussies,’ said Peppina,
the elder girl, one morning, as she took Lizina’s basket and fastened
her pockets into her own skirt. ‘I should like some of the cats’ gold
for myself,’ she thought, as she left her mother’s house before the sun
rose.

The cat colony had not yet taken another servant, for they knew they
could never get one to replace Lizina, whose loss they had not yet
ceased to mourn. When they heard that Peppina was her sister, they all
ran to meet her. ‘She is not the least like her,’ the kittens whispered
among themselves.

‘Hush, be quiet!’ the older cats said; ‘all servants cannot be pretty.’

No, decidedly she was not at all like Lizina. Even the most reasonable
and large-minded of the cats soon acknowledged that.

The very first day she shut the kitchen door in the face of the
tom-cats who used to enjoy watching Lizina at her work, and a young and
mischievous cat who jumped in by the open kitchen window and alighted on
the table got such a blow with the rolling-pin that he squalled for an
hour.

With every day that passed the household became more and more aware of
its misfortune.

The work was as badly done as the servant was surly and disagreeable;
in the corners of the rooms there were collected heaps of dust; spiders’
webs hung from the ceilings and in front of the window-panes; the beds
were hardly ever made, and the feather beds, so beloved by the old and
feeble cats, had never once been shaken since Lizina left the house.
At Father Gatto’s next visit he found the whole colony in a state of
uproar.

‘Caesar has one paw so badly swollen that it looks as if it were
broken,’ said one. ‘Peppina kicked him with her great wooden shoes on.
Hector has an abscess in his back where a wooden chair was flung at him;
and Agrippina’s three little kittens have died of hunger beside their
mother, because Peppina forgot them in their basket up in the attic.
There is no putting up with the creature--do send her away, Father
Gatto! Lizina herself would not be angry with us; she must know very
well what her sister is like.’

‘Come here,’ said Father Gatto, in his most severe tones to Peppina. And
he took her down into the cellar and showed her the same two great
jars that he had showed Lizina. ‘In which of these shall I dip you?’ he
asked; and she made haste to answer: ‘In the liquid gold,’ for she was
no more modest than she was good and kind.

Father Gatto’s yellow eyes darted fire. ‘You have not deserved it,’ he
uttered, in a voice like thunder, and seizing her he flung her into
the jar of oil, where she was nearly suffocated. When she came to the
surface screaming and struggling, the vengeful cat seized her again
and rolled her in the ash-heap on the floor; then when she rose, dirty,
blinded, and disgusting to behold, he thrust her from the door, saying:
‘Begone, and when you meet a braying ass be careful to turn your head
towards it.’

Stumbling and raging, Peppina set off for home, thinking herself
fortunate to find a stick by the wayside with which to support herself.
She was within sight of her mother’s house when she heard in the meadow
on the right, the voice of a donkey loudly braying. Quickly she turned
her head towards it, and at the same time put her hand up to her
forehead, where, waving like a plume, was a donkey’s tail. She ran home
to her mother at the top of her speed, yelling with rage and despair;
and it took Lizina two hours with a big basin of hot water and two cakes
of soap to get rid of the layer of ashes with which Father Gatto had
adorned her. As for the donkey’s tail, it was impossible to get rid of
that; it was as firmly fixed on her forehead as was the golden star on
Lizina’s. Their mother was furious. She first beat Lizina unmercifully
with the broom, then she took her to the mouth of the well and lowered
her into it, leaving her at the bottom weeping and crying for help.

Before this happened, however, the king’s son in passing the mother’s
house had seen Lizina sitting sewing in the parlour, and had been
dazzled by her beauty. After coming back two or three times, he at last
ventured to approach the window and to whisper in the softest voice:
‘Lovely maiden, will you be my bride?’ and she had answered: ‘I will.’

Next morning, when the prince arrived to claim his bride, he found her
wrapped in a large white veil. ‘It is so that maidens are received from
their parents’ hands,’ said the mother, who hoped to make the king’s son
marry Peppina in place of her sister, and had fastened the donkey’s tail
round her head like a lock of hair under the veil. The prince was young
and a little timid, so he made no objections, and seated Peppina in the
carriage beside him.

Their way led past the old house inhabited by the cats, who were all at
the window, for the report had got about that the prince was going to
marry the most beautiful maiden in the world, on whose forehead shone a
golden star, and they knew that this could only be their adored Lizina.
As the carriage slowly passed in front of the old house, where cats
from all parts of world seemed to be gathered a song burst from every
throat:

     Mew, mew, mew! Prince, look quick behind you!
     In the well is fair Lizina,
     And you’ve got nothing but Peppina.

When he heard this the coachman, who understood the cat’s language
better than the prince, his master, stopped his horses and asked:

‘Does your highness know what the grimalkins are saying?’ and the song
broke forth again louder than ever.

With a turn of his hand the prince threw back the veil, and discovered
the puffed-up, swollen face of Peppina, with the donkey’s tail twisted
round her head. ‘Ah, traitress!’ he exclaimed, and ordering the horses
to be turned round, he drove the elder daughter, quivering with rage, to
the old woman who had sought to deceive him. With his hand on the hilt
of his sword he demanded Lizina in so terrific a voice that the mother
hastened to the well to draw her prisoner out. Lizina’s clothing and her
star shone so brilliantly that when the prince led her home to the king,
his father, the whole palace was lit up. Next day they were married, and
lived happy ever after; and all the cats, headed by old Father Gatto,
were present at the wedding.




How To Find Out A True Friend

Once upon a time there lived a king and queen who longed to have a son.
As none came, one day they made a vow at the shrine of St. James that
if their prayers were granted the boy should set out on a pilgrimage as
soon as he had passed his eighteenth birthday. And fancy their delight
when one evening the king returned home from hunting and saw a baby
lying in the cradle.

All the people came crowding round to peep at it, and declared it was
the most beautiful baby that ever was seen. Of course that is what they
always say, but this time it happened to be true. And every day the boy
grew bigger and stronger till he was twelve years old, when the king
died, and he was left alone to take care of his mother.

In this way six years passed by, and his eighteenth birthday drew near.
When she thought of this the queen’s heart sank within her, for he was
the light of her eyes’ and how was she to send him forth to the unknown
dangers that beset a pilgrim? So day by day she grew more and more
sorrowful, and when she was alone wept bitterly.

Now the queen imagined that no one but herself knew how sad she was, but
one morning her son said to her, ‘Mother, why do you cry the whole day
long?’

‘Nothing, nothing, my son; there is only one thing in the world that
troubles me.’

‘What is that one thing?’ asked he. ‘Are you afraid your property is
badly managed? Let me go and look into the matter.’

This pleased the queen, and he rode off to the plain country, where his
mother owned great estates; but everything was in beautiful order, and
he returned with a joyful heart, and said, ‘Now, mother, you can be
happy again, for your lands are better managed than anyone else’s I have
seen. The cattle are thriving; the fields are thick with corn, and soon
they will be ripe for harvest.’

‘That is good news indeed,’ answered she; but it did not seem to make
any difference to her, and the next morning she was weeping and wailing
as loudly as ever.

‘Dear mother,’ said her son in despair, ‘if you will not tell me what is
the cause of all this misery I shall leave home and wander far through
the world.’

‘Ah, my son, my son,’ cried the queen, ‘it is the thought that I must
part from you which causes me such grief; for before you were born we
vowed a vow to St. James that when your eighteenth birthday was passed
you should make a pilgrimage to his shrine, and very soon you will be
eighteen, and I shall lose you. And for a whole year my eyes will never
be gladdened by the sight of you, for the shrine is far away.’

‘Will it take no longer than that to reach it?’ said he. ‘Oh, don’t be
so wretched; it is only dead people who never return. As long as I am
alive you may be sure I will come back to you.’

After this manner he comforted his mother, and on his eighteenth
birthday his best horse was led to the door of the palace, and he took
leave of the queen in these words, ‘Dear mother, farewell, and by the
help of fate I shall return to you as soon as I can.’

The queen burst into tears and wept sore; then amidst her sobs she drew
three apples from her pocket and held them out, saying, ‘My son, take
these apples and give heed unto my words. You will need a companion in
the long journey on which you are going. If you come across a young man
who pleases you beg him to accompany you, and when you get to an inn
invite him to have dinner with you. After you have eaten cut one of
these apples in two unequal parts, and ask him to take one. If he takes
the larger bit, then part from him, for he is no true friend to you. But
if he takes the smaller bit treat him as your brother, and share with
him all you have.’ Then she kissed her son once more, and blessed him,
and let him go.

The young man rode a long way without meeting a single creature, but at
last he saw a youth in the distance about the same age as himself, and
he spurred his horse till he came up with the stranger, who stopped and
asked:

‘Where are you going, my fine fellow?’

‘I am making a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, for before I was
born my mother vowed that I should go forth with a thank offering on my
eighteenth birthday.’

‘That is my case too,’ said the stranger, ‘and, as we must both travel
in the same direction, let us bear each other company.’

The young man agreed to this proposal, but he took care not to get on
terms of familiarity with the new comer until he had tried him with the
apple.

By-and-by they reached an inn, and at sight of it the king’s son said,
‘I am very hungry. Let us enter and order something to eat.’ The other
consented, and they were soon sitting before a good dinner.

When they had finished the king’s son drew an apple from his pocket,
and cut it into a big half and a little half, and offered both to the
stranger, who took the biggest bit. ‘You are no friend of mine,’ thought
the king’s son, and in order to part company with him he pretended to be
ill and declared himself unable to proceed on his journey.

‘Well, I can’t wait for you,’ replied the other; ‘I am in haste to push
on, so farewell.’

‘Farewell,’ said the king’s son, glad in his heart to get rid of him so
easily. The king’s son remained in the inn for some time, so as to let
the young man have a good start; them he ordered his horse and rode
after him. But he was very sociable and the way seemed long and dull by
himself. ‘Oh, if I could only meet with a true friend,’ he thought, ‘so
that I should have some one to speak to. I hate being alone.’

Soon after he came up with a young man, who stopped and asked him,
‘Where are you going, my fine fellow?’ The king’s son explained the
object of his journey, and the young man answered, as the other had
done, that he also was fulfilling the vow of his mother made at his
birth.

‘Well, we can ride on together,’ said the king’s son, and the road
seemed much shorter now that he had some one to talk to.

At length they reached an inn, and the king’s son exclaimed, ‘I am very
hungry; let us go in and get something to eat.’

When they had finished the king’s son drew an apple out of his pocket
and cut it in two; he held the big bit and the little bit out to his
companion, who took the big bit at once and soon ate it up. ‘You are no
friend of mine,’ thought the king’s son, and began to declare he felt so
ill he could not continue his journey. When he had given the young man a
good start he set off himself, but the way seemed even longer and duller
than before. ‘Oh, if I could only meet with a true friend he should be
as a brother to me,’ he sighed sadly; and as the thought passed through
his mind, he noticed a youth going the same road as himself.

The youth came up to him and said, ‘Which way are you going, my fine
fellow?’ And for the third time the king’s son explained all about his
mother’s vow. Why, that is just like me,’ cried the youth.

‘Then let us ride on together,’ answered the king’s son.

Now the miles seemed to slip by, for the new comer was so lively and
entertaining that the king’s son could not help hoping that he indeed
might prove to be the true friend.

More quickly than he could have thought possible they reached an inn by
the road-side, and turning to his companion the king’s son said, ‘I am
hungry; let us go in and have something to eat.’ So they went in and
ordered dinner, and when they had finished the king’s son drew out of
his pocket the last apple, and cut it into two unequal parts, and held
both out to the stranger. And the stranger took the little piece, and
the heart of the king’s son was glad within him, for at last he had
found the friend he had been looking for. ‘Good youth,’ he cried, ‘we
will be brothers, and what is mine shall be thine, and what is thine
shall be mine. And together we will push on to the shrine, and if one
of us dies on the road the other shall carry his body there.’ And the
stranger agreed to all he said, and they rode forward together.

It took them a whole year to reach the shrine, and they passed through
many different lands on their way. One day they arrived tired and
half-starved in a big city, and said to one another, ‘Let us stay here
for a little and rest before we set forth again.’ So they hired a small
house close to the royal castle, and took up their abode there.

The following morning the king of the country happened to step on to his
balcony, and saw the young men in the garden, and said to himself, ‘Dear
me, those are wonderfully handsome youths; but one is handsomer than
the other, and to him will I give my daughter to wife;’ and indeed the
king’s son excelled his friend in beauty.

In order to set about his plan the king asked both the young men to
dinner, and when they arrived at the castle he received them with the
utmost kindness, and sent for his daughter, who was more lovely than
both the sun and moon put together. But at bed-time the king caused the
other young man to be given a poisoned drink, which killed him in a few
minutes, for he thought to himself, ‘If his friend dies the other will
forget his pilgrimage, and will stay here and marry my daughter.’

When the king’s son awoke the next morning he inquired of the servants
where his friend had gone, as he did not see him. ‘He died suddenly last
night,’ said they, ‘and is to be buried immediately.’

But the king’s son sprang up, and cried, ‘If my friend is dead I can
stay here no longer, and cannot linger an hour in this house.’

‘Oh, give up your journey and remain here,’ exclaimed the king, ‘and you
shall have my daughter for your wife.’ ‘No,’ answered the king’s son,
‘I cannot stay; but, I pray you, grant my request, and give me a good
horse, and let me go in peace, and when I have fulfilled my vow then I
will return and marry your daughter.’

So the king, seeing no words would move him, ordered a horse to be
brought round, and the king’s son mounted it, and took his dead friend
before him on the saddle, and rode away.

Now the young man was not really dead, but only in a deep sleep.

When the king’s son reached the shrine of St. James he got down from his
horse, took his friend in his arms as if he had been a child, and laid
him before the altar. ‘St. James,’ he said, ‘I have fulfilled the vow my
parents made for me. I have come myself to your shrine, and have brought
my friend. I place him in your hands. Restore him to life, I pray, for
though he be dead yet has he fulfilled his vow also.’ And, behold! while
he yet prayed his friend got up and stood before him as well as ever.
And both the young men gave thanks, and set their faces towards home.

When they arrived at the town where the king dwelt they entered the
small house over against the castle. The news of their coming spread
very soon, and the king rejoiced greatly that the handsome young prince
had come back again, and commanded great feasts to be prepared, for in a
few days his daughter should marry the king’s son. The young man himself
could imagine no greater happiness, and when the marriage was over they
spent some months at the court making merry.

At length the king’s son said, ‘My mother awaits me at home, full of
care and anxiety. Here I must remain no longer, and to-morrow I will
take my wife and my friend and start for home.’ And the king was content
that he should do so, and gave orders to prepare for their journey.

Now in his heart the king cherished a deadly hate towards the poor young
man whom he had tried to kill, but who had returned to him living, and
in order to do him hurt sent him on a message to some distant spot. ‘See
that you are quick,’ said he, ‘for your friend will await your return
before he starts.’ The youth put spurs to his horse and departed,
bidding the prince farewell, so that the king’s message might be
delivered the sooner. As soon as he had started the king went to
the chamber of the prince, and said to him, ‘If you do not start
immediately, you will never reach the place where you must camp for the
night.’

‘I cannot start without my friend,’ replied the king’s son.

‘Oh, he will be back in an hour,’ replied the king, ‘and I will give him
my best horse, so that he will be sure to catch you up.’ The king’s son
allowed himself to be persuaded and took leave of his father-in-law, and
set out with his wife on his journey home.

Meanwhile the poor friend had been unable to get through his task in the
short time appointed by the king, and when at last he returned the king
said to him,

‘Your comrade is a long way off by now; you had better see if you can
overtake him.’

So the young man bowed and left the king’s presence, and followed after
his friend on foot, for he had no horse. Night and day he ran, till at
length he reached the place where the king’s son had pitched his tent,
and sank down before him, a miserable object, worn out and covered with
mud and dust. But the king’s son welcomed him with joy, and tended him
as he would his brother.

And at last they came home again, and the queen was waiting and watching
in the palace, as she had never ceased to do since her son had rode
away. She almost died of joy at seeing him again, but after a little she
remembered his sick friend, and ordered a bed to be made ready and the
best doctors in all the country to be sent for. When they heard of the
queen’s summons they flocked from all parts, but none could cure him.
After everyone had tried and failed a servant entered and informed the
queen that a strange old man had just knocked at the palace gate and
declared that he was able to heal the dying youth. Now this was a holy
man, who had heard of the trouble the king’s son was in, and had come to
help.

It happened that at this very time a little daughter was born to the
king’s son, but in his distress for his friend he had hardly a thought
to spare for the baby. He could not be prevailed on to leave the sick
bed, and he was bending over it when the holy man entered the room. ‘Do
you wish your friend to be cured?’ asked the new comer of the king’s
son. ‘And what price would you pay?’

‘What price?’ answered the king’s son; ‘only tell me what I can do to
heal him.’

‘Listen to me, then,’ said the old man. ‘This evening you must take your
child, and open her veins, and smear the wounds of your friend with her
blood. And you will see, he will get well in an instant.’

At these words the king’s son shrieked with horror, for he loved the
baby dearly, but he answered, ‘I have sworn that I would treat my friend
as if he were my brother, and if there is no other way my child must be
sacrificed.’

As by this time evening had already fallen he took the child and opened
its veins, and smeared the blood over the wounds of the sick man, and
the look of death departed from him, and he grew strong and rosy once
more. But the little child lay as white and still as if she had been
dead. They laid her in the cradle and wept bitterly, for they thought
that by the next morning she would be lost to them.

At sunrise the old man returned and asked after the sick man.

‘He is as well as ever,’ answered the king’s son.

‘And where is your baby?’

‘In the cradle yonder, and I think she is dead,’ replied the father
sadly.

‘Look at her once more,’ said the holy man, and as they drew near the
cradle there lay the baby smiling up at them.

‘I am St. James of Lizia,’ said the old man, ‘and I have come to help
you, for I have seen that you are a true friend. From henceforward live
happily, all of you, together, and if troubles should draw near you send
for me, and I will aid you to get through them.’

With these words he lifted his hand in blessing and vanished.

And they obeyed him, and were happy and content, and tried to make the
people of the land happy and contented too.

[From Sicilianische Mahrehen Gonzenbach.]




Clever Maria

There was once a merchant who lived close to the royal palace, and had
three daughters. They were all pretty, but Maria, the youngest, was the
prettiest of the three. One day the king sent for the merchant, who was
a widower, to give him directions about a journey he wished the good
man to take. The merchant would rather not have gone, as he did not
like leaving his daughters at home, but he could not refuse to obey the
king’s commands, and with a heavy heart he returned home to say farewell
to them. Before he left, he took three pots of basil, and gave one to
each girl, saying, ‘I am going a journey, but I leave these pots. You
must let nobody into the house. When I come back, they will tell me what
has happened.’ ‘Nothing will have happened,’ said the girls.

The father went away, and the following day the king, accompanied by two
friends, paid a visit to the three girls, who were sitting at supper.
When they saw who was there, Maria said, ‘Let us go and get a bottle of
wine from the cellar. I will carry the key, my eldest sister can take
the light, while the other brings the bottle.’ But the king replied,
‘Oh, do not trouble; we are not thirsty.’ ‘Very well, we will not
go,’ answered the two elder girls; but Maria merely said, ‘I shall go,
anyhow.’ She left the room, and went to the hall where she put out the
light, and putting down the key and the bottle, ran to the house of a
neighbour, and knocked at the door. ‘Who is there so late?’ asked the
old woman, thrusting her head out of the window.

‘Oh, let me in,’ answered Maria. ‘I have quarrelled with my eldest
sister, and as I do not want to fight any more, I have come to beg you
to allow me to sleep with you.’

So the old woman opened the door and Maria slept in her house. The king
was very angry at her for playing truant, but when she returned home
the next day, she found the plants of her sisters withered away, because
they had disobeyed their father. Now the window in the room of the
eldest overlooked the gardens of the king, and when she saw how fine and
ripe the medlars were on the trees, she longed to eat some, and begged
Maria to scramble down by a rope and pick her a few, and she would draw
her up again. Maria, who was good-natured, swung herself into the garden
by the rope, and got the medlars, and was just making the rope fast
under her arms so as to be hauled up, when her sister cried: ‘Oh, there
are such delicious lemons a little farther on. You might bring me one or
two.’ Maria turned round to pluck them, and found herself face to face
with the gardener, who caught hold of her, exclaiming, ‘What are you
doing here, you little thief?’ ‘Don’t call me names,’ she said, ‘or you
will get the worst of it,’ giving him as she spoke such a violent push
that he fell panting into the lemon bushes. Then she seized the cord and
clambered up to the window.

The next day the second sister had a fancy for bananas and begged so
hard, that, though Maria had declared she would never do such a thing
again, at last she consented, and went down the rope into the king’s
garden. This time she met the king, who said to her, ‘Ah, here you are
again, cunning one! Now you shall pay for your misdeeds.’

And he began to cross-question her about what she had done. Maria denied
nothing, and when she had finished, the king said again, ‘Follow me to
the house, and there you shall pay the penalty.’ As he spoke, he started
for the house, looking back from time to time to make sure that Maria
had not run away. All of a sudden, when he glanced round, he found she
had vanished completely, without leaving a trace of where she had gone.
Search was made all through the town, and there was not a hole or corner
which was not ransacked, but there was no sign of her anywhere. This so
enraged the king that he became quite ill, and for many months his life
was despaired of.

Meanwhile the two elder sisters had married the two friends of the
king, and were the mothers of little daughters. Now one day Maria stole
secretly to the house where her elder sister lived, and snatching up the
children put them into a beautiful basket she had with her, covered
with flowers inside and out, so that no one would ever guess it held two
babies. Then she dressed herself as a boy, and placing the basket on her
head, she walked slowly past the palace, crying as she went:

‘Who will carry these flowers to the king, who lies sick of love?’

And the king in his bed heard what she said, and ordered one of his
attendants to go out and buy the basket. It was brought to his bedside,
and as he raised the lid cries were heard, and peeping in he saw two
little children. He was furious at this new trick which he felt had been
played on him by Maria, and was still looking at them, wondering how he
should pay her out, when he was told that the merchant, Maria’s father,
had finished the business on which he had been sent and returned home.
Then the king remembered how Maria had refused to receive his visit, and
how she had stolen his fruit, and he determined to be revenged on her.
So he sent a message by one of his pages that the merchant was to come
to see him the next day, and bring with him a coat made of stone, or
else he would be punished. Now the poor man had been very sad since he
got home the evening before, for though his daughters had promised that
nothing should happen while he was away, he had found the two elder
ones married without asking his leave. And now there was this fresh
misfortune, for how was he to make a coat of stone? He wrung his hands
and declared that the king would be the ruin of him, when Maria suddenly
entered. ‘Do not grieve about the coat of stone, dear father; but take
this bit of chalk, and go to the palace and say you have come to measure
the king.’ The old man did not see the use of this, but Maria had so
often helped him before that he had confidence in her, so he put the
chalk in his pocket and went to the palace.

‘That is no good,’ said the king, when the merchant had told him what he
had come for.

‘Well, I can’t make the coat you want,’ replied he.

‘Then if you would save your head, hand over to me your daughter Maria.’

The merchant did not reply, but went sorrowfully back to his house,
where Maria sat waiting for him.

‘Oh, my dear child, why was I born? The king says that, instead of the
coat, I must deliver you up to him.’

‘Do not be unhappy, dear father, but get a doll made, exactly like
me, with a string attached to its head, which I can pull for “Yes” and
“No.”’

So the old man went out at once to see about it.

The king remained patiently in his palace, feeling sure that this time
Maria could not escape him; and he said to his pages, ‘If a gentleman
should come here with his daughter and ask to be allowed to speak with
me, put the young lady in my room and see she does not leave it.’

When the door was shut on Maria, who had concealed the doll under her
cloak, she hid herself under the couch, keeping fast hold of the string
which was fastened to its head.

‘Senhora Maria, I hope you are well,’ said the king when he entered the
room. The doll nodded. ‘Now we will reckon up accounts,’ continued he,
and he began at the beginning, and ended up with the flower-basket, and
at each fresh misdeed Maria pulled the string, so that the doll’s head
nodded assent. ‘Who-so mocks at me merits death,’ declared the king when
he had ended, and drawing his sword, cut off the doll’s head. It fell
towards him, and as he felt the touch of a kiss, he exclaimed, ‘Ah,
Maria, Maria, so sweet in death, so hard to me in life! The man who
could kill you deserves to die!’ And he was about to turn his sword on
himself, when the true Maria sprung out from under the bed, and flung
herself into his arms. And the next day they were married and lived
happily for many years.

[From the Portuguese.]




The Magic Kettle

Right in the middle of Japan, high up among the mountains, an old man
lived in his little house. He was very proud of it, and never tired of
admiring the whiteness of his straw mats, and the pretty papered walls,
which in warm weather always slid back, so that the smell of the trees
and flowers might come in.

One day he was standing looking at the mountain opposite, when he heard
a kind of rumbling noise in the room behind him. He turned round, and in
the corner he beheld a rusty old iron kettle, which could not have seen
the light of day for many years. How the kettle got there the old man
did not know, but he took it up and looked it over carefully, and when
he found that it was quite whole he cleaned the dust off it and carried
it into his kitchen.

‘That was a piece of luck,’ he said, smiling to himself; ‘a good kettle
costs money, and it is as well to have a second one at hand in case of
need; mine is getting worn out, and the water is already beginning to
come through its bottom.’

Then he took the other kettle off the fire, filled the new one with
water, and put it in its place.

No sooner was the water in the kettle getting warm than a strange thing
happened, and the man, who was standing by, thought he must be dreaming.
First the handle of the kettle gradually changed its shape and became a
head, and the spout grew into a tail, while out of the body sprang four
paws, and in a few minutes the man found himself watching, not a kettle,
but a tanuki! The creature jumped off the fire, and bounded about the
room like a kitten, running up the walls and over the ceiling, till the
old man was in an agony lest his pretty room should be spoilt. He cried
to a neighbour for help, and between them they managed to catch the
tanuki, and shut him up safely in a wooden chest. Then, quite exhausted,
they sat down on the mats, and consulted together what they should do
with this troublesome beast. At length they decided to sell him, and
bade a child who was passing send them a certain tradesman called Jimmu.

When Jimmu arrived, the old man told him that he had something which he
wished to get rid of, and lifted the lid of the wooden chest, where
he had shut up the tanuki. But, to his surprise, no tanuki was there,
nothing but the kettle he had found in the corner. It was certainly very
odd, but the man remembered what had taken place on the fire, and did
not want to keep the kettle any more, so after a little bargaining about
the price, Jimmu went away carrying the kettle with him.

Now Jimmu had not gone very far before he felt that the kettle was
getting heavier and heavier, and by the time he reached home he was so
tired that he was thankful to put it down in the corner of his room, and
then forgot all about it. In the middle of the night, however, he was
awakened by a loud noise in the corner where the kettle stood, and
raised himself up in bed to see what it was. But nothing was there
except the kettle, which seemed quiet enough. He thought that he must
have been dreaming, and fell asleep again, only to be roused a second
time by the same disturbance. He jumped up and went to the corner, and
by the light of the lamp that he always kept burning he saw that the
kettle had become a tanuki, which was running round after his tail.
After he grew weary of that, he ran on the balcony, where he turned
several somersaults, from pure gladness of heart. The tradesman was
much troubled as to what to do with the animal, and it was only towards
morning that he managed to get any sleep; but when he opened his eyes
again there was no tanuki, only the old kettle he had left there the
night before.

As soon as he had tidied his house, Jimmu set off to tell his story to
a friend next door. The man listened quietly, and did not appear so
surprised as Jimmu expected, for he recollected having heard, in his
youth, something about a wonder-working kettle. ‘Go and travel with
it, and show it off,’ said he, ‘and you will become a rich man; but be
careful first to ask the tanuki’s leave, and also to perform some magic
ceremonies to prevent him from running away at the sight of the people.’

Jimmu thanked his friend for his counsel, which he followed exactly. The
tanuki’s consent was obtained, a booth was built, and a notice was hung
up outside it inviting the people to come and witness the most wonderful
transformation that ever was seen.

They came in crowds, and the kettle was passed from hand to hand, and
they were allowed to examine it all over, and even to look inside. Then
Jimmu took it back, and setting it on the platform, commanded it to
become a tanuki. In an instant the handle began to change into a head,
and the spout into a tail, while the four paws appeared at the sides.
‘Dance,’ said Jimmu, and the tanuki did his steps, and moved first on
one side and then on the other, till the people could not stand still
any longer, and began to dance too. Gracefully he led the fan dance, and
glided without a pause into the shadow dance and the umbrella dance, and
it seemed as if he might go on dancing for ever. And so very likely
he would, if Jimmu had not declared he had danced enough, and that the
booth must now be closed.

Day after day the booth was so full it was hardly possible to enter it,
and what the neighbour foretold had come to pass, and Jimmu was a rich
man. Yet he did not feel happy. He was an honest man, and he thought
that he owed some of his wealth to the man from whom he had bought
the kettle. So, one morning, he put a hundred gold pieces into it, and
hanging the kettle once more on his arm, he returned to the seller of
it. ‘I have no right to keep it any longer,’ he added when he had ended
his tale, ‘so I have brought it back to you, and inside you will find a
hundred gold pieces as the price of its hire.’

The man thanked Jimmu, and said that few people would have been as
honest as he. And the kettle brought them both luck, and everything went
well with them till they died, which they did when they were very old,
respected by everyone.THE GOLDEN BIRD


A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree
which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about
the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one
of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the
gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his
eldest son to watch; but about twelve o’clock he fell asleep, and in
the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was
ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning
another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but
the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come
to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself
under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling
noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as
it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener’s son
jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm;
only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away.
The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the
council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than
all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, ‘One feather is of no
use to me, I must have the whole bird.’

Then the gardener’s eldest son set out and thought to find the golden
bird very easily; and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a
wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting; so he took his
bow and made ready to shoot at it. Then the fox said, ‘Do not shoot me,
for I will give you good counsel; I know what your business is, and
that you want to find the golden bird. You will reach a village in the
evening; and when you get there, you will see two inns opposite to each
other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at: go not in
there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you
to be very poor and mean.’ But the son thought to himself, ‘What can
such a beast as this know about the matter?’ So he shot his arrow at
the fox; but he missed it, and it set up its tail above its back and
ran into the wood. Then he went his way, and in the evening came to
the village where the two inns were; and in one of these were people
singing, and dancing, and feasting; but the other looked very dirty,
and poor. ‘I should be very silly,’ said he, ‘if I went to that shabby
house, and left this charming place’; so he went into the smart house,
and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird, and his country too.

Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings
were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened
to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came
to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where
the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not
withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and
his country in the same manner.

Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into
the wide world to seek for the golden bird; but his father would not
listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and
was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent his
coming back. However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would
not rest at home; and as he came to the wood, he met the fox, and heard
the same good counsel. But he was thankful to the fox, and did not
attempt his life as his brothers had done; so the fox said, ‘Sit upon my
tail, and you will travel faster.’ So he sat down, and the fox began to
run, and away they went over stock and stone so quick that their hair
whistled in the wind.

When they came to the village, the son followed the fox’s counsel, and
without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all
night at his ease. In the morning came the fox again and met him as he
was beginning his journey, and said, ‘Go straight forward, till you come
to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and
snoring: take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and
on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage;
close by it stands a beautiful golden cage; but do not try to take the
bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise
you will repent it.’ Then the fox stretched out his tail again, and the
young man sat himself down, and away they went over stock and stone till
their hair whistled in the wind.

Before the castle gate all was as the fox had said: so the son went in
and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and
below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been
lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, ‘It will be a
very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage’; so
he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage.
But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and
they took him prisoner and carried him before the king. The next morning
the court sat to judge him; and when all was heard, it sentenced him to
die, unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as
swiftly as the wind; and if he did this, he was to have the golden bird
given him for his own.

So he set out once more on his journey, sighing, and in great despair,
when on a sudden his friend the fox met him, and said, ‘You see now
what has happened on account of your not listening to my counsel. I will
still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse, if you will do as
I bid you. You must go straight on till you come to the castle where the
horse stands in his stall: by his side will lie the groom fast asleep
and snoring: take away the horse quietly, but be sure to put the old
leathern saddle upon him, and not the golden one that is close by it.’
Then the son sat down on the fox’s tail, and away they went over stock
and stone till their hair whistled in the wind.

All went right, and the groom lay snoring with his hand upon the golden
saddle. But when the son looked at the horse, he thought it a great pity
to put the leathern saddle upon it. ‘I will give him the good one,’
said he; ‘I am sure he deserves it.’ As he took up the golden saddle the
groom awoke and cried out so loud, that all the guards ran in and took
him prisoner, and in the morning he was again brought before the court
to be judged, and was sentenced to die. But it was agreed, that, if he
could bring thither the beautiful princess, he should live, and have the
bird and the horse given him for his own.

Then he went his way very sorrowful; but the old fox came and said, ‘Why
did not you listen to me? If you had, you would have carried away
both the bird and the horse; yet will I once more give you counsel. Go
straight on, and in the evening you will arrive at a castle. At twelve
o’clock at night the princess goes to the bathing-house: go up to her
and give her a kiss, and she will let you lead her away; but take care
you do not suffer her to go and take leave of her father and mother.’
Then the fox stretched out his tail, and so away they went over stock
and stone till their hair whistled again.

As they came to the castle, all was as the fox had said, and at twelve
o’clock the young man met the princess going to the bath and gave her the
kiss, and she agreed to run away with him, but begged with many tears
that he would let her take leave of her father. At first he refused,
but she wept still more and more, and fell at his feet, till at last
he consented; but the moment she came to her father’s house the guards
awoke and he was taken prisoner again.

Then he was brought before the king, and the king said, ‘You shall never
have my daughter unless in eight days you dig away the hill that stops
the view from my window.’ Now this hill was so big that the whole world
could not take it away: and when he had worked for seven days, and had
done very little, the fox came and said. ‘Lie down and go to sleep; I
will work for you.’ And in the morning he awoke and the hill was gone;
so he went merrily to the king, and told him that now that it was
removed he must give him the princess.

Then the king was obliged to keep his word, and away went the young man
and the princess; and the fox came and said to him, ‘We will have all
three, the princess, the horse, and the bird.’ ‘Ah!’ said the young man,
‘that would be a great thing, but how can you contrive it?’

‘If you will only listen,’ said the fox, ‘it can be done. When you come
to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, “Here
she is!” Then he will be very joyful; and you will mount the golden
horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to take leave of
them; but shake hands with the princess last. Then lift her quickly on
to the horse behind you; clap your spurs to his side, and gallop away as
fast as you can.’

All went right: then the fox said, ‘When you come to the castle where
the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door, and you will
ride in and speak to the king; and when he sees that it is the right
horse, he will bring out the bird; but you must sit still, and say that
you want to look at it, to see whether it is the true golden bird; and
when you get it into your hand, ride away.’

This, too, happened as the fox said; they carried off the bird, the
princess mounted again, and they rode on to a great wood. Then the fox
came, and said, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.’ But the
young man refused to do it: so the fox said, ‘I will at any rate give
you good counsel: beware of two things; ransom no one from the gallows,
and sit down by the side of no river.’ Then away he went. ‘Well,’
thought the young man, ‘it is no hard matter to keep that advice.’

He rode on with the princess, till at last he came to the village where
he had left his two brothers. And there he heard a great noise and
uproar; and when he asked what was the matter, the people said, ‘Two men
are going to be hanged.’ As he came nearer, he saw that the two men were
his brothers, who had turned robbers; so he said, ‘Cannot they in any
way be saved?’ But the people said ‘No,’ unless he would bestow all his
money upon the rascals and buy their liberty. Then he did not stay to
think about the matter, but paid what was asked, and his brothers were
given up, and went on with him towards their home.

And as they came to the wood where the fox first met them, it was so
cool and pleasant that the two brothers said, ‘Let us sit down by the
side of the river, and rest a while, to eat and drink.’ So he said,
‘Yes,’ and forgot the fox’s counsel, and sat down on the side of the
river; and while he suspected nothing, they came behind, and threw him
down the bank, and took the princess, the horse, and the bird, and went
home to the king their master, and said. ‘All this have we won by our
labour.’ Then there was great rejoicing made; but the horse would not
eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess wept.

The youngest son fell to the bottom of the river’s bed: luckily it was
nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken, and the bank was so steep
that he could find no way to get out. Then the old fox came once more,
and scolded him for not following his advice; otherwise no evil would
have befallen him: ‘Yet,’ said he, ‘I cannot leave you here, so lay hold
of my tail and hold fast.’ Then he pulled him out of the river, and said
to him, as he got upon the bank, ‘Your brothers have set watch to kill
you, if they find you in the kingdom.’ So he dressed himself as a poor
man, and came secretly to the king’s court, and was scarcely within the
doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess
left off weeping. Then he went to the king, and told him all his
brothers’ roguery; and they were seized and punished, and he had the
princess given to him again; and after the king’s death he was heir to
his kingdom.

A long while after, he went to walk one day in the wood, and the old fox
met him, and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him, and cut
off his head and feet. And at last he did so, and in a moment the
fox was changed into a man, and turned out to be the brother of the
princess, who had been lost a great many many years.




HANS IN LUCK


Some men are born to good luck: all they do or try to do comes
right--all that falls to them is so much gain--all their geese are
swans--all their cards are trumps--toss them which way you will, they
will always, like poor puss, alight upon their legs, and only move on so
much the faster. The world may very likely not always think of them as
they think of themselves, but what care they for the world? what can it
know about the matter?

One of these lucky beings was neighbour Hans. Seven long years he had
worked hard for his master. At last he said, ‘Master, my time is up; I
must go home and see my poor mother once more: so pray pay me my wages
and let me go.’ And the master said, ‘You have been a faithful and good
servant, Hans, so your pay shall be handsome.’ Then he gave him a lump
of silver as big as his head.

Hans took out his pocket-handkerchief, put the piece of silver into it,
threw it over his shoulder, and jogged off on his road homewards. As he
went lazily on, dragging one foot after another, a man came in sight,
trotting gaily along on a capital horse. ‘Ah!’ said Hans aloud, ‘what a
fine thing it is to ride on horseback! There he sits as easy and happy
as if he was at home, in the chair by his fireside; he trips against no
stones, saves shoe-leather, and gets on he hardly knows how.’ Hans did
not speak so softly but the horseman heard it all, and said, ‘Well,
friend, why do you go on foot then?’ ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I have this load to
carry: to be sure it is silver, but it is so heavy that I can’t hold up
my head, and you must know it hurts my shoulder sadly.’ ‘What do you say
of making an exchange?’ said the horseman. ‘I will give you my horse,
and you shall give me the silver; which will save you a great deal of
trouble in carrying such a heavy load about with you.’ ‘With all my
heart,’ said Hans: ‘but as you are so kind to me, I must tell you one
thing--you will have a weary task to draw that silver about with you.’
However, the horseman got off, took the silver, helped Hans up, gave him
the bridle into one hand and the whip into the other, and said, ‘When
you want to go very fast, smack your lips loudly together, and cry
“Jip!”’

Hans was delighted as he sat on the horse, drew himself up, squared his
elbows, turned out his toes, cracked his whip, and rode merrily off, one
minute whistling a merry tune, and another singing,

 ‘No care and no sorrow,
  A fig for the morrow!
  We’ll laugh and be merry,
  Sing neigh down derry!’

After a time he thought he should like to go a little faster, so he
smacked his lips and cried ‘Jip!’ Away went the horse full gallop; and
before Hans knew what he was about, he was thrown off, and lay on his
back by the road-side. His horse would have ran off, if a shepherd who
was coming by, driving a cow, had not stopped it. Hans soon came to
himself, and got upon his legs again, sadly vexed, and said to the
shepherd, ‘This riding is no joke, when a man has the luck to get upon
a beast like this that stumbles and flings him off as if it would break
his neck. However, I’m off now once for all: I like your cow now a great
deal better than this smart beast that played me this trick, and has
spoiled my best coat, you see, in this puddle; which, by the by, smells
not very like a nosegay. One can walk along at one’s leisure behind that
cow--keep good company, and have milk, butter, and cheese, every day,
into the bargain. What would I give to have such a prize!’ ‘Well,’ said
the shepherd, ‘if you are so fond of her, I will change my cow for your
horse; I like to do good to my neighbours, even though I lose by it
myself.’ ‘Done!’ said Hans, merrily. ‘What a noble heart that good man
has!’ thought he. Then the shepherd jumped upon the horse, wished Hans
and the cow good morning, and away he rode.

Hans brushed his coat, wiped his face and hands, rested a while, and
then drove off his cow quietly, and thought his bargain a very lucky
one. ‘If I have only a piece of bread (and I certainly shall always be
able to get that), I can, whenever I like, eat my butter and cheese with
it; and when I am thirsty I can milk my cow and drink the milk: and what
can I wish for more?’ When he came to an inn, he halted, ate up all his
bread, and gave away his last penny for a glass of beer. When he had
rested himself he set off again, driving his cow towards his mother’s
village. But the heat grew greater as soon as noon came on, till at
last, as he found himself on a wide heath that would take him more than
an hour to cross, he began to be so hot and parched that his tongue
clave to the roof of his mouth. ‘I can find a cure for this,’ thought
he; ‘now I will milk my cow and quench my thirst’: so he tied her to the
stump of a tree, and held his leathern cap to milk into; but not a drop
was to be had. Who would have thought that this cow, which was to bring
him milk and butter and cheese, was all that time utterly dry? Hans had
not thought of looking to that.

While he was trying his luck in milking, and managing the matter very
clumsily, the uneasy beast began to think him very troublesome; and at
last gave him such a kick on the head as knocked him down; and there he
lay a long while senseless. Luckily a butcher soon came by, driving a
pig in a wheelbarrow. ‘What is the matter with you, my man?’ said the
butcher, as he helped him up. Hans told him what had happened, how he
was dry, and wanted to milk his cow, but found the cow was dry too. Then
the butcher gave him a flask of ale, saying, ‘There, drink and refresh
yourself; your cow will give you no milk: don’t you see she is an old
beast, good for nothing but the slaughter-house?’ ‘Alas, alas!’ said
Hans, ‘who would have thought it? What a shame to take my horse, and
give me only a dry cow! If I kill her, what will she be good for? I hate
cow-beef; it is not tender enough for me. If it were a pig now--like
that fat gentleman you are driving along at his ease--one could do
something with it; it would at any rate make sausages.’ ‘Well,’ said
the butcher, ‘I don’t like to say no, when one is asked to do a kind,
neighbourly thing. To please you I will change, and give you my fine fat
pig for the cow.’ ‘Heaven reward you for your kindness and self-denial!’
said Hans, as he gave the butcher the cow; and taking the pig off the
wheel-barrow, drove it away, holding it by the string that was tied to
its leg.

So on he jogged, and all seemed now to go right with him: he had met
with some misfortunes, to be sure; but he was now well repaid for all.
How could it be otherwise with such a travelling companion as he had at
last got?

The next man he met was a countryman carrying a fine white goose. The
countryman stopped to ask what was o’clock; this led to further chat;
and Hans told him all his luck, how he had so many good bargains, and
how all the world went gay and smiling with him. The countryman then
began to tell his tale, and said he was going to take the goose to a
christening. ‘Feel,’ said he, ‘how heavy it is, and yet it is only eight
weeks old. Whoever roasts and eats it will find plenty of fat upon it,
it has lived so well!’ ‘You’re right,’ said Hans, as he weighed it in
his hand; ‘but if you talk of fat, my pig is no trifle.’ Meantime the
countryman began to look grave, and shook his head. ‘Hark ye!’ said he,
‘my worthy friend, you seem a good sort of fellow, so I can’t help doing
you a kind turn. Your pig may get you into a scrape. In the village I
just came from, the squire has had a pig stolen out of his sty. I was
dreadfully afraid when I saw you that you had got the squire’s pig. If
you have, and they catch you, it will be a bad job for you. The least
they will do will be to throw you into the horse-pond. Can you swim?’

Poor Hans was sadly frightened. ‘Good man,’ cried he, ‘pray get me out
of this scrape. I know nothing of where the pig was either bred or born;
but he may have been the squire’s for aught I can tell: you know this
country better than I do, take my pig and give me the goose.’ ‘I ought
to have something into the bargain,’ said the countryman; ‘give a fat
goose for a pig, indeed! ‘Tis not everyone would do so much for you as
that. However, I will not be hard upon you, as you are in trouble.’ Then
he took the string in his hand, and drove off the pig by a side path;
while Hans went on the way homewards free from care. ‘After all,’
thought he, ‘that chap is pretty well taken in. I don’t care whose pig
it is, but wherever it came from it has been a very good friend to me. I
have much the best of the bargain. First there will be a capital roast;
then the fat will find me in goose-grease for six months; and then there
are all the beautiful white feathers. I will put them into my pillow,
and then I am sure I shall sleep soundly without rocking. How happy my
mother will be! Talk of a pig, indeed! Give me a fine fat goose.’

As he came to the next village, he saw a scissor-grinder with his wheel,
working and singing,

 ‘O’er hill and o’er dale
  So happy I roam,
  Work light and live well,
  All the world is my home;
  Then who so blythe, so merry as I?’

Hans stood looking on for a while, and at last said, ‘You must be well
off, master grinder! you seem so happy at your work.’ ‘Yes,’ said the
other, ‘mine is a golden trade; a good grinder never puts his hand
into his pocket without finding money in it--but where did you get that
beautiful goose?’ ‘I did not buy it, I gave a pig for it.’ ‘And where
did you get the pig?’ ‘I gave a cow for it.’ ‘And the cow?’ ‘I gave a
horse for it.’ ‘And the horse?’ ‘I gave a lump of silver as big as my
head for it.’ ‘And the silver?’ ‘Oh! I worked hard for that seven long
years.’ ‘You have thriven well in the world hitherto,’ said the grinder,
‘now if you could find money in your pocket whenever you put your hand
in it, your fortune would be made.’ ‘Very true: but how is that to be
managed?’ ‘How? Why, you must turn grinder like myself,’ said the other;
‘you only want a grindstone; the rest will come of itself. Here is one
that is but little the worse for wear: I would not ask more than the
value of your goose for it--will you buy?’ ‘How can you ask?’ said
Hans; ‘I should be the happiest man in the world, if I could have money
whenever I put my hand in my pocket: what could I want more? there’s
the goose.’ ‘Now,’ said the grinder, as he gave him a common rough stone
that lay by his side, ‘this is a most capital stone; do but work it well
enough, and you can make an old nail cut with it.’

Hans took the stone, and went his way with a light heart: his eyes
sparkled for joy, and he said to himself, ‘Surely I must have been born
in a lucky hour; everything I could want or wish for comes of itself.
People are so kind; they seem really to think I do them a favour in
letting them make me rich, and giving me good bargains.’

Meantime he began to be tired, and hungry too, for he had given away his
last penny in his joy at getting the cow.

At last he could go no farther, for the stone tired him sadly: and he
dragged himself to the side of a river, that he might take a drink of
water, and rest a while. So he laid the stone carefully by his side on
the bank: but, as he stooped down to drink, he forgot it, pushed it a
little, and down it rolled, plump into the stream.

For a while he watched it sinking in the deep clear water; then sprang
up and danced for joy, and again fell upon his knees and thanked Heaven,
with tears in his eyes, for its kindness in taking away his only plague,
the ugly heavy stone.

‘How happy am I!’ cried he; ‘nobody was ever so lucky as I.’ Then up he
got with a light heart, free from all his troubles, and walked on till
he reached his mother’s house, and told her how very easy the road to
good luck was.




JORINDA AND JORINDEL


There was once an old castle, that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy
wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. Now this fairy could take
any shape she pleased. All the day long she flew about in the form of
an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always
became an old woman again. When any young man came within a hundred
paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step
till she came and set him free; which she would not do till he had given
her his word never to come there again: but when any pretty maiden came
within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her
into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were
seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with
beautiful birds in them.

Now there was once a maiden whose name was Jorinda. She was prettier
than all the pretty girls that ever were seen before, and a shepherd
lad, whose name was Jorindel, was very fond of her, and they were soon
to be married. One day they went to walk in the wood, that they might be
alone; and Jorindel said, ‘We must take care that we don’t go too near
to the fairy’s castle.’ It was a beautiful evening; the last rays of the
setting sun shone bright through the long stems of the trees upon
the green underwood beneath, and the turtle-doves sang from the tall
birches.

Jorinda sat down to gaze upon the sun; Jorindel sat by her side; and
both felt sad, they knew not why; but it seemed as if they were to be
parted from one another for ever. They had wandered a long way; and when
they looked to see which way they should go home, they found themselves
at a loss to know what path to take.

The sun was setting fast, and already half of its circle had sunk behind
the hill: Jorindel on a sudden looked behind him, and saw through the
bushes that they had, without knowing it, sat down close under the old
walls of the castle. Then he shrank for fear, turned pale, and trembled.
Jorinda was just singing,

 ‘The ring-dove sang from the willow spray,
  Well-a-day! Well-a-day!
  He mourn’d for the fate of his darling mate,
  Well-a-day!’

when her song stopped suddenly. Jorindel turned to see the reason, and
beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended
with a mournful _jug, jug_. An owl with fiery eyes flew three times
round them, and three times screamed:

 ‘Tu whu! Tu whu! Tu whu!’

Jorindel could not move; he stood fixed as a stone, and could neither
weep, nor speak, nor stir hand or foot. And now the sun went quite down;
the gloomy night came; the owl flew into a bush; and a moment after the
old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and
chin that almost met one another.

She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away
with it in her hand. Poor Jorindel saw the nightingale was gone--but
what could he do? He could not speak, he could not move from the spot
where he stood. At last the fairy came back and sang with a hoarse
voice:

 ‘Till the prisoner is fast,
  And her doom is cast,
  There stay! Oh, stay!
  When the charm is around her,
  And the spell has bound her,
  Hie away! away!’

On a sudden Jorindel found himself free. Then he fell on his knees
before the fairy, and prayed her to give him back his dear Jorinda: but
she laughed at him, and said he should never see her again; then she
went her way.

He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. ‘Alas!’ he said, ‘what
will become of me?’ He could not go back to his own home, so he went to
a strange village, and employed himself in keeping sheep. Many a time
did he walk round and round as near to the hated castle as he dared go,
but all in vain; he heard or saw nothing of Jorinda.

At last he dreamt one night that he found a beautiful purple flower,
and that in the middle of it lay a costly pearl; and he dreamt that he
plucked the flower, and went with it in his hand into the castle, and
that everything he touched with it was disenchanted, and that there he
found his Jorinda again.

In the morning when he awoke, he began to search over hill and dale for
this pretty flower; and eight long days he sought for it in vain: but
on the ninth day, early in the morning, he found the beautiful purple
flower; and in the middle of it was a large dewdrop, as big as a costly
pearl. Then he plucked the flower, and set out and travelled day and
night, till he came again to the castle.

He walked nearer than a hundred paces to it, and yet he did not become
fixed as before, but found that he could go quite close up to the door.
Jorindel was very glad indeed to see this. Then he touched the door with
the flower, and it sprang open; so that he went in through the court,
and listened when he heard so many birds singing. At last he came to the
chamber where the fairy sat, with the seven hundred birds singing in
the seven hundred cages. When she saw Jorindel she was very angry, and
screamed with rage; but she could not come within two yards of him, for
the flower he held in his hand was his safeguard. He looked around at
the birds, but alas! there were many, many nightingales, and how then
should he find out which was his Jorinda? While he was thinking what to
do, he saw the fairy had taken down one of the cages, and was making the
best of her way off through the door. He ran or flew after her, touched
the cage with the flower, and Jorinda stood before him, and threw her
arms round his neck looking as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as when
they walked together in the wood.

Then he touched all the other birds with the flower, so that they all
took their old forms again; and he took Jorinda home, where they were
married, and lived happily together many years: and so did a good many
other lads, whose maidens had been forced to sing in the old fairy’s
cages by themselves, much longer than they liked.




THE TRAVELLING MUSICIANS


An honest farmer had once an ass that had been a faithful servant to him
a great many years, but was now growing old and every day more and more
unfit for work. His master therefore was tired of keeping him and
began to think of putting an end to him; but the ass, who saw that some
mischief was in the wind, took himself slyly off, and began his journey
towards the great city, ‘For there,’ thought he, ‘I may turn musician.’

After he had travelled a little way, he spied a dog lying by the
roadside and panting as if he were tired. ‘What makes you pant so, my
friend?’ said the ass. ‘Alas!’ said the dog, ‘my master was going to
knock me on the head, because I am old and weak, and can no longer make
myself useful to him in hunting; so I ran away; but what can I do to
earn my livelihood?’ ‘Hark ye!’ said the ass, ‘I am going to the great
city to turn musician: suppose you go with me, and try what you can
do in the same way?’ The dog said he was willing, and they jogged on
together.

They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the
road and making a most rueful face. ‘Pray, my good lady,’ said the ass,
‘what’s the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!’ ‘Ah, me!’
said the cat, ‘how can one be in good spirits when one’s life is in
danger? Because I am beginning to grow old, and had rather lie at my
ease by the fire than run about the house after the mice, my mistress
laid hold of me, and was going to drown me; and though I have been lucky
enough to get away from her, I do not know what I am to live upon.’
‘Oh,’ said the ass, ‘by all means go with us to the great city; you are
a good night singer, and may make your fortune as a musician.’ The cat
was pleased with the thought, and joined the party.

Soon afterwards, as they were passing by a farmyard, they saw a cock
perched upon a gate, and screaming out with all his might and main.
‘Bravo!’ said the ass; ‘upon my word, you make a famous noise; pray what
is all this about?’ ‘Why,’ said the cock, ‘I was just now saying that
we should have fine weather for our washing-day, and yet my mistress and
the cook don’t thank me for my pains, but threaten to cut off my
head tomorrow, and make broth of me for the guests that are coming
on Sunday!’ ‘Heaven forbid!’ said the ass, ‘come with us Master
Chanticleer; it will be better, at any rate, than staying here to have
your head cut off! Besides, who knows? If we care to sing in tune, we
may get up some kind of a concert; so come along with us.’ ‘With all my
heart,’ said the cock: so they all four went on jollily together.

They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when
night came on, they went into a wood to sleep. The ass and the dog laid
themselves down under a great tree, and the cat climbed up into the
branches; while the cock, thinking that the higher he sat the safer he
should be, flew up to the very top of the tree, and then, according to
his custom, before he went to sleep, looked out on all sides of him to
see that everything was well. In doing this, he saw afar off something
bright and shining and calling to his companions said, ‘There must be a
house no great way off, for I see a light.’ ‘If that be the case,’ said
the ass, ‘we had better change our quarters, for our lodging is not the
best in the world!’ ‘Besides,’ added the dog, ‘I should not be the
worse for a bone or two, or a bit of meat.’ So they walked off together
towards the spot where Chanticleer had seen the light, and as they drew
near it became larger and brighter, till they at last came close to a
house in which a gang of robbers lived.

The ass, being the tallest of the company, marched up to the window and
peeped in. ‘Well, Donkey,’ said Chanticleer, ‘what do you see?’ ‘What
do I see?’ replied the ass. ‘Why, I see a table spread with all kinds of
good things, and robbers sitting round it making merry.’ ‘That would
be a noble lodging for us,’ said the cock. ‘Yes,’ said the ass, ‘if we
could only get in’; so they consulted together how they should contrive
to get the robbers out; and at last they hit upon a plan. The ass placed
himself upright on his hind legs, with his forefeet resting against the
window; the dog got upon his back; the cat scrambled up to the dog’s
shoulders, and the cock flew up and sat upon the cat’s head. When
all was ready a signal was given, and they began their music. The ass
brayed, the dog barked, the cat mewed, and the cock screamed; and then
they all broke through the window at once, and came tumbling into
the room, amongst the broken glass, with a most hideous clatter! The
robbers, who had been not a little frightened by the opening concert,
had now no doubt that some frightful hobgoblin had broken in upon them,
and scampered away as fast as they could.

The coast once clear, our travellers soon sat down and dispatched what
the robbers had left, with as much eagerness as if they had not expected
to eat again for a month. As soon as they had satisfied themselves, they
put out the lights, and each once more sought out a resting-place to
his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in
the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the
cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the
cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house; and, as they were all
rather tired with their journey, they soon fell asleep.

But about midnight, when the robbers saw from afar that the lights were
out and that all seemed quiet, they began to think that they had been in
too great a hurry to run away; and one of them, who was bolder than
the rest, went to see what was going on. Finding everything still, he
marched into the kitchen, and groped about till he found a match in
order to light a candle; and then, espying the glittering fiery eyes of
the cat, he mistook them for live coals, and held the match to them to
light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprang at his face,
and spat, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away
he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the
leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the
cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At
this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades, and told
the captain how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spat at
him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers; how a man with a
knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door, and stabbed him
in the leg; how a black monster stood in the yard and struck him with a
club, and how the devil had sat upon the top of the house and cried out,
‘Throw the rascal up here!’ After this the robbers never dared to go
back to the house; but the musicians were so pleased with their quarters
that they took up their abode there; and there they are, I dare say, at
this very day.




OLD SULTAN


A shepherd had a faithful dog, called Sultan, who was grown very old,
and had lost all his teeth. And one day when the shepherd and his wife
were standing together before the house the shepherd said, ‘I will shoot
old Sultan tomorrow morning, for he is of no use now.’ But his wife
said, ‘Pray let the poor faithful creature live; he has served us well a
great many years, and we ought to give him a livelihood for the rest of
his days.’ ‘But what can we do with him?’ said the shepherd, ‘he has not
a tooth in his head, and the thieves don’t care for him at all; to
be sure he has served us, but then he did it to earn his livelihood;
tomorrow shall be his last day, depend upon it.’

Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd
and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think
tomorrow would be his last day; so in the evening he went to his good
friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows,
and how his master meant to kill him in the morning. ‘Make yourself
easy,’ said the wolf, ‘I will give you some good advice. Your master,
you know, goes out every morning very early with his wife into the
field; and they take their little child with them, and lay it down
behind the hedge in the shade while they are at work. Now do you lie
down close by the child, and pretend to be watching it, and I will come
out of the wood and run away with it; you must run after me as fast as
you can, and I will let it drop; then you may carry it back, and they
will think you have saved their child, and will be so thankful to you
that they will take care of you as long as you live.’ The dog liked this
plan very well; and accordingly so it was managed. The wolf ran with the
child a little way; the shepherd and his wife screamed out; but Sultan
soon overtook him, and carried the poor little thing back to his master
and mistress. Then the shepherd patted him on the head, and said, ‘Old
Sultan has saved our child from the wolf, and therefore he shall live
and be well taken care of, and have plenty to eat. Wife, go home, and
give him a good dinner, and let him have my old cushion to sleep on
as long as he lives.’ So from this time forward Sultan had all that he
could wish for.

Soon afterwards the wolf came and wished him joy, and said, ‘Now, my
good fellow, you must tell no tales, but turn your head the other way
when I want to taste one of the old shepherd’s fine fat sheep.’ ‘No,’
said the Sultan; ‘I will be true to my master.’ However, the wolf
thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But
Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so he laid wait
for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for
a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed
his locks for him finely.

Then the wolf was very angry, and called Sultan ‘an old rogue,’ and
swore he would have his revenge. So the next morning the wolf sent the
boar to challenge Sultan to come into the wood to fight the matter. Now
Sultan had nobody he could ask to be his second but the shepherd’s old
three-legged cat; so he took her with him, and as the poor thing limped
along with some trouble, she stuck up her tail straight in the air.

The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground; and when they
espied their enemies coming, and saw the cat’s long tail standing
straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword for Sultan to
fight with; and every time she limped, they thought she was picking up
a stone to throw at them; so they said they should not like this way of
fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf jumped
up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up, and looked about and
wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not quite hidden
himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he shook one of
them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a
mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped
up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, ‘Look up in the tree, there
sits the one who is to blame.’ So they looked up, and espied the wolf
sitting amongst the branches; and they called him a cowardly rascal,
and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of
himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan.




THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN


In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish
of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and
that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw.
When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her
observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards
a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw
began and said: ‘Dear friends, from whence do you come here?’ The coal
replied: ‘I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped
by sheer force, my death would have been certain,--I should have been
burnt to ashes.’ The bean said: ‘I too have escaped with a whole skin,
but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made
into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.’ ‘And would a better
fate have fallen to my lot?’ said the straw. ‘The old woman has
destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at
once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers.’

‘But what are we to do now?’ said the coal.

‘I think,’ answered the bean, ‘that as we have so fortunately escaped
death, we should keep together like good companions, and lest a new
mischance should overtake us here, we should go away together, and
repair to a foreign country.’

The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out on their way
together. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was
no bridge or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over
it. The straw hit on a good idea, and said: ‘I will lay myself straight
across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.’ The straw
therefore stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal,
who was of an impetuous disposition, tripped quite boldly on to the
newly-built bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and heard the
water rushing beneath her, she was after all, afraid, and stood still,
and ventured no farther. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in
two pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed
when she got into the water, and breathed her last. The bean, who had
prudently stayed behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event,
was unable to stop, and laughed so heartily that she burst. It would
have been all over with her, likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who
was travelling in search of work, had not sat down to rest by the brook.
As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out his needle and thread,
and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the
tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam.




BRIAR ROSE


A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off,
where there were in those days fairies. Now this king and queen had
plenty of money, and plenty of fine clothes to wear, and plenty of
good things to eat and drink, and a coach to ride out in every day: but
though they had been married many years they had no children, and this
grieved them very much indeed. But one day as the queen was walking
by the side of the river, at the bottom of the garden, she saw a poor
little fish, that had thrown itself out of the water, and lay gasping
and nearly dead on the bank. Then the queen took pity on the little
fish, and threw it back again into the river; and before it swam away
it lifted its head out of the water and said, ‘I know what your wish is,
and it shall be fulfilled, in return for your kindness to me--you will
soon have a daughter.’ What the little fish had foretold soon came to
pass; and the queen had a little girl, so very beautiful that the king
could not cease looking on it for joy, and said he would hold a great
feast and make merry, and show the child to all the land. So he asked
his kinsmen, and nobles, and friends, and neighbours. But the queen
said, ‘I will have the fairies also, that they might be kind and good
to our little daughter.’ Now there were thirteen fairies in the kingdom;
but as the king and queen had only twelve golden dishes for them to eat
out of, they were forced to leave one of the fairies without asking her.
So twelve fairies came, each with a high red cap on her head, and red
shoes with high heels on her feet, and a long white wand in her hand:
and after the feast was over they gathered round in a ring and gave all
their best gifts to the little princess. One gave her goodness, another
beauty, another riches, and so on till she had all that was good in the
world.

Just as eleven of them had done blessing her, a great noise was heard in
the courtyard, and word was brought that the thirteenth fairy was
come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a
broomstick in her hand: and presently up she came into the dining-hall.
Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and
scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her
revenge. So she cried out, ‘The king’s daughter shall, in her fifteenth
year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.’ Then the twelfth of
the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and
said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its
mischief; so her gift was, that the king’s daughter, when the spindle
wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a
hundred years.

However, the king hoped still to save his dear child altogether from
the threatened evil; so he ordered that all the spindles in the kingdom
should be bought up and burnt. But all the gifts of the first eleven
fairies were in the meantime fulfilled; for the princess was so
beautiful, and well behaved, and good, and wise, that everyone who knew
her loved her.

It happened that, on the very day she was fifteen years old, the king
and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So she
roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till
at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase
ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when
she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning
away very busily. ‘Why, how now, good mother,’ said the princess; ‘what
are you doing there?’ ‘Spinning,’ said the old lady, and nodded her
head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. ‘How prettily that
little thing turns round!’ said the princess, and took the spindle
and began to try and spin. But scarcely had she touched it, before the
fairy’s prophecy was fulfilled; the spindle wounded her, and she fell
down lifeless on the ground.

However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep; and
the king and the queen, who had just come home, and all their court,
fell asleep too; and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in
the court, the pigeons on the house-top, and the very flies slept upon
the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left off blazing, and went to
sleep; the jack stopped, and the spit that was turning about with a
goose upon it for the king’s dinner stood still; and the cook, who was
at that moment pulling the kitchen-boy by the hair to give him a box
on the ear for something he had done amiss, let him go, and both fell
asleep; the butler, who was slyly tasting the ale, fell asleep with the
jug at his lips: and thus everything stood still, and slept soundly.

A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it
became higher and thicker; till at last the old palace was surrounded
and hidden, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But
there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Briar
Rose (for so the king’s daughter was called): so that, from time to
time, several kings’ sons came, and tried to break through the thicket
into the palace. This, however, none of them could ever do; for the
thorns and bushes laid hold of them, as it were with hands; and there
they stuck fast, and died wretchedly.

After many, many years there came a king’s son into that land: and an
old man told him the story of the thicket of thorns; and how a beautiful
palace stood behind it, and how a wonderful princess, called Briar Rose,
lay in it asleep, with all her court. He told, too, how he had heard
from his grandfather that many, many princes had come, and had tried to
break through the thicket, but that they had all stuck fast in it, and
died. Then the young prince said, ‘All this shall not frighten me; I
will go and see this Briar Rose.’ The old man tried to hinder him, but
he was bent upon going.

Now that very day the hundred years were ended; and as the prince came
to the thicket he saw nothing but beautiful flowering shrubs, through
which he went with ease, and they shut in after him as thick as ever.
Then he came at last to the palace, and there in the court lay the dogs
asleep; and the horses were standing in the stables; and on the roof sat
the pigeons fast asleep, with their heads under their wings. And when he
came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls; the spit
was standing still; the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going
to drink a draught; the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be
plucked; and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as
if she was going to beat the boy.

Then he went on still farther, and all was so still that he could hear
every breath he drew; till at last he came to the old tower, and opened
the door of the little room in which Briar Rose was; and there she lay,
fast asleep on a couch by the window. She looked so beautiful that he
could not take his eyes off her, so he stooped down and gave her a kiss.
But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled
upon him; and they went out together; and soon the king and queen also
awoke, and all the court, and gazed on each other with great wonder.
And the horses shook themselves, and the dogs jumped up and barked; the
pigeons took their heads from under their wings, and looked about and
flew into the fields; the flies on the walls buzzed again; the fire in
the kitchen blazed up; round went the jack, and round went the spit,
with the goose for the king’s dinner upon it; the butler finished his
draught of ale; the maid went on plucking the fowl; and the cook gave
the boy the box on his ear.

And then the prince and Briar Rose were married, and the wedding feast
was given; and they lived happily together all their lives long.




THE DOG AND THE SPARROW


A shepherd’s dog had a master who took no care of him, but often let him
suffer the greatest hunger. At last he could bear it no longer; so he
took to his heels, and off he ran in a very sad and sorrowful mood.
On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, ‘Why are you so sad,
my friend?’ ‘Because,’ said the dog, ‘I am very very hungry, and have
nothing to eat.’ ‘If that be all,’ answered the sparrow, ‘come with me
into the next town, and I will soon find you plenty of food.’ So on they
went together into the town: and as they passed by a butcher’s shop,
the sparrow said to the dog, ‘Stand there a little while till I peck you
down a piece of meat.’ So the sparrow perched upon the shelf: and having
first looked carefully about her to see if anyone was watching her, she
pecked and scratched at a steak that lay upon the edge of the shelf,
till at last down it fell. Then the dog snapped it up, and scrambled
away with it into a corner, where he soon ate it all up. ‘Well,’ said
the sparrow, ‘you shall have some more if you will; so come with me to
the next shop, and I will peck you down another steak.’ When the dog had
eaten this too, the sparrow said to him, ‘Well, my good friend, have you
had enough now?’ ‘I have had plenty of meat,’ answered he, ‘but I should
like to have a piece of bread to eat after it.’ ‘Come with me then,’
said the sparrow, ‘and you shall soon have that too.’ So she took him
to a baker’s shop, and pecked at two rolls that lay in the window, till
they fell down: and as the dog still wished for more, she took him to
another shop and pecked down some more for him. When that was eaten, the
sparrow asked him whether he had had enough now. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘and
now let us take a walk a little way out of the town.’ So they both went
out upon the high road; but as the weather was warm, they had not gone
far before the dog said, ‘I am very much tired--I should like to take a
nap.’ ‘Very well,’ answered the sparrow, ‘do so, and in the meantime
I will perch upon that bush.’ So the dog stretched himself out on the
road, and fell fast asleep. Whilst he slept, there came by a carter with
a cart drawn by three horses, and loaded with two casks of wine. The
sparrow, seeing that the carter did not turn out of the way, but would
go on in the track in which the dog lay, so as to drive over him, called
out, ‘Stop! stop! Mr Carter, or it shall be the worse for you.’ But the
carter, grumbling to himself, ‘You make it the worse for me, indeed!
what can you do?’ cracked his whip, and drove his cart over the poor
dog, so that the wheels crushed him to death. ‘There,’ cried the
sparrow, ‘thou cruel villain, thou hast killed my friend the dog. Now
mind what I say. This deed of thine shall cost thee all thou art worth.’
‘Do your worst, and welcome,’ said the brute, ‘what harm can you do me?’
and passed on. But the sparrow crept under the tilt of the cart, and
pecked at the bung of one of the casks till she loosened it; and then
all the wine ran out, without the carter seeing it. At last he looked
round, and saw that the cart was dripping, and the cask quite empty.
‘What an unlucky wretch I am!’ cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said
the sparrow, as she alighted upon the head of one of the horses, and
pecked at him till he reared up and kicked. When the carter saw this,
he drew out his hatchet and aimed a blow at the sparrow, meaning to kill
her; but she flew away, and the blow fell upon the poor horse’s head
with such force, that he fell down dead. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’
cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said the sparrow. And as the carter
went on with the other two horses, she again crept under the tilt of the
cart, and pecked out the bung of the second cask, so that all the wine
ran out. When the carter saw this, he again cried out, ‘Miserable wretch
that I am!’ But the sparrow answered, ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ and
perched on the head of the second horse, and pecked at him too. The
carter ran up and struck at her again with his hatchet; but away she
flew, and the blow fell upon the second horse and killed him on the
spot. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ said he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said
the sparrow; and perching upon the third horse, she began to peck him
too. The carter was mad with fury; and without looking about him, or
caring what he was about, struck again at the sparrow; but killed his
third horse as he done the other two. ‘Alas! miserable wretch that I
am!’ cried he. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ answered the sparrow as she flew
away; ‘now will I plague and punish thee at thy own house.’ The
carter was forced at last to leave his cart behind him, and to go home
overflowing with rage and vexation. ‘Alas!’ said he to his wife, ‘what
ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three
dead.’ ‘Alas! husband,’ replied she, ‘and a wicked bird has come into
the house, and has brought with her all the birds in the world, I am
sure, and they have fallen upon our corn in the loft, and are eating it
up at such a rate!’ Away ran the husband upstairs, and saw thousands of
birds sitting upon the floor eating up his corn, with the sparrow in the
midst of them. ‘Unlucky wretch that I am!’ cried the carter; for he saw
that the corn was almost all gone. ‘Not wretch enough yet!’ said the
sparrow; ‘thy cruelty shall cost thee thy life yet!’ and away she flew.

The carter seeing that he had thus lost all that he had, went down
into his kitchen; and was still not sorry for what he had done, but sat
himself angrily and sulkily in the chimney corner. But the sparrow sat
on the outside of the window, and cried ‘Carter! thy cruelty shall cost
thee thy life!’ With that he jumped up in a rage, seized his hatchet,
and threw it at the sparrow; but it missed her, and only broke the
window. The sparrow now hopped in, perched upon the window-seat, and
cried, ‘Carter! it shall cost thee thy life!’ Then he became mad and
blind with rage, and struck the window-seat with such force that he
cleft it in two: and as the sparrow flew from place to place, the carter
and his wife were so furious, that they broke all their furniture,
glasses, chairs, benches, the table, and at last the walls, without
touching the bird at all. In the end, however, they caught her: and the
wife said, ‘Shall I kill her at once?’ ‘No,’ cried he, ‘that is letting
her off too easily: she shall die a much more cruel death; I will eat
her.’ But the sparrow began to flutter about, and stretch out her neck
and cried, ‘Carter! it shall cost thee thy life yet!’ With that he
could wait no longer: so he gave his wife the hatchet, and cried, ‘Wife,
strike at the bird and kill her in my hand.’ And the wife struck; but
she missed her aim, and hit her husband on the head so that he fell down
dead, and the sparrow flew quietly home to her nest.




THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES


There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in
twelve beds all in one room; and when they went to bed, the doors were
shut and locked up; but every morning their shoes were found to be quite
worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody
could find out how it happened, or where they had been.

Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could
discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses
danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his
wife, and should be king after his death; but whoever tried and did not
succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death.

A king’s son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was
taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their
twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance;
and, in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it, the door
of his chamber was left open. But the king’s son soon fell asleep; and
when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been
dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes. The same thing
happened the second and third night: so the king ordered his head to be
cut off. After him came several others; but they had all the same luck,
and all lost their lives in the same manner.

Now it chanced that an old soldier, who had been wounded in battle
and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king
reigned: and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman,
who asked him where he was going. ‘I hardly know where I am going, or
what I had better do,’ said the soldier; ‘but I think I should like very
well to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time
I might be a king.’ ‘Well,’ said the old dame, ‘that is no very hard
task: only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the
princesses will bring to you in the evening; and as soon as she leaves
you pretend to be fast asleep.’

Then she gave him a cloak, and said, ‘As soon as you put that on
you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the
princesses wherever they go.’ When the soldier heard all this good
counsel, he determined to try his luck: so he went to the king, and said
he was willing to undertake the task.

He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered
fine royal robes to be given him; and when the evening came he was led
to the outer chamber. Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of
the princesses brought him a cup of wine; but the soldier threw it all
away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself
down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loud as if
he was fast asleep. When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed
heartily; and the eldest said, ‘This fellow too might have done a wiser
thing than lose his life in this way!’ Then they rose up and opened
their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and
dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager
to begin dancing. But the youngest said, ‘I don’t know how it is, while
you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will
befall us.’ ‘You simpleton,’ said the eldest, ‘you are always afraid;
have you forgotten how many kings’ sons have already watched in vain?
And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping
draught, he would have slept soundly enough.’

When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier; but he
snored on, and did not stir hand or foot: so they thought they were
quite safe; and the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands,
and the bed sank into the floor and a trap-door flew open. The soldier
saw them going down through the trap-door one after another, the eldest
leading the way; and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put
on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them;
but in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest
princess, and she cried out to her sisters, ‘All is not right; someone
took hold of my gown.’ ‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is
nothing but a nail in the wall.’ Then down they all went, and at the
bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and
the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully.
The soldier wished to take away some token of the place; so he broke
off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the
youngest daughter said again, ‘I am sure all is not right--did not you
hear that noise? That never happened before.’ But the eldest said, ‘It
is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.’

Then they came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of
gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering
diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there
was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear; but
the eldest still said, it was only the princes, who were crying for joy.
So they went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the
lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them,
who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses.

One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into
the same boat with the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the
prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier
said, ‘I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might
we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired: the boat
seems very heavy today.’ ‘It is only the heat of the weather,’ said the
princess: ‘I feel it very warm too.’

On the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle, from
which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed,
and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess; and
the soldier, who was all the time invisible, danced with them too; and
when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it
all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this,
too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always
silenced her. They danced on till three o’clock in the morning, and then
all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave off.
The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the
soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the
opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising
to come again the next night.

When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses,
and laid himself down; and as the twelve sisters slowly came up very
much tired, they heard him snoring in his bed; so they said, ‘Now all
is quite safe’; then they undressed themselves, put away their fine
clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed. In the morning the
soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more
of this strange adventure, and went again the second and third night;
and every thing happened just as before; the princesses danced each time
till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. However,
on the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a
token of where he had been.

As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken
before the king with the three branches and the golden cup; and the
twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would
say. And when the king asked him. ‘Where do my twelve daughters dance at
night?’ he answered, ‘With twelve princes in a castle under ground.’ And
then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three
branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him. Then the king
called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said
was true: and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was
of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all. And the king
asked the soldier which of them he would choose for his wife; and he
answered, ‘I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.’--And they
were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king’s
heir.




THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE


There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close
by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and
one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling
waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away
deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish.
But the fish said, ‘Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an
enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!’ ‘Oh, ho!’
said the man, ‘you need not make so many words about the matter; I will
have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon
as you please!’ Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted
straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him
on the wave.

When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how
he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted
prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. ‘Did not
you ask it for anything?’ said the wife, ‘we live very wretchedly here,
in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug
little cottage.’

The fisherman did not much like the business: however, he went to the
seashore; and when he came back there the water looked all yellow and
green. And he stood at the water’s edge, and said:

 ‘O man of the sea!
  Hearken to me!
  My wife Ilsabill
  Will have her own will,
  And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’

Then the fish came swimming to him, and said, ‘Well, what is her will?
What does your wife want?’ ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, ‘she says that when
I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let
you go; she does not like living any longer in the pigsty, and wants
a snug little cottage.’ ‘Go home, then,’ said the fish; ‘she is in the
cottage already!’ So the man went home, and saw his wife standing at the
door of a nice trim little cottage. ‘Come in, come in!’ said she; ‘is
not this much better than the filthy pigsty we had?’ And there was a
parlour, and a bedchamber, and a kitchen; and behind the cottage there
was a little garden, planted with all sorts of flowers and fruits; and
there was a courtyard behind, full of ducks and chickens. ‘Ah!’ said the
fisherman, ‘how happily we shall live now!’ ‘We will try to do so, at
least,’ said his wife.

Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Ilsabill said,
‘Husband, there is not near room enough for us in this cottage; the
courtyard and the garden are a great deal too small; I should like to
have a large stone castle to live in: go to the fish again and tell him
to give us a castle.’ ‘Wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘I don’t like to go to
him again, for perhaps he will be angry; we ought to be easy with this
pretty cottage to live in.’ ‘Nonsense!’ said the wife; ‘he will do it
very willingly, I know; go along and try!’

The fisherman went, but his heart was very heavy: and when he came to
the sea, it looked blue and gloomy, though it was very calm; and he went
close to the edge of the waves, and said:

 ‘O man of the sea!
  Hearken to me!
  My wife Ilsabill
  Will have her own will,
  And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’

‘Well, what does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the man,
dolefully, ‘my wife wants to live in a stone castle.’ ‘Go home, then,’
said the fish; ‘she is standing at the gate of it already.’ So away went
the fisherman, and found his wife standing before the gate of a great
castle. ‘See,’ said she, ‘is not this grand?’ With that they went into
the castle together, and found a great many servants there, and the
rooms all richly furnished, and full of golden chairs and tables; and
behind the castle was a garden, and around it was a park half a
mile long, full of sheep, and goats, and hares, and deer; and in the
courtyard were stables and cow-houses. ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘now we
will live cheerful and happy in this beautiful castle for the rest of
our lives.’ ‘Perhaps we may,’ said the wife; ‘but let us sleep upon it,
before we make up our minds to that.’ So they went to bed.

The next morning when Dame Ilsabill awoke it was broad daylight, and
she jogged the fisherman with her elbow, and said, ‘Get up, husband,
and bestir yourself, for we must be king of all the land.’ ‘Wife, wife,’
said the man, ‘why should we wish to be the king? I will not be king.’
‘Then I will,’ said she. ‘But, wife,’ said the fisherman, ‘how can you
be king--the fish cannot make you a king?’ ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘say
no more about it, but go and try! I will be king.’ So the man went away
quite sorrowful to think that his wife should want to be king. This time
the sea looked a dark grey colour, and was overspread with curling waves
and the ridges of foam as he cried out:

 ‘O man of the sea!
  Hearken to me!
  My wife Ilsabill
  Will have her own will,
  And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’

‘Well, what would she have now?’ said the fish. ‘Alas!’ said the poor
man, ‘my wife wants to be king.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is king
already.’

Then the fisherman went home; and as he came close to the palace he saw
a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets. And when
he went in he saw his wife sitting on a throne of gold and diamonds,
with a golden crown upon her head; and on each side of her stood six
fair maidens, each a head taller than the other. ‘Well, wife,’ said the
fisherman, ‘are you king?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am king.’ And when he had
looked at her for a long time, he said, ‘Ah, wife! what a fine thing it
is to be king! Now we shall never have anything more to wish for as long
as we live.’ ‘I don’t know how that may be,’ said she; ‘never is a long
time. I am king, it is true; but I begin to be tired of that, and I
think I should like to be emperor.’ ‘Alas, wife! why should you wish to
be emperor?’ said the fisherman. ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘go to the fish!
I say I will be emperor.’ ‘Ah, wife!’ replied the fisherman, ‘the fish
cannot make an emperor, I am sure, and I should not like to ask him for
such a thing.’ ‘I am king,’ said Ilsabill, ‘and you are my slave; so go
at once!’

So the fisherman was forced to go; and he muttered as he went along,
‘This will come to no good, it is too much to ask; the fish will be
tired at last, and then we shall be sorry for what we have done.’ He
soon came to the seashore; and the water was quite black and muddy, and
a mighty whirlwind blew over the waves and rolled them about, but he
went as near as he could to the water’s brink, and said:

 ‘O man of the sea!
  Hearken to me!
  My wife Ilsabill
  Will have her own will,
  And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’

‘What would she have now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman,
‘she wants to be emperor.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is emperor
already.’

So he went home again; and as he came near he saw his wife Ilsabill
sitting on a very lofty throne made of solid gold, with a great crown on
her head full two yards high; and on each side of her stood her guards
and attendants in a row, each one smaller than the other, from the
tallest giant down to a little dwarf no bigger than my finger. And
before her stood princes, and dukes, and earls: and the fisherman went
up to her and said, ‘Wife, are you emperor?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am
emperor.’ ‘Ah!’ said the man, as he gazed upon her, ‘what a fine thing
it is to be emperor!’ ‘Husband,’ said she, ‘why should we stop at being
emperor? I will be pope next.’ ‘O wife, wife!’ said he, ‘how can you be
pope? there is but one pope at a time in Christendom.’ ‘Husband,’ said
she, ‘I will be pope this very day.’ ‘But,’ replied the husband, ‘the
fish cannot make you pope.’ ‘What nonsense!’ said she; ‘if he can make
an emperor, he can make a pope: go and try him.’

So the fisherman went. But when he came to the shore the wind was raging
and the sea was tossed up and down in boiling waves, and the ships were
in trouble, and rolled fearfully upon the tops of the billows. In the
middle of the heavens there was a little piece of blue sky, but towards
the south all was red, as if a dreadful storm was rising. At this sight
the fisherman was dreadfully frightened, and he trembled so that his
knees knocked together: but still he went down near to the shore, and
said:

 ‘O man of the sea!
  Hearken to me!
  My wife Ilsabill
  Will have her own will,
  And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’

‘What does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said the fisherman, ‘my
wife wants to be pope.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish; ‘she is pope already.’

Then the fisherman went home, and found Ilsabill sitting on a throne
that was two miles high. And she had three great crowns on her head, and
around her stood all the pomp and power of the Church. And on each side
of her were two rows of burning lights, of all sizes, the greatest as
large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no
larger than a small rushlight. ‘Wife,’ said the fisherman, as he looked
at all this greatness, ‘are you pope?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I am pope.’
‘Well, wife,’ replied he, ‘it is a grand thing to be pope; and now
you must be easy, for you can be nothing greater.’ ‘I will think about
that,’ said the wife. Then they went to bed: but Dame Ilsabill could not
sleep all night for thinking what she should be next. At last, as she
was dropping asleep, morning broke, and the sun rose. ‘Ha!’ thought she,
as she woke up and looked at it through the window, ‘after all I cannot
prevent the sun rising.’ At this thought she was very angry, and wakened
her husband, and said, ‘Husband, go to the fish and tell him I must
be lord of the sun and moon.’ The fisherman was half asleep, but the
thought frightened him so much that he started and fell out of bed.
‘Alas, wife!’ said he, ‘cannot you be easy with being pope?’ ‘No,’
said she, ‘I am very uneasy as long as the sun and moon rise without my
leave. Go to the fish at once!’

Then the man went shivering with fear; and as he was going down to
the shore a dreadful storm arose, so that the trees and the very rocks
shook. And all the heavens became black with stormy clouds, and the
lightnings played, and the thunders rolled; and you might have seen in
the sea great black waves, swelling up like mountains with crowns of
white foam upon their heads. And the fisherman crept towards the sea,
and cried out, as well as he could:

 ‘O man of the sea!
  Hearken to me!
  My wife Ilsabill
  Will have her own will,
  And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!’

‘What does she want now?’ said the fish. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘she wants to
be lord of the sun and moon.’ ‘Go home,’ said the fish, ‘to your pigsty
again.’

And there they live to this very day.




THE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEAR


Once in summer-time the bear and the wolf were walking in the forest,
and the bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said: ‘Brother
wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?’ ‘That is the King of birds,’
said the wolf, ‘before whom we must bow down.’ In reality the bird was
the willow-wren. ‘IF that’s the case,’ said the bear, ‘I should very
much like to see his royal palace; come, take me thither.’ ‘That is not
done quite as you seem to think,’ said the wolf; ‘you must wait until
the Queen comes,’ Soon afterwards, the Queen arrived with some food in
her beak, and the lord King came too, and they began to feed their young
ones. The bear would have liked to go at once, but the wolf held him
back by the sleeve, and said: ‘No, you must wait until the lord and lady
Queen have gone away again.’ So they took stock of the hole where the
nest lay, and trotted away. The bear, however, could not rest until he
had seen the royal palace, and when a short time had passed, went to it
again. The King and Queen had just flown out, so he peeped in and saw
five or six young ones lying there. ‘Is that the royal palace?’ cried
the bear; ‘it is a wretched palace, and you are not King’s children, you
are disreputable children!’ When the young wrens heard that, they were
frightfully angry, and screamed: ‘No, that we are not! Our parents are
honest people! Bear, you will have to pay for that!’

The bear and the wolf grew uneasy, and turned back and went into their
holes. The young willow-wrens, however, continued to cry and scream, and
when their parents again brought food they said: ‘We will not so much as
touch one fly’s leg, no, not if we were dying of hunger, until you have
settled whether we are respectable children or not; the bear has been
here and has insulted us!’ Then the old King said: ‘Be easy, he shall
be punished,’ and he at once flew with the Queen to the bear’s cave, and
called in: ‘Old Growler, why have you insulted my children? You shall
suffer for it--we will punish you by a bloody war.’ Thus war was
announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take
part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth
contained. And the willow-wren summoned everything which flew in the
air, not only birds, large and small, but midges, and hornets, bees and
flies had to come.

When the time came for the war to begin, the willow-wren sent out spies
to discover who was the enemy’s commander-in-chief. The gnat, who was
the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was assembled,
and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the password was to be
announced. There stood the bear, and he called the fox before him
and said: ‘Fox, you are the most cunning of all animals, you shall be
general and lead us.’ ‘Good,’ said the fox, ‘but what signal shall we
agree upon?’ No one knew that, so the fox said: ‘I have a fine long
bushy tail, which almost looks like a plume of red feathers. When I lift
my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge; but if I
let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.’ When the gnat had heard
that, she flew away again, and revealed everything, down to the minutest
detail, to the willow-wren. When day broke, and the battle was to begin,
all the four-footed animals came running up with such a noise that the
earth trembled. The willow-wren with his army also came flying through
the air with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one
was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each
other. But the willow-wren sent down the hornet, with orders to settle
beneath the fox’s tail, and sting with all his might. When the fox felt
the first string, he started so that he lifted one leg, from pain, but
he bore it, and still kept his tail high in the air; at the second
sting, he was forced to put it down for a moment; at the third, he could
hold out no longer, screamed, and put his tail between his legs. When
the animals saw that, they thought all was lost, and began to flee, each
into his hole, and the birds had won the battle.

Then the King and Queen flew home to their children and cried:
‘Children, rejoice, eat and drink to your heart’s content, we have won
the battle!’ But the young wrens said: ‘We will not eat yet, the bear
must come to the nest, and beg for pardon and say that we are honourable
children, before we will do that.’ Then the willow-wren flew to the
bear’s hole and cried: ‘Growler, you are to come to the nest to my
children, and beg their pardon, or else every rib of your body shall
be broken.’ So the bear crept thither in the greatest fear, and begged
their pardon. And now at last the young wrens were satisfied, and sat
down together and ate and drank, and made merry till quite late into the
night.




THE FROG-PRINCE


One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went
out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool
spring of water, that rose in the midst of it, she sat herself down
to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her
favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and
catching it again as it fell. After a time she threw it up so high that
she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled
along upon the ground, till at last it fell down into the spring. The
princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so
deep that she could not see the bottom of it. Then she began to bewail
her loss, and said, ‘Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would
give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the
world.’

Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said,
‘Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?’ ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘what can you
do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.’
The frog said, ‘I want not your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes;
but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off
your golden plate, and sleep upon your bed, I will bring you your ball
again.’ ‘What nonsense,’ thought the princess, ‘this silly frog is
talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though
he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he
shall have what he asks.’ So she said to the frog, ‘Well, if you will
bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.’ Then the frog put his head
down, and dived deep under the water; and after a little while he came
up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the
spring. As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick
it up; and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she
never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could.
The frog called after her, ‘Stay, princess, and take me with you as you
said,’ But she did not stop to hear a word.

The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a
strange noise--tap, tap--plash, plash--as if something was coming up the
marble staircase: and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the
door, and a little voice cried out and said:

 ‘Open the door, my princess dear,
  Open the door to thy true love here!
  And mind the words that thou and I said
  By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’

Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw
the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly
frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her
seat. The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her,
asked her what was the matter. ‘There is a nasty frog,’ said she, ‘at
the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning: I
told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never
get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come
in.’

While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said:

 ‘Open the door, my princess dear,
  Open the door to thy true love here!
  And mind the words that thou and I said
  By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’

Then the king said to the young princess, ‘As you have given your word
you must keep it; so go and let him in.’ She did so, and the frog hopped
into the room, and then straight on--tap, tap--plash, plash--from the
bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where
the princess sat. ‘Pray lift me upon chair,’ said he to the princess,
‘and let me sit next to you.’ As soon as she had done this, the frog
said, ‘Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.’ This
she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, ‘Now I am
tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.’ And the princess,
though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the
pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. As soon as it was
light he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house.
‘Now, then,’ thought the princess, ‘at last he is gone, and I shall be
troubled with him no more.’

But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same
tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said:

 ‘Open the door, my princess dear,
  Open the door to thy true love here!
  And mind the words that thou and I said
  By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.’

And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon
her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did
the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was
astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her
with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head
of her bed.

He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had
changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till
some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from
her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. ‘You,’ said the
prince, ‘have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for
but that you should go with me into my father’s kingdom, where I will
marry you, and love you as long as you live.’

The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying ‘Yes’ to
all this; and as they spoke a gay coach drove up, with eight beautiful
horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness; and behind
the coach rode the prince’s servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed
the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so
bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst.

They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight
horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince’s
kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great
many years.




CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP


A certain cat had made the acquaintance of a mouse, and had said so much
to her about the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at
length the mouse agreed that they should live and keep house together.
‘But we must make a provision for winter, or else we shall suffer
from hunger,’ said the cat; ‘and you, little mouse, cannot venture
everywhere, or you will be caught in a trap some day.’ The good advice
was followed, and a pot of fat was bought, but they did not know where
to put it. At length, after much consideration, the cat said: ‘I know no
place where it will be better stored up than in the church, for no one
dares take anything away from there. We will set it beneath the altar,
and not touch it until we are really in need of it.’ So the pot was
placed in safety, but it was not long before the cat had a great
yearning for it, and said to the mouse: ‘I want to tell you something,
little mouse; my cousin has brought a little son into the world, and has
asked me to be godmother; he is white with brown spots, and I am to hold
him over the font at the christening. Let me go out today, and you look
after the house by yourself.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ answered the mouse, ‘by all
means go, and if you get anything very good to eat, think of me. I
should like a drop of sweet red christening wine myself.’ All this,
however, was untrue; the cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to
be godmother. She went straight to the church, stole to the pot of fat,
began to lick at it, and licked the top of the fat off. Then she took a
walk upon the roofs of the town, looked out for opportunities, and then
stretched herself in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought
of the pot of fat, and not until it was evening did she return home.
‘Well, here you are again,’ said the mouse, ‘no doubt you have had a
merry day.’ ‘All went off well,’ answered the cat. ‘What name did they
give the child?’ ‘Top off!’ said the cat quite coolly. ‘Top off!’ cried
the mouse, ‘that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in
your family?’ ‘What does that matter,’ said the cat, ‘it is no worse
than Crumb-stealer, as your godchildren are called.’

Before long the cat was seized by another fit of yearning. She said to
the mouse: ‘You must do me a favour, and once more manage the house for
a day alone. I am again asked to be godmother, and, as the child has a
white ring round its neck, I cannot refuse.’ The good mouse consented,
but the cat crept behind the town walls to the church, and devoured
half the pot of fat. ‘Nothing ever seems so good as what one keeps to
oneself,’ said she, and was quite satisfied with her day’s work. When
she went home the mouse inquired: ‘And what was the child christened?’
‘Half-done,’ answered the cat. ‘Half-done! What are you saying? I
never heard the name in my life, I’ll wager anything it is not in the
calendar!’

The cat’s mouth soon began to water for some more licking. ‘All good
things go in threes,’ said she, ‘I am asked to stand godmother again.
The child is quite black, only it has white paws, but with that
exception, it has not a single white hair on its whole body; this only
happens once every few years, you will let me go, won’t you?’ ‘Top-off!
Half-done!’ answered the mouse, ‘they are such odd names, they make me
very thoughtful.’ ‘You sit at home,’ said the cat, ‘in your dark-grey
fur coat and long tail, and are filled with fancies, that’s because
you do not go out in the daytime.’ During the cat’s absence the mouse
cleaned the house, and put it in order, but the greedy cat entirely
emptied the pot of fat. ‘When everything is eaten up one has some
peace,’ said she to herself, and well filled and fat she did not return
home till night. The mouse at once asked what name had been given to
the third child. ‘It will not please you more than the others,’ said the
cat. ‘He is called All-gone.’ ‘All-gone,’ cried the mouse ‘that is the
most suspicious name of all! I have never seen it in print. All-gone;
what can that mean?’ and she shook her head, curled herself up, and lay
down to sleep.

From this time forth no one invited the cat to be godmother, but
when the winter had come and there was no longer anything to be found
outside, the mouse thought of their provision, and said: ‘Come, cat,
we will go to our pot of fat which we have stored up for ourselves--we
shall enjoy that.’ ‘Yes,’ answered the cat, ‘you will enjoy it as much
as you would enjoy sticking that dainty tongue of yours out of the
window.’ They set out on their way, but when they arrived, the pot of
fat certainly was still in its place, but it was empty. ‘Alas!’ said the
mouse, ‘now I see what has happened, now it comes to light! You are a true
friend! You have devoured all when you were standing godmother. First
top off, then half-done, then--’ ‘Will you hold your tongue,’ cried the
cat, ‘one word more, and I will eat you too.’ ‘All-gone’ was already on
the poor mouse’s lips; scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang
on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of
the world.




THE GOOSE-GIRL


The king of a great land died, and left his queen to take care of their
only child. This child was a daughter, who was very beautiful; and her
mother loved her dearly, and was very kind to her. And there was a good
fairy too, who was fond of the princess, and helped her mother to watch
over her. When she grew up, she was betrothed to a prince who lived a
great way off; and as the time drew near for her to be married, she
got ready to set off on her journey to his country. Then the queen her
mother, packed up a great many costly things; jewels, and gold, and
silver; trinkets, fine dresses, and in short everything that became a
royal bride. And she gave her a waiting-maid to ride with her, and give
her into the bridegroom’s hands; and each had a horse for the journey.
Now the princess’s horse was the fairy’s gift, and it was called Falada,
and could speak.

When the time came for them to set out, the fairy went into her
bed-chamber, and took a little knife, and cut off a lock of her hair,
and gave it to the princess, and said, ‘Take care of it, dear child; for
it is a charm that may be of use to you on the road.’ Then they all took
a sorrowful leave of the princess; and she put the lock of hair into
her bosom, got upon her horse, and set off on her journey to her
bridegroom’s kingdom.

One day, as they were riding along by a brook, the princess began to
feel very thirsty: and she said to her maid, ‘Pray get down, and fetch
me some water in my golden cup out of yonder brook, for I want to
drink.’ ‘Nay,’ said the maid, ‘if you are thirsty, get off yourself, and
stoop down by the water and drink; I shall not be your waiting-maid any
longer.’ Then she was so thirsty that she got down, and knelt over the
little brook, and drank; for she was frightened, and dared not bring out
her golden cup; and she wept and said, ‘Alas! what will become of me?’
And the lock answered her, and said:

 ‘Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it,
  Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’

But the princess was very gentle and meek, so she said nothing to her
maid’s ill behaviour, but got upon her horse again.

Then all rode farther on their journey, till the day grew so warm, and
the sun so scorching, that the bride began to feel very thirsty again;
and at last, when they came to a river, she forgot her maid’s rude
speech, and said, ‘Pray get down, and fetch me some water to drink in
my golden cup.’ But the maid answered her, and even spoke more haughtily
than before: ‘Drink if you will, but I shall not be your waiting-maid.’
Then the princess was so thirsty that she got off her horse, and lay
down, and held her head over the running stream, and cried and said,
‘What will become of me?’ And the lock of hair answered her again:

 ‘Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it,
  Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’

And as she leaned down to drink, the lock of hair fell from her bosom,
and floated away with the water. Now she was so frightened that she did
not see it; but her maid saw it, and was very glad, for she knew the
charm; and she saw that the poor bride would be in her power, now that
she had lost the hair. So when the bride had done drinking, and would
have got upon Falada again, the maid said, ‘I shall ride upon Falada,
and you may have my horse instead’; so she was forced to give up her
horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes and put on her
maid’s shabby ones.

At last, as they drew near the end of their journey, this treacherous
servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had
happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well.

Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride rode upon the
other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the
royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince flew to
meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one
who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber;
but the true princess was told to stay in the court below.

Now the old king happened just then to have nothing else to do; so he
amused himself by sitting at his kitchen window, looking at what was
going on; and he saw her in the courtyard. As she looked very pretty,
and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went up into the royal chamber
to ask the bride who it was she had brought with her, that was thus left
standing in the court below. ‘I brought her with me for the sake of her
company on the road,’ said she; ‘pray give the girl some work to do,
that she may not be idle.’ The old king could not for some time think
of any work for her to do; but at last he said, ‘I have a lad who takes
care of my geese; she may go and help him.’ Now the name of this lad,
that the real bride was to help in watching the king’s geese, was
Curdken.

But the false bride said to the prince, ‘Dear husband, pray do me one
piece of kindness.’ ‘That I will,’ said the prince. ‘Then tell one of
your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it
was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road’; but the truth was,
she was very much afraid lest Falada should some day or other speak, and
tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the
faithful Falada was killed; but when the true princess heard of it, she
wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada’s head against a large
dark gate of the city, through which she had to pass every morning
and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the
slaughterer said he would do as she wished; and cut off the head, and
nailed it up under the dark gate.

Early the next morning, as she and Curdken went out through the gate,
she said sorrowfully:

 ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’

and the head answered:

 ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest!
  Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it,
  Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’

Then they went out of the city, and drove the geese on. And when she
came to the meadow, she sat down upon a bank there, and let down her
waving locks of hair, which were all of pure silver; and when Curdken
saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the
locks out, but she cried:

 ‘Blow, breezes, blow!
  Let Curdken’s hat go!
  Blow, breezes, blow!
  Let him after it go!
  O’er hills, dales, and rocks,
  Away be it whirl’d
  Till the silvery locks
  Are all comb’d and curl’d!

Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken’s hat; and
away it flew over the hills: and he was forced to turn and run after
it; till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her
hair, and had put it up again safe. Then he was very angry and sulky,
and would not speak to her at all; but they watched the geese until it
grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards.

The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor
girl looked up at Falada’s head, and cried:

 ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’

and the head answered:

 ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest!
  Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it,
  Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’

Then she drove on the geese, and sat down again in the meadow, and began
to comb out her hair as before; and Curdken ran up to her, and wanted to
take hold of it; but she cried out quickly:

 ‘Blow, breezes, blow!
  Let Curdken’s hat go!
  Blow, breezes, blow!
  Let him after it go!
  O’er hills, dales, and rocks,
  Away be it whirl’d
  Till the silvery locks
  Are all comb’d and curl’d!

Then the wind came and blew away his hat; and off it flew a great way,
over the hills and far away, so that he had to run after it; and when
he came back she had bound up her hair again, and all was safe. So they
watched the geese till it grew dark.

In the evening, after they came home, Curdken went to the old king, and
said, ‘I cannot have that strange girl to help me to keep the geese any
longer.’ ‘Why?’ said the king. ‘Because, instead of doing any good, she
does nothing but tease me all day long.’ Then the king made him tell him
what had happened. And Curdken said, ‘When we go in the morning through
the dark gate with our flock of geese, she cries and talks with the head
of a horse that hangs upon the wall, and says:

 ‘Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!’

and the head answers:

 ‘Bride, bride, there thou gangest!
  Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it,
  Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.’

And Curdken went on telling the king what had happened upon the meadow
where the geese fed; how his hat was blown away; and how he was forced
to run after it, and to leave his flock of geese to themselves. But the
old king told the boy to go out again the next day: and when morning
came, he placed himself behind the dark gate, and heard how she spoke
to Falada, and how Falada answered. Then he went into the field, and
hid himself in a bush by the meadow’s side; and he soon saw with his own
eyes how they drove the flock of geese; and how, after a little time,
she let down her hair that glittered in the sun. And then he heard her
say:

 ‘Blow, breezes, blow!
  Let Curdken’s hat go!
  Blow, breezes, blow!
  Let him after it go!
  O’er hills, dales, and rocks,
  Away be it whirl’d
  Till the silvery locks
  Are all comb’d and curl’d!

And soon came a gale of wind, and carried away Curdken’s hat, and away
went Curdken after it, while the girl went on combing and curling her
hair. All this the old king saw: so he went home without being seen; and
when the little goose-girl came back in the evening he called her aside,
and asked her why she did so: but she burst into tears, and said, ‘That
I must not tell you or any man, or I shall lose my life.’

But the old king begged so hard, that she had no peace till she had told
him all the tale, from beginning to end, word for word. And it was very
lucky for her that she did so, for when she had done the king ordered
royal clothes to be put upon her, and gazed on her with wonder, she was
so beautiful. Then he called his son and told him that he had only a
false bride; for that she was merely a waiting-maid, while the true
bride stood by. And the young king rejoiced when he saw her beauty, and
heard how meek and patient she had been; and without saying anything to
the false bride, the king ordered a great feast to be got ready for all
his court. The bridegroom sat at the top, with the false princess on one
side, and the true one on the other; but nobody knew her again, for her
beauty was quite dazzling to their eyes; and she did not seem at all
like the little goose-girl, now that she had her brilliant dress on.

When they had eaten and drank, and were very merry, the old king said
he would tell them a tale. So he began, and told all the story of the
princess, as if it was one that he had once heard; and he asked the
true waiting-maid what she thought ought to be done to anyone who would
behave thus. ‘Nothing better,’ said this false bride, ‘than that she
should be thrown into a cask stuck round with sharp nails, and that
two white horses should be put to it, and should drag it from street to
street till she was dead.’ ‘Thou art she!’ said the old king; ‘and as
thou has judged thyself, so shall it be done to thee.’ And the young
king was then married to his true wife, and they reigned over the
kingdom in peace and happiness all their lives; and the good fairy came
to see them, and restored the faithful Falada to life again.




THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET


1. HOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTS

‘The nuts are quite ripe now,’ said Chanticleer to his wife Partlet,
‘suppose we go together to the mountains, and eat as many as we can,
before the squirrel takes them all away.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said
Partlet, ‘let us go and make a holiday of it together.’

So they went to the mountains; and as it was a lovely day, they stayed
there till the evening. Now, whether it was that they had eaten so many
nuts that they could not walk, or whether they were lazy and would not,
I do not know: however, they took it into their heads that it did not
become them to go home on foot. So Chanticleer began to build a little
carriage of nutshells: and when it was finished, Partlet jumped into
it and sat down, and bid Chanticleer harness himself to it and draw her
home. ‘That’s a good joke!’ said Chanticleer; ‘no, that will never do;
I had rather by half walk home; I’ll sit on the box and be coachman,
if you like, but I’ll not draw.’ While this was passing, a duck came
quacking up and cried out, ‘You thieving vagabonds, what business have
you in my grounds? I’ll give it you well for your insolence!’ and upon
that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no
coward, and returned the duck’s blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely
that she soon began to cry out for mercy; which was only granted her
upon condition that she would draw the carriage home for them. This she
agreed to do; and Chanticleer got upon the box, and drove, crying, ‘Now,
duck, get on as fast as you can.’ And away they went at a pretty good
pace.

After they had travelled along a little way, they met a needle and a pin
walking together along the road: and the needle cried out, ‘Stop, stop!’
and said it was so dark that they could hardly find their way, and such
dirty walking they could not get on at all: he told them that he and his
friend, the pin, had been at a public-house a few miles off, and had sat
drinking till they had forgotten how late it was; he begged therefore
that the travellers would be so kind as to give them a lift in their
carriage. Chanticleer observing that they were but thin fellows, and not
likely to take up much room, told them they might ride, but made them
promise not to dirty the wheels of the carriage in getting in, nor to
tread on Partlet’s toes.

Late at night they arrived at an inn; and as it was bad travelling in
the dark, and the duck seemed much tired, and waddled about a good
deal from one side to the other, they made up their minds to fix their
quarters there: but the landlord at first was unwilling, and said his
house was full, thinking they might not be very respectable company:
however, they spoke civilly to him, and gave him the egg which Partlet
had laid by the way, and said they would give him the duck, who was in
the habit of laying one every day: so at last he let them come in, and
they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily.

Early in the morning, before it was quite light, and when nobody was
stirring in the inn, Chanticleer awakened his wife, and, fetching the
egg, they pecked a hole in it, ate it up, and threw the shells into the
fireplace: they then went to the pin and needle, who were fast asleep,
and seizing them by the heads, stuck one into the landlord’s easy chair
and the other into his handkerchief; and, having done this, they crept
away as softly as possible. However, the duck, who slept in the open
air in the yard, heard them coming, and jumping into the brook which ran
close by the inn, soon swam out of their reach.

An hour or two afterwards the landlord got up, and took his handkerchief
to wipe his face, but the pin ran into him and pricked him: then he
walked into the kitchen to light his pipe at the fire, but when he
stirred it up the eggshells flew into his eyes, and almost blinded him.
‘Bless me!’ said he, ‘all the world seems to have a design against my
head this morning’: and so saying, he threw himself sulkily into his
easy chair; but, oh dear! the needle ran into him; and this time the
pain was not in his head. He now flew into a very great passion, and,
suspecting the company who had come in the night before, he went to look
after them, but they were all off; so he swore that he never again
would take in such a troop of vagabonds, who ate a great deal, paid no
reckoning, and gave him nothing for his trouble but their apish tricks.


2. HOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VISIT MR KORBES

Another day, Chanticleer and Partlet wished to ride out together;
so Chanticleer built a handsome carriage with four red wheels, and
harnessed six mice to it; and then he and Partlet got into the carriage,
and away they drove. Soon afterwards a cat met them, and said, ‘Where
are you going?’ And Chanticleer replied,

 ‘All on our way
  A visit to pay
  To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.’

Then the cat said, ‘Take me with you,’ Chanticleer said, ‘With all my
heart: get up behind, and be sure you do not fall off.’

 ‘Take care of this handsome coach of mine,
  Nor dirty my pretty red wheels so fine!
  Now, mice, be ready,
  And, wheels, run steady!
  For we are going a visit to pay
  To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.’

Soon after came up a millstone, an egg, a duck, and a pin; and
Chanticleer gave them all leave to get into the carriage and go with
them.

When they arrived at Mr Korbes’s house, he was not at home; so the mice
drew the carriage into the coach-house, Chanticleer and Partlet flew
upon a beam, the cat sat down in the fireplace, the duck got into
the washing cistern, the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow, the
millstone laid himself over the house door, and the egg rolled himself
up in the towel.

When Mr Korbes came home, he went to the fireplace to make a fire; but
the cat threw all the ashes in his eyes: so he ran to the kitchen to
wash himself; but there the duck splashed all the water in his face; and
when he tried to wipe himself, the egg broke to pieces in the towel all
over his face and eyes. Then he was very angry, and went without his
supper to bed; but when he laid his head on the pillow, the pin ran into
his cheek: at this he became quite furious, and, jumping up, would have
run out of the house; but when he came to the door, the millstone fell
down on his head, and killed him on the spot.


3. HOW PARTLET DIED AND WAS BURIED, AND HOW CHANTICLEER DIED OF GRIEF

Another day Chanticleer and Partlet agreed to go again to the mountains
to eat nuts; and it was settled that all the nuts which they found
should be shared equally between them. Now Partlet found a very large
nut; but she said nothing about it to Chanticleer, and kept it all to
herself: however, it was so big that she could not swallow it, and it
stuck in her throat. Then she was in a great fright, and cried out to
Chanticleer, ‘Pray run as fast as you can, and fetch me some water, or I
shall be choked.’ Chanticleer ran as fast as he could to the river, and
said, ‘River, give me some water, for Partlet lies in the mountain, and
will be choked by a great nut.’ The river said, ‘Run first to the bride,
and ask her for a silken cord to draw up the water.’ Chanticleer ran to
the bride, and said, ‘Bride, you must give me a silken cord, for then
the river will give me water, and the water I will carry to Partlet, who
lies on the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.’ But the bride
said, ‘Run first, and bring me my garland that is hanging on a willow
in the garden.’ Then Chanticleer ran to the garden, and took the garland
from the bough where it hung, and brought it to the bride; and then
the bride gave him the silken cord, and he took the silken cord to
the river, and the river gave him water, and he carried the water to
Partlet; but in the meantime she was choked by the great nut, and lay
quite dead, and never moved any more.

Then Chanticleer was very sorry, and cried bitterly; and all the beasts
came and wept with him over poor Partlet. And six mice built a little
hearse to carry her to her grave; and when it was ready they harnessed
themselves before it, and Chanticleer drove them. On the way they
met the fox. ‘Where are you going, Chanticleer?’ said he. ‘To bury my
Partlet,’ said the other. ‘May I go with you?’ said the fox. ‘Yes; but
you must get up behind, or my horses will not be able to draw you.’ Then
the fox got up behind; and presently the wolf, the bear, the goat, and
all the beasts of the wood, came and climbed upon the hearse.

So on they went till they came to a rapid stream. ‘How shall we get
over?’ said Chanticleer. Then said a straw, ‘I will lay myself across,
and you may pass over upon me.’ But as the mice were going over, the
straw slipped away and fell into the water, and the six mice all fell in
and were drowned. What was to be done? Then a large log of wood came
and said, ‘I am big enough; I will lay myself across the stream, and you
shall pass over upon me.’ So he laid himself down; but they managed
so clumsily, that the log of wood fell in and was carried away by the
stream. Then a stone, who saw what had happened, came up and kindly
offered to help poor Chanticleer by laying himself across the stream;
and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse, and
managed to get Partlet out of it; but the fox and the other mourners,
who were sitting behind, were too heavy, and fell back into the water
and were all carried away by the stream and drowned.

Thus Chanticleer was left alone with his dead Partlet; and having dug
a grave for her, he laid her in it, and made a little hillock over her.
Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last he
died too; and so all were dead.




RAPUNZEL


There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a
child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire.
These people had a little window at the back of their house from which
a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful
flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no
one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had
great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was
standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a
bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it
looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away,
and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and
asked: ‘What ails you, dear wife?’ ‘Ah,’ she replied, ‘if I can’t eat
some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall
die.’ The man, who loved her, thought: ‘Sooner than let your wife die,
bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.’
At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the
enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his
wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It
tasted so good to her--so very good, that the next day she longed for it
three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband
must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening
therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the
wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before
him. ‘How can you dare,’ said she with angry look, ‘descend into my
garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!’
‘Ah,’ answered he, ‘let mercy take the place of justice, I only made
up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the
window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she
had not got some to eat.’ Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be
softened, and said to him: ‘If the case be as you say, I will allow
you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one
condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into
the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a
mother.’ The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the
woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the
child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her.

Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was
twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in
a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a
little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself
beneath it and cried:

 ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.’

Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she
heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses,
wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair
fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.

After a year or two, it came to pass that the king’s son rode through
the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so
charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her
solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king’s
son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower,
but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply
touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and
listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw
that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried:

 ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.’

Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress
climbed up to her. ‘If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too
will try my fortune,’ said he, and the next day when it began to grow
dark, he went to the tower and cried:

 ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.’

Immediately the hair fell down and the king’s son climbed up.

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes
had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king’s son began to talk to
her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred
that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her.
Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take
him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she
thought: ‘He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does’; and she said
yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: ‘I will willingly go away with
you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk
every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when
that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.’ They
agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the
old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until
once Rapunzel said to her: ‘Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that
you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king’s son--he
is with me in a moment.’ ‘Ah! you wicked child,’ cried the enchantress.
‘What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all
the world, and yet you have deceived me!’ In her anger she clutched
Rapunzel’s beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand,
seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut
off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless
that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great
grief and misery.

On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress
fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the
window, and when the king’s son came and cried:

 ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.’

she let the hair down. The king’s son ascended, but instead of finding
his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with
wicked and venomous looks. ‘Aha!’ she cried mockingly, ‘you would fetch
your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest;
the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is
lost to you; you will never see her again.’ The king’s son was beside
himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He
escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his
eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but
roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of
his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at
length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she
had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a
voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and
when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two
of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could
see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was
joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and
contented.




FUNDEVOGEL


There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as
he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were
there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at
the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen
asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in
her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree.

The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself:
‘You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your Lina.’ He
took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up together. And the
one, which he had found on a tree was called Fundevogel, because a bird
had carried it away. Fundevogel and Lina loved each other so dearly that
when they did not see each other they were sad.

Now the forester had an old cook, who one evening took two pails and
began to fetch water, and did not go once only, but many times, out
to the spring. Lina saw this and said, ‘Listen, old Sanna, why are you
fetching so much water?’ ‘If you will never repeat it to anyone, I will
tell you why.’ So Lina said, no, she would never repeat it to anyone,
and then the cook said: ‘Early tomorrow morning, when the forester
is out hunting, I will heat the water, and when it is boiling in the
kettle, I will throw in Fundevogel, and will boil him in it.’

Early next morning the forester got up and went out hunting, and when he
was gone the children were still in bed. Then Lina said to Fundevogel:
‘If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you.’ Fundevogel
said: ‘Neither now, nor ever will I leave you.’ Then said Lina: ‘Then
will I tell you. Last night, old Sanna carried so many buckets of water
into the house that I asked her why she was doing that, and she said
that if I would promise not to tell anyone, and she said that early
tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she would set the kettle
full of water, throw you into it and boil you; but we will get up
quickly, dress ourselves, and go away together.’

The two children therefore got up, dressed themselves quickly, and went
away. When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went into the
bedroom to fetch Fundevogel and throw him into it. But when she came in,
and went to the beds, both the children were gone. Then she was terribly
alarmed, and she said to herself: ‘What shall I say now when the
forester comes home and sees that the children are gone? They must be
followed instantly to get them back again.’

Then the cook sent three servants after them, who were to run and
overtake the children. The children, however, were sitting outside the
forest, and when they saw from afar the three servants running, Lina
said to Fundevogel: ‘Never leave me, and I will never leave you.’
Fundevogel said: ‘Neither now, nor ever.’ Then said Lina: ‘Do you become
a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.’ When the three servants came to
the forest, nothing was there but a rose-tree and one rose on it, but
the children were nowhere. Then said they: ‘There is nothing to be done
here,’ and they went home and told the cook that they had seen nothing
in the forest but a little rose-bush with one rose on it. Then the
old cook scolded and said: ‘You simpletons, you should have cut the
rose-bush in two, and have broken off the rose and brought it home with
you; go, and do it at once.’ They had therefore to go out and look for
the second time. The children, however, saw them coming from a distance.
Then Lina said: ‘Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave
you.’ Fundevogel said: ‘Neither now; nor ever.’ Said Lina: ‘Then do you
become a church, and I’ll be the chandelier in it.’ So when the three
servants came, nothing was there but a church, with a chandelier in
it. They said therefore to each other: ‘What can we do here, let us go
home.’ When they got home, the cook asked if they had not found them;
so they said no, they had found nothing but a church, and there was a
chandelier in it. And the cook scolded them and said: ‘You fools! why
did you not pull the church to pieces, and bring the chandelier home
with you?’ And now the old cook herself got on her legs, and went with
the three servants in pursuit of the children. The children, however,
saw from afar that the three servants were coming, and the cook waddling
after them. Then said Lina: ‘Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will
never leave you.’ Then said Fundevogel: ‘Neither now, nor ever.’
Said Lina: ‘Be a fishpond, and I will be the duck upon it.’ The cook,
however, came up to them, and when she saw the pond she lay down by it,
and was about to drink it up. But the duck swam quickly to her, seized
her head in its beak and drew her into the water, and there the old
witch had to drown. Then the children went home together, and were
heartily delighted, and if they have not died, they are living still.




THE VALIANT LITTLE TAILOR


One summer’s morning a little tailor was sitting on his table by the
window; he was in good spirits, and sewed with all his might. Then came
a peasant woman down the street crying: ‘Good jams, cheap! Good jams,
cheap!’ This rang pleasantly in the tailor’s ears; he stretched his
delicate head out of the window, and called: ‘Come up here, dear woman;
here you will get rid of your goods.’ The woman came up the three steps
to the tailor with her heavy basket, and he made her unpack all the pots
for him. He inspected each one, lifted it up, put his nose to it, and
at length said: ‘The jam seems to me to be good, so weigh me out four
ounces, dear woman, and if it is a quarter of a pound that is of no
consequence.’ The woman who had hoped to find a good sale, gave him
what he desired, but went away quite angry and grumbling. ‘Now, this jam
shall be blessed by God,’ cried the little tailor, ‘and give me health
and strength’; so he brought the bread out of the cupboard, cut himself
a piece right across the loaf and spread the jam over it. ‘This won’t
taste bitter,’ said he, ‘but I will just finish the jacket before I
take a bite.’ He laid the bread near him, sewed on, and in his joy, made
bigger and bigger stitches. In the meantime the smell of the sweet jam
rose to where the flies were sitting in great numbers, and they were
attracted and descended on it in hosts. ‘Hi! who invited you?’ said the
little tailor, and drove the unbidden guests away. The flies, however,
who understood no German, would not be turned away, but came back
again in ever-increasing companies. The little tailor at last lost all
patience, and drew a piece of cloth from the hole under his work-table,
and saying: ‘Wait, and I will give it to you,’ struck it mercilessly on
them. When he drew it away and counted, there lay before him no fewer
than seven, dead and with legs stretched out. ‘Are you a fellow of that
sort?’ said he, and could not help admiring his own bravery. ‘The whole
town shall know of this!’ And the little tailor hastened to cut himself
a girdle, stitched it, and embroidered on it in large letters: ‘Seven at
one stroke!’ ‘What, the town!’ he continued, ‘the whole world shall hear
of it!’ and his heart wagged with joy like a lamb’s tail. The tailor
put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he
thought his workshop was too small for his valour. Before he went away,
he sought about in the house to see if there was anything which he could
take with him; however, he found nothing but an old cheese, and that
he put in his pocket. In front of the door he observed a bird which
had caught itself in the thicket. It had to go into his pocket with the
cheese. Now he took to the road boldly, and as he was light and nimble,
he felt no fatigue. The road led him up a mountain, and when he had
reached the highest point of it, there sat a powerful giant looking
peacefully about him. The little tailor went bravely up, spoke to him,
and said: ‘Good day, comrade, so you are sitting there overlooking the
wide-spread world! I am just on my way thither, and want to try my luck.
Have you any inclination to go with me?’ The giant looked contemptuously
at the tailor, and said: ‘You ragamuffin! You miserable creature!’

‘Oh, indeed?’ answered the little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat, and
showed the giant the girdle, ‘there may you read what kind of a man I
am!’ The giant read: ‘Seven at one stroke,’ and thought that they had
been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel a little respect
for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless, he wished to try him first, and took
a stone in his hand and squeezed it together so that water dropped out
of it. ‘Do that likewise,’ said the giant, ‘if you have strength.’ ‘Is
that all?’ said the tailor, ‘that is child’s play with us!’ and put his
hand into his pocket, brought out the soft cheese, and pressed it until
the liquid ran out of it. ‘Faith,’ said he, ‘that was a little better,
wasn’t it?’ The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it
of the little man. Then the giant picked up a stone and threw it so high
that the eye could scarcely follow it. ‘Now, little mite of a man, do
that likewise,’ ‘Well thrown,’ said the tailor, ‘but after all the stone
came down to earth again; I will throw you one which shall never come
back at all,’ and he put his hand into his pocket, took out the bird,
and threw it into the air. The bird, delighted with its liberty,
rose, flew away and did not come back. ‘How does that shot please you,
comrade?’ asked the tailor. ‘You can certainly throw,’ said the giant,
‘but now we will see if you are able to carry anything properly.’ He
took the little tailor to a mighty oak tree which lay there felled on
the ground, and said: ‘If you are strong enough, help me to carry the
tree out of the forest.’ ‘Readily,’ answered the little man; ‘take you
the trunk on your shoulders, and I will raise up the branches and twigs;
after all, they are the heaviest.’ The giant took the trunk on his
shoulder, but the tailor seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who
could not look round, had to carry away the whole tree, and the little
tailor into the bargain: he behind, was quite merry and happy, and
whistled the song: ‘Three tailors rode forth from the gate,’ as if
carrying the tree were child’s play. The giant, after he had dragged the
heavy burden part of the way, could go no further, and cried: ‘Hark
you, I shall have to let the tree fall!’ The tailor sprang nimbly down,
seized the tree with both arms as if he had been carrying it, and said
to the giant: ‘You are such a great fellow, and yet cannot even carry
the tree!’

They went on together, and as they passed a cherry-tree, the giant laid
hold of the top of the tree where the ripest fruit was hanging, bent it
down, gave it into the tailor’s hand, and bade him eat. But the little
tailor was much too weak to hold the tree, and when the giant let it go,
it sprang back again, and the tailor was tossed into the air with it.
When he had fallen down again without injury, the giant said: ‘What is
this? Have you not strength enough to hold the weak twig?’ ‘There is no
lack of strength,’ answered the little tailor. ‘Do you think that could
be anything to a man who has struck down seven at one blow? I leapt over
the tree because the huntsmen are shooting down there in the thicket.
Jump as I did, if you can do it.’ The giant made the attempt but he
could not get over the tree, and remained hanging in the branches, so
that in this also the tailor kept the upper hand.

The giant said: ‘If you are such a valiant fellow, come with me into our
cavern and spend the night with us.’ The little tailor was willing, and
followed him. When they went into the cave, other giants were sitting
there by the fire, and each of them had a roasted sheep in his hand and
was eating it. The little tailor looked round and thought: ‘It is much
more spacious here than in my workshop.’ The giant showed him a bed, and
said he was to lie down in it and sleep. The bed, however, was too
big for the little tailor; he did not lie down in it, but crept into
a corner. When it was midnight, and the giant thought that the little
tailor was lying in a sound sleep, he got up, took a great iron bar,
cut through the bed with one blow, and thought he had finished off the
grasshopper for good. With the earliest dawn the giants went into the
forest, and had quite forgotten the little tailor, when all at once he
walked up to them quite merrily and boldly. The giants were terrified,
they were afraid that he would strike them all dead, and ran away in a
great hurry.

The little tailor went onwards, always following his own pointed nose.
After he had walked for a long time, he came to the courtyard of a royal
palace, and as he felt weary, he lay down on the grass and fell asleep.
Whilst he lay there, the people came and inspected him on all sides, and
read on his girdle: ‘Seven at one stroke.’ ‘Ah!’ said they, ‘what does
the great warrior want here in the midst of peace? He must be a mighty
lord.’ They went and announced him to the king, and gave it as their
opinion that if war should break out, this would be a weighty and useful
man who ought on no account to be allowed to depart. The counsel pleased
the king, and he sent one of his courtiers to the little tailor to offer
him military service when he awoke. The ambassador remained standing by
the sleeper, waited until he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes,
and then conveyed to him this proposal. ‘For this very reason have
I come here,’ the tailor replied, ‘I am ready to enter the king’s
service.’ He was therefore honourably received, and a special dwelling
was assigned him.

The soldiers, however, were set against the little tailor, and wished
him a thousand miles away. ‘What is to be the end of this?’ they said
among themselves. ‘If we quarrel with him, and he strikes about him,
seven of us will fall at every blow; not one of us can stand against
him.’ They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to
the king, and begged for their dismissal. ‘We are not prepared,’ said
they, ‘to stay with a man who kills seven at one stroke.’ The king was
sorry that for the sake of one he should lose all his faithful servants,
wished that he had never set eyes on the tailor, and would willingly
have been rid of him again. But he did not venture to give him his
dismissal, for he dreaded lest he should strike him and all his people
dead, and place himself on the royal throne. He thought about it for a
long time, and at last found good counsel. He sent to the little tailor
and caused him to be informed that as he was a great warrior, he had one
request to make to him. In a forest of his country lived two giants,
who caused great mischief with their robbing, murdering, ravaging,
and burning, and no one could approach them without putting himself in
danger of death. If the tailor conquered and killed these two giants, he
would give him his only daughter to wife, and half of his kingdom as a
dowry, likewise one hundred horsemen should go with him to assist him.
‘That would indeed be a fine thing for a man like me!’ thought the
little tailor. ‘One is not offered a beautiful princess and half a
kingdom every day of one’s life!’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will soon
subdue the giants, and do not require the help of the hundred horsemen
to do it; he who can hit seven with one blow has no need to be afraid of
two.’

The little tailor went forth, and the hundred horsemen followed him.
When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers:
‘Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.’ Then
he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left. After a
while he perceived both giants. They lay sleeping under a tree, and
snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not
idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the
tree. When he was halfway up, he slipped down by a branch, until he sat
just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall on
the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt nothing,
but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said: ‘Why are you
knocking me?’ ‘You must be dreaming,’ said the other, ‘I am not knocking
you.’ They laid themselves down to sleep again, and then the tailor
threw a stone down on the second. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ cried
the other ‘Why are you pelting me?’ ‘I am not pelting you,’ answered
the first, growling. They disputed about it for a time, but as they were
weary they let the matter rest, and their eyes closed once more. The
little tailor began his game again, picked out the biggest stone, and
threw it with all his might on the breast of the first giant. ‘That
is too bad!’ cried he, and sprang up like a madman, and pushed his
companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid him back in
the same coin, and they got into such a rage that they tore up trees and
belaboured each other so long, that at last they both fell down dead on
the ground at the same time. Then the little tailor leapt down. ‘It is
a lucky thing,’ said he, ‘that they did not tear up the tree on which
I was sitting, or I should have had to sprint on to another like a
squirrel; but we tailors are nimble.’ He drew out his sword and gave
each of them a couple of thrusts in the breast, and then went out to the
horsemen and said: ‘The work is done; I have finished both of them
off, but it was hard work! They tore up trees in their sore need, and
defended themselves with them, but all that is to no purpose when a man
like myself comes, who can kill seven at one blow.’ ‘But are you not
wounded?’ asked the horsemen. ‘You need not concern yourself about
that,’ answered the tailor, ‘they have not bent one hair of mine.’ The
horsemen would not believe him, and rode into the forest; there they
found the giants swimming in their blood, and all round about lay the
torn-up trees.

The little tailor demanded of the king the promised reward; he, however,
repented of his promise, and again bethought himself how he could get
rid of the hero. ‘Before you receive my daughter, and the half of my
kingdom,’ said he to him, ‘you must perform one more heroic deed. In
the forest roams a unicorn which does great harm, and you must catch
it first.’ ‘I fear one unicorn still less than two giants. Seven at one
blow, is my kind of affair.’ He took a rope and an axe with him, went
forth into the forest, and again bade those who were sent with him to
wait outside. He had not long to seek. The unicorn soon came towards
him, and rushed directly on the tailor, as if it would gore him with its
horn without more ado. ‘Softly, softly; it can’t be done as quickly as
that,’ said he, and stood still and waited until the animal was quite
close, and then sprang nimbly behind the tree. The unicorn ran against
the tree with all its strength, and stuck its horn so fast in the trunk
that it had not the strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it
was caught. ‘Now, I have got the bird,’ said the tailor, and came out
from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his
axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the
beast away and took it to the king.

The king still would not give him the promised reward, and made a third
demand. Before the wedding the tailor was to catch him a wild boar that
made great havoc in the forest, and the huntsmen should give him their
help. ‘Willingly,’ said the tailor, ‘that is child’s play!’ He did not
take the huntsmen with him into the forest, and they were well pleased
that he did not, for the wild boar had several times received them in
such a manner that they had no inclination to lie in wait for him. When
the boar perceived the tailor, it ran on him with foaming mouth and
whetted tusks, and was about to throw him to the ground, but the hero
fled and sprang into a chapel which was near and up to the window at
once, and in one bound out again. The boar ran after him, but the tailor
ran round outside and shut the door behind it, and then the raging
beast, which was much too heavy and awkward to leap out of the window,
was caught. The little tailor called the huntsmen thither that they
might see the prisoner with their own eyes. The hero, however, went to
the king, who was now, whether he liked it or not, obliged to keep his
promise, and gave his daughter and the half of his kingdom. Had he known
that it was no warlike hero, but a little tailor who was standing before
him, it would have gone to his heart still more than it did. The wedding
was held with great magnificence and small joy, and out of a tailor a
king was made.

After some time the young queen heard her husband say in his dreams at
night: ‘Boy, make me the doublet, and patch the pantaloons, or else I
will rap the yard-measure over your ears.’ Then she discovered in what
state of life the young lord had been born, and next morning complained
of her wrongs to her father, and begged him to help her to get rid of
her husband, who was nothing else but a tailor. The king comforted her
and said: ‘Leave your bedroom door open this night, and my servants
shall stand outside, and when he has fallen asleep shall go in, bind
him, and take him on board a ship which shall carry him into the wide
world.’ The woman was satisfied with this; but the king’s armour-bearer,
who had heard all, was friendly with the young lord, and informed him of
the whole plot. ‘I’ll put a screw into that business,’ said the little
tailor. At night he went to bed with his wife at the usual time, and
when she thought that he had fallen asleep, she got up, opened the door,
and then lay down again. The little tailor, who was only pretending to
be asleep, began to cry out in a clear voice: ‘Boy, make me the doublet
and patch me the pantaloons, or I will rap the yard-measure over your
ears. I smote seven at one blow. I killed two giants, I brought away one
unicorn, and caught a wild boar, and am I to fear those who are standing
outside the room.’ When these men heard the tailor speaking thus, they
were overcome by a great dread, and ran as if the wild huntsman were
behind them, and none of them would venture anything further against
him. So the little tailor was and remained a king to the end of his
life.




HANSEL AND GRETEL


Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his
two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had
little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the
land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought
over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he
groaned and said to his wife: ‘What is to become of us? How are we
to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for
ourselves?’ ‘I’ll tell you what, husband,’ answered the woman, ‘early
tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where
it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each
of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and
leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be
rid of them.’ ‘No, wife,’ said the man, ‘I will not do that; how can I
bear to leave my children alone in the forest?--the wild animals would
soon come and tear them to pieces.’ ‘O, you fool!’ said she, ‘then we
must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our
coffins,’ and she left him no peace until he consented. ‘But I feel very
sorry for the poor children, all the same,’ said the man.

The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had
heard what their stepmother had said to their father. Gretel wept
bitter tears, and said to Hansel: ‘Now all is over with us.’ ‘Be quiet,
Gretel,’ said Hansel, ‘do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way
to help us.’ And when the old folks had fallen asleep, he got up, put
on his little coat, opened the door below, and crept outside. The moon
shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house
glittered like real silver pennies. Hansel stooped and stuffed the
little pocket of his coat with as many as he could get in. Then he went
back and said to Gretel: ‘Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in
peace, God will not forsake us,’ and he lay down again in his bed. When
day dawned, but before the sun had risen, the woman came and awoke the
two children, saying: ‘Get up, you sluggards! we are going into the
forest to fetch wood.’ She gave each a little piece of bread, and said:
‘There is something for your dinner, but do not eat it up before then,
for you will get nothing else.’ Gretel took the bread under her apron,
as Hansel had the pebbles in his pocket. Then they all set out together
on the way to the forest. When they had walked a short time, Hansel
stood still and peeped back at the house, and did so again and again.
His father said: ‘Hansel, what are you looking at there and staying
behind for? Pay attention, and do not forget how to use your legs.’ ‘Ah,
father,’ said Hansel, ‘I am looking at my little white cat, which is
sitting up on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me.’ The wife said:
‘Fool, that is not your little cat, that is the morning sun which is
shining on the chimneys.’ Hansel, however, had not been looking back at
the cat, but had been constantly throwing one of the white pebble-stones
out of his pocket on the road.

When they had reached the middle of the forest, the father said: ‘Now,
children, pile up some wood, and I will light a fire that you may not
be cold.’ Hansel and Gretel gathered brushwood together, as high as a
little hill. The brushwood was lighted, and when the flames were burning
very high, the woman said: ‘Now, children, lay yourselves down by the
fire and rest, we will go into the forest and cut some wood. When we
have done, we will come back and fetch you away.’

Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire, and when noon came, each ate a little
piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe they
believed that their father was near. It was not the axe, however, but
a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was
blowing backwards and forwards. And as they had been sitting such a long
time, their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell fast asleep. When
at last they awoke, it was already dark night. Gretel began to cry and
said: ‘How are we to get out of the forest now?’ But Hansel comforted
her and said: ‘Just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we
will soon find the way.’ And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took
his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like
newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way.

They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more
to their father’s house. They knocked at the door, and when the woman
opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said: ‘You naughty
children, why have you slept so long in the forest?--we thought you were
never coming back at all!’ The father, however, rejoiced, for it had cut
him to the heart to leave them behind alone.

Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the
land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their
father: ‘Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that
is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the
wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other
means of saving ourselves!’ The man’s heart was heavy, and he thought:
‘It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your
children.’ The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to
say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says A must say B, likewise,
and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time
also.

The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation.
When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go
out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked
the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his
little sister, and said: ‘Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the
good God will help us.’

Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their
beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller
than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his
in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground.
‘Hansel, why do you stop and look round?’ said the father, ‘go on.’ ‘I
am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and
wants to say goodbye to me,’ answered Hansel. ‘Fool!’ said the woman,
‘that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining
on the chimney.’ Hansel, however little by little, threw all the crumbs
on the path.

The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had
never in their lives been before. Then a great fire was again made, and
the mother said: ‘Just sit there, you children, and when you are tired
you may sleep a little; we are going into the forest to cut wood, and in
the evening when we are done, we will come and fetch you away.’ When
it was noon, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel, who had
scattered his by the way. Then they fell asleep and evening passed, but
no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark
night, and Hansel comforted his little sister and said: ‘Just wait,
Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread
which I have strewn about, they will show us our way home again.’ When
the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many
thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked
them all up. Hansel said to Gretel: ‘We shall soon find the way,’ but
they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day
too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest,
and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three
berries, which grew on the ground. And as they were so weary that their
legs would carry them no longer, they lay down beneath a tree and fell
asleep.

It was now three mornings since they had left their father’s house. They
began to walk again, but they always came deeper into the forest, and if
help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it
was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough,
which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And
when its song was over, it spread its wings and flew away before them,
and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of
which it alighted; and when they approached the little house they saw
that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows
were of clear sugar. ‘We will set to work on that,’ said Hansel, ‘and
have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and you Gretel, can eat
some of the window, it will taste sweet.’ Hansel reached up above, and
broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted, and Gretel leant
against the window and nibbled at the panes. Then a soft voice cried
from the parlour:

 ‘Nibble, nibble, gnaw,
  Who is nibbling at my little house?’

The children answered:

 ‘The wind, the wind,
  The heaven-born wind,’

and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the
taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out
the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with
it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who
supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were
so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their
hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said: ‘Oh, you dear
children, who has brought you here? do come in, and stay with me. No
harm shall happen to you.’ She took them both by the hand, and led them
into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and
pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little
beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down
in them, and thought they were in heaven.

The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality
a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the
little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell
into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast
day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have
a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near.
When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed with
malice, and said mockingly: ‘I have them, they shall not escape me
again!’ Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was
already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so
pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself: ‘That
will be a dainty mouthful!’ Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled
hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a
grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to
Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: ‘Get up, lazy thing, fetch
some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the
stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.’
Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was
forced to do what the wicked witch commanded.

And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing
but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and
cried: ‘Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon
be fat.’ Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and
the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was
Hansel’s finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening
him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she
was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. ‘Now, then,
Gretel,’ she cried to the girl, ‘stir yourself, and bring some water.
Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.’ Ah,
how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water,
and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! ‘Dear God, do help us,’ she
cried. ‘If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should
at any rate have died together.’ ‘Just keep your noise to yourself,’
said the old woman, ‘it won’t help you at all.’

Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with
the water, and light the fire. ‘We will bake first,’ said the old woman,
‘I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.’ She pushed poor
Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting.
‘Creep in,’ said the witch, ‘and see if it is properly heated, so that
we can put the bread in.’ And once Gretel was inside, she intended to
shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too.
But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said: ‘I do not know how I am
to do it; how do I get in?’ ‘Silly goose,’ said the old woman. ‘The door
is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!’ and she crept up and
thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove
her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then
she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless
witch was miserably burnt to death.

Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable,
and cried: ‘Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!’ Then Hansel
sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did
rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other! And
as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch’s
house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels.
‘These are far better than pebbles!’ said Hansel, and thrust into his
pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said: ‘I, too, will take
something home with me,’ and filled her pinafore full. ‘But now we must
be off,’ said Hansel, ‘that we may get out of the witch’s forest.’

When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of
water. ‘We cannot cross,’ said Hansel, ‘I see no foot-plank, and no
bridge.’ ‘And there is also no ferry,’ answered Gretel, ‘but a white
duck is swimming there: if I ask her, she will help us over.’ Then she
cried:

 ‘Little duck, little duck, dost thou see,
  Hansel and Gretel are waiting for thee?
  There’s never a plank, or bridge in sight,
  Take us across on thy back so white.’

The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told
his sister to sit by him. ‘No,’ replied Gretel, ‘that will be too heavy
for the little duck; she shall take us across, one after the other.’ The
good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and had
walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar
to them, and at length they saw from afar their father’s house. Then
they began to run, rushed into the parlour, and threw themselves round
their father’s neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had
left the children in the forest; the woman, however, was dead. Gretel
emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the
room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to
add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together
in perfect happiness. My tale is done, there runs a mouse; whosoever
catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it.




THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE


Once upon a time, a mouse, a bird, and a sausage, entered into
partnership and set up house together. For a long time all went well;
they lived in great comfort, and prospered so far as to be able to add
considerably to their stores. The bird’s duty was to fly daily into the
wood and bring in fuel; the mouse fetched the water, and the sausage saw
to the cooking.

When people are too well off they always begin to long for something
new. And so it came to pass, that the bird, while out one day, met a
fellow bird, to whom he boastfully expatiated on the excellence of his
household arrangements. But the other bird sneered at him for being a
poor simpleton, who did all the hard work, while the other two stayed
at home and had a good time of it. For, when the mouse had made the fire
and fetched in the water, she could retire into her little room and rest
until it was time to set the table. The sausage had only to watch the
pot to see that the food was properly cooked, and when it was near
dinner-time, he just threw himself into the broth, or rolled in and out
among the vegetables three or four times, and there they were, buttered,
and salted, and ready to be served. Then, when the bird came home and
had laid aside his burden, they sat down to table, and when they had
finished their meal, they could sleep their fill till the following
morning: and that was really a very delightful life.

Influenced by those remarks, the bird next morning refused to bring in
the wood, telling the others that he had been their servant long enough,
and had been a fool into the bargain, and that it was now time to make a
change, and to try some other way of arranging the work. Beg and pray
as the mouse and the sausage might, it was of no use; the bird remained
master of the situation, and the venture had to be made. They therefore
drew lots, and it fell to the sausage to bring in the wood, to the mouse
to cook, and to the bird to fetch the water.

And now what happened? The sausage started in search of wood, the bird
made the fire, and the mouse put on the pot, and then these two waited
till the sausage returned with the fuel for the following day. But the
sausage remained so long away, that they became uneasy, and the bird
flew out to meet him. He had not flown far, however, when he came across
a dog who, having met the sausage, had regarded him as his legitimate
booty, and so seized and swallowed him. The bird complained to the dog
of this bare-faced robbery, but nothing he said was of any avail, for
the dog answered that he found false credentials on the sausage, and
that was the reason his life had been forfeited.

He picked up the wood, and flew sadly home, and told the mouse all he
had seen and heard. They were both very unhappy, but agreed to make the
best of things and to remain with one another.

So now the bird set the table, and the mouse looked after the food and,
wishing to prepare it in the same way as the sausage, by rolling in and
out among the vegetables to salt and butter them, she jumped into the
pot; but she stopped short long before she reached the bottom, having
already parted not only with her skin and hair, but also with life.

Presently the bird came in and wanted to serve up the dinner, but he
could nowhere see the cook. In his alarm and flurry, he threw the wood
here and there about the floor, called and searched, but no cook was to
be found. Then some of the wood that had been carelessly thrown down,
caught fire and began to blaze. The bird hastened to fetch some water,
but his pail fell into the well, and he after it, and as he was unable
to recover himself, he was drowned.




MOTHER HOLLE


Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them
was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. The mother,
however, loved the ugly and lazy one best, because she was her own
daughter, and so the other, who was only her stepdaughter, was made
to do all the work of the house, and was quite the Cinderella of the
family. Her stepmother sent her out every day to sit by the well in
the high road, there to spin until she made her fingers bleed. Now it
chanced one day that some blood fell on to the spindle, and as the girl
stopped over the well to wash it off, the spindle suddenly sprang out
of her hand and fell into the well. She ran home crying to tell of her
misfortune, but her stepmother spoke harshly to her, and after giving
her a violent scolding, said unkindly, ‘As you have let the spindle fall
into the well you may go yourself and fetch it out.’

The girl went back to the well not knowing what to do, and at last in
her distress she jumped into the water after the spindle.

She remembered nothing more until she awoke and found herself in a
beautiful meadow, full of sunshine, and with countless flowers blooming
in every direction.

She walked over the meadow, and presently she came upon a baker’s oven
full of bread, and the loaves cried out to her, ‘Take us out, take us
out, or alas! we shall be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long
ago.’ So she took the bread-shovel and drew them all out.

She went on a little farther, till she came to a tree full of apples.
‘Shake me, shake me, I pray,’ cried the tree; ‘my apples, one and all,
are ripe.’ So she shook the tree, and the apples came falling down upon
her like rain; but she continued shaking until there was not a single
apple left upon it. Then she carefully gathered the apples together in a
heap and walked on again.

The next thing she came to was a little house, and there she saw an old
woman looking out, with such large teeth, that she was terrified, and
turned to run away. But the old woman called after her, ‘What are you
afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do the work of my house
properly for me, I will make you very happy. You must be very careful,
however, to make my bed in the right way, for I wish you always to shake
it thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about; then they say, down there
in the world, that it is snowing; for I am Mother Holle.’ The old woman
spoke so kindly, that the girl summoned up courage and agreed to enter
into her service.

She took care to do everything according to the old woman’s bidding and
every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so that the
feathers flew about like so many snowflakes. The old woman was as good
as her word: she never spoke angrily to her, and gave her roast and
boiled meats every day.

So she stayed on with Mother Holle for some time, and then she began
to grow unhappy. She could not at first tell why she felt sad, but she
became conscious at last of great longing to go home; then she knew she
was homesick, although she was a thousand times better off with Mother
Holle than with her mother and sister. After waiting awhile, she went
to Mother Holle and said, ‘I am so homesick, that I cannot stay with
you any longer, for although I am so happy here, I must return to my own
people.’

Then Mother Holle said, ‘I am pleased that you should want to go back
to your own people, and as you have served me so well and faithfully, I
will take you home myself.’

Thereupon she led the girl by the hand up to a broad gateway. The gate
was opened, and as the girl passed through, a shower of gold fell upon
her, and the gold clung to her, so that she was covered with it from
head to foot.

‘That is a reward for your industry,’ said Mother Holle, and as she
spoke she handed her the spindle which she had dropped into the well.

The gate was then closed, and the girl found herself back in the old
world close to her mother’s house. As she entered the courtyard, the
cock who was perched on the well, called out:

 ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!
  Your golden daughter’s come back to you.’

Then she went in to her mother and sister, and as she was so richly
covered with gold, they gave her a warm welcome. She related to them
all that had happened, and when the mother heard how she had come by her
great riches, she thought she should like her ugly, lazy daughter to go
and try her fortune. So she made the sister go and sit by the well
and spin, and the girl pricked her finger and thrust her hand into a
thorn-bush, so that she might drop some blood on to the spindle; then
she threw it into the well, and jumped in herself.

Like her sister she awoke in the beautiful meadow, and walked over it
till she came to the oven. ‘Take us out, take us out, or alas! we shall
be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long ago,’ cried the loaves
as before. But the lazy girl answered, ‘Do you think I am going to dirty
my hands for you?’ and walked on.

Presently she came to the apple-tree. ‘Shake me, shake me, I pray; my
apples, one and all, are ripe,’ it cried. But she only answered, ‘A nice
thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,’ and
passed on.

At last she came to Mother Holle’s house, and as she had heard all about
the large teeth from her sister, she was not afraid of them, and engaged
herself without delay to the old woman.

The first day she was very obedient and industrious, and exerted herself
to please Mother Holle, for she thought of the gold she should get in
return. The next day, however, she began to dawdle over her work, and
the third day she was more idle still; then she began to lie in bed in
the mornings and refused to get up. Worse still, she neglected to
make the old woman’s bed properly, and forgot to shake it so that the
feathers might fly about. So Mother Holle very soon got tired of her,
and told her she might go. The lazy girl was delighted at this, and
thought to herself, ‘The gold will soon be mine.’ Mother Holle led her,
as she had led her sister, to the broad gateway; but as she was passing
through, instead of the shower of gold, a great bucketful of pitch came
pouring over her.

‘That is in return for your services,’ said the old woman, and she shut
the gate.

So the lazy girl had to go home covered with pitch, and the cock on the
well called out as she saw her:

 ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!
  Your dirty daughter’s come back to you.’

But, try what she would, she could not get the pitch off and it stuck to
her as long as she lived.




LITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD]


Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone
who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was
nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a
little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never
wear anything else; so she was always called ‘Little Red-Cap.’

One day her mother said to her: ‘Come, Little Red-Cap, here is a piece
of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill
and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and
when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path,
or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will
get nothing; and when you go into her room, don’t forget to say, “Good
morning”, and don’t peep into every corner before you do it.’

‘I will take great care,’ said Little Red-Cap to her mother, and gave
her hand on it.

The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village,
and just as Little Red-Cap entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red-Cap
did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of
him.

‘Good day, Little Red-Cap,’ said he.

‘Thank you kindly, wolf.’

‘Whither away so early, Little Red-Cap?’

‘To my grandmother’s.’

‘What have you got in your apron?’

‘Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to
have something good, to make her stronger.’

‘Where does your grandmother live, Little Red-Cap?’

‘A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands
under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you
surely must know it,’ replied Little Red-Cap.

The wolf thought to himself: ‘What a tender young creature! what a nice
plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must
act craftily, so as to catch both.’ So he walked for a short time by
the side of Little Red-Cap, and then he said: ‘See, Little Red-Cap, how
pretty the flowers are about here--why do you not look round? I believe,
too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you
walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else
out here in the wood is merry.’

Little Red-Cap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing
here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere,
she thought: ‘Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would
please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there
in good time’; and so she ran from the path into the wood to look for
flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a
still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and
deeper into the wood.

Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother’s house and knocked
at the door.

‘Who is there?’

‘Little Red-Cap,’ replied the wolf. ‘She is bringing cake and wine; open
the door.’

‘Lift the latch,’ called out the grandmother, ‘I am too weak, and cannot
get up.’

The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a
word he went straight to the grandmother’s bed, and devoured her. Then
he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap laid himself in bed
and drew the curtains.

Little Red-Cap, however, had been running about picking flowers,
and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she
remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her.

She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she
went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to
herself: ‘Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like
being with grandmother so much.’ She called out: ‘Good morning,’ but
received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains.
There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and
looking very strange.

‘Oh! grandmother,’ she said, ‘what big ears you have!’

‘The better to hear you with, my child,’ was the reply.

‘But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!’ she said.

‘The better to see you with, my dear.’

‘But, grandmother, what large hands you have!’

‘The better to hug you with.’

‘Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!’

‘The better to eat you with!’

And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of
bed and swallowed up Red-Cap.

When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed,
fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing
the house, and thought to himself: ‘How the old woman is snoring! I must
just see if she wants anything.’ So he went into the room, and when he
came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. ‘Do I find you
here, you old sinner!’ said he. ‘I have long sought you!’ Then just as
he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have
devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did
not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach
of the sleeping wolf. When he had made two snips, he saw the little
Red-Cap shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl
sprang out, crying: ‘Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was
inside the wolf’; and after that the aged grandmother came out alive
also, but scarcely able to breathe. Red-Cap, however, quickly fetched
great stones with which they filled the wolf’s belly, and when he awoke,
he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at
once, and fell dead.

Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf’s skin and
went home with it; the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which
Red-Cap had brought, and revived, but Red-Cap thought to herself: ‘As
long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the
wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.’


It also related that once when Red-Cap was again taking cakes to the old
grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the
path. Red-Cap, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on
her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he
had said ‘good morning’ to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes,
that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would
have eaten her up. ‘Well,’ said the grandmother, ‘we will shut the door,
that he may not come in.’ Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried:
‘Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red-Cap, and am bringing you
some cakes.’ But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard
stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof,
intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in the evening, and then to
steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother
saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone
trough, so she said to the child: ‘Take the pail, Red-Cap; I made some
sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the
trough.’ Red-Cap carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the
smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down,
and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep
his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight
into the great trough, and was drowned. But Red-Cap went joyously home,
and no one ever did anything to harm her again.




THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM


There was once a miller who had one beautiful daughter, and as she was
grown up, he was anxious that she should be well married and provided
for. He said to himself, ‘I will give her to the first suitable man who
comes and asks for her hand.’ Not long after a suitor appeared, and as
he appeared to be very rich and the miller could see nothing in him with
which to find fault, he betrothed his daughter to him. But the girl did
not care for the man as a girl ought to care for her betrothed husband.
She did not feel that she could trust him, and she could not look at him
nor think of him without an inward shudder. One day he said to her, ‘You
have not yet paid me a visit, although we have been betrothed for some
time.’ ‘I do not know where your house is,’ she answered. ‘My house is
out there in the dark forest,’ he said. She tried to excuse herself by
saying that she would not be able to find the way thither. Her betrothed
only replied, ‘You must come and see me next Sunday; I have already
invited guests for that day, and that you may not mistake the way, I
will strew ashes along the path.’

When Sunday came, and it was time for the girl to start, a feeling of
dread came over her which she could not explain, and that she might
be able to find her path again, she filled her pockets with peas and
lentils to sprinkle on the ground as she went along. On reaching the
entrance to the forest she found the path strewed with ashes, and these
she followed, throwing down some peas on either side of her at every
step she took. She walked the whole day until she came to the deepest,
darkest part of the forest. There she saw a lonely house, looking so
grim and mysterious, that it did not please her at all. She stepped
inside, but not a soul was to be seen, and a great silence reigned
throughout. Suddenly a voice cried:

 ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair,
  Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’

The girl looked up and saw that the voice came from a bird hanging in a
cage on the wall. Again it cried:

 ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair,
  Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’

The girl passed on, going from room to room of the house, but they were
all empty, and still she saw no one. At last she came to the cellar,
and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from
shaking. ‘Can you tell me,’ asked the girl, ‘if my betrothed husband
lives here?’

‘Ah, you poor child,’ answered the old woman, ‘what a place for you to
come to! This is a murderers’ den. You think yourself a promised bride,
and that your marriage will soon take place, but it is with death that
you will keep your marriage feast. Look, do you see that large cauldron
of water which I am obliged to keep on the fire! As soon as they have
you in their power they will kill you without mercy, and cook and eat
you, for they are eaters of men. If I did not take pity on you and save
you, you would be lost.’

Thereupon the old woman led her behind a large cask, which quite hid her
from view. ‘Keep as still as a mouse,’ she said; ‘do not move or speak,
or it will be all over with you. Tonight, when the robbers are
all asleep, we will flee together. I have long been waiting for an
opportunity to escape.’

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the godless crew returned,
dragging another young girl along with them. They were all drunk, and
paid no heed to her cries and lamentations. They gave her wine to drink,
three glasses full, one of white wine, one of red, and one of yellow,
and with that her heart gave way and she died. Then they tore off her
dainty clothing, laid her on a table, and cut her beautiful body into
pieces, and sprinkled salt upon it.

The poor betrothed girl crouched trembling and shuddering behind the
cask, for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by
the robbers. One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on
the little finger of the murdered girl, and as he could not draw it off
easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger; but the finger sprang
into the air, and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was
hiding there. The robber took a light and began looking for it, but he
could not find it. ‘Have you looked behind the large cask?’ said one of
the others. But the old woman called out, ‘Come and eat your suppers,
and let the thing be till tomorrow; the finger won’t run away.’

‘The old woman is right,’ said the robbers, and they ceased looking for
the finger and sat down.

The old woman then mixed a sleeping draught with their wine, and before
long they were all lying on the floor of the cellar, fast asleep and
snoring. As soon as the girl was assured of this, she came from behind
the cask. She was obliged to step over the bodies of the sleepers, who
were lying close together, and every moment she was filled with renewed
dread lest she should awaken them. But God helped her, so that she
passed safely over them, and then she and the old woman went upstairs,
opened the door, and hastened as fast as they could from the murderers’
den. They found the ashes scattered by the wind, but the peas and
lentils had sprouted, and grown sufficiently above the ground, to guide
them in the moonlight along the path. All night long they walked, and it
was morning before they reached the mill. Then the girl told her father
all that had happened.

The day came that had been fixed for the marriage. The bridegroom
arrived and also a large company of guests, for the miller had taken
care to invite all his friends and relations. As they sat at the feast,
each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did
not say a word.

‘And you, my love,’ said the bridegroom, turning to her, ‘is there no
tale you know? Tell us something.’

‘I will tell you a dream, then,’ said the bride. ‘I went alone through a
forest and came at last to a house; not a soul could I find within, but
a bird that was hanging in a cage on the wall cried:

 ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair,
  Linger not in this murderers’ lair.’

and again a second time it said these words.’

‘My darling, this is only a dream.’

‘I went on through the house from room to room, but they were all empty,
and everything was so grim and mysterious. At last I went down to the
cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her
head still. I asked her if my betrothed lived here, and she answered,
“Ah, you poor child, you are come to a murderers’ den; your betrothed
does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterwards
cook and eat you.”’

‘My darling, this is only a dream.’

‘The old woman hid me behind a large cask, and scarcely had she done
this when the robbers returned home, dragging a young girl along with
them. They gave her three kinds of wine to drink, white, red, and
yellow, and with that she died.’

‘My darling, this is only a dream.’

‘Then they tore off her dainty clothing, and cut her beautiful body into
pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.’

‘My darling, this is only a dream.’

‘And one of the robbers saw that there was a gold ring still left on her
finger, and as it was difficult to draw off, he took a hatchet and cut
off her finger; but the finger sprang into the air and fell behind the
great cask into my lap. And here is the finger with the ring.’ And
with these words the bride drew forth the finger and shewed it to the
assembled guests.

The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and
tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him fast. They
delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were
condemned to death for their wicked deeds.




TOM THUMB


A poor woodman sat in his cottage one night, smoking his pipe by the
fireside, while his wife sat by his side spinning. ‘How lonely it is,
wife,’ said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, ‘for you and me
to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse
us while other people seem so happy and merry with their children!’
‘What you say is very true,’ said the wife, sighing, and turning round
her wheel; ‘how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were
ever so small--nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb--I should be very
happy, and love it dearly.’ Now--odd as you may think it--it came to
pass that this good woman’s wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she
had wished it; for, not long afterwards, she had a little boy, who was
quite healthy and strong, but was not much bigger than my thumb. So
they said, ‘Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and,
little as he is, we will love him dearly.’ And they called him Thomas
Thumb.

They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew
bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born.
Still, his eyes were sharp and sparkling, and he soon showed himself to
be a clever little fellow, who always knew well what he was about.

One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut
fuel, he said, ‘I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I
want to make haste.’ ‘Oh, father,’ cried Tom, ‘I will take care of that;
the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.’ Then the woodman
laughed, and said, ‘How can that be? you cannot reach up to the horse’s
bridle.’ ‘Never mind that, father,’ said Tom; ‘if my mother will only
harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to
go.’ ‘Well,’ said the father, ‘we will try for once.’

When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put
Tom into his ear; and as he sat there the little man told the beast how
to go, crying out, ‘Go on!’ and ‘Stop!’ as he wanted: and thus the horse
went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the
wood. It happened that as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom
was calling out, ‘Gently! gently!’ two strangers came up. ‘What an odd
thing that is!’ said one: ‘there is a cart going along, and I hear a
carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.’ ‘That is queer,
indeed,’ said the other; ‘let us follow the cart, and see where it
goes.’ So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the
place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried
out, ‘See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! now take
me down!’ So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with
the other took his son out of the horse’s ear, and put him down upon a
straw, where he sat as merry as you please.

The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what
to say for wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, ‘That
little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him
about from town to town as a show; we must buy him.’ So they went up to
the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. ‘He
will be better off,’ said they, ‘with us than with you.’ ‘I won’t sell
him at all,’ said the father; ‘my own flesh and blood is dearer to me
than all the silver and gold in the world.’ But Tom, hearing of the
bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father’s coat to his shoulder
and whispered in his ear, ‘Take the money, father, and let them have me;
I’ll soon come back to you.’

So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a
large piece of gold, and they paid the price. ‘Where would you like to
sit?’ said one of them. ‘Oh, put me on the rim of your hat; that will be
a nice gallery for me; I can walk about there and see the country as we
go along.’ So they did as he wished; and when Tom had taken leave of his
father they took him away with them.

They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man
said, ‘Let me get down, I’m tired.’ So the man took off his hat, and
put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the
road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into
an old mouse-hole. ‘Good night, my masters!’ said he, ‘I’m off! mind and
look sharp after me the next time.’ Then they ran at once to the place,
and poked the ends of their sticks into the mouse-hole, but all in vain;
Tom only crawled farther and farther in; and at last it became quite
dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as
sulky as could be.

When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hiding-place. ‘What
dangerous walking it is,’ said he, ‘in this ploughed field! If I were to
fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.’
At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snail-shell. ‘This is
lucky,’ said he, ‘I can sleep here very well’; and in he crept.

Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting
together; and one said to the other, ‘How can we rob that rich parson’s
house of his silver and gold?’ ‘I’ll tell you!’ cried Tom. ‘What noise
was that?’ said the thief, frightened; ‘I’m sure I heard someone speak.’
They stood still listening, and Tom said, ‘Take me with you, and I’ll
soon show you how to get the parson’s money.’ ‘But where are you?’ said
they. ‘Look about on the ground,’ answered he, ‘and listen where the
sound comes from.’ At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him
up in their hands. ‘You little urchin!’ they said, ‘what can you do for
us?’ ‘Why, I can get between the iron window-bars of the parson’s house,
and throw you out whatever you want.’ ‘That’s a good thought,’ said the
thieves; ‘come along, we shall see what you can do.’

When they came to the parson’s house, Tom slipped through the
window-bars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl,
‘Will you have all that is here?’ At this the thieves were frightened,
and said, ‘Softly, softly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.’
But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again,
‘How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?’ Now the cook lay in
the next room; and hearing a noise she raised herself up in her bed and
listened. Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little
way; but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, ‘The little
urchin is only trying to make fools of us.’ So they came back and
whispered softly to him, saying, ‘Now let us have no more of your
roguish jokes; but throw us out some of the money.’ Then Tom called out
as loud as he could, ‘Very well! hold your hands! here it comes.’

The cook heard this quite plain, so she sprang out of bed, and ran to
open the door. The thieves ran off as if a wolf was at their tails: and
the maid, having groped about and found nothing, went away for a light.
By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn; and when
she had looked about and searched every hole and corner, and found
nobody, she went to bed, thinking she must have been dreaming with her
eyes open.

The little man crawled about in the hay-loft, and at last found a snug
place to finish his night’s rest in; so he laid himself down, meaning
to sleep till daylight, and then find his way home to his father and
mother. But alas! how woefully he was undone! what crosses and sorrows
happen to us all in this world! The cook got up early, before daybreak,
to feed the cows; and going straight to the hay-loft, carried away
a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it, fast
asleep. He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found
himself in the mouth of the cow; for the cook had put the hay into the
cow’s rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. ‘Good
lack-a-day!’ said he, ‘how came I to tumble into the mill?’ But he soon
found out where he really was; and was forced to have all his wits about
him, that he might not get between the cow’s teeth, and so be crushed to
death. At last down he went into her stomach. ‘It is rather dark,’ said
he; ‘they forgot to build windows in this room to let the sun in; a
candle would be no bad thing.’

Though he made the best of his bad luck, he did not like his quarters at
all; and the worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming
down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he
cried out as loud as he could, ‘Don’t bring me any more hay! Don’t bring
me any more hay!’

The maid happened to be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone
speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice
that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off
her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself
up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the
parson, and said, ‘Sir, sir, the cow is talking!’ But the parson
said, ‘Woman, thou art surely mad!’ However, he went with her into the
cow-house, to try and see what was the matter.

Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, ‘Don’t
bring me any more hay!’ Then the parson himself was frightened; and
thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the
spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up; and the stomach, in which Tom
lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill.

Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy
task; but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh
ill-luck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the
whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away.

Tom, however, was still not disheartened; and thinking the wolf would
not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called
out, ‘My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.’ ‘Where’s that?’
said the wolf. ‘In such and such a house,’ said Tom, describing his own
father’s house. ‘You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and
then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold
chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and everything that your heart can
wish.’

The wolf did not want to be asked twice; so that very night he went to
the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into
the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart’s content. As soon as
he had had enough he wanted to get away; but he had eaten so much that
he could not go out by the same way he came in.

This was just what Tom had reckoned upon; and now he began to set up a
great shout, making all the noise he could. ‘Will you be easy?’ said the
wolf; ‘you’ll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.’
‘What’s that to me?’ said the little man; ‘you have had your frolic, now
I’ve a mind to be merry myself’; and he began, singing and shouting as
loud as he could.

The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through
a crack in the door; but when they saw a wolf was there, you may well
suppose that they were sadly frightened; and the woodman ran for his
axe, and gave his wife a scythe. ‘Do you stay behind,’ said the woodman,
‘and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the
scythe.’ Tom heard all this, and cried out, ‘Father, father! I am here,
the wolf has swallowed me.’ And his father said, ‘Heaven be praised! we
have found our dear child again’; and he told his wife not to use the
scythe for fear she should hurt him. Then he aimed a great blow, and
struck the wolf on the head, and killed him on the spot! and when he was
dead they cut open his body, and set Tommy free. ‘Ah!’ said the father,
‘what fears we have had for you!’ ‘Yes, father,’ answered he; ‘I have
travelled all over the world, I think, in one way or other, since we
parted; and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.’
‘Why, where have you been?’ said his father. ‘I have been in a
mouse-hole--and in a snail-shell--and down a cow’s throat--and in the
wolf’s belly; and yet here I am again, safe and sound.’

‘Well,’ said they, ‘you are come back, and we will not sell you again
for all the riches in the world.’

Then they hugged and kissed their dear little son, and gave him plenty
to eat and drink, for he was very hungry; and then they fetched new
clothes for him, for his old ones had been quite spoiled on his journey.
So Master Thumb stayed at home with his father and mother, in peace; for
though he had been so great a traveller, and had done and seen so many
fine things, and was fond enough of telling the whole story, he always
agreed that, after all, there’s no place like HOME!




RUMPELSTILTSKIN


By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream
of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller’s house was
close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter.
She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the miller was so proud
of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and
hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Now
this king was very fond of money; and when he heard the miller’s boast
his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before
him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great
heap of straw, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, ‘All this must
be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.’ It was in vain
that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father,
for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold: the chamber
door was locked, and she was left alone.

She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard
fate; when on a sudden the door opened, and a droll-looking little man
hobbled in, and said, ‘Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you
weeping for?’ ‘Alas!’ said she, ‘I must spin this straw into gold, and
I know not how.’ ‘What will you give me,’ said the hobgoblin, ‘to do it
for you?’ ‘My necklace,’ replied the maiden. He took her at her word,
and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang:

 ‘Round about, round about,
    Lo and behold!
  Reel away, reel away,
    Straw into gold!’

And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and
the straw was all spun into gold.

When the king came and saw this, he was greatly astonished and pleased;
but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor
miller’s daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do,
and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and
said, ‘What will you give me to do your task?’ ‘The ring on my finger,’
said she. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the
wheel again, and whistled and sang:

 ‘Round about, round about,
    Lo and behold!
  Reel away, reel away,
    Straw into gold!’

till, long before morning, all was done again.

The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure;
but still he had not enough: so he took the miller’s daughter to a yet
larger heap, and said, ‘All this must be spun tonight; and if it is,
you shall be my queen.’ As soon as she was alone that dwarf came in, and
said, ‘What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?’
‘I have nothing left,’ said she. ‘Then say you will give me,’ said
the little man, ‘the first little child that you may have when you are
queen.’ ‘That may never be,’ thought the miller’s daughter: and as she
knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he
asked. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the manikin once
more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding
all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller’s
daughter, and she really became queen.

At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the
dwarf, and what she had said. But one day he came into her room, where
she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Then
she grieved sorely at her misfortune, and said she would give him all
the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at
last her tears softened him, and he said, ‘I will give you three days’
grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your
child.’

Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that
she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find
out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with
TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could
remember; but to all and each of them he said, ‘Madam, that is not my
name.’

The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of,
BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on; but the little gentleman
still said to every one of them, ‘Madam, that is not my name.’

The third day one of the messengers came back, and said, ‘I have
travelled two days without hearing of any other names; but yesterday, as
I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox
and the hare bid each other good night, I saw a little hut; and before
the hut burnt a fire; and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was
dancing upon one leg, and singing:

 “Merrily the feast I’ll make.
  Today I’ll brew, tomorrow bake;
  Merrily I’ll dance and sing,
  For next day will a stranger bring.
  Little does my lady dream
  Rumpelstiltskin is my name!”

When the queen heard this she jumped for joy, and as soon as her little
friend came she sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round
to enjoy the fun; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her
arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began
to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child, to take home with
him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, ‘Now, lady, what is my
name?’ ‘Is it JOHN?’ asked she. ‘No, madam!’ ‘Is it TOM?’ ‘No, madam!’
‘Is it JEMMY?’ ‘It is not.’ ‘Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?’ said the
lady slyly. ‘Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!’ cried
the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the
floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it
out.

Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the
baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much
trouble for nothing, and said, ‘We wish you a very good morning, and a
merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!’




CLEVER GRETEL


There was once a cook named Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and
when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and that,
was quite happy and thought: ‘You certainly are a pretty girl!’ And when
she came home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine,
and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she
was cooking until she was satisfied, and said: ‘The cook must know what
the food is like.’

It came to pass that the master one day said to her: ‘Gretel, there is a
guest coming this evening; prepare me two fowls very daintily.’ ‘I will
see to it, master,’ answered Gretel. She killed two fowls, scalded them,
plucked them, put them on the spit, and towards evening set them before
the fire, that they might roast. The fowls began to turn brown, and were
nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived. Then Gretel called out
to her master: ‘If the guest does not come, I must take the fowls away
from the fire, but it will be a sin and a shame if they are not eaten
the moment they are at their juiciest.’ The master said: ‘I will run
myself, and fetch the guest.’ When the master had turned his back,
Gretel laid the spit with the fowls on one side, and thought: ‘Standing
so long by the fire there, makes one sweat and thirsty; who knows
when they will come? Meanwhile, I will run into the cellar, and take a
drink.’ She ran down, set a jug, said: ‘God bless it for you, Gretel,’
and took a good drink, and thought that wine should flow on, and should
not be interrupted, and took yet another hearty draught.

Then she went and put the fowls down again to the fire, basted them,
and drove the spit merrily round. But as the roast meat smelt so good,
Gretel thought: ‘Something might be wrong, it ought to be tasted!’
She touched it with her finger, and said: ‘Ah! how good fowls are! It
certainly is a sin and a shame that they are not eaten at the right
time!’ She ran to the window, to see if the master was not coming with
his guest, but she saw no one, and went back to the fowls and thought:
‘One of the wings is burning! I had better take it off and eat it.’
So she cut it off, ate it, and enjoyed it, and when she had done, she
thought: ‘The other must go down too, or else master will observe that
something is missing.’ When the two wings were eaten, she went and
looked for her master, and did not see him. It suddenly occurred to
her: ‘Who knows? They are perhaps not coming at all, and have turned in
somewhere.’ Then she said: ‘Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has
been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely; when it is
eaten you will have some peace, why should God’s good gifts be spoilt?’
So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the
one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down,
and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said:
‘What one is, the other should be likewise, the two go together; what’s
right for the one is right for the other; I think if I were to take
another draught it would do me no harm.’ So she took another hearty
drink, and let the second chicken follow the first.

While she was making the most of it, her master came and cried: ‘Hurry
up, Gretel, the guest is coming directly after me!’ ‘Yes, sir, I will
soon serve up,’ answered Gretel. Meantime the master looked to see that
the table was properly laid, and took the great knife, wherewith he was
going to carve the chickens, and sharpened it on the steps. Presently
the guest came, and knocked politely and courteously at the house-door.
Gretel ran, and looked to see who was there, and when she saw the guest,
she put her finger to her lips and said: ‘Hush! hush! go away as quickly
as you can, if my master catches you it will be the worse for you; he
certainly did ask you to supper, but his intention is to cut off your
two ears. Just listen how he is sharpening the knife for it!’ The guest
heard the sharpening, and hurried down the steps again as fast as he
could. Gretel was not idle; she ran screaming to her master, and cried:
‘You have invited a fine guest!’ ‘Why, Gretel? What do you mean by
that?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘he has taken the chickens which I was just
going to serve up, off the dish, and has run away with them!’ ‘That’s a
nice trick!’ said her master, and lamented the fine chickens. ‘If he had
but left me one, so that something remained for me to eat.’ He called to
him to stop, but the guest pretended not to hear. Then he ran after him
with the knife still in his hand, crying: ‘Just one, just one,’ meaning
that the guest should leave him just one chicken, and not take both. The
guest, however, thought no otherwise than that he was to give up one of
his ears, and ran as if fire were burning under him, in order to take
them both with him.




THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON


There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull
of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly
hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run
out of his mouth. His son and his son’s wife were disgusted at this, so
the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove,
and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough
of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of
tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it
fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said
nothing and only sighed. Then they brought him a wooden bowl for a few
half-pence, out of which he had to eat.

They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old
began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. ‘What are
you doing there?’ asked the father. ‘I am making a little trough,’
answered the child, ‘for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.’

The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently
began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and
henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he
did spill a little of anything.




THE LITTLE PEASANT


There was a certain village wherein no one lived but really rich
peasants, and just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant. He
had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and
yet he and his wife did so wish to have one. One day he said to her:
‘Listen, I have a good idea, there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall
make us a wooden calf, and paint it brown, so that it looks like any
other, and in time it will certainly get big and be a cow.’ the woman
also liked the idea, and their gossip the carpenter cut and planed
the calf, and painted it as it ought to be, and made it with its head
hanging down as if it were eating.

Next morning when the cows were being driven out, the little peasant
called the cow-herd in and said: ‘Look, I have a little calf there,
but it is still small and has to be carried.’ The cow-herd said: ‘All
right,’ and took it in his arms and carried it to the pasture, and set
it among the grass. The little calf always remained standing like one
which was eating, and the cow-herd said: ‘It will soon run by itself,
just look how it eats already!’ At night when he was going to drive the
herd home again, he said to the calf: ‘If you can stand there and eat
your fill, you can also go on your four legs; I don’t care to drag you
home again in my arms.’ But the little peasant stood at his door, and
waited for his little calf, and when the cow-herd drove the cows through
the village, and the calf was missing, he inquired where it was. The
cow-herd answered: ‘It is still standing out there eating. It would not
stop and come with us.’ But the little peasant said: ‘Oh, but I must
have my beast back again.’ Then they went back to the meadow together,
but someone had stolen the calf, and it was gone. The cow-herd said: ‘It
must have run away.’ The peasant, however, said: ‘Don’t tell me
that,’ and led the cow-herd before the mayor, who for his carelessness
condemned him to give the peasant a cow for the calf which had run away.

And now the little peasant and his wife had the cow for which they had
so long wished, and they were heartily glad, but they had no food for
it, and could give it nothing to eat, so it soon had to be killed. They
salted the flesh, and the peasant went into the town and wanted to sell
the skin there, so that he might buy a new calf with the proceeds. On
the way he passed by a mill, and there sat a raven with broken wings,
and out of pity he took him and wrapped him in the skin. But as the
weather grew so bad and there was a storm of rain and wind, he could
go no farther, and turned back to the mill and begged for shelter. The
miller’s wife was alone in the house, and said to the peasant: ‘Lay
yourself on the straw there,’ and gave him a slice of bread and cheese.
The peasant ate it, and lay down with his skin beside him, and the woman
thought: ‘He is tired and has gone to sleep.’ In the meantime came the
parson; the miller’s wife received him well, and said: ‘My husband is
out, so we will have a feast.’ The peasant listened, and when he heard
them talk about feasting he was vexed that he had been forced to make
shift with a slice of bread and cheese. Then the woman served up four
different things, roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine.

Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking
outside. The woman said: ‘Oh, heavens! It is my husband!’ she quickly
hid the roast meat inside the tiled stove, the wine under the pillow,
the salad on the bed, the cakes under it, and the parson in the closet
on the porch. Then she opened the door for her husband, and said: ‘Thank
heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the
world were coming to an end.’ The miller saw the peasant lying on the
straw, and asked, ‘What is that fellow doing there?’ ‘Ah,’ said the
wife, ‘the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for
shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where
the straw was.’ The man said: ‘I have no objection, but be quick and get
me something to eat.’ The woman said: ‘But I have nothing but bread and
cheese.’ ‘I am contented with anything,’ replied the husband, ‘so far as
I am concerned, bread and cheese will do,’ and looked at the peasant and
said: ‘Come and eat some more with me.’ The peasant did not require to
be invited twice, but got up and ate. After this the miller saw the skin
in which the raven was, lying on the ground, and asked: ‘What have you
there?’ The peasant answered: ‘I have a soothsayer inside it.’ ‘Can
he foretell anything to me?’ said the miller. ‘Why not?’ answered
the peasant: ‘but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to
himself.’ The miller was curious, and said: ‘Let him foretell something
for once.’ Then the peasant pinched the raven’s head, so that he croaked
and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said: ‘What did he say?’ The
peasant answered: ‘In the first place, he says that there is some wine
hidden under the pillow.’ ‘Bless me!’ cried the miller, and went there
and found the wine. ‘Now go on,’ said he. The peasant made the raven
croak again, and said: ‘In the second place, he says that there is some
roast meat in the tiled stove.’ ‘Upon my word!’ cried the miller, and
went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven
prophesy still more, and said: ‘Thirdly, he says that there is some
salad on the bed.’ ‘That would be a fine thing!’ cried the miller, and
went there and found the salad. At last the peasant pinched the raven
once more till he croaked, and said: ‘Fourthly, he says that there
are some cakes under the bed.’ ‘That would be a fine thing!’ cried the
miller, and looked there, and found the cakes.

And now the two sat down to the table together, but the miller’s wife
was frightened to death, and went to bed and took all the keys with
her. The miller would have liked much to know the fifth, but the little
peasant said: ‘First, we will quickly eat the four things, for the fifth
is something bad.’ So they ate, and after that they bargained how much
the miller was to give for the fifth prophecy, until they agreed on
three hundred talers. Then the peasant once more pinched the raven’s
head till he croaked loudly. The miller asked: ‘What did he say?’ The
peasant replied: ‘He says that the Devil is hiding outside there in
the closet on the porch.’ The miller said: ‘The Devil must go out,’ and
opened the house-door; then the woman was forced to give up the keys,
and the peasant unlocked the closet. The parson ran out as fast as he
could, and the miller said: ‘It was true; I saw the black rascal with my
own eyes.’ The peasant, however, made off next morning by daybreak with
the three hundred talers.

At home the small peasant gradually launched out; he built a beautiful
house, and the peasants said: ‘The small peasant has certainly been to
the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in
shovels.’ Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and
bidden to say from whence his wealth came. He answered: ‘I sold my cow’s
skin in the town, for three hundred talers.’ When the peasants heard
that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home, killed
all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell them in
the town to the greatest advantage. The mayor, however, said: ‘But my
servant must go first.’ When she came to the merchant in the town, he
did not give her more than two talers for a skin, and when the others
came, he did not give them so much, and said: ‘What can I do with all
these skins?’

Then the peasants were vexed that the small peasant should have thus
outwitted them, wanted to take vengeance on him, and accused him of this
treachery before the mayor. The innocent little peasant was unanimously
sentenced to death, and was to be rolled into the water, in a barrel
pierced full of holes. He was led forth, and a priest was brought who
was to say a mass for his soul. The others were all obliged to retire to
a distance, and when the peasant looked at the priest, he recognized the
man who had been with the miller’s wife. He said to him: ‘I set you free
from the closet, set me free from the barrel.’ At this same moment up
came, with a flock of sheep, the very shepherd whom the peasant knew had
long been wishing to be mayor, so he cried with all his might: ‘No, I
will not do it; if the whole world insists on it, I will not do it!’ The
shepherd hearing that, came up to him, and asked: ‘What are you about?
What is it that you will not do?’ The peasant said: ‘They want to make
me mayor, if I will but put myself in the barrel, but I will not do it.’
The shepherd said: ‘If nothing more than that is needful in order to be
mayor, I would get into the barrel at once.’ The peasant said: ‘If you
will get in, you will be mayor.’ The shepherd was willing, and got in,
and the peasant shut the top down on him; then he took the shepherd’s
flock for himself, and drove it away. The parson went to the crowd,
and declared that the mass had been said. Then they came and rolled the
barrel towards the water. When the barrel began to roll, the shepherd
cried: ‘I am quite willing to be mayor.’ They believed no otherwise than
that it was the peasant who was saying this, and answered: ‘That is
what we intend, but first you shall look about you a little down below
there,’ and they rolled the barrel down into the water.

After that the peasants went home, and as they were entering the
village, the small peasant also came quietly in, driving a flock of
sheep and looking quite contented. Then the peasants were astonished,
and said: ‘Peasant, from whence do you come? Have you come out of the
water?’ ‘Yes, truly,’ replied the peasant, ‘I sank deep, deep down,
until at last I got to the bottom; I pushed the bottom out of the
barrel, and crept out, and there were pretty meadows on which a number
of lambs were feeding, and from thence I brought this flock away with
me.’ Said the peasants: ‘Are there any more there?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said he,
‘more than I could want.’ Then the peasants made up their minds that
they too would fetch some sheep for themselves, a flock apiece, but the
mayor said: ‘I come first.’ So they went to the water together, and just
then there were some of the small fleecy clouds in the blue sky, which
are called little lambs, and they were reflected in the water, whereupon
the peasants cried: ‘We already see the sheep down below!’ The mayor
pressed forward and said: ‘I will go down first, and look about me, and
if things promise well I’ll call you.’ So he jumped in; splash! went
the water; it sounded as if he were calling them, and the whole crowd
plunged in after him as one man. Then the entire village was dead, and
the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man.




FREDERICK AND CATHERINE


There was once a man called Frederick: he had a wife whose name was
Catherine, and they had not long been married. One day Frederick said.
‘Kate! I am going to work in the fields; when I come back I shall be
hungry so let me have something nice cooked, and a good draught of ale.’
‘Very well,’ said she, ‘it shall all be ready.’ When dinner-time drew
nigh, Catherine took a nice steak, which was all the meat she had, and
put it on the fire to fry. The steak soon began to look brown, and to
crackle in the pan; and Catherine stood by with a fork and turned it:
then she said to herself, ‘The steak is almost ready, I may as well go
to the cellar for the ale.’ So she left the pan on the fire and took a
large jug and went into the cellar and tapped the ale cask. The beer ran
into the jug and Catherine stood looking on. At last it popped into her
head, ‘The dog is not shut up--he may be running away with the steak;
that’s well thought of.’ So up she ran from the cellar; and sure enough
the rascally cur had got the steak in his mouth, and was making off with
it.

Away ran Catherine, and away ran the dog across the field: but he ran
faster than she, and stuck close to the steak. ‘It’s all gone, and “what
can’t be cured must be endured”,’ said Catherine. So she turned round;
and as she had run a good way and was tired, she walked home leisurely
to cool herself.

Now all this time the ale was running too, for Catherine had not turned
the cock; and when the jug was full the liquor ran upon the floor till
the cask was empty. When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had
happened. ‘My stars!’ said she, ‘what shall I do to keep Frederick from
seeing all this slopping about?’ So she thought a while; and at last
remembered that there was a sack of fine meal bought at the last fair,
and that if she sprinkled this over the floor it would suck up the ale
nicely. ‘What a lucky thing,’ said she, ‘that we kept that meal! we have
now a good use for it.’ So away she went for it: but she managed to set
it down just upon the great jug full of beer, and upset it; and thus
all the ale that had been saved was set swimming on the floor also. ‘Ah!
well,’ said she, ‘when one goes another may as well follow.’ Then she
strewed the meal all about the cellar, and was quite pleased with her
cleverness, and said, ‘How very neat and clean it looks!’

At noon Frederick came home. ‘Now, wife,’ cried he, ‘what have you for
dinner?’ ‘O Frederick!’ answered she, ‘I was cooking you a steak; but
while I went down to draw the ale, the dog ran away with it; and while
I ran after him, the ale ran out; and when I went to dry up the ale
with the sack of meal that we got at the fair, I upset the jug: but the
cellar is now quite dry, and looks so clean!’ ‘Kate, Kate,’ said he,
‘how could you do all this?’ Why did you leave the steak to fry, and the
ale to run, and then spoil all the meal?’ ‘Why, Frederick,’ said she, ‘I
did not know I was doing wrong; you should have told me before.’

The husband thought to himself, ‘If my wife manages matters thus, I must
look sharp myself.’ Now he had a good deal of gold in the house: so he
said to Catherine, ‘What pretty yellow buttons these are! I shall put
them into a box and bury them in the garden; but take care that you
never go near or meddle with them.’ ‘No, Frederick,’ said she, ‘that
I never will.’ As soon as he was gone, there came by some pedlars with
earthenware plates and dishes, and they asked her whether she would buy.
‘Oh dear me, I should like to buy very much, but I have no money: if
you had any use for yellow buttons, I might deal with you.’ ‘Yellow
buttons!’ said they: ‘let us have a look at them.’ ‘Go into the garden
and dig where I tell you, and you will find the yellow buttons: I dare
not go myself.’ So the rogues went: and when they found what these
yellow buttons were, they took them all away, and left her plenty of
plates and dishes. Then she set them all about the house for a show:
and when Frederick came back, he cried out, ‘Kate, what have you been
doing?’ ‘See,’ said she, ‘I have bought all these with your yellow
buttons: but I did not touch them myself; the pedlars went themselves
and dug them up.’ ‘Wife, wife,’ said Frederick, ‘what a pretty piece of
work you have made! those yellow buttons were all my money: how came you
to do such a thing?’ ‘Why,’ answered she, ‘I did not know there was any
harm in it; you should have told me.’

Catherine stood musing for a while, and at last said to her husband,
‘Hark ye, Frederick, we will soon get the gold back: let us run after
the thieves.’ ‘Well, we will try,’ answered he; ‘but take some butter
and cheese with you, that we may have something to eat by the way.’
‘Very well,’ said she; and they set out: and as Frederick walked the
fastest, he left his wife some way behind. ‘It does not matter,’ thought
she: ‘when we turn back, I shall be so much nearer home than he.’

Presently she came to the top of a hill, down the side of which there
was a road so narrow that the cart wheels always chafed the trees
on each side as they passed. ‘Ah, see now,’ said she, ‘how they have
bruised and wounded those poor trees; they will never get well.’ So she
took pity on them, and made use of the butter to grease them all, so
that the wheels might not hurt them so much. While she was doing this
kind office one of her cheeses fell out of the basket, and rolled down
the hill. Catherine looked, but could not see where it had gone; so she
said, ‘Well, I suppose the other will go the same way and find you; he
has younger legs than I have.’ Then she rolled the other cheese after
it; and away it went, nobody knows where, down the hill. But she said
she supposed that they knew the road, and would follow her, and she
could not stay there all day waiting for them.

At last she overtook Frederick, who desired her to give him something to
eat. Then she gave him the dry bread. ‘Where are the butter and cheese?’
said he. ‘Oh!’ answered she, ‘I used the butter to grease those poor
trees that the wheels chafed so: and one of the cheeses ran away so I
sent the other after it to find it, and I suppose they are both on
the road together somewhere.’ ‘What a goose you are to do such silly
things!’ said the husband. ‘How can you say so?’ said she; ‘I am sure
you never told me not.’

They ate the dry bread together; and Frederick said, ‘Kate, I hope you
locked the door safe when you came away.’ ‘No,’ answered she, ‘you did
not tell me.’ ‘Then go home, and do it now before we go any farther,’
said Frederick, ‘and bring with you something to eat.’

Catherine did as he told her, and thought to herself by the way,
‘Frederick wants something to eat; but I don’t think he is very fond of
butter and cheese: I’ll bring him a bag of fine nuts, and the vinegar,
for I have often seen him take some.’

When she reached home, she bolted the back door, but the front door she
took off the hinges, and said, ‘Frederick told me to lock the door, but
surely it can nowhere be so safe if I take it with me.’ So she took
her time by the way; and when she overtook her husband she cried
out, ‘There, Frederick, there is the door itself, you may watch it as
carefully as you please.’ ‘Alas! alas!’ said he, ‘what a clever wife I
have! I sent you to make the house fast, and you take the door away, so
that everybody may go in and out as they please--however, as you have
brought the door, you shall carry it about with you for your pains.’
‘Very well,’ answered she, ‘I’ll carry the door; but I’ll not carry the
nuts and vinegar bottle also--that would be too much of a load; so if
you please, I’ll fasten them to the door.’

Frederick of course made no objection to that plan, and they set off
into the wood to look for the thieves; but they could not find them: and
when it grew dark, they climbed up into a tree to spend the night there.
Scarcely were they up, than who should come by but the very rogues they
were looking for. They were in truth great rascals, and belonged to that
class of people who find things before they are lost; they were tired;
so they sat down and made a fire under the very tree where Frederick and
Catherine were. Frederick slipped down on the other side, and picked up
some stones. Then he climbed up again, and tried to hit the thieves on
the head with them: but they only said, ‘It must be near morning, for
the wind shakes the fir-apples down.’

Catherine, who had the door on her shoulder, began to be very tired;
but she thought it was the nuts upon it that were so heavy: so she said
softly, ‘Frederick, I must let the nuts go.’ ‘No,’ answered he, ‘not
now, they will discover us.’ ‘I can’t help that: they must go.’ ‘Well,
then, make haste and throw them down, if you will.’ Then away rattled
the nuts down among the boughs and one of the thieves cried, ‘Bless me,
it is hailing.’

A little while after, Catherine thought the door was still very heavy:
so she whispered to Frederick, ‘I must throw the vinegar down.’ ‘Pray
don’t,’ answered he, ‘it will discover us.’ ‘I can’t help that,’ said
she, ‘go it must.’ So she poured all the vinegar down; and the thieves
said, ‘What a heavy dew there is!’

At last it popped into Catherine’s head that it was the door itself that
was so heavy all the time: so she whispered, ‘Frederick, I must throw
the door down soon.’ But he begged and prayed her not to do so, for he
was sure it would betray them. ‘Here goes, however,’ said she: and down
went the door with such a clatter upon the thieves, that they cried
out ‘Murder!’ and not knowing what was coming, ran away as fast as they
could, and left all the gold. So when Frederick and Catherine came down,
there they found all their money safe and sound.




SWEETHEART ROLAND


There was once upon a time a woman who was a real witch and had two
daughters, one ugly and wicked, and this one she loved because she was
her own daughter, and one beautiful and good, and this one she hated,
because she was her stepdaughter. The stepdaughter once had a pretty
apron, which the other fancied so much that she became envious, and
told her mother that she must and would have that apron. ‘Be quiet, my
child,’ said the old woman, ‘and you shall have it. Your stepsister has
long deserved death; tonight when she is asleep I will come and cut her
head off. Only be careful that you are at the far side of the bed, and
push her well to the front.’ It would have been all over with the poor
girl if she had not just then been standing in a corner, and heard
everything. All day long she dared not go out of doors, and when bedtime
had come, the witch’s daughter got into bed first, so as to lie at the
far side, but when she was asleep, the other pushed her gently to the
front, and took for herself the place at the back, close by the wall. In
the night, the old woman came creeping in, she held an axe in her right
hand, and felt with her left to see if anyone were lying at the outside,
and then she grasped the axe with both hands, and cut her own child’s
head off.

When she had gone away, the girl got up and went to her sweetheart, who
was called Roland, and knocked at his door. When he came out, she said
to him: ‘Listen, dearest Roland, we must fly in all haste; my stepmother
wanted to kill me, but has struck her own child. When daylight comes,
and she sees what she has done, we shall be lost.’ ‘But,’ said Roland,
‘I counsel you first to take away her magic wand, or we cannot escape
if she pursues us.’ The maiden fetched the magic wand, and she took the
dead girl’s head and dropped three drops of blood on the ground, one in
front of the bed, one in the kitchen, and one on the stairs. Then she
hurried away with her lover.

When the old witch got up next morning, she called her daughter, and
wanted to give her the apron, but she did not come. Then the witch
cried: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Here, on the stairs, I am sweeping,’ answered
the first drop of blood. The old woman went out, but saw no one on the
stairs, and cried again: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Here in the kitchen, I am
warming myself,’ cried the second drop of blood. She went into the
kitchen, but found no one. Then she cried again: ‘Where are you?’ ‘Ah,
here in the bed, I am sleeping,’ cried the third drop of blood. She went
into the room to the bed. What did she see there? Her own child,
whose head she had cut off, bathed in her blood. The witch fell into
a passion, sprang to the window, and as she could look forth quite far
into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her
sweetheart Roland. ‘That shall not help you,’ cried she, ‘even if you
have got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.’ She put on her
many-league boots, in which she covered an hour’s walk at every step,
and it was not long before she overtook them. The girl, however, when
she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed, with her magic
wand, her sweetheart Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck
swimming in the middle of it. The witch placed herself on the shore,
threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck;
but the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to
go home at night as she had come. At this the girl and her sweetheart
Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole
night until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful
flower which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart
Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up
towards them, and said to the musician: ‘Dear musician, may I pluck that
beautiful flower for myself?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘I will play to
you while you do it.’ As she was hastily creeping into the hedge and was
just going to pluck the flower, knowing perfectly well who the flower
was, he began to play, and whether she would or not, she was forced
to dance, for it was a magical dance. The faster he played, the more
violent springs was she forced to make, and the thorns tore her clothes
from her body, and pricked her and wounded her till she bled, and as he
did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground.

As they were now set free, Roland said: ‘Now I will go to my father and
arrange for the wedding.’ ‘Then in the meantime I will stay here and
wait for you,’ said the girl, ‘and that no one may recognize me, I will
change myself into a red stone landmark.’ Then Roland went away, and the
girl stood like a red landmark in the field and waited for her beloved.
But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another, who so
fascinated him that he forgot the maiden. The poor girl remained there a
long time, but at length, as he did not return at all, she was sad, and
changed herself into a flower, and thought: ‘Someone will surely come
this way, and trample me down.’

It befell, however, that a shepherd kept his sheep in the field and saw
the flower, and as it was so pretty, plucked it, took it with him, and
laid it away in his chest. From that time forth, strange things happened
in the shepherd’s house. When he arose in the morning, all the work was
already done, the room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the
fire in the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched, and at noon,
when he came home, the table was laid, and a good dinner served. He
could not conceive how this came to pass, for he never saw a human being
in his house, and no one could have concealed himself in it. He was
certainly pleased with this good attendance, but still at last he was so
afraid that he went to a wise woman and asked for her advice. The wise
woman said: ‘There is some enchantment behind it, listen very early some
morning if anything is moving in the room, and if you see anything, no
matter what it is, throw a white cloth over it, and then the magic will
be stopped.’

The shepherd did as she bade him, and next morning just as day dawned,
he saw the chest open, and the flower come out. Swiftly he
sprang towards it, and threw a white cloth over it. Instantly the
transformation came to an end, and a beautiful girl stood before him,
who admitted to him that she had been the flower, and that up to this
time she had attended to his house-keeping. She told him her story,
and as she pleased him he asked her if she would marry him, but she
answered: ‘No,’ for she wanted to remain faithful to her sweetheart
Roland, although he had deserted her. Nevertheless, she promised not to
go away, but to continue keeping house for the shepherd.

And now the time drew near when Roland’s wedding was to be celebrated,
and then, according to an old custom in the country, it was announced
that all the girls were to be present at it, and sing in honour of the
bridal pair. When the faithful maiden heard of this, she grew so sad
that she thought her heart would break, and she would not go thither,
but the other girls came and took her. When it came to her turn to sing,
she stepped back, until at last she was the only one left, and then she
could not refuse. But when she began her song, and it reached Roland’s
ears, he sprang up and cried: ‘I know the voice, that is the true
bride, I will have no other!’ Everything he had forgotten, and which had
vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart. Then
the faithful maiden held her wedding with her sweetheart Roland, and
grief came to an end and joy began.




SNOWDROP


It was the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow were falling
around, that the queen of a country many thousand miles off sat working
at her window. The frame of the window was made of fine black ebony, and
as she sat looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and three
drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully upon the red
drops that sprinkled the white snow, and said, ‘Would that my little
daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as
black as this ebony windowframe!’ And so the little girl really did grow
up; her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and
her hair as black as ebony; and she was called Snowdrop.

But this queen died; and the king soon married another wife, who became
queen, and was very beautiful, but so vain that she could not bear
to think that anyone could be handsomer than she was. She had a fairy
looking-glass, to which she used to go, and then she would gaze upon
herself in it, and say:

 ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true!
  Of all the ladies in the land,
  Who is fairest, tell me, who?’

And the glass had always answered:

 ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all the land.’

But Snowdrop grew more and more beautiful; and when she was seven years
old she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself.
Then the glass one day answered the queen, when she went to look in it
as usual:

 ‘Thou, queen, art fair, and beauteous to see,
  But Snowdrop is lovelier far than thee!’

When she heard this she turned pale with rage and envy, and called to
one of her servants, and said, ‘Take Snowdrop away into the wide wood,
that I may never see her any more.’ Then the servant led her away; but
his heart melted when Snowdrop begged him to spare her life, and he
said, ‘I will not hurt you, thou pretty child.’ So he left her by
herself; and though he thought it most likely that the wild beasts would
tear her in pieces, he felt as if a great weight were taken off his
heart when he had made up his mind not to kill her but to leave her to
her fate, with the chance of someone finding and saving her.

Then poor Snowdrop wandered along through the wood in great fear; and
the wild beasts roared about her, but none did her any harm. In the
evening she came to a cottage among the hills, and went in to rest, for
her little feet would carry her no further. Everything was spruce and
neat in the cottage: on the table was spread a white cloth, and there
were seven little plates, seven little loaves, and seven little glasses
with wine in them; and seven knives and forks laid in order; and by
the wall stood seven little beds. As she was very hungry, she picked
a little piece of each loaf and drank a very little wine out of each
glass; and after that she thought she would lie down and rest. So she
tried all the little beds; but one was too long, and another was too
short, till at last the seventh suited her: and there she laid herself
down and went to sleep.

By and by in came the masters of the cottage. Now they were seven little
dwarfs, that lived among the mountains, and dug and searched for gold.
They lighted up their seven lamps, and saw at once that all was not
right. The first said, ‘Who has been sitting on my stool?’ The second,
‘Who has been eating off my plate?’ The third, ‘Who has been picking my
bread?’ The fourth, ‘Who has been meddling with my spoon?’ The fifth,
‘Who has been handling my fork?’ The sixth, ‘Who has been cutting with
my knife?’ The seventh, ‘Who has been drinking my wine?’ Then the first
looked round and said, ‘Who has been lying on my bed?’ And the rest came
running to him, and everyone cried out that somebody had been upon his
bed. But the seventh saw Snowdrop, and called all his brethren to come
and see her; and they cried out with wonder and astonishment and brought
their lamps to look at her, and said, ‘Good heavens! what a lovely child
she is!’ And they were very glad to see her, and took care not to wake
her; and the seventh dwarf slept an hour with each of the other dwarfs
in turn, till the night was gone.

In the morning Snowdrop told them all her story; and they pitied her,
and said if she would keep all things in order, and cook and wash and
knit and spin for them, she might stay where she was, and they would
take good care of her. Then they went out all day long to their work,
seeking for gold and silver in the mountains: but Snowdrop was left at
home; and they warned her, and said, ‘The queen will soon find out where
you are, so take care and let no one in.’

But the queen, now that she thought Snowdrop was dead, believed that she
must be the handsomest lady in the land; and she went to her glass and
said:

 ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true!
  Of all the ladies in the land,
  Who is fairest, tell me, who?’

And the glass answered:

 ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land:
  But over the hills, in the greenwood shade,
  Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made,
  There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she
  Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.’

Then the queen was very much frightened; for she knew that the glass
always spoke the truth, and was sure that the servant had betrayed her.
And she could not bear to think that anyone lived who was more beautiful
than she was; so she dressed herself up as an old pedlar, and went
her way over the hills, to the place where the dwarfs dwelt. Then she
knocked at the door, and cried, ‘Fine wares to sell!’ Snowdrop looked
out at the window, and said, ‘Good day, good woman! what have you to
sell?’ ‘Good wares, fine wares,’ said she; ‘laces and bobbins of all
colours.’ ‘I will let the old lady in; she seems to be a very good
sort of body,’ thought Snowdrop, as she ran down and unbolted the door.
‘Bless me!’ said the old woman, ‘how badly your stays are laced! Let me
lace them up with one of my nice new laces.’ Snowdrop did not dream of
any mischief; so she stood before the old woman; but she set to work
so nimbly, and pulled the lace so tight, that Snowdrop’s breath was
stopped, and she fell down as if she were dead. ‘There’s an end to all
thy beauty,’ said the spiteful queen, and went away home.

In the evening the seven dwarfs came home; and I need not say how
grieved they were to see their faithful Snowdrop stretched out upon the
ground, as if she was quite dead. However, they lifted her up, and when
they found what ailed her, they cut the lace; and in a little time she
began to breathe, and very soon came to life again. Then they said, ‘The
old woman was the queen herself; take care another time, and let no one
in when we are away.’

When the queen got home, she went straight to her glass, and spoke to it
as before; but to her great grief it still said:

 ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land:
  But over the hills, in the greenwood shade,
  Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made,
  There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she
  Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.’

Then the blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice, to see that
Snowdrop still lived; and she dressed herself up again, but in quite
another dress from the one she wore before, and took with her a poisoned
comb. When she reached the dwarfs’ cottage, she knocked at the door, and
cried, ‘Fine wares to sell!’ But Snowdrop said, ‘I dare not let anyone
in.’ Then the queen said, ‘Only look at my beautiful combs!’ and gave
her the poisoned one. And it looked so pretty, that she took it up and
put it into her hair to try it; but the moment it touched her head,
the poison was so powerful that she fell down senseless. ‘There you may
lie,’ said the queen, and went her way. But by good luck the dwarfs
came in very early that evening; and when they saw Snowdrop lying on
the ground, they thought what had happened, and soon found the poisoned
comb. And when they took it away she got well, and told them all that
had passed; and they warned her once more not to open the door to
anyone.

Meantime the queen went home to her glass, and shook with rage when she
read the very same answer as before; and she said, ‘Snowdrop shall die,
if it cost me my life.’ So she went by herself into her chamber, and got
ready a poisoned apple: the outside looked very rosy and tempting, but
whoever tasted it was sure to die. Then she dressed herself up as a
peasant’s wife, and travelled over the hills to the dwarfs’ cottage,
and knocked at the door; but Snowdrop put her head out of the window and
said, ‘I dare not let anyone in, for the dwarfs have told me not.’ ‘Do
as you please,’ said the old woman, ‘but at any rate take this pretty
apple; I will give it you.’ ‘No,’ said Snowdrop, ‘I dare not take it.’
‘You silly girl!’ answered the other, ‘what are you afraid of? Do you
think it is poisoned? Come! do you eat one part, and I will eat the
other.’ Now the apple was so made up that one side was good, though the
other side was poisoned. Then Snowdrop was much tempted to taste, for
the apple looked so very nice; and when she saw the old woman eat, she
could wait no longer. But she had scarcely put the piece into her mouth,
when she fell down dead upon the ground. ‘This time nothing will save
thee,’ said the queen; and she went home to her glass, and at last it
said:

 ‘Thou, queen, art the fairest of all the fair.’

And then her wicked heart was glad, and as happy as such a heart could
be.

When evening came, and the dwarfs had gone home, they found Snowdrop
lying on the ground: no breath came from her lips, and they were afraid
that she was quite dead. They lifted her up, and combed her hair, and
washed her face with wine and water; but all was in vain, for the little
girl seemed quite dead. So they laid her down upon a bier, and all seven
watched and bewailed her three whole days; and then they thought they
would bury her: but her cheeks were still rosy; and her face looked just
as it did while she was alive; so they said, ‘We will never bury her in
the cold ground.’ And they made a coffin of glass, so that they might
still look at her, and wrote upon it in golden letters what her name
was, and that she was a king’s daughter. And the coffin was set among
the hills, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it and watched. And the
birds of the air came too, and bemoaned Snowdrop; and first of all came
an owl, and then a raven, and at last a dove, and sat by her side.

And thus Snowdrop lay for a long, long time, and still only looked as
though she was asleep; for she was even now as white as snow, and as red
as blood, and as black as ebony. At last a prince came and called at the
dwarfs’ house; and he saw Snowdrop, and read what was written in golden
letters. Then he offered the dwarfs money, and prayed and besought them
to let him take her away; but they said, ‘We will not part with her for
all the gold in the world.’ At last, however, they had pity on him, and
gave him the coffin; but the moment he lifted it up to carry it home
with him, the piece of apple fell from between her lips, and Snowdrop
awoke, and said, ‘Where am I?’ And the prince said, ‘Thou art quite safe
with me.’

Then he told her all that had happened, and said, ‘I love you far better
than all the world; so come with me to my father’s palace, and you shall
be my wife.’ And Snowdrop consented, and went home with the prince;
and everything was got ready with great pomp and splendour for their
wedding.

To the feast was asked, among the rest, Snowdrop’s old enemy the queen;
and as she was dressing herself in fine rich clothes, she looked in the
glass and said:

 ‘Tell me, glass, tell me true!
  Of all the ladies in the land,
  Who is fairest, tell me, who?’

And the glass answered:

 ‘Thou, lady, art loveliest here, I ween;
  But lovelier far is the new-made queen.’

When she heard this she started with rage; but her envy and curiosity
were so great, that she could not help setting out to see the bride. And
when she got there, and saw that it was no other than Snowdrop, who, as
she thought, had been dead a long while, she choked with rage, and fell
down and died: but Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily
over that land many, many years; and sometimes they went up into the
mountains, and paid a visit to the little dwarfs, who had been so kind
to Snowdrop in her time of need.




THE PINK


There was once upon a time a queen to whom God had given no children.
Every morning she went into the garden and prayed to God in heaven to
bestow on her a son or a daughter. Then an angel from heaven came to her
and said: ‘Be at rest, you shall have a son with the power of wishing,
so that whatsoever in the world he wishes for, that shall he have.’ Then
she went to the king, and told him the joyful tidings, and when the time
was come she gave birth to a son, and the king was filled with gladness.

Every morning she went with the child to the garden where the wild
beasts were kept, and washed herself there in a clear stream. It
happened once when the child was a little older, that it was lying in
her arms and she fell asleep. Then came the old cook, who knew that the
child had the power of wishing, and stole it away, and he took a hen,
and cut it in pieces, and dropped some of its blood on the queen’s apron
and on her dress. Then he carried the child away to a secret place,
where a nurse was obliged to suckle it, and he ran to the king and
accused the queen of having allowed her child to be taken from her by
the wild beasts. When the king saw the blood on her apron, he believed
this, fell into such a passion that he ordered a high tower to be built,
in which neither sun nor moon could be seen and had his wife put into
it, and walled up. Here she was to stay for seven years without meat
or drink, and die of hunger. But God sent two angels from heaven in the
shape of white doves, which flew to her twice a day, and carried her
food until the seven years were over.

The cook, however, thought to himself: ‘If the child has the power of
wishing, and I am here, he might very easily get me into trouble.’ So
he left the palace and went to the boy, who was already big enough to
speak, and said to him: ‘Wish for a beautiful palace for yourself with
a garden, and all else that pertains to it.’ Scarcely were the words out
of the boy’s mouth, when everything was there that he had wished for.
After a while the cook said to him: ‘It is not well for you to be so
alone, wish for a pretty girl as a companion.’ Then the king’s son
wished for one, and she immediately stood before him, and was more
beautiful than any painter could have painted her. The two played
together, and loved each other with all their hearts, and the old cook
went out hunting like a nobleman. The thought occurred to him, however,
that the king’s son might some day wish to be with his father, and thus
bring him into great peril. So he went out and took the maiden aside,
and said: ‘Tonight when the boy is asleep, go to his bed and plunge this
knife into his heart, and bring me his heart and tongue, and if you do
not do it, you shall lose your life.’ Thereupon he went away, and when
he returned next day she had not done it, and said: ‘Why should I shed
the blood of an innocent boy who has never harmed anyone?’ The cook once
more said: ‘If you do not do it, it shall cost you your own life.’ When
he had gone away, she had a little hind brought to her, and ordered her
to be killed, and took her heart and tongue, and laid them on a plate,
and when she saw the old man coming, she said to the boy: ‘Lie down in
your bed, and draw the clothes over you.’ Then the wicked wretch came in
and said: ‘Where are the boy’s heart and tongue?’ The girl reached the
plate to him, but the king’s son threw off the quilt, and said: ‘You old
sinner, why did you want to kill me? Now will I pronounce thy sentence.
You shall become a black poodle and have a gold collar round your neck,
and shall eat burning coals, till the flames burst forth from your
throat.’ And when he had spoken these words, the old man was changed
into a poodle dog, and had a gold collar round his neck, and the cooks
were ordered to bring up some live coals, and these he ate, until the
flames broke forth from his throat. The king’s son remained there a
short while longer, and he thought of his mother, and wondered if she
were still alive. At length he said to the maiden: ‘I will go home to my
own country; if you will go with me, I will provide for you.’ ‘Ah,’
she replied, ‘the way is so long, and what shall I do in a strange land
where I am unknown?’ As she did not seem quite willing, and as they
could not be parted from each other, he wished that she might be changed
into a beautiful pink, and took her with him. Then he went away to his
own country, and the poodle had to run after him. He went to the tower
in which his mother was confined, and as it was so high, he wished for
a ladder which would reach up to the very top. Then he mounted up and
looked inside, and cried: ‘Beloved mother, Lady Queen, are you still
alive, or are you dead?’ She answered: ‘I have just eaten, and am still
satisfied,’ for she thought the angels were there. Said he: ‘I am your
dear son, whom the wild beasts were said to have torn from your arms;
but I am alive still, and will soon set you free.’ Then he descended
again, and went to his father, and caused himself to be announced as a
strange huntsman, and asked if he could offer him service. The king said
yes, if he was skilful and could get game for him, he should come to
him, but that deer had never taken up their quarters in any part of the
district or country. Then the huntsman promised to procure as much game
for him as he could possibly use at the royal table. So he summoned all
the huntsmen together, and bade them go out into the forest with him.
And he went with them and made them form a great circle, open at one end
where he stationed himself, and began to wish. Two hundred deer and more
came running inside the circle at once, and the huntsmen shot them.
Then they were all placed on sixty country carts, and driven home to the
king, and for once he was able to deck his table with game, after having
had none at all for years.

Now the king felt great joy at this, and commanded that his entire
household should eat with him next day, and made a great feast. When
they were all assembled together, he said to the huntsman: ‘As you are
so clever, you shall sit by me.’ He replied: ‘Lord King, your majesty
must excuse me, I am a poor huntsman.’ But the king insisted on it,
and said: ‘You shall sit by me,’ until he did it. Whilst he was sitting
there, he thought of his dearest mother, and wished that one of the
king’s principal servants would begin to speak of her, and would ask how
it was faring with the queen in the tower, and if she were alive still,
or had perished. Hardly had he formed the wish than the marshal began,
and said: ‘Your majesty, we live joyously here, but how is the queen
living in the tower? Is she still alive, or has she died?’ But the king
replied: ‘She let my dear son be torn to pieces by wild beasts; I will
not have her named.’ Then the huntsman arose and said: ‘Gracious lord
father she is alive still, and I am her son, and I was not carried away
by wild beasts, but by that wretch the old cook, who tore me from her
arms when she was asleep, and sprinkled her apron with the blood of a
chicken.’ Thereupon he took the dog with the golden collar, and said:
‘That is the wretch!’ and caused live coals to be brought, and these the
dog was compelled to devour before the sight of all, until flames burst
forth from its throat. On this the huntsman asked the king if he would
like to see the dog in his true shape, and wished him back into the form
of the cook, in which he stood immediately, with his white apron,
and his knife by his side. When the king saw him he fell into a passion,
and ordered him to be cast into the deepest dungeon. Then the huntsman
spoke further and said: ‘Father, will you see the maiden who brought me
up so tenderly and who was afterwards to murder me, but did not do it,
though her own life depended on it?’ The king replied: ‘Yes, I would
like to see her.’ The son said: ‘Most gracious father, I will show her
to you in the form of a beautiful flower,’ and he thrust his hand into
his pocket and brought forth the pink, and placed it on the royal table,
and it was so beautiful that the king had never seen one to equal it.
Then the son said: ‘Now will I show her to you in her own form,’ and
wished that she might become a maiden, and she stood there looking so
beautiful that no painter could have made her look more so.

And the king sent two waiting-maids and two attendants into the tower,
to fetch the queen and bring her to the royal table. But when she was
led in she ate nothing, and said: ‘The gracious and merciful God who has
supported me in the tower, will soon set me free.’ She lived three days
more, and then died happily, and when she was buried, the two white
doves which had brought her food to the tower, and were angels of
heaven, followed her body and seated themselves on her grave. The aged
king ordered the cook to be torn in four pieces, but grief consumed the
king’s own heart, and he soon died. His son married the beautiful maiden
whom he had brought with him as a flower in his pocket, and whether they
are still alive or not, is known to God.




CLEVER ELSIE


There was once a man who had a daughter who was called Clever Elsie. And
when she had grown up her father said: ‘We will get her married.’ ‘Yes,’
said the mother, ‘if only someone would come who would have her.’ At
length a man came from a distance and wooed her, who was called Hans;
but he stipulated that Clever Elsie should be really smart. ‘Oh,’ said
the father, ‘she has plenty of good sense’; and the mother said: ‘Oh,
she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.’
‘Well,’ said Hans, ‘if she is not really smart, I won’t have her.’ When
they were sitting at dinner and had eaten, the mother said: ‘Elsie, go
into the cellar and fetch some beer.’ Then Clever Elsie took the pitcher
from the wall, went into the cellar, and tapped the lid briskly as she
went, so that the time might not appear long. When she was below she
fetched herself a chair, and set it before the barrel so that she had
no need to stoop, and did not hurt her back or do herself any unexpected
injury. Then she placed the can before her, and turned the tap, and
while the beer was running she would not let her eyes be idle, but
looked up at the wall, and after much peering here and there, saw a
pick-axe exactly above her, which the masons had accidentally left
there.

Then Clever Elsie began to weep and said: ‘If I get Hans, and we have
a child, and he grows big, and we send him into the cellar here to draw
beer, then the pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.’ Then she
sat and wept and screamed with all the strength of her body, over the
misfortune which lay before her. Those upstairs waited for the drink,
but Clever Elsie still did not come. Then the woman said to the servant:
‘Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie is.’ The maid went and
found her sitting in front of the barrel, screaming loudly. ‘Elsie why
do you weep?’ asked the maid. ‘Ah,’ she answered, ‘have I not reason to
weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to
draw beer here, the pick-axe will perhaps fall on his head, and kill
him.’ Then said the maid: ‘What a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down
beside her and began loudly to weep over the misfortune. After a while,
as the maid did not come back, and those upstairs were thirsty for the
beer, the man said to the boy: ‘Just go down into the cellar and see
where Elsie and the girl are.’ The boy went down, and there sat Clever
Elsie and the girl both weeping together. Then he asked: ‘Why are you
weeping?’ ‘Ah,’ said Elsie, ‘have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans,
and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the
pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.’ Then said the boy: ‘What
a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down by her, and likewise began to
howl loudly. Upstairs they waited for the boy, but as he still did not
return, the man said to the woman: ‘Just go down into the cellar and see
where Elsie is!’ The woman went down, and found all three in the midst
of their lamentations, and inquired what was the cause; then Elsie told
her also that her future child was to be killed by the pick-axe, when it
grew big and had to draw beer, and the pick-axe fell down. Then said the
mother likewise: ‘What a clever Elsie we have!’ and sat down and wept
with them. The man upstairs waited a short time, but as his wife did not
come back and his thirst grew ever greater, he said: ‘I must go into the
cellar myself and see where Elsie is.’ But when he got into the cellar,
and they were all sitting together crying, and he heard the reason, and
that Elsie’s child was the cause, and the Elsie might perhaps bring one
into the world some day, and that he might be killed by the pick-axe, if
he should happen to be sitting beneath it, drawing beer just at the very
time when it fell down, he cried: ‘Oh, what a clever Elsie!’ and sat
down, and likewise wept with them. The bridegroom stayed upstairs alone
for a long time; then as no one would come back he thought: ‘They must be
waiting for me below: I too must go there and see what they are about.’
When he got down, the five of them were sitting screaming and lamenting
quite piteously, each out-doing the other. ‘What misfortune has happened
then?’ asked he. ‘Ah, dear Hans,’ said Elsie, ‘if we marry each other
and have a child, and he is big, and we perhaps send him here to draw
something to drink, then the pick-axe which has been left up there might
dash his brains out if it were to fall down, so have we not reason to
weep?’ ‘Come,’ said Hans, ‘more understanding than that is not needed
for my household, as you are such a clever Elsie, I will have you,’ and
seized her hand, took her upstairs with him, and married her.

After Hans had had her some time, he said: ‘Wife, I am going out to work
and earn some money for us; go into the field and cut the corn that we
may have some bread.’ ‘Yes, dear Hans, I will do that.’ After Hans had
gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field
with her. When she came to the field she said to herself: ‘What shall I
do; shall I cut first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first.’ Then
she drank her cup of broth and when she was fully satisfied, she once
more said: ‘What shall I do? Shall I cut first, or shall I sleep first?
I will sleep first.’ Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep.
Hans had been at home for a long time, but Elsie did not come; then said
he: ‘What a clever Elsie I have; she is so industrious that she does not
even come home to eat.’ But when evening came and she still stayed away,
Hans went out to see what she had cut, but nothing was cut, and she
was lying among the corn asleep. Then Hans hastened home and brought
a fowler’s net with little bells and hung it round about her, and she
still went on sleeping. Then he ran home, shut the house-door, and sat
down in his chair and worked. At length, when it was quite dark, Clever
Elsie awoke and when she got up there was a jingling all round about
her, and the bells rang at each step which she took. Then she was
alarmed, and became uncertain whether she really was Clever Elsie or
not, and said: ‘Is it I, or is it not I?’ But she knew not what answer
to make to this, and stood for a time in doubt; at length she thought:
‘I will go home and ask if it be I, or if it be not I, they will be sure
to know.’ She ran to the door of her own house, but it was shut; then
she knocked at the window and cried: ‘Hans, is Elsie within?’ ‘Yes,’
answered Hans, ‘she is within.’ Hereupon she was terrified, and said:
‘Ah, heavens! Then it is not I,’ and went to another door; but when the
people heard the jingling of the bells they would not open it, and she
could get in nowhere. Then she ran out of the village, and no one has
seen her since.




THE MISER IN THE BUSH


A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for
him three years, without having been paid any wages. At last it came
into the man’s head that he would not go on thus without pay any longer;
so he went to his master, and said, ‘I have worked hard for you a long
time, I will trust to you to give me what I deserve to have for my
trouble.’ The farmer was a sad miser, and knew that his man was very
simple-hearted; so he took out threepence, and gave him for every year’s
service a penny. The poor fellow thought it was a great deal of money to
have, and said to himself, ‘Why should I work hard, and live here on bad
fare any longer? I can now travel into the wide world, and make myself
merry.’ With that he put his money into his purse, and set out, roaming
over hill and valley.

As he jogged along over the fields, singing and dancing, a little dwarf
met him, and asked him what made him so merry. ‘Why, what should make
me down-hearted?’ said he; ‘I am sound in health and rich in purse, what
should I care for? I have saved up my three years’ earnings and have it
all safe in my pocket.’ ‘How much may it come to?’ said the little man.
‘Full threepence,’ replied the countryman. ‘I wish you would give them
to me,’ said the other; ‘I am very poor.’ Then the man pitied him, and
gave him all he had; and the little dwarf said in return, ‘As you have
such a kind honest heart, I will grant you three wishes--one for every
penny; so choose whatever you like.’ Then the countryman rejoiced at
his good luck, and said, ‘I like many things better than money: first, I
will have a bow that will bring down everything I shoot at; secondly,
a fiddle that will set everyone dancing that hears me play upon it; and
thirdly, I should like that everyone should grant what I ask.’ The dwarf
said he should have his three wishes; so he gave him the bow and fiddle,
and went his way.

Our honest friend journeyed on his way too; and if he was merry before,
he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old
miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush
singing away most joyfully. ‘Oh, what a pretty bird!’ said the miser; ‘I
would give a great deal of money to have such a one.’ ‘If that’s all,’
said the countryman, ‘I will soon bring it down.’ Then he took up his
bow, and down fell the thrush into the bushes at the foot of the tree.
The miser crept into the bush to find it; but directly he had got into
the middle, his companion took up his fiddle and played away, and the
miser began to dance and spring about, capering higher and higher in
the air. The thorns soon began to tear his clothes till they all hung
in rags about him, and he himself was all scratched and wounded, so that
the blood ran down. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ cried the miser, ‘Master!
master! pray let the fiddle alone. What have I done to deserve this?’
‘Thou hast shaved many a poor soul close enough,’ said the other; ‘thou
art only meeting thy reward’: so he played up another tune. Then the
miser began to beg and promise, and offered money for his liberty; but
he did not come up to the musician’s price for some time, and he danced
him along brisker and brisker, and the miser bid higher and higher, till
at last he offered a round hundred of florins that he had in his purse,
and had just gained by cheating some poor fellow. When the countryman
saw so much money, he said, ‘I will agree to your proposal.’ So he took
the purse, put up his fiddle, and travelled on very pleased with his
bargain.

Meanwhile the miser crept out of the bush half-naked and in a piteous
plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge, and serve
his late companion some trick. At last he went to the judge, and
complained that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him
into the bargain; and that the fellow who did it carried a bow at his
back and a fiddle hung round his neck. Then the judge sent out his
officers to bring up the accused wherever they should find him; and he
was soon caught and brought up to be tried.

The miser began to tell his tale, and said he had been robbed of
his money. ‘No, you gave it me for playing a tune to you.’ said the
countryman; but the judge told him that was not likely, and cut the
matter short by ordering him off to the gallows.

So away he was taken; but as he stood on the steps he said, ‘My Lord
Judge, grant me one last request.’ ‘Anything but thy life,’ replied the
other. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I do not ask my life; only to let me play upon
my fiddle for the last time.’ The miser cried out, ‘Oh, no! no! for
heaven’s sake don’t listen to him! don’t listen to him!’ But the judge
said, ‘It is only this once, he will soon have done.’ The fact was, he
could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf’s third gift.

Then the miser said, ‘Bind me fast, bind me fast, for pity’s sake.’ But
the countryman seized his fiddle, and struck up a tune, and at the first
note judge, clerks, and jailer were in motion; all began capering, and
no one could hold the miser. At the second note the hangman let his
prisoner go, and danced also, and by the time he had played the first
bar of the tune, all were dancing together--judge, court, and miser, and
all the people who had followed to look on. At first the thing was merry
and pleasant enough; but when it had gone on a while, and there seemed
to be no end of playing or dancing, they began to cry out, and beg him
to leave off; but he stopped not a whit the more for their entreaties,
till the judge not only gave him his life, but promised to return him
the hundred florins.

Then he called to the miser, and said, ‘Tell us now, you vagabond, where
you got that gold, or I shall play on for your amusement only,’ ‘I stole
it,’ said the miser in the presence of all the people; ‘I acknowledge
that I stole it, and that you earned it fairly.’ Then the countryman
stopped his fiddle, and left the miser to take his place at the gallows.




ASHPUTTEL


The wife of a rich man fell sick; and when she felt that her end drew
nigh, she called her only daughter to her bed-side, and said, ‘Always be
a good girl, and I will look down from heaven and watch over you.’ Soon
afterwards she shut her eyes and died, and was buried in the garden;
and the little girl went every day to her grave and wept, and was always
good and kind to all about her. And the snow fell and spread a beautiful
white covering over the grave; but by the time the spring came, and the
sun had melted it away again, her father had married another wife. This
new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her;
they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time
for the poor little girl. ‘What does the good-for-nothing want in the
parlour?’ said they; ‘they who would eat bread should first earn it;
away with the kitchen-maid!’ Then they took away her fine clothes, and
gave her an old grey frock to put on, and laughed at her, and turned her
into the kitchen.

There she was forced to do hard work; to rise early before daylight, to
bring the water, to make the fire, to cook and to wash. Besides that,
the sisters plagued her in all sorts of ways, and laughed at her. In the
evening when she was tired, she had no bed to lie down on, but was made
to lie by the hearth among the ashes; and as this, of course, made her
always dusty and dirty, they called her Ashputtel.

It happened once that the father was going to the fair, and asked his
wife’s daughters what he should bring them. ‘Fine clothes,’ said the
first; ‘Pearls and diamonds,’ cried the second. ‘Now, child,’ said he
to his own daughter, ‘what will you have?’ ‘The first twig, dear
father, that brushes against your hat when you turn your face to come
homewards,’ said she. Then he bought for the first two the fine clothes
and pearls and diamonds they had asked for: and on his way home, as he
rode through a green copse, a hazel twig brushed against him, and almost
pushed off his hat: so he broke it off and brought it away; and when he
got home he gave it to his daughter. Then she took it, and went to
her mother’s grave and planted it there; and cried so much that it was
watered with her tears; and there it grew and became a fine tree. Three
times every day she went to it and cried; and soon a little bird came
and built its nest upon the tree, and talked with her, and watched over
her, and brought her whatever she wished for.

Now it happened that the king of that land held a feast, which was to
last three days; and out of those who came to it his son was to choose
a bride for himself. Ashputtel’s two sisters were asked to come; so they
called her up, and said, ‘Now, comb our hair, brush our shoes, and tie
our sashes for us, for we are going to dance at the king’s feast.’
Then she did as she was told; but when all was done she could not help
crying, for she thought to herself, she should so have liked to have
gone with them to the ball; and at last she begged her mother very hard
to let her go. ‘You, Ashputtel!’ said she; ‘you who have nothing to
wear, no clothes at all, and who cannot even dance--you want to go to
the ball? And when she kept on begging, she said at last, to get rid of
her, ‘I will throw this dishful of peas into the ash-heap, and if in
two hours’ time you have picked them all out, you shall go to the feast
too.’

Then she threw the peas down among the ashes, but the little maiden ran
out at the back door into the garden, and cried out:

 ‘Hither, hither, through the sky,
  Turtle-doves and linnets, fly!
  Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay,
  Hither, hither, haste away!
  One and all come help me, quick!
  Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!’

Then first came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window; next
came two turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under
heaven, chirping and fluttering in: and they flew down into the ashes.
And the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work, pick,
pick, pick; and then the others began to pick, pick, pick: and among
them all they soon picked out all the good grain, and put it into a dish
but left the ashes. Long before the end of the hour the work was quite
done, and all flew out again at the windows.

Then Ashputtel brought the dish to her mother, overjoyed at the thought
that now she should go to the ball. But the mother said, ‘No, no! you
slut, you have no clothes, and cannot dance; you shall not go.’ And when
Ashputtel begged very hard to go, she said, ‘If you can in one hour’s
time pick two of those dishes of peas out of the ashes, you shall go
too.’ And thus she thought she should at least get rid of her. So she
shook two dishes of peas into the ashes.

But the little maiden went out into the garden at the back of the house,
and cried out as before:

 ‘Hither, hither, through the sky,
  Turtle-doves and linnets, fly!
  Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay,
  Hither, hither, haste away!
  One and all come help me, quick!
  Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!’

Then first came two white doves in at the kitchen window; next came two
turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under heaven,
chirping and hopping about. And they flew down into the ashes; and the
little doves put their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick; and
then the others began pick, pick, pick; and they put all the good grain
into the dishes, and left all the ashes. Before half an hour’s time all
was done, and out they flew again. And then Ashputtel took the dishes to
her mother, rejoicing to think that she should now go to the ball.
But her mother said, ‘It is all of no use, you cannot go; you have no
clothes, and cannot dance, and you would only put us to shame’: and off
she went with her two daughters to the ball.

Now when all were gone, and nobody left at home, Ashputtel went
sorrowfully and sat down under the hazel-tree, and cried out:

 ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree,
  Gold and silver over me!’

Then her friend the bird flew out of the tree, and brought a gold and
silver dress for her, and slippers of spangled silk; and she put them
on, and followed her sisters to the feast. But they did not know her,
and thought it must be some strange princess, she looked so fine and
beautiful in her rich clothes; and they never once thought of Ashputtel,
taking it for granted that she was safe at home in the dirt.

The king’s son soon came up to her, and took her by the hand and danced
with her, and no one else: and he never left her hand; but when anyone
else came to ask her to dance, he said, ‘This lady is dancing with me.’

Thus they danced till a late hour of the night; and then she wanted to
go home: and the king’s son said, ‘I shall go and take care of you to
your home’; for he wanted to see where the beautiful maiden lived. But
she slipped away from him, unawares, and ran off towards home; and as
the prince followed her, she jumped up into the pigeon-house and shut
the door. Then he waited till her father came home, and told him that
the unknown maiden, who had been at the feast, had hid herself in the
pigeon-house. But when they had broken open the door they found no one
within; and as they came back into the house, Ashputtel was lying, as
she always did, in her dirty frock by the ashes, and her dim little
lamp was burning in the chimney. For she had run as quickly as she could
through the pigeon-house and on to the hazel-tree, and had there taken
off her beautiful clothes, and put them beneath the tree, that the bird
might carry them away, and had lain down again amid the ashes in her
little grey frock.

The next day when the feast was again held, and her father, mother, and
sisters were gone, Ashputtel went to the hazel-tree, and said:

 ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree,
  Gold and silver over me!’

And the bird came and brought a still finer dress than the one she
had worn the day before. And when she came in it to the ball, everyone
wondered at her beauty: but the king’s son, who was waiting for her,
took her by the hand, and danced with her; and when anyone asked her to
dance, he said as before, ‘This lady is dancing with me.’

When night came she wanted to go home; and the king’s son followed here
as before, that he might see into what house she went: but she sprang
away from him all at once into the garden behind her father’s house.
In this garden stood a fine large pear-tree full of ripe fruit; and
Ashputtel, not knowing where to hide herself, jumped up into it without
being seen. Then the king’s son lost sight of her, and could not find
out where she was gone, but waited till her father came home, and said
to him, ‘The unknown lady who danced with me has slipped away, and I
think she must have sprung into the pear-tree.’ The father thought to
himself, ‘Can it be Ashputtel?’ So he had an axe brought; and they cut
down the tree, but found no one upon it. And when they came back into
the kitchen, there lay Ashputtel among the ashes; for she had slipped
down on the other side of the tree, and carried her beautiful clothes
back to the bird at the hazel-tree, and then put on her little grey
frock.

The third day, when her father and mother and sisters were gone, she
went again into the garden, and said:

 ‘Shake, shake, hazel-tree,
  Gold and silver over me!’

Then her kind friend the bird brought a dress still finer than the
former one, and slippers which were all of gold: so that when she came
to the feast no one knew what to say, for wonder at her beauty: and the
king’s son danced with nobody but her; and when anyone else asked her to
dance, he said, ‘This lady is _my_ partner, sir.’

When night came she wanted to go home; and the king’s son would go with
her, and said to himself, ‘I will not lose her this time’; but, however,
she again slipped away from him, though in such a hurry that she dropped
her left golden slipper upon the stairs.

The prince took the shoe, and went the next day to the king his father,
and said, ‘I will take for my wife the lady that this golden slipper
fits.’ Then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it; for they
had beautiful feet, and had no doubt that they could wear the golden
slipper. The eldest went first into the room where the slipper was, and
wanted to try it on, and the mother stood by. But her great toe could
not go into it, and the shoe was altogether much too small for her. Then
the mother gave her a knife, and said, ‘Never mind, cut it off; when you
are queen you will not care about toes; you will not want to walk.’ So
the silly girl cut off her great toe, and thus squeezed on the shoe,
and went to the king’s son. Then he took her for his bride, and set her
beside him on his horse, and rode away with her homewards.

But on their way home they had to pass by the hazel-tree that Ashputtel
had planted; and on the branch sat a little dove singing:

 ‘Back again! back again! look to the shoe!
  The shoe is too small, and not made for you!
  Prince! prince! look again for thy bride,
  For she’s not the true one that sits by thy side.’

Then the prince got down and looked at her foot; and he saw, by the
blood that streamed from it, what a trick she had played him. So he
turned his horse round, and brought the false bride back to her home,
and said, ‘This is not the right bride; let the other sister try and put
on the slipper.’ Then she went into the room and got her foot into the
shoe, all but the heel, which was too large. But her mother squeezed it
in till the blood came, and took her to the king’s son: and he set her
as his bride by his side on his horse, and rode away with her.

But when they came to the hazel-tree the little dove sat there still,
and sang:

 ‘Back again! back again! look to the shoe!
  The shoe is too small, and not made for you!
  Prince! prince! look again for thy bride,
  For she’s not the true one that sits by thy side.’

Then he looked down, and saw that the blood streamed so much from the
shoe, that her white stockings were quite red. So he turned his horse
and brought her also back again. ‘This is not the true bride,’ said he
to the father; ‘have you no other daughters?’ ‘No,’ said he; ‘there is
only a little dirty Ashputtel here, the child of my first wife; I am
sure she cannot be the bride.’ The prince told him to send her. But the
mother said, ‘No, no, she is much too dirty; she will not dare to show
herself.’ However, the prince would have her come; and she first washed
her face and hands, and then went in and curtsied to him, and he reached
her the golden slipper. Then she took her clumsy shoe off her left foot,
and put on the golden slipper; and it fitted her as if it had been made
for her. And when he drew near and looked at her face he knew her, and
said, ‘This is the right bride.’ But the mother and both the sisters
were frightened, and turned pale with anger as he took Ashputtel on his
horse, and rode away with her. And when they came to the hazel-tree, the
white dove sang:

 ‘Home! home! look at the shoe!
  Princess! the shoe was made for you!
  Prince! prince! take home thy bride,
  For she is the true one that sits by thy side!’

And when the dove had done its song, it came flying, and perched upon
her right shoulder, and so went home with her.




THE WHITE SNAKE


A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through
all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed as if news of
the most secret things was brought to him through the air. But he had a
strange custom; every day after dinner, when the table was cleared,
and no one else was present, a trusty servant had to bring him one more
dish. It was covered, however, and even the servant did not know what
was in it, neither did anyone know, for the king never took off the
cover to eat of it until he was quite alone.

This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, who took
away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he could not help
carrying the dish into his room. When he had carefully locked the door,
he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake lying on the dish. But
when he saw it he could not deny himself the pleasure of tasting it,
so he cut of a little bit and put it into his mouth. No sooner had it
touched his tongue than he heard a strange whispering of little voices
outside his window. He went and listened, and then noticed that it was
the sparrows who were chattering together, and telling one another of
all kinds of things which they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating
the snake had given him power of understanding the language of animals.

Now it so happened that on this very day the queen lost her most
beautiful ring, and suspicion of having stolen it fell upon this trusty
servant, who was allowed to go everywhere. The king ordered the man to
be brought before him, and threatened with angry words that unless he
could before the morrow point out the thief, he himself should be looked
upon as guilty and executed. In vain he declared his innocence; he was
dismissed with no better answer.

In his trouble and fear he went down into the courtyard and took thought
how to help himself out of his trouble. Now some ducks were sitting
together quietly by a brook and taking their rest; and, whilst they
were making their feathers smooth with their bills, they were having a
confidential conversation together. The servant stood by and listened.
They were telling one another of all the places where they had been
waddling about all the morning, and what good food they had found; and
one said in a pitiful tone: ‘Something lies heavy on my stomach; as
I was eating in haste I swallowed a ring which lay under the queen’s
window.’ The servant at once seized her by the neck, carried her to the
kitchen, and said to the cook: ‘Here is a fine duck; pray, kill her.’
‘Yes,’ said the cook, and weighed her in his hand; ‘she has spared
no trouble to fatten herself, and has been waiting to be roasted long
enough.’ So he cut off her head, and as she was being dressed for the
spit, the queen’s ring was found inside her.

The servant could now easily prove his innocence; and the king, to make
amends for the wrong, allowed him to ask a favour, and promised him
the best place in the court that he could wish for. The servant refused
everything, and only asked for a horse and some money for travelling, as
he had a mind to see the world and go about a little. When his request
was granted he set out on his way, and one day came to a pond, where he
saw three fishes caught in the reeds and gasping for water. Now, though
it is said that fishes are dumb, he heard them lamenting that they must
perish so miserably, and, as he had a kind heart, he got off his
horse and put the three prisoners back into the water. They leapt with
delight, put out their heads, and cried to him: ‘We will remember you
and repay you for saving us!’

He rode on, and after a while it seemed to him that he heard a voice in
the sand at his feet. He listened, and heard an ant-king complain: ‘Why
cannot folks, with their clumsy beasts, keep off our bodies? That stupid
horse, with his heavy hoofs, has been treading down my people without
mercy!’ So he turned on to a side path and the ant-king cried out to
him: ‘We will remember you--one good turn deserves another!’

The path led him into a wood, and there he saw two old ravens standing
by their nest, and throwing out their young ones. ‘Out with you, you
idle, good-for-nothing creatures!’ cried they; ‘we cannot find food for
you any longer; you are big enough, and can provide for yourselves.’
But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and
crying: ‘Oh, what helpless chicks we are! We must shift for ourselves,
and yet we cannot fly! What can we do, but lie here and starve?’ So the
good young fellow alighted and killed his horse with his sword, and gave
it to them for food. Then they came hopping up to it, satisfied their
hunger, and cried: ‘We will remember you--one good turn deserves
another!’

And now he had to use his own legs, and when he had walked a long
way, he came to a large city. There was a great noise and crowd in
the streets, and a man rode up on horseback, crying aloud: ‘The king’s
daughter wants a husband; but whoever seeks her hand must perform a hard
task, and if he does not succeed he will forfeit his life.’ Many had
already made the attempt, but in vain; nevertheless when the youth
saw the king’s daughter he was so overcome by her great beauty that he
forgot all danger, went before the king, and declared himself a suitor.

So he was led out to the sea, and a gold ring was thrown into it, before
his eyes; then the king ordered him to fetch this ring up from the
bottom of the sea, and added: ‘If you come up again without it you will
be thrown in again and again until you perish amid the waves.’ All the
people grieved for the handsome youth; then they went away, leaving him
alone by the sea.

He stood on the shore and considered what he should do, when suddenly
he saw three fishes come swimming towards him, and they were the very
fishes whose lives he had saved. The one in the middle held a mussel in
its mouth, which it laid on the shore at the youth’s feet, and when he
had taken it up and opened it, there lay the gold ring in the shell.
Full of joy he took it to the king and expected that he would grant him
the promised reward.

But when the proud princess perceived that he was not her equal in
birth, she scorned him, and required him first to perform another
task. She went down into the garden and strewed with her own hands ten
sacksful of millet-seed on the grass; then she said: ‘Tomorrow morning
before sunrise these must be picked up, and not a single grain be
wanting.’

The youth sat down in the garden and considered how it might be possible
to perform this task, but he could think of nothing, and there he sat
sorrowfully awaiting the break of day, when he should be led to death.
But as soon as the first rays of the sun shone into the garden he saw
all the ten sacks standing side by side, quite full, and not a single
grain was missing. The ant-king had come in the night with thousands
and thousands of ants, and the grateful creatures had by great industry
picked up all the millet-seed and gathered them into the sacks.

Presently the king’s daughter herself came down into the garden, and was
amazed to see that the young man had done the task she had given him.
But she could not yet conquer her proud heart, and said: ‘Although he
has performed both the tasks, he shall not be my husband until he had
brought me an apple from the Tree of Life.’ The youth did not know where
the Tree of Life stood, but he set out, and would have gone on for ever,
as long as his legs would carry him, though he had no hope of finding
it. After he had wandered through three kingdoms, he came one evening to
a wood, and lay down under a tree to sleep. But he heard a rustling in
the branches, and a golden apple fell into his hand. At the same time
three ravens flew down to him, perched themselves upon his knee, and
said: ‘We are the three young ravens whom you saved from starving; when
we had grown big, and heard that you were seeking the Golden Apple,
we flew over the sea to the end of the world, where the Tree of Life
stands, and have brought you the apple.’ The youth, full of joy, set out
homewards, and took the Golden Apple to the king’s beautiful daughter,
who had now no more excuses left to make. They cut the Apple of Life in
two and ate it together; and then her heart became full of love for him,
and they lived in undisturbed happiness to a great age.




THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS


There was once upon a time an old goat who had seven little kids, and
loved them with all the love of a mother for her children. One day she
wanted to go into the forest and fetch some food. So she called all
seven to her and said: ‘Dear children, I have to go into the forest,
be on your guard against the wolf; if he comes in, he will devour you
all--skin, hair, and everything. The wretch often disguises himself, but
you will know him at once by his rough voice and his black feet.’ The
kids said: ‘Dear mother, we will take good care of ourselves; you may go
away without any anxiety.’ Then the old one bleated, and went on her way
with an easy mind.

It was not long before someone knocked at the house-door and called:
‘Open the door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought
something back with her for each of you.’ But the little kids knew that
it was the wolf, by the rough voice. ‘We will not open the door,’ cried
they, ‘you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but
your voice is rough; you are the wolf!’ Then the wolf went away to a
shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, ate this and made
his voice soft with it. Then he came back, knocked at the door of the
house, and called: ‘Open the door, dear children, your mother is here
and has brought something back with her for each of you.’ But the wolf
had laid his black paws against the window, and the children saw them
and cried: ‘We will not open the door, our mother has not black feet
like you: you are the wolf!’ Then the wolf ran to a baker and said: ‘I
have hurt my feet, rub some dough over them for me.’ And when the baker
had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said: ‘Strew some
white meal over my feet for me.’ The miller thought to himself: ‘The
wolf wants to deceive someone,’ and refused; but the wolf said: ‘If you
will not do it, I will devour you.’ Then the miller was afraid, and made
his paws white for him. Truly, this is the way of mankind.

So now the wretch went for the third time to the house-door, knocked at
it and said: ‘Open the door for me, children, your dear little mother
has come home, and has brought every one of you something back from the
forest with her.’ The little kids cried: ‘First show us your paws that
we may know if you are our dear little mother.’ Then he put his paws
in through the window and when the kids saw that they were white, they
believed that all he said was true, and opened the door. But who should
come in but the wolf! They were terrified and wanted to hide themselves.
One sprang under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the
stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the
sixth under the washing-bowl, and the seventh into the clock-case. But
the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony; one after the
other he swallowed them down his throat. The youngest, who was in
the clock-case, was the only one he did not find. When the wolf had
satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down under a
tree in the green meadow outside, and began to sleep. Soon afterwards
the old goat came home again from the forest. Ah! what a sight she saw
there! The house-door stood wide open. The table, chairs, and benches
were thrown down, the washing-bowl lay broken to pieces, and the quilts
and pillows were pulled off the bed. She sought her children, but they
were nowhere to be found. She called them one after another by name, but
no one answered. At last, when she came to the youngest, a soft voice
cried: ‘Dear mother, I am in the clock-case.’ She took the kid out, and
it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten all the others. Then
you may imagine how she wept over her poor children.

At length in her grief she went out, and the youngest kid ran with her.
When they came to the meadow, there lay the wolf by the tree and snored
so loud that the branches shook. She looked at him on every side and
saw that something was moving and struggling in his gorged belly. ‘Ah,
heavens,’ she said, ‘is it possible that my poor children whom he has
swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?’ Then the kid had to
run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut
open the monster’s stomach, and hardly had she made one cut, than one
little kid thrust its head out, and when she had cut farther, all six
sprang out one after another, and were all still alive, and had suffered
no injury whatever, for in his greediness the monster had swallowed them
down whole. What rejoicing there was! They embraced their dear mother,
and jumped like a tailor at his wedding. The mother, however, said: ‘Now
go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast’s
stomach with them while he is still asleep.’ Then the seven kids dragged
the stones thither with all speed, and put as many of them into this
stomach as they could get in; and the mother sewed him up again in the
greatest haste, so that he was not aware of anything and never once
stirred.

When the wolf at length had had his fill of sleep, he got on his legs,
and as the stones in his stomach made him very thirsty, he wanted to
go to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and to move about, the
stones in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled. Then cried
he:

 ‘What rumbles and tumbles
  Against my poor bones?
  I thought ‘twas six kids,
  But it feels like big stones.’

And when he got to the well and stooped over the water to drink, the
heavy stones made him fall in, and he drowned miserably. When the seven
kids saw that, they came running to the spot and cried aloud: ‘The wolf
is dead! The wolf is dead!’ and danced for joy round about the well with
their mother.




THE QUEEN BEE


Two kings’ sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their
fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so
that they could not return home again. Then their brother, who was a
little insignificant dwarf, went out to seek for his brothers: but when
he had found them they only laughed at him, to think that he, who was so
young and simple, should try to travel through the world, when they, who
were so much wiser, had been unable to get on. However, they all set
out on their journey together, and came at last to an ant-hill. The two
elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor
ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs. But the
little dwarf said, ‘Let the poor things enjoy themselves, I will not
suffer you to trouble them.’

So on they went, and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming
about. The two brothers wanted to catch two, and roast them. But the
dwarf said, ‘Let the poor things enjoy themselves, you shall not kill
them.’ Next they came to a bees’-nest in a hollow tree, and there was
so much honey that it ran down the trunk; and the two brothers wanted to
light a fire under the tree and kill the bees, so as to get their honey.
But the dwarf held them back, and said, ‘Let the pretty insects enjoy
themselves, I cannot let you burn them.’

At length the three brothers came to a castle: and as they passed by the
stables they saw fine horses standing there, but all were of marble, and
no man was to be seen. Then they went through all the rooms, till they
came to a door on which were three locks: but in the middle of the door
was a wicket, so that they could look into the next room. There they saw
a little grey old man sitting at a table; and they called to him once or
twice, but he did not hear: however, they called a third time, and then
he rose and came out to them.

He said nothing, but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful
table covered with all sorts of good things: and when they had eaten and
drunk, he showed each of them to a bed-chamber.

The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table,
where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by
which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said: ‘In the
wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king’s
daughter; they must all be found: and if one be missing by set of sun,
he who seeks them will be turned into marble.’

The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day:
but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred: so he was
turned into stone as the tablet had foretold.

The next day the second brother undertook the task; but he succeeded no
better than the first; for he could only find the second hundred of the
pearls; and therefore he too was turned into stone.

At last came the little dwarf’s turn; and he looked in the moss; but it
was so hard to find the pearls, and the job was so tiresome!--so he sat
down upon a stone and cried. And as he sat there, the king of the ants
(whose life he had saved) came to help him, with five thousand ants; and
it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a
heap.

The second tablet said: ‘The key of the princess’s bed-chamber must be
fished up out of the lake.’ And as the dwarf came to the brink of it,
he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about; and they
dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom.

The third task was the hardest. It was to choose out the youngest and
the best of the king’s three daughters. Now they were all beautiful, and
all exactly alike: but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of
sugar, the next some sweet syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey;
so he was to guess which it was that had eaten the honey.

Then came the queen of the bees, who had been saved by the little dwarf
from the fire, and she tried the lips of all three; but at last she sat
upon the lips of the one that had eaten the honey: and so the dwarf knew
which was the youngest. Thus the spell was broken, and all who had been
turned into stones awoke, and took their proper forms. And the dwarf
married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after
her father’s death; but his two brothers married the other two sisters.




THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER


There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest:
but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he
had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of
shoes.

Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up the next day, meaning
to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and
his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed,
left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after
he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work; when, to his
great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The
good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening.
He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the
whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece.

The same day a customer came in, and the shoes suited him so well that
he willingly paid a price higher than usual for them; and the poor
shoemaker, with the money, bought leather enough to make two pairs more.
In the evening he cut out the work, and went to bed early, that he might
get up and begin betimes next day; but he was saved all the trouble, for
when he got up in the morning the work was done ready to his hand. Soon
in came buyers, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought
leather enough for four pair more. He cut out the work again overnight
and found it done in the morning, as before; and so it went on for some
time: what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and
the good man soon became thriving and well off again.

One evening, about Christmas-time, as he and his wife were sitting over
the fire chatting together, he said to her, ‘I should like to sit up and
watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for
me.’ The wife liked the thought; so they left a light burning, and hid
themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up
there, and watched what would happen.

As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and
they sat themselves upon the shoemaker’s bench, took up all the work
that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching
and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all
wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the
job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table.
This was long before daybreak; and then they bustled away as quick as
lightning.

The next day the wife said to the shoemaker. ‘These little wights have
made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good
turn if we can. I am quite sorry to see them run about as they do; and
indeed it is not very decent, for they have nothing upon their backs to
keep off the cold. I’ll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt,
and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain; and
do you make each of them a little pair of shoes.’

The thought pleased the good cobbler very much; and one evening, when
all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the
work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to
watch what the little elves would do.

About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the
room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they
saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed
mightily delighted.

Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and
capered and sprang about, as merry as could be; till at last they danced
out at the door, and away over the green.

The good couple saw them no more; but everything went well with them
from that time forward, as long as they lived.




THE JUNIPER-TREE


Long, long ago, some two thousand years or so, there lived a rich
man with a good and beautiful wife. They loved each other dearly, but
sorrowed much that they had no children. So greatly did they desire
to have one, that the wife prayed for it day and night, but still they
remained childless.

In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a juniper-tree.
One winter’s day the wife stood under the tree to peel some apples, and
as she was peeling them, she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the
snow. ‘Ah,’ sighed the woman heavily, ‘if I had but a child, as red as
blood and as white as snow,’ and as she spoke the words, her heart grew
light within her, and it seemed to her that her wish was granted, and
she returned to the house feeling glad and comforted. A month passed,
and the snow had all disappeared; then another month went by, and all
the earth was green. So the months followed one another, and first the
trees budded in the woods, and soon the green branches grew thickly
intertwined, and then the blossoms began to fall. Once again the wife
stood under the juniper-tree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her
heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that
she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and
she was glad and at peace; but when they were fully ripe she picked the
berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little
while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. ‘If I
die, bury me under the juniper-tree.’ Then she felt comforted and happy
again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and
when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy
was so great that she died.

Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree, and wept bitterly for
her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he
still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later
on he married again.

He now had a little daughter born to him; the child of his first wife
was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother
loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked
at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in
the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could
get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession
of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She
drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the
poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left
school to the time he went back.

One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the
store-room, and said, ‘Mother, give me an apple.’ ‘Yes, my child,’ said
the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest; the chest
had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock.

‘Mother,’ said the little daughter again, ‘may not brother have one
too?’ The mother was angry at this, but she answered, ‘Yes, when he
comes out of school.’

Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed
as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out
of her little daughter’s hand, and said, ‘You shall not have one before
your brother.’ She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The
little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say
kindly to him, ‘My son, will you have an apple?’ but she gave him a
wicked look. ‘Mother,’ said the boy, ‘how dreadful you look! Yes, give
me an apple.’ The thought came to her that she would kill him. ‘Come
with me,’ she said, and she lifted up the lid of the chest; ‘take one
out for yourself.’ And as he bent over to do so, the evil spirit urged
her, and crash! down went the lid, and off went the little boy’s head.
Then she was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of what she had done.
‘If only I can prevent anyone knowing that I did it,’ she thought. So
she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of
her top drawer; then she set the boy’s head again on his shoulders, and
bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed
him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand.

Soon after this, little Marleen came up to her mother who was stirring
a pot of boiling water over the fire, and said, ‘Mother, brother is
sitting by the door with an apple in his hand, and he looks so pale;
and when I asked him to give me the apple, he did not answer, and that
frightened me.’

‘Go to him again,’ said her mother, ‘and if he does not answer, give him
a box on the ear.’ So little Marleen went, and said, ‘Brother, give me
that apple,’ but he did not say a word; then she gave him a box on the
ear, and his head rolled off. She was so terrified at this, that she ran
crying and screaming to her mother. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I have knocked off
brother’s head,’ and then she wept and wept, and nothing would stop her.

‘What have you done!’ said her mother, ‘but no one must know about it,
so you must keep silence; what is done can’t be undone; we will make
him into puddings.’ And she took the little boy and cut him up, made him
into puddings, and put him in the pot. But Marleen stood looking on,
and wept and wept, and her tears fell into the pot, so that there was no
need of salt.

Presently the father came home and sat down to his dinner; he asked,
‘Where is my son?’ The mother said nothing, but gave him a large dish of
black pudding, and Marleen still wept without ceasing.

The father again asked, ‘Where is my son?’

‘Oh,’ answered the wife, ‘he is gone into the country to his mother’s
great uncle; he is going to stay there some time.’

‘What has he gone there for, and he never even said goodbye to me!’

‘Well, he likes being there, and he told me he should be away quite six
weeks; he is well looked after there.’

‘I feel very unhappy about it,’ said the husband, ‘in case it should not
be all right, and he ought to have said goodbye to me.’

With this he went on with his dinner, and said, ‘Little Marleen, why do
you weep? Brother will soon be back.’ Then he asked his wife for more
pudding, and as he ate, he threw the bones under the table.

Little Marleen went upstairs and took her best silk handkerchief out of
her bottom drawer, and in it she wrapped all the bones from under the
table and carried them outside, and all the time she did nothing but
weep. Then she laid them in the green grass under the juniper-tree, and
she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her,
and she wept no more. And now the juniper-tree began to move, and the
branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and
then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for
joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there
was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful
bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it
could no more be seen, the juniper-tree stood there as before, and the
silk handkerchief and the bones were gone.

Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were
still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to
the table and ate.

The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to
sing:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the
song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got
up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his
slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on
one foot and a sock on the other; he still had on his apron, and still
held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing
up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street.

‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.’

‘Nay,’ said the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold
chain, and I will sing it you again.’

‘Here is the chain, take it,’ said the goldsmith. ‘Only sing me that
again.’

The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then
he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker’s house and
sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his
shirt-sleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his
hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun.

‘Bird,’ he said, ‘how beautifully you sing!’ Then he called through the
door to his wife: ‘Wife, come out; here is a bird, come and look at it
and hear how beautifully it sings.’ Then he called his daughter and the
children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all ran up the
street to look at the bird, and saw how splendid it was with its red
and green feathers, and its neck like burnished gold, and eyes like two
bright stars in its head.

‘Bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘sing me that song again.’

‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; you must
give me something.’

‘Wife,’ said the man, ‘go into the garret; on the upper shelf you will
see a pair of red shoes; bring them to me.’ The wife went in and fetched
the shoes.

‘There, bird,’ said the shoemaker, ‘now sing me that song again.’

The bird flew down and took the red shoes in his left claw, and then he
went back to the roof and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

When he had finished, he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw
and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the
mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click clack.’ Inside the mill were
twenty of the miller’s men hewing a stone, and as they went ‘Hick hack,
hick hack, hick hack,’ the mill went ‘Click clack, click clack, click
clack.’

The bird settled on a lime-tree in front of the mill and sang:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;

then one of the men left off,

  My father grieved when I was gone;

two more men left off and listened,

  My sister loved me best of all;

then four more left off,

  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie

now there were only eight at work,

  Underneath

And now only five,

  the juniper-tree.

And now only one,

  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

then he looked up and the last one had left off work.

‘Bird,’ he said, ‘what a beautiful song that is you sing! Let me hear it
too; sing it again.’

‘Nay,’ answered the bird, ‘I do not sing twice for nothing; give me that
millstone, and I will sing it again.’

‘If it belonged to me alone,’ said the man, ‘you should have it.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the others: ‘if he will sing again, he can have it.’

The bird came down, and all the twenty millers set to and lifted up the
stone with a beam; then the bird put his head through the hole and took
the stone round his neck like a collar, and flew back with it to the
tree and sang--

 ‘My mother killed her little son;
  My father grieved when I was gone;
  My sister loved me best of all;
  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie
  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

And when he had finished his song, he spread his wings, and with the
chain in his right claw, the shoes in his left, and the millstone round
his neck, he flew right away to his father’s house.

The father, the mother, and little Marleen were having their dinner.

‘How lighthearted I feel,’ said the father, ‘so pleased and cheerful.’

‘And I,’ said the mother, ‘I feel so uneasy, as if a heavy thunderstorm
were coming.’

But little Marleen sat and wept and wept.

Then the bird came flying towards the house and settled on the roof.

‘I do feel so happy,’ said the father, ‘and how beautifully the sun
shines; I feel just as if I were going to see an old friend again.’

‘Ah!’ said the wife, ‘and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that
my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,’ and
she tore open her dress; and all the while little Marleen sat in the
corner and wept, and the plate on her knees was wet with her tears.

The bird now flew to the juniper-tree and began singing:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;

the mother shut her eyes and her ears, that she might see and hear
nothing, but there was a roaring sound in her ears like that of a
violent storm, and in her eyes a burning and flashing like lightning:

  My father grieved when I was gone;

‘Look, mother,’ said the man, ‘at the beautiful bird that is singing so
magnificently; and how warm and bright the sun is, and what a delicious
scent of spice in the air!’

  My sister loved me best of all;

then little Marleen laid her head down on her knees and sobbed.

‘I must go outside and see the bird nearer,’ said the man.

‘Ah, do not go!’ cried the wife. ‘I feel as if the whole house were in
flames!’

But the man went out and looked at the bird.

 She laid her kerchief over me,
 And took my bones that they might lie
 Underneath the juniper-tree
 Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

With that the bird let fall the gold chain, and it fell just round the
man’s neck, so that it fitted him exactly.

He went inside, and said, ‘See, what a splendid bird that is; he has
given me this beautiful gold chain, and looks so beautiful himself.’

But the wife was in such fear and trouble, that she fell on the floor,
and her cap fell from her head.

Then the bird began again:

 ‘My mother killed her little son;

‘Ah me!’ cried the wife, ‘if I were but a thousand feet beneath the
earth, that I might not hear that song.’

  My father grieved when I was gone;

then the woman fell down again as if dead.

  My sister loved me best of all;

‘Well,’ said little Marleen, ‘I will go out too and see if the bird will
give me anything.’

So she went out.

  She laid her kerchief over me,
  And took my bones that they might lie

and he threw down the shoes to her,

  Underneath the juniper-tree
  Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!’

And she now felt quite happy and lighthearted; she put on the shoes and
danced and jumped about in them. ‘I was so miserable,’ she said, ‘when I
came out, but that has all passed away; that is indeed a splendid bird,
and he has given me a pair of red shoes.’

The wife sprang up, with her hair standing out from her head like flames
of fire. ‘Then I will go out too,’ she said, ‘and see if it will lighten
my misery, for I feel as if the world were coming to an end.’

But as she crossed the threshold, crash! the bird threw the millstone
down on her head, and she was crushed to death.

The father and little Marleen heard the sound and ran out, but they only
saw mist and flame and fire rising from the spot, and when these had
passed, there stood the little brother, and he took the father and
little Marleen by the hand; then they all three rejoiced, and went
inside together and sat down to their dinners and ate.




THE TURNIP


There were two brothers who were both soldiers; the one was rich and
the other poor. The poor man thought he would try to better himself; so,
pulling off his red coat, he became a gardener, and dug his ground well,
and sowed turnips.

When the seed came up, there was one plant bigger than all the rest; and
it kept getting larger and larger, and seemed as if it would never cease
growing; so that it might have been called the prince of turnips for
there never was such a one seen before, and never will again. At last it
was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and
the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it
would be a blessing or a curse to him. One day he said to himself, ‘What
shall I do with it? if I sell it, it will bring no more than another;
and for eating, the little turnips are better than this; the best thing
perhaps is to carry it and give it to the king as a mark of respect.’

Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it
to the king. ‘What a wonderful thing!’ said the king; ‘I have seen many
strange things, but such a monster as this I never saw. Where did you
get the seed? or is it only your good luck? If so, you are a true child
of fortune.’ ‘Ah, no!’ answered the gardener, ‘I am no child of fortune;
I am a poor soldier, who never could get enough to live upon; so I
laid aside my red coat, and set to work, tilling the ground. I have a
brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world
knows him; but because I am poor, everybody forgets me.’

The king then took pity on him, and said, ‘You shall be poor no
longer. I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your
brother.’ Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so
rich that his brother’s fortune could not at all be compared with his.

When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the
gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he
could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he
determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a
rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he must
have a much larger gift in return; for if his brother had received so
much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth?

The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to
give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip; so
the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him.
When he reached home, he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite;
and at length wicked thoughts came into his head, and he resolved to
kill his brother.

So he hired some villains to murder him; and having shown them where to
lie in ambush, he went to his brother, and said, ‘Dear brother, I have
found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between
us.’ The other had no suspicions of his roguery: so they went out
together, and as they were travelling along, the murderers rushed out
upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree.

But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a
horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their
prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a
cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away. Meantime
he worked and worked away, till he made a hole large enough to put out
his head.

When the horseman came up, he proved to be a student, a merry fellow,
who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as
the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, ‘Good
morning! good morning to thee, my friend!’ The student looked about
everywhere; and seeing no one, and not knowing where the voice came
from, cried out, ‘Who calls me?’

Then the man in the tree answered, ‘Lift up thine eyes, for behold here
I sit in the sack of wisdom; here have I, in a short time, learned great
and wondrous things. Compared to this seat, all the learning of the
schools is as empty air. A little longer, and I shall know all that man
can know, and shall come forth wiser than the wisest of mankind. Here
I discern the signs and motions of the heavens and the stars; the laws
that control the winds; the number of the sands on the seashore; the
healing of the sick; the virtues of all simples, of birds, and of
precious stones. Wert thou but once here, my friend, though wouldst feel
and own the power of knowledge.

The student listened to all this and wondered much; at last he said,
‘Blessed be the day and hour when I found you; cannot you contrive to
let me into the sack for a little while?’ Then the other answered, as if
very unwillingly, ‘A little space I may allow thee to sit here, if thou
wilt reward me well and entreat me kindly; but thou must tarry yet an
hour below, till I have learnt some little matters that are yet unknown
to me.’

So the student sat himself down and waited a while; but the time hung
heavy upon him, and he begged earnestly that he might ascend forthwith,
for his thirst for knowledge was great. Then the other pretended to give
way, and said, ‘Thou must let the sack of wisdom descend, by untying
yonder cord, and then thou shalt enter.’ So the student let him down,
opened the sack, and set him free. ‘Now then,’ cried he, ‘let me ascend
quickly.’ As he began to put himself into the sack heels first, ‘Wait a
while,’ said the gardener, ‘that is not the way.’ Then he pushed him
in head first, tied up the sack, and soon swung up the searcher after
wisdom dangling in the air. ‘How is it with thee, friend?’ said he,
‘dost thou not feel that wisdom comes unto thee? Rest there in peace,
till thou art a wiser man than thou wert.’

So saying, he trotted off on the student’s nag, and left the poor fellow
to gather wisdom till somebody should come and let him down.




CLEVER HANS


The mother of Hans said: ‘Whither away, Hans?’ Hans answered: ‘To
Gretel.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh, I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’
‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day,
Hans. What do you bring that is good?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want to have
something given me.’ Gretel presents Hans with a needle, Hans says:
‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’

Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay-cart, and follows the cart
home. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’
‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘Took nothing; had something
given me.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a needle.’ ‘Where is the
needle, Hans?’ ‘Stuck in the hay-cart.’ ‘That was ill done, Hans. You
should have stuck the needle in your sleeve.’ ‘Never mind, I’ll do
better next time.’

‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh,
I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to
Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What do you bring that is
good?’ ‘I bring nothing. I want to have something given to me.’ Gretel
presents Hans with a knife. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans
takes the knife, sticks it in his sleeve, and goes home. ‘Good evening,
mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ What
did you take her?’ ‘Took her nothing, she gave me something.’ ‘What did
Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a knife.’ ‘Where is the knife, Hans?’ ‘Stuck
in my sleeve.’ ‘That’s ill done, Hans, you should have put the knife in
your pocket.’ ‘Never mind, will do better next time.’

‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh,
I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to
Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good thing do you
bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want something given me.’ Gretel presents
Hans with a young goat. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans takes
the goat, ties its legs, and puts it in his pocket. When he gets home it
is suffocated. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have
you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘Took nothing, she
gave me something.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘She gave me a goat.’
‘Where is the goat, Hans?’ ‘Put it in my pocket.’ ‘That was ill done,
Hans, you should have put a rope round the goat’s neck.’ ‘Never mind,
will do better next time.’

‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘Oh,
I’ll behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to
Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good thing do you
bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, I want something given me.’ Gretel presents
Hans with a piece of bacon. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’

Hans takes the bacon, ties it to a rope, and drags it away behind him.
The dogs come and devour the bacon. When he gets home, he has the rope
in his hand, and there is no longer anything hanging on to it. ‘Good
evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With
Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘I took her nothing, she gave me
something.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘Gave me a bit of bacon.’ ‘Where
is the bacon, Hans?’ ‘I tied it to a rope, brought it home, dogs took
it.’ ‘That was ill done, Hans, you should have carried the bacon on your
head.’ ‘Never mind, will do better next time.’

‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘I’ll
behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’ Hans comes to Gretel.
‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans, What good thing do you bring?’ ‘I
bring nothing, but would have something given.’ Gretel presents Hans
with a calf. ‘Goodbye, Gretel.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’

Hans takes the calf, puts it on his head, and the calf kicks his face.
‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With
Gretel.’ ‘What did you take her?’ ‘I took nothing, but had something
given me.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘A calf.’ ‘Where have you the
calf, Hans?’ ‘I set it on my head and it kicked my face.’ ‘That was
ill done, Hans, you should have led the calf, and put it in the stall.’
‘Never mind, will do better next time.’

‘Whither away, Hans?’ ‘To Gretel, mother.’ ‘Behave well, Hans.’ ‘I’ll
behave well. Goodbye, mother.’ ‘Goodbye, Hans.’

Hans comes to Gretel. ‘Good day, Gretel.’ ‘Good day, Hans. What good
thing do you bring?’ ‘I bring nothing, but would have something given.’
Gretel says to Hans: ‘I will go with you.’

Hans takes Gretel, ties her to a rope, leads her to the rack, and binds
her fast. Then Hans goes to his mother. ‘Good evening, mother.’ ‘Good
evening, Hans. Where have you been?’ ‘With Gretel.’ ‘What did you take
her?’ ‘I took her nothing.’ ‘What did Gretel give you?’ ‘She gave me
nothing, she came with me.’ ‘Where have you left Gretel?’ ‘I led her by
the rope, tied her to the rack, and scattered some grass for her.’ ‘That
was ill done, Hans, you should have cast friendly eyes on her.’ ‘Never
mind, will do better.’

Hans went into the stable, cut out all the calves’ and sheep’s eyes,
and threw them in Gretel’s face. Then Gretel became angry, tore herself
loose and ran away, and was no longer the bride of Hans.




THE THREE LANGUAGES


An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he
was stupid, and could learn nothing. Then said the father: ‘Hark you,
my son, try as I will I can get nothing into your head. You must go from
hence, I will give you into the care of a celebrated master, who shall
see what he can do with you.’ The youth was sent into a strange town,
and remained a whole year with the master. At the end of this time,
he came home again, and his father asked: ‘Now, my son, what have you
learnt?’ ‘Father, I have learnt what the dogs say when they bark.’ ‘Lord
have mercy on us!’ cried the father; ‘is that all you have learnt? I
will send you into another town, to another master.’ The youth was taken
thither, and stayed a year with this master likewise. When he came back
the father again asked: ‘My son, what have you learnt?’ He answered:
‘Father, I have learnt what the birds say.’ Then the father fell into a
rage and said: ‘Oh, you lost man, you have spent the precious time and
learnt nothing; are you not ashamed to appear before my eyes? I will
send you to a third master, but if you learn nothing this time also, I
will no longer be your father.’ The youth remained a whole year with the
third master also, and when he came home again, and his father inquired:
‘My son, what have you learnt?’ he answered: ‘Dear father, I have this
year learnt what the frogs croak.’ Then the father fell into the most
furious anger, sprang up, called his people thither, and said: ‘This man
is no longer my son, I drive him forth, and command you to take him
out into the forest, and kill him.’ They took him forth, but when they
should have killed him, they could not do it for pity, and let him go,
and they cut the eyes and tongue out of a deer that they might carry
them to the old man as a token.

The youth wandered on, and after some time came to a fortress where he
begged for a night’s lodging. ‘Yes,’ said the lord of the castle, ‘if
you will pass the night down there in the old tower, go thither; but I
warn you, it is at the peril of your life, for it is full of wild dogs,
which bark and howl without stopping, and at certain hours a man has to
be given to them, whom they at once devour.’ The whole district was in
sorrow and dismay because of them, and yet no one could do anything to
stop this. The youth, however, was without fear, and said: ‘Just let me
go down to the barking dogs, and give me something that I can throw to
them; they will do nothing to harm me.’ As he himself would have it so,
they gave him some food for the wild animals, and led him down to the
tower. When he went inside, the dogs did not bark at him, but wagged
their tails quite amicably around him, ate what he set before them, and
did not hurt one hair of his head. Next morning, to the astonishment of
everyone, he came out again safe and unharmed, and said to the lord of
the castle: ‘The dogs have revealed to me, in their own language, why
they dwell there, and bring evil on the land. They are bewitched, and
are obliged to watch over a great treasure which is below in the tower,
and they can have no rest until it is taken away, and I have likewise
learnt, from their discourse, how that is to be done.’ Then all who
heard this rejoiced, and the lord of the castle said he would adopt him
as a son if he accomplished it successfully. He went down again, and
as he knew what he had to do, he did it thoroughly, and brought a chest
full of gold out with him. The howling of the wild dogs was henceforth
heard no more; they had disappeared, and the country was freed from the
trouble.

After some time he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On
the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting
croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they
were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in
Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among
the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor. They at
length agreed that the person should be chosen as pope who should be
distinguished by some divine and miraculous token. And just as that was
decided on, the young count entered into the church, and suddenly two
snow-white doves flew on his shoulders and remained sitting there. The
ecclesiastics recognized therein the token from above, and asked him on
the spot if he would be pope. He was undecided, and knew not if he were
worthy of this, but the doves counselled him to do it, and at length he
said yes. Then was he anointed and consecrated, and thus was fulfilled
what he had heard from the frogs on his way, which had so affected him,
that he was to be his Holiness the Pope. Then he had to sing a mass, and
did not know one word of it, but the two doves sat continually on his
shoulders, and said it all in his ear.




THE FOX AND THE CAT


It happened that the cat met the fox in a forest, and as she thought to
herself: ‘He is clever and full of experience, and much esteemed in the
world,’ she spoke to him in a friendly way. ‘Good day, dear Mr Fox,
how are you? How is all with you? How are you getting on in these hard
times?’ The fox, full of all kinds of arrogance, looked at the cat from
head to foot, and for a long time did not know whether he would give
any answer or not. At last he said: ‘Oh, you wretched beard-cleaner, you
piebald fool, you hungry mouse-hunter, what can you be thinking of? Have
you the cheek to ask how I am getting on? What have you learnt? How
many arts do you understand?’ ‘I understand but one,’ replied the
cat, modestly. ‘What art is that?’ asked the fox. ‘When the hounds are
following me, I can spring into a tree and save myself.’ ‘Is that all?’
said the fox. ‘I am master of a hundred arts, and have into the bargain
a sackful of cunning. You make me sorry for you; come with me, I will
teach you how people get away from the hounds.’ Just then came a hunter
with four dogs. The cat sprang nimbly up a tree, and sat down at the top
of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. ‘Open your
sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,’ cried the cat to him, but the dogs had
already seized him, and were holding him fast. ‘Ah, Mr Fox,’ cried the
cat. ‘You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been
able to climb like me, you would not have lost your life.’




THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS


‘Dear children,’ said a poor man to his four sons, ‘I have nothing to
give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin
by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.’ So the
four brothers took their walking-sticks in their hands, and their little
bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went
all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came
to four crossways, each leading to a different country. Then the eldest
said, ‘Here we must part; but this day four years we will come back
to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for
himself.’

So each brother went his way; and as the eldest was hastening on a man
met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. ‘I am
going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning
some art or trade,’ answered he. ‘Then,’ said the man, ‘go with me, and
I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.’ ‘No,’
said the other, ‘that is not an honest calling, and what can one look
to earn by it in the end but the gallows?’ ‘Oh!’ said the man, ‘you need
not fear the gallows; for I will only teach you to steal what will be
fair game: I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care
anything about, and where no one can find you out.’ So the young man
agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that
nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon.

The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was
setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. ‘I do not
know yet,’ said he. ‘Then come with me, and be a star-gazer. It is a
noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand
the stars.’ The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful
star-gazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave
his master, he gave him a glass, and said, ‘With this you can see all
that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from
you.’

The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him
so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the
craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and
said, ‘Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.’

The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to
do. ‘Would not you like,’ said he, ‘to be a tailor?’ ‘Oh, no!’ said
the young man; ‘sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working
backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.’
‘Oh!’ answered the man, ‘that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me,
and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.’ Not knowing
what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the
beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said,
‘You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as
steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.’

After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four
brothers met at the four cross-roads; and having welcomed each other,
set off towards their father’s home, where they told him all that had
happened to them, and how each had learned some craft.

Then, one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high
tree, the father said, ‘I should like to try what each of you can do in
this way.’ So he looked up, and said to the second son, ‘At the top of
this tree there is a chaffinch’s nest; tell me how many eggs there are
in it.’ The star-gazer took his glass, looked up, and said, ‘Five.’
‘Now,’ said the father to the eldest son, ‘take away the eggs without
letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them know
anything of what you are doing.’ So the cunning thief climbed up the
tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird;
and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at its
ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the
table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, ‘Cut all
the eggs in two pieces at one shot.’ The huntsman took up his bow, and
at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished.

‘Now comes your turn,’ said he to the young tailor; ‘sew the eggs and
the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall
have done them no harm.’ Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed the
eggs as he was told; and when he had done, the thief was sent to take
them back to the nest, and put them under the bird without its knowing
it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them: and in a few days they
crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks, where
the tailor had sewn them together.

‘Well done, sons!’ said the old man; ‘you have made good use of your
time, and learnt something worth the knowing; but I am sure I do not
know which ought to have the prize. Oh, that a time might soon come for
you to turn your skill to some account!’

Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country; for the
king’s daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king
mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever
brought her back to him should have her for a wife. Then the four
brothers said to each other, ‘Here is a chance for us; let us try
what we can do.’ And they agreed to see whether they could not set the
princess free. ‘I will soon find out where she is, however,’ said the
star-gazer, as he looked through his glass; and he soon cried out, ‘I
see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the
dragon close by, guarding her.’ Then he went to the king, and asked for
a ship for himself and his brothers; and they sailed together over the
sea, till they came to the right place. There they found the princess
sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock; and the dragon was
lying asleep, with his head upon her lap. ‘I dare not shoot at him,’
said the huntsman, ‘for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.’
‘Then I will try my skill,’ said the thief, and went and stole her away
from under the dragon, so quietly and gently that the beast did not know
it, but went on snoring.

Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the
ship; but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air; for
he awoke and missed the princess. But when he got over the boat, and
wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took
up his bow and shot him straight through the heart so that he fell down
dead. They were still not safe; for he was such a great beast that in
his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea
upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large
stitches put some of the planks together; and he sat down upon these,
and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat; and then tacked
them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then
reached the ship and got home safe.

When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great
rejoicing; and he said to the four brothers, ‘One of you shall marry
her, but you must settle amongst yourselves which it is to be.’ Then
there arose a quarrel between them; and the star-gazer said, ‘If I had
not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use;
therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘Your seeing her would have been of
no use,’ said the thief, ‘if I had not taken her away from the dragon;
therefore she ought to be mine.’ ‘No, she is mine,’ said the huntsman;
‘for if I had not killed the dragon, he would, after all, have torn you
and the princess into pieces.’ ‘And if I had not sewn the boat together
again,’ said the tailor, ‘you would all have been drowned, therefore she
is mine.’ Then the king put in a word, and said, ‘Each of you is right;
and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for neither of
you to have her: for the truth is, there is somebody she likes a great
deal better. But to make up for your loss, I will give each of you, as a
reward for his skill, half a kingdom.’ So the brothers agreed that this
plan would be much better than either quarrelling or marrying a lady who
had no mind to have them. And the king then gave to each half a kingdom,
as he had said; and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and
took good care of their father; and somebody took better care of the
young lady, than to let either the dragon or one of the craftsmen have
her again.




LILY AND THE LION


A merchant, who had three daughters, was once setting out upon a
journey; but before he went he asked each daughter what gift he should
bring back for her. The eldest wished for pearls; the second for jewels;
but the third, who was called Lily, said, ‘Dear father, bring me a
rose.’ Now it was no easy task to find a rose, for it was the middle
of winter; yet as she was his prettiest daughter, and was very fond of
flowers, her father said he would try what he could do. So he kissed all
three, and bid them goodbye.

And when the time came for him to go home, he had bought pearls and
jewels for the two eldest, but he had sought everywhere in vain for the
rose; and when he went into any garden and asked for such a thing, the
people laughed at him, and asked him whether he thought roses grew in
snow. This grieved him very much, for Lily was his dearest child; and as
he was journeying home, thinking what he should bring her, he came to a
fine castle; and around the castle was a garden, in one half of which it
seemed to be summer-time and in the other half winter. On one side the
finest flowers were in full bloom, and on the other everything looked
dreary and buried in the snow. ‘A lucky hit!’ said he, as he called to
his servant, and told him to go to a beautiful bed of roses that was
there, and bring him away one of the finest flowers.

This done, they were riding away well pleased, when up sprang a fierce
lion, and roared out, ‘Whoever has stolen my roses shall be eaten up
alive!’ Then the man said, ‘I knew not that the garden belonged to you;
can nothing save my life?’ ‘No!’ said the lion, ‘nothing, unless you
undertake to give me whatever meets you on your return home; if you
agree to this, I will give you your life, and the rose too for your
daughter.’ But the man was unwilling to do so and said, ‘It may be my
youngest daughter, who loves me most, and always runs to meet me when
I go home.’ Then the servant was greatly frightened, and said, ‘It may
perhaps be only a cat or a dog.’ And at last the man yielded with a
heavy heart, and took the rose; and said he would give the lion whatever
should meet him first on his return.

And as he came near home, it was Lily, his youngest and dearest
daughter, that met him; she came running, and kissed him, and welcomed
him home; and when she saw that he had brought her the rose, she was
still more glad. But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep,
saying, ‘Alas, my dearest child! I have bought this flower at a high
price, for I have said I would give you to a wild lion; and when he has
you, he will tear you in pieces, and eat you.’ Then he told her all that
had happened, and said she should not go, let what would happen.

But she comforted him, and said, ‘Dear father, the word you have given
must be kept; I will go to the lion, and soothe him: perhaps he will let
me come safe home again.’

The next morning she asked the way she was to go, and took leave of her
father, and went forth with a bold heart into the wood. But the lion was
an enchanted prince. By day he and all his court were lions, but in the
evening they took their right forms again. And when Lily came to the
castle, he welcomed her so courteously that she agreed to marry him. The
wedding-feast was held, and they lived happily together a long time. The
prince was only to be seen as soon as evening came, and then he held his
court; but every morning he left his bride, and went away by himself,
she knew not whither, till the night came again.

After some time he said to her, ‘Tomorrow there will be a great feast in
your father’s house, for your eldest sister is to be married; and if
you wish to go and visit her my lions shall lead you thither.’ Then she
rejoiced much at the thoughts of seeing her father once more, and set
out with the lions; and everyone was overjoyed to see her, for they had
thought her dead long since. But she told them how happy she was, and
stayed till the feast was over, and then went back to the wood.

Her second sister was soon after married, and when Lily was asked to
go to the wedding, she said to the prince, ‘I will not go alone this
time--you must go with me.’ But he would not, and said that it would be
a very hazardous thing; for if the least ray of the torch-light should
fall upon him his enchantment would become still worse, for he should be
changed into a dove, and be forced to wander about the world for seven
long years. However, she gave him no rest, and said she would take care
no light should fall upon him. So at last they set out together, and
took with them their little child; and she chose a large hall with thick
walls for him to sit in while the wedding-torches were lighted; but,
unluckily, no one saw that there was a crack in the door. Then the
wedding was held with great pomp, but as the train came from the church,
and passed with the torches before the hall, a very small ray of light
fell upon the prince. In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came
in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her,
‘Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but
every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you
the way I am going; follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me
free.’

This said, he flew out at the door, and poor Lily followed; and every
now and then a white feather fell, and showed her the way she was to
journey. Thus she went roving on through the wide world, and looked
neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor took any rest, for seven
years. Then she began to be glad, and thought to herself that the time
was fast coming when all her troubles should end; yet repose was still
far off, for one day as she was travelling on she missed the white
feather, and when she lifted up her eyes she could nowhere see the dove.
‘Now,’ thought she to herself, ‘no aid of man can be of use to me.’ So
she went to the sun and said, ‘Thou shinest everywhere, on the hill’s
top and the valley’s depth--hast thou anywhere seen my white dove?’
‘No,’ said the sun, ‘I have not seen it; but I will give thee a
casket--open it when thy hour of need comes.’

So she thanked the sun, and went on her way till eventide; and when
the moon arose, she cried unto it, and said, ‘Thou shinest through the
night, over field and grove--hast thou nowhere seen my white dove?’
‘No,’ said the moon, ‘I cannot help thee but I will give thee an
egg--break it when need comes.’

Then she thanked the moon, and went on till the night-wind blew; and she
raised up her voice to it, and said, ‘Thou blowest through every tree
and under every leaf--hast thou not seen my white dove?’ ‘No,’ said the
night-wind, ‘but I will ask three other winds; perhaps they have seen
it.’ Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said they too had
not seen it, but the south wind said, ‘I have seen the white dove--he
has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into a lion, for the
seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting with a dragon;
and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to separate him from
you.’ Then the night-wind said, ‘I will give thee counsel. Go to the
Red Sea; on the right shore stand many rods--count them, and when thou
comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite the dragon with it; and
so the lion will have the victory, and both of them will appear to you
in their own forms. Then look round and thou wilt see a griffin, winged
like bird, sitting by the Red Sea; jump on to his back with thy beloved
one as quickly as possible, and he will carry you over the waters to
your home. I will also give thee this nut,’ continued the night-wind.
‘When you are half-way over, throw it down, and out of the waters will
immediately spring up a high nut-tree on which the griffin will be able
to rest, otherwise he would not have the strength to bear you the whole
way; if, therefore, thou dost forget to throw down the nut, he will let
you both fall into the sea.’

So our poor wanderer went forth, and found all as the night-wind had
said; and she plucked the eleventh rod, and smote the dragon, and the
lion forthwith became a prince, and the dragon a princess again. But
no sooner was the princess released from the spell, than she seized
the prince by the arm and sprang on to the griffin’s back, and went off
carrying the prince away with her.

Thus the unhappy traveller was again forsaken and forlorn; but she
took heart and said, ‘As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock
crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.’ She went on for
a long, long way, till at length she came to the castle whither the
princess had carried the prince; and there was a feast got ready, and
she heard that the wedding was about to be held. ‘Heaven aid me now!’
said she; and she took the casket that the sun had given her, and found
that within it lay a dress as dazzling as the sun itself. So she put it
on, and went into the palace, and all the people gazed upon her; and
the dress pleased the bride so much that she asked whether it was to be
sold. ‘Not for gold and silver.’ said she, ‘but for flesh and blood.’
The princess asked what she meant, and she said, ‘Let me speak with the
bridegroom this night in his chamber, and I will give thee the dress.’
At last the princess agreed, but she told her chamberlain to give the
prince a sleeping draught, that he might not hear or see her. When
evening came, and the prince had fallen asleep, she was led into
his chamber, and she sat herself down at his feet, and said: ‘I have
followed thee seven years. I have been to the sun, the moon, and the
night-wind, to seek thee, and at last I have helped thee to overcome
the dragon. Wilt thou then forget me quite?’ But the prince all the time
slept so soundly, that her voice only passed over him, and seemed like
the whistling of the wind among the fir-trees.

Then poor Lily was led away, and forced to give up the golden dress; and
when she saw that there was no help for her, she went out into a meadow,
and sat herself down and wept. But as she sat she bethought herself of
the egg that the moon had given her; and when she broke it, there ran
out a hen and twelve chickens of pure gold, that played about, and then
nestled under the old one’s wings, so as to form the most beautiful
sight in the world. And she rose up and drove them before her, till the
bride saw them from her window, and was so pleased that she came forth
and asked her if she would sell the brood. ‘Not for gold or silver, but
for flesh and blood: let me again this evening speak with the bridegroom
in his chamber, and I will give thee the whole brood.’

Then the princess thought to betray her as before, and agreed to
what she asked: but when the prince went to his chamber he asked
the chamberlain why the wind had whistled so in the night. And the
chamberlain told him all--how he had given him a sleeping draught, and
how a poor maiden had come and spoken to him in his chamber, and was
to come again that night. Then the prince took care to throw away the
sleeping draught; and when Lily came and began again to tell him what
woes had befallen her, and how faithful and true to him she had been,
he knew his beloved wife’s voice, and sprang up, and said, ‘You have
awakened me as from a dream, for the strange princess had thrown a spell
around me, so that I had altogether forgotten you; but Heaven hath sent
you to me in a lucky hour.’

And they stole away out of the palace by night unawares, and seated
themselves on the griffin, who flew back with them over the Red Sea.
When they were half-way across Lily let the nut fall into the water,
and immediately a large nut-tree arose from the sea, whereon the griffin
rested for a while, and then carried them safely home. There they found
their child, now grown up to be comely and fair; and after all their
troubles they lived happily together to the end of their days.




THE FOX AND THE HORSE


A farmer had a horse that had been an excellent faithful servant to
him: but he was now grown too old to work; so the farmer would give him
nothing more to eat, and said, ‘I want you no longer, so take yourself
off out of my stable; I shall not take you back again until you are
stronger than a lion.’ Then he opened the door and turned him adrift.

The poor horse was very melancholy, and wandered up and down in the
wood, seeking some little shelter from the cold wind and rain. Presently
a fox met him: ‘What’s the matter, my friend?’ said he, ‘why do you hang
down your head and look so lonely and woe-begone?’ ‘Ah!’ replied the
horse, ‘justice and avarice never dwell in one house; my master has
forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I
can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become
stronger than a lion he will not take me back again; what chance can I
have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.’

However, the fox bid him be of good cheer, and said, ‘I will help you;
lie down there, stretch yourself out quite stiff, and pretend to be
dead.’ The horse did as he was told, and the fox went straight to the
lion who lived in a cave close by, and said to him, ‘A little way off
lies a dead horse; come with me and you may make an excellent meal of
his carcase.’ The lion was greatly pleased, and set off immediately; and
when they came to the horse, the fox said, ‘You will not be able to eat
him comfortably here; I’ll tell you what--I will tie you fast to
his tail, and then you can draw him to your den, and eat him at your
leisure.’

This advice pleased the lion, so he laid himself down quietly for the
fox to make him fast to the horse. But the fox managed to tie his legs
together and bound all so hard and fast that with all his strength he
could not set himself free. When the work was done, the fox clapped the
horse on the shoulder, and said, ‘Jip! Dobbin! Jip!’ Then up he sprang,
and moved off, dragging the lion behind him. The beast began to roar
and bellow, till all the birds of the wood flew away for fright; but the
horse let him sing on, and made his way quietly over the fields to his
master’s house.

‘Here he is, master,’ said he, ‘I have got the better of him’: and when
the farmer saw his old servant, his heart relented, and he said. ‘Thou
shalt stay in thy stable and be well taken care of.’ And so the poor old
horse had plenty to eat, and lived--till he died.




THE BLUE LIGHT


There was once upon a time a soldier who for many years had served the
king faithfully, but when the war came to an end could serve no longer
because of the many wounds which he had received. The king said to him:
‘You may return to your home, I need you no longer, and you will not
receive any more money, for he only receives wages who renders me
service for them.’ Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living,
went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the
evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light,
which he went up to, and came to a house wherein lived a witch. ‘Do give
me one night’s lodging, and a little to eat and drink,’ said he to
her, ‘or I shall starve.’ ‘Oho!’ she answered, ‘who gives anything to a
run-away soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you
will do what I wish.’ ‘What do you wish?’ said the soldier. ‘That you
should dig all round my garden for me, tomorrow.’ The soldier consented,
and next day laboured with all his strength, but could not finish it by
the evening. ‘I see well enough,’ said the witch, ‘that you can do no
more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for
which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood, and chop it small.’ The
soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch
proposed that he should stay one night more. ‘Tomorrow, you shall only
do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old
dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes
out, and you shall bring it up again.’ Next day the old woman took him
to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and
made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he
came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the
blue light away from him. ‘No,’ said he, perceiving her evil intention,
‘I will not give you the light until I am standing with both feet upon
the ground.’ The witch fell into a passion, let him fall again into the
well, and went away.

The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the blue
light went on burning, but of what use was that to him? He saw very well
that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully,
then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which
was still half full. ‘This shall be my last pleasure,’ thought he,
pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke. When the
smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood
before him, and said: ‘Lord, what are your commands?’ ‘What my commands
are?’ replied the soldier, quite astonished. ‘I must do everything you
bid me,’ said the little man. ‘Good,’ said the soldier; ‘then in the
first place help me out of this well.’ The little man took him by the
hand, and led him through an underground passage, but he did not forget
to take the blue light with him. On the way the dwarf showed him the
treasures which the witch had collected and hidden there, and the
soldier took as much gold as he could carry. When he was above, he said
to the little man: ‘Now go and bind the old witch, and carry her before
the judge.’ In a short time she came by like the wind, riding on a wild
tom-cat and screaming frightfully. Nor was it long before the little man
reappeared. ‘It is all done,’ said he, ‘and the witch is already hanging
on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?’ inquired the dwarf.
‘At this moment, none,’ answered the soldier; ‘you can return home, only
be at hand immediately, if I summon you.’ ‘Nothing more is needed than
that you should light your pipe at the blue light, and I will appear
before you at once.’ Thereupon he vanished from his sight.

The soldier returned to the town from which he came. He went to the
best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord
furnish him a room as handsome as possible. When it was ready and the
soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the little black manikin
and said: ‘I have served the king faithfully, but he has dismissed me,
and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.’ ‘What am I to
do?’ asked the little man. ‘Late at night, when the king’s daughter is
in bed, bring her here in her sleep, she shall do servant’s work for
me.’ The manikin said: ‘That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very
dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.’
When twelve o’clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the manikin
carried in the princess. ‘Aha! are you there?’ cried the soldier, ‘get
to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.’ When
she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair, and then he
stretched out his feet and said: ‘Pull off my boots,’ and then he
threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean
and brighten them. She, however, did everything he bade her, without
opposition, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock
crowed, the manikin carried her back to the royal palace, and laid her
in her bed.

Next morning when the princess arose she went to her father, and told
him that she had had a very strange dream. ‘I was carried through the
streets with the rapidity of lightning,’ said she, ‘and taken into a
soldier’s room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his
room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a
dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.’
‘The dream may have been true,’ said the king. ‘I will give you a piece
of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the
pocket, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and
leave a track in the streets.’ But unseen by the king, the manikin was
standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night when
the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas
certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the
crafty manikin had just before scattered peas in every street there
was. And again the princess was compelled to do servant’s work until
cock-crow.

Next morning the king sent his people out to seek the track, but it was
all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up
peas, and saying: ‘It must have rained peas, last night.’ ‘We must think
of something else,’ said the king; ‘keep your shoes on when you go to
bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide
one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it.’ The black manikin
heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to
bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no
expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found
in the soldier’s house it would go badly with him. ‘Do what I bid you,’
replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged
to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under
the bed.

Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter’s
shoe. It was found at the soldier’s, and the soldier himself, who at the
entreaty of the dwarf had gone outside the gate, was soon brought back,
and thrown into prison. In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable
things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one ducat in
his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of
his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by. The
soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to
him: ‘Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in
the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.’ His comrade ran
thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone
again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the black manikin. ‘Have no
fear,’ said the latter to his master. ‘Go wheresoever they take you, and
let them do what they will, only take the blue light with you.’ Next day
the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge
condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last
favour of the king. ‘What is it?’ asked the king. ‘That I may smoke one
more pipe on my way.’ ‘You may smoke three,’ answered the king, ‘but do
not imagine that I will spare your life.’ Then the soldier pulled out
his pipe and lighted it at the blue light, and as soon as a few wreaths
of smoke had ascended, the manikin was there with a small cudgel in his
hand, and said: ‘What does my lord command?’ ‘Strike down to earth that
false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the king who has
treated me so ill.’ Then the manikin fell on them like lightning,
darting this way and that way, and whosoever was so much as touched by
his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The king
was terrified; he threw himself on the soldier’s mercy, and merely to
be allowed to live at all, gave him his kingdom for his own, and his
daughter to wife.




THE RAVEN


There was once a queen who had a little daughter, still too young to run
alone. One day the child was very troublesome, and the mother could not
quiet it, do what she would. She grew impatient, and seeing the ravens
flying round the castle, she opened the window, and said: ‘I wish you
were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.’
Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the child in her arms was
turned into a raven, and flew away from her through the open window. The
bird took its flight to a dark wood and remained there for a long time,
and meanwhile the parents could hear nothing of their child.

Long after this, a man was making his way through the wood when he heard
a raven calling, and he followed the sound of the voice. As he drew
near, the raven said, ‘I am by birth a king’s daughter, but am now under
the spell of some enchantment; you can, however, set me free.’ ‘What
am I to do?’ he asked. She replied, ‘Go farther into the wood until you
come to a house, wherein lives an old woman; she will offer you food and
drink, but you must not take of either; if you do, you will fall into
a deep sleep, and will not be able to help me. In the garden behind the
house is a large tan-heap, and on that you must stand and watch for me.
I shall drive there in my carriage at two o’clock in the afternoon for
three successive days; the first day it will be drawn by four white, the
second by four chestnut, and the last by four black horses; but if you
fail to keep awake and I find you sleeping, I shall not be set free.’

The man promised to do all that she wished, but the raven said, ‘Alas! I
know even now that you will take something from the woman and be unable
to save me.’ The man assured her again that he would on no account touch
a thing to eat or drink.

When he came to the house and went inside, the old woman met him, and
said, ‘Poor man! how tired you are! Come in and rest and let me give you
something to eat and drink.’

‘No,’ answered the man, ‘I will neither eat not drink.’

But she would not leave him alone, and urged him saying, ‘If you will
not eat anything, at least you might take a draught of wine; one drink
counts for nothing,’ and at last he allowed himself to be persuaded, and
drank.

As it drew towards the appointed hour, he went outside into the garden
and mounted the tan-heap to await the raven. Suddenly a feeling of
fatigue came over him, and unable to resist it, he lay down for a little
while, fully determined, however, to keep awake; but in another minute
his eyes closed of their own accord, and he fell into such a deep sleep,
that all the noises in the world would not have awakened him. At two
o’clock the raven came driving along, drawn by her four white horses;
but even before she reached the spot, she said to herself, sighing, ‘I
know he has fallen asleep.’ When she entered the garden, there she found
him as she had feared, lying on the tan-heap, fast asleep. She got out
of her carriage and went to him; she called him and shook him, but it
was all in vain, he still continued sleeping.

The next day at noon, the old woman came to him again with food and
drink which he at first refused. At last, overcome by her persistent
entreaties that he would take something, he lifted the glass and drank
again.

Towards two o’clock he went into the garden and on to the tan-heap to
watch for the raven. He had not been there long before he began to feel
so tired that his limbs seemed hardly able to support him, and he could
not stand upright any longer; so again he lay down and fell fast asleep.
As the raven drove along her four chestnut horses, she said sorrowfully
to herself, ‘I know he has fallen asleep.’ She went as before to look
for him, but he slept, and it was impossible to awaken him.

The following day the old woman said to him, ‘What is this? You are not
eating or drinking anything, do you want to kill yourself?’

He answered, ‘I may not and will not either eat or drink.’

But she put down the dish of food and the glass of wine in front of him,
and when he smelt the wine, he was unable to resist the temptation, and
took a deep draught.

When the hour came round again he went as usual on to the tan-heap in
the garden to await the king’s daughter, but he felt even more overcome
with weariness than on the two previous days, and throwing himself down,
he slept like a log. At two o’clock the raven could be seen approaching,
and this time her coachman and everything about her, as well as her
horses, were black.

She was sadder than ever as she drove along, and said mournfully, ‘I
know he has fallen asleep, and will not be able to set me free.’ She
found him sleeping heavily, and all her efforts to awaken him were of no
avail. Then she placed beside him a loaf, and some meat, and a flask
of wine, of such a kind, that however much he took of them, they would
never grow less. After that she drew a gold ring, on which her name was
engraved, off her finger, and put it upon one of his. Finally, she laid
a letter near him, in which, after giving him particulars of the food
and drink she had left for him, she finished with the following words:
‘I see that as long as you remain here you will never be able to set me
free; if, however, you still wish to do so, come to the golden castle
of Stromberg; this is well within your power to accomplish.’ She then
returned to her carriage and drove to the golden castle of Stromberg.

When the man awoke and found that he had been sleeping, he was grieved
at heart, and said, ‘She has no doubt been here and driven away again,
and it is now too late for me to save her.’ Then his eyes fell on the
things which were lying beside him; he read the letter, and knew from it
all that had happened. He rose up without delay, eager to start on his
way and to reach the castle of Stromberg, but he had no idea in which
direction he ought to go. He travelled about a long time in search of it
and came at last to a dark forest, through which he went on walking for
fourteen days and still could not find a way out. Once more the night
came on, and worn out he lay down under a bush and fell asleep. Again
the next day he pursued his way through the forest, and that evening,
thinking to rest again, he lay down as before, but he heard such a
howling and wailing that he found it impossible to sleep. He waited till
it was darker and people had begun to light up their houses, and then
seeing a little glimmer ahead of him, he went towards it.

He found that the light came from a house which looked smaller than
it really was, from the contrast of its height with that of an immense
giant who stood in front of it. He thought to himself, ‘If the giant
sees me going in, my life will not be worth much.’ However, after a
while he summoned up courage and went forward. When the giant saw him,
he called out, ‘It is lucky for that you have come, for I have not had
anything to eat for a long time. I can have you now for my supper.’ ‘I
would rather you let that alone,’ said the man, ‘for I do not willingly
give myself up to be eaten; if you are wanting food I have enough to
satisfy your hunger.’ ‘If that is so,’ replied the giant, ‘I will leave
you in peace; I only thought of eating you because I had nothing else.’

So they went indoors together and sat down, and the man brought out the
bread, meat, and wine, which although he had eaten and drunk of them,
were still unconsumed. The giant was pleased with the good cheer, and
ate and drank to his heart’s content. When he had finished his supper
the man asked him if he could direct him to the castle of Stromberg.
The giant said, ‘I will look on my map; on it are marked all the towns,
villages, and houses.’ So he fetched his map, and looked for the castle,
but could not find it. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I have larger maps
upstairs in the cupboard, we will look on those,’ but they searched in
vain, for the castle was not marked even on these. The man now thought
he should like to continue his journey, but the giant begged him to
remain for a day or two longer until the return of his brother, who was
away in search of provisions. When the brother came home, they asked him
about the castle of Stromberg, and he told them he would look on his own
maps as soon as he had eaten and appeased his hunger. Accordingly, when
he had finished his supper, they all went up together to his room and
looked through his maps, but the castle was not to be found. Then he
fetched other older maps, and they went on looking for the castle until
at last they found it, but it was many thousand miles away. ‘How shall I
be able to get there?’ asked the man. ‘I have two hours to spare,’ said
the giant, ‘and I will carry you into the neighbourhood of the castle; I
must then return to look after the child who is in our care.’

The giant, thereupon, carried the man to within about a hundred leagues
of the castle, where he left him, saying, ‘You will be able to walk the
remainder of the way yourself.’ The man journeyed on day and night
till he reached the golden castle of Stromberg. He found it situated,
however, on a glass mountain, and looking up from the foot he saw the
enchanted maiden drive round her castle and then go inside. He was
overjoyed to see her, and longed to get to the top of the mountain, but
the sides were so slippery that every time he attempted to climb he
fell back again. When he saw that it was impossible to reach her, he was
greatly grieved, and said to himself, ‘I will remain here and wait for
her,’ so he built himself a little hut, and there he sat and watched for
a whole year, and every day he saw the king’s daughter driving round her
castle, but still was unable to get nearer to her.

Looking out from his hut one day he saw three robbers fighting and he
called out to them, ‘God be with you.’ They stopped when they heard the
call, but looking round and seeing nobody, they went on again with their
fighting, which now became more furious. ‘God be with you,’ he cried
again, and again they paused and looked about, but seeing no one went
back to their fighting. A third time he called out, ‘God be with you,’
and then thinking he should like to know the cause of dispute between
the three men, he went out and asked them why they were fighting so
angrily with one another. One of them said that he had found a stick,
and that he had but to strike it against any door through which he
wished to pass, and it immediately flew open. Another told him that he
had found a cloak which rendered its wearer invisible; and the third had
caught a horse which would carry its rider over any obstacle, and even
up the glass mountain. They had been unable to decide whether they
would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would
separate. On hearing this, the man said, ‘I will give you something in
exchange for those three things; not money, for that I have not got,
but something that is of far more value. I must first, however, prove
whether all you have told me about your three things is true.’ The
robbers, therefore, made him get on the horse, and handed him the stick
and the cloak, and when he had put this round him he was no longer
visible. Then he fell upon them with the stick and beat them one after
another, crying, ‘There, you idle vagabonds, you have got what you
deserve; are you satisfied now!’

After this he rode up the glass mountain. When he reached the gate of
the castle, he found it closed, but he gave it a blow with his stick,
and it flew wide open at once and he passed through. He mounted the
steps and entered the room where the maiden was sitting, with a golden
goblet full of wine in front of her. She could not see him for he still
wore his cloak. He took the ring which she had given him off his finger,
and threw it into the goblet, so that it rang as it touched the bottom.
‘That is my own ring,’ she exclaimed, ‘and if that is so the man must
also be here who is coming to set me free.’

She sought for him about the castle, but could find him nowhere.
Meanwhile he had gone outside again and mounted his horse and thrown off
the cloak. When therefore she came to the castle gate she saw him, and
cried aloud for joy. Then he dismounted and took her in his arms; and
she kissed him, and said, ‘Now you have indeed set me free, and tomorrow
we will celebrate our marriage.’




THE GOLDEN GOOSE


There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called
Dummling,[*] and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion.

     [*] Simpleton

It happened that the eldest wanted to go into the forest to hew wood,
and before he went his mother gave him a beautiful sweet cake and a
bottle of wine in order that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst.

When he entered the forest he met a little grey-haired old man who bade
him good day, and said: ‘Do give me a piece of cake out of your pocket,
and let me have a draught of your wine; I am so hungry and thirsty.’ But
the clever son answered: ‘If I give you my cake and wine, I shall have
none for myself; be off with you,’ and he left the little man standing
and went on.

But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a
false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home
and have it bound up. And this was the little grey man’s doing.

After this the second son went into the forest, and his mother gave him,
like the eldest, a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old grey man
met him likewise, and asked him for a piece of cake and a drink of wine.
But the second son, too, said sensibly enough: ‘What I give you will be
taken away from myself; be off!’ and he left the little man standing and
went on. His punishment, however, was not delayed; when he had made a
few blows at the tree he struck himself in the leg, so that he had to be
carried home.

Then Dummling said: ‘Father, do let me go and cut wood.’ The father
answered: ‘Your brothers have hurt themselves with it, leave it alone,
you do not understand anything about it.’ But Dummling begged so long
that at last he said: ‘Just go then, you will get wiser by hurting
yourself.’ His mother gave him a cake made with water and baked in the
cinders, and with it a bottle of sour beer.

When he came to the forest the little old grey man met him likewise,
and greeting him, said: ‘Give me a piece of your cake and a drink out
of your bottle; I am so hungry and thirsty.’ Dummling answered: ‘I have
only cinder-cake and sour beer; if that pleases you, we will sit
down and eat.’ So they sat down, and when Dummling pulled out his
cinder-cake, it was a fine sweet cake, and the sour beer had become good
wine. So they ate and drank, and after that the little man said: ‘Since
you have a good heart, and are willing to divide what you have, I will
give you good luck. There stands an old tree, cut it down, and you will
find something at the roots.’ Then the little man took leave of him.

Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose
sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and
taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the
night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were
curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have
liked to have one of its golden feathers.

The eldest thought: ‘I shall soon find an opportunity of pulling out a
feather,’ and as soon as Dummling had gone out she seized the goose by
the wing, but her finger and hand remained sticking fast to it.

The second came soon afterwards, thinking only of how she might get a
feather for herself, but she had scarcely touched her sister than she
was held fast.

At last the third also came with the like intent, and the others
screamed out: ‘Keep away; for goodness’ sake keep away!’ But she did
not understand why she was to keep away. ‘The others are there,’ she
thought, ‘I may as well be there too,’ and ran to them; but as soon as
she had touched her sister, she remained sticking fast to her. So they
had to spend the night with the goose.

The next morning Dummling took the goose under his arm and set out,
without troubling himself about the three girls who were hanging on to
it. They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right,
wherever his legs took him.

In the middle of the fields the parson met them, and when he saw the
procession he said: ‘For shame, you good-for-nothing girls, why are you
running across the fields after this young man? Is that seemly?’ At the
same time he seized the youngest by the hand in order to pull her away,
but as soon as he touched her he likewise stuck fast, and was himself
obliged to run behind.

Before long the sexton came by and saw his master, the parson, running
behind three girls. He was astonished at this and called out: ‘Hi!
your reverence, whither away so quickly? Do not forget that we have a
christening today!’ and running after him he took him by the sleeve, but
was also held fast to it.

Whilst the five were trotting thus one behind the other, two labourers
came with their hoes from the fields; the parson called out to them
and begged that they would set him and the sexton free. But they had
scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were
seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose.

Soon afterwards he came to a city, where a king ruled who had a daughter
who was so serious that no one could make her laugh. So he had put forth
a decree that whosoever should be able to make her laugh should marry
her. When Dummling heard this, he went with his goose and all her train
before the king’s daughter, and as soon as she saw the seven people
running on and on, one behind the other, she began to laugh quite
loudly, and as if she would never stop. Thereupon Dummling asked to have
her for his wife; but the king did not like the son-in-law, and made all
manner of excuses and said he must first produce a man who could drink
a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the little grey man, who could
certainly help him; so he went into the forest, and in the same place
where he had felled the tree, he saw a man sitting, who had a very
sorrowful face. Dummling asked him what he was taking to heart so
sorely, and he answered: ‘I have such a great thirst and cannot quench
it; cold water I cannot stand, a barrel of wine I have just emptied, but
that to me is like a drop on a hot stone!’

‘There, I can help you,’ said Dummling, ‘just come with me and you shall
be satisfied.’

He led him into the king’s cellar, and the man bent over the huge
barrels, and drank and drank till his loins hurt, and before the day was
out he had emptied all the barrels. Then Dummling asked once more
for his bride, but the king was vexed that such an ugly fellow, whom
everyone called Dummling, should take away his daughter, and he made a
new condition; he must first find a man who could eat a whole mountain
of bread. Dummling did not think long, but went straight into the
forest, where in the same place there sat a man who was tying up his
body with a strap, and making an awful face, and saying: ‘I have eaten a
whole ovenful of rolls, but what good is that when one has such a hunger
as I? My stomach remains empty, and I must tie myself up if I am not to
die of hunger.’

At this Dummling was glad, and said: ‘Get up and come with me; you shall
eat yourself full.’ He led him to the king’s palace where all the
flour in the whole Kingdom was collected, and from it he caused a huge
mountain of bread to be baked. The man from the forest stood before it,
began to eat, and by the end of one day the whole mountain had vanished.
Then Dummling for the third time asked for his bride; but the king again
sought a way out, and ordered a ship which could sail on land and on
water. ‘As soon as you come sailing back in it,’ said he, ‘you shall
have my daughter for wife.’

Dummling went straight into the forest, and there sat the little grey
man to whom he had given his cake. When he heard what Dummling wanted,
he said: ‘Since you have given me to eat and to drink, I will give you
the ship; and I do all this because you once were kind to me.’ Then he
gave him the ship which could sail on land and water, and when the king
saw that, he could no longer prevent him from having his daughter. The
wedding was celebrated, and after the king’s death, Dummling inherited
his kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife.




THE WATER OF LIFE


Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way
off, a king who had three sons. This king once fell very ill--so ill
that nobody thought he could live. His sons were very much grieved
at their father’s sickness; and as they were walking together very
mournfully in the garden of the palace, a little old man met them and
asked what was the matter. They told him that their father was very ill,
and that they were afraid nothing could save him. ‘I know what would,’
said the little old man; ‘it is the Water of Life. If he could have a
draught of it he would be well again; but it is very hard to get.’ Then
the eldest son said, ‘I will soon find it’: and he went to the sick
king, and begged that he might go in search of the Water of Life, as
it was the only thing that could save him. ‘No,’ said the king. ‘I had
rather die than place you in such great danger as you must meet with in
your journey.’ But he begged so hard that the king let him go; and the
prince thought to himself, ‘If I bring my father this water, he will
make me sole heir to his kingdom.’

Then he set out: and when he had gone on his way some time he came to a
deep valley, overhung with rocks and woods; and as he looked around, he
saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a
sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak; and the dwarf called to him and said,
‘Prince, whither so fast?’ ‘What is that to thee, you ugly imp?’ said
the prince haughtily, and rode on.

But the dwarf was enraged at his behaviour, and laid a fairy spell
of ill-luck upon him; so that as he rode on the mountain pass became
narrower and narrower, and at last the way was so straitened that he
could not go to step forward: and when he thought to have turned his
horse round and go back the way he came, he heard a loud laugh ringing
round him, and found that the path was closed behind him, so that he was
shut in all round. He next tried to get off his horse and make his way
on foot, but again the laugh rang in his ears, and he found himself
unable to move a step, and thus he was forced to abide spellbound.

Meantime the old king was lingering on in daily hope of his son’s
return, till at last the second son said, ‘Father, I will go in search
of the Water of Life.’ For he thought to himself, ‘My brother is surely
dead, and the kingdom will fall to me if I find the water.’ The king was
at first very unwilling to let him go, but at last yielded to his wish.
So he set out and followed the same road which his brother had done,
and met with the same elf, who stopped him at the same spot in the
mountains, saying, as before, ‘Prince, prince, whither so fast?’ ‘Mind
your own affairs, busybody!’ said the prince scornfully, and rode on.

But the dwarf put the same spell upon him as he put on his elder
brother, and he, too, was at last obliged to take up his abode in the
heart of the mountains. Thus it is with proud silly people, who think
themselves above everyone else, and are too proud to ask or take advice.

When the second prince had thus been gone a long time, the youngest son
said he would go and search for the Water of Life, and trusted he should
soon be able to make his father well again. So he set out, and the dwarf
met him too at the same spot in the valley, among the mountains, and
said, ‘Prince, whither so fast?’ And the prince said, ‘I am going in
search of the Water of Life, because my father is ill, and like to die:
can you help me? Pray be kind, and aid me if you can!’ ‘Do you know
where it is to be found?’ asked the dwarf. ‘No,’ said the prince, ‘I do
not. Pray tell me if you know.’ ‘Then as you have spoken to me kindly,
and are wise enough to seek for advice, I will tell you how and where to
go. The water you seek springs from a well in an enchanted castle; and,
that you may be able to reach it in safety, I will give you an iron wand
and two little loaves of bread; strike the iron door of the castle three
times with the wand, and it will open: two hungry lions will be lying
down inside gaping for their prey, but if you throw them the bread they
will let you pass; then hasten on to the well, and take some of the
Water of Life before the clock strikes twelve; for if you tarry longer
the door will shut upon you for ever.’

Then the prince thanked his little friend with the scarlet cloak for his
friendly aid, and took the wand and the bread, and went travelling on
and on, over sea and over land, till he came to his journey’s end, and
found everything to be as the dwarf had told him. The door flew open at
the third stroke of the wand, and when the lions were quieted he went on
through the castle and came at length to a beautiful hall. Around it he
saw several knights sitting in a trance; then he pulled off their rings
and put them on his own fingers. In another room he saw on a table a
sword and a loaf of bread, which he also took. Further on he came to a
room where a beautiful young lady sat upon a couch; and she welcomed him
joyfully, and said, if he would set her free from the spell that bound
her, the kingdom should be his, if he would come back in a year and
marry her. Then she told him that the well that held the Water of Life
was in the palace gardens; and bade him make haste, and draw what he
wanted before the clock struck twelve.

He walked on; and as he walked through beautiful gardens he came to a
delightful shady spot in which stood a couch; and he thought to himself,
as he felt tired, that he would rest himself for a while, and gaze on
the lovely scenes around him. So he laid himself down, and sleep
fell upon him unawares, so that he did not wake up till the clock was
striking a quarter to twelve. Then he sprang from the couch dreadfully
frightened, ran to the well, filled a cup that was standing by him full
of water, and hastened to get away in time. Just as he was going out of
the iron door it struck twelve, and the door fell so quickly upon him
that it snapped off a piece of his heel.

When he found himself safe, he was overjoyed to think that he had got
the Water of Life; and as he was going on his way homewards, he passed
by the little dwarf, who, when he saw the sword and the loaf, said, ‘You
have made a noble prize; with the sword you can at a blow slay whole
armies, and the bread will never fail you.’ Then the prince thought
to himself, ‘I cannot go home to my father without my brothers’; so he
said, ‘My dear friend, cannot you tell me where my two brothers are, who
set out in search of the Water of Life before me, and never came back?’
‘I have shut them up by a charm between two mountains,’ said the dwarf,
‘because they were proud and ill-behaved, and scorned to ask advice.’
The prince begged so hard for his brothers, that the dwarf at last set
them free, though unwillingly, saying, ‘Beware of them, for they have
bad hearts.’ Their brother, however, was greatly rejoiced to see them,
and told them all that had happened to him; how he had found the Water
of Life, and had taken a cup full of it; and how he had set a beautiful
princess free from a spell that bound her; and how she had engaged to
wait a whole year, and then to marry him, and to give him the kingdom.

Then they all three rode on together, and on their way home came to a
country that was laid waste by war and a dreadful famine, so that it was
feared all must die for want. But the prince gave the king of the land
the bread, and all his kingdom ate of it. And he lent the king the
wonderful sword, and he slew the enemy’s army with it; and thus the
kingdom was once more in peace and plenty. In the same manner he
befriended two other countries through which they passed on their way.

When they came to the sea, they got into a ship and during their voyage
the two eldest said to themselves, ‘Our brother has got the water which
we could not find, therefore our father will forsake us and give him the
kingdom, which is our right’; so they were full of envy and revenge, and
agreed together how they could ruin him. Then they waited till he was
fast asleep, and poured the Water of Life out of the cup, and took it
for themselves, giving him bitter sea-water instead.

When they came to their journey’s end, the youngest son brought his cup
to the sick king, that he might drink and be healed. Scarcely, however,
had he tasted the bitter sea-water when he became worse even than he was
before; and then both the elder sons came in, and blamed the youngest
for what they had done; and said that he wanted to poison their father,
but that they had found the Water of Life, and had brought it with them.
He no sooner began to drink of what they brought him, than he felt his
sickness leave him, and was as strong and well as in his younger days.
Then they went to their brother, and laughed at him, and said, ‘Well,
brother, you found the Water of Life, did you? You have had the trouble
and we shall have the reward. Pray, with all your cleverness, why did
not you manage to keep your eyes open? Next year one of us will take
away your beautiful princess, if you do not take care. You had better
say nothing about this to our father, for he does not believe a word you
say; and if you tell tales, you shall lose your life into the bargain:
but be quiet, and we will let you off.’

The old king was still very angry with his youngest son, and thought
that he really meant to have taken away his life; so he called his court
together, and asked what should be done, and all agreed that he ought to
be put to death. The prince knew nothing of what was going on, till one
day, when the king’s chief huntsmen went a-hunting with him, and they
were alone in the wood together, the huntsman looked so sorrowful that
the prince said, ‘My friend, what is the matter with you?’ ‘I cannot and
dare not tell you,’ said he. But the prince begged very hard, and said,
‘Only tell me what it is, and do not think I shall be angry, for I will
forgive you.’ ‘Alas!’ said the huntsman; ‘the king has ordered me to
shoot you.’ The prince started at this, and said, ‘Let me live, and I
will change dresses with you; you shall take my royal coat to show to my
father, and do you give me your shabby one.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said
the huntsman; ‘I am sure I shall be glad to save you, for I could not
have shot you.’ Then he took the prince’s coat, and gave him the shabby
one, and went away through the wood.

Some time after, three grand embassies came to the old king’s court,
with rich gifts of gold and precious stones for his youngest son; now
all these were sent from the three kings to whom he had lent his sword
and loaf of bread, in order to rid them of their enemy and feed their
people. This touched the old king’s heart, and he thought his son might
still be guiltless, and said to his court, ‘O that my son were still
alive! how it grieves me that I had him killed!’ ‘He is still alive,’
said the huntsman; ‘and I am glad that I had pity on him, but let him
go in peace, and brought home his royal coat.’ At this the king was
overwhelmed with joy, and made it known throughout all his kingdom, that
if his son would come back to his court he would forgive him.

Meanwhile the princess was eagerly waiting till her deliverer should
come back; and had a road made leading up to her palace all of shining
gold; and told her courtiers that whoever came on horseback, and rode
straight up to the gate upon it, was her true lover; and that they must
let him in: but whoever rode on one side of it, they must be sure was
not the right one; and that they must send him away at once.

The time soon came, when the eldest brother thought that he would make
haste to go to the princess, and say that he was the one who had set
her free, and that he should have her for his wife, and the kingdom with
her. As he came before the palace and saw the golden road, he stopped to
look at it, and he thought to himself, ‘It is a pity to ride upon this
beautiful road’; so he turned aside and rode on the right-hand side of
it. But when he came to the gate, the guards, who had seen the road
he took, said to him, he could not be what he said he was, and must go
about his business.

The second prince set out soon afterwards on the same errand; and when
he came to the golden road, and his horse had set one foot upon it,
he stopped to look at it, and thought it very beautiful, and said to
himself, ‘What a pity it is that anything should tread here!’ Then he
too turned aside and rode on the left side of it. But when he came to
the gate the guards said he was not the true prince, and that he too
must go away about his business; and away he went.

Now when the full year was come round, the third brother left the forest
in which he had lain hid for fear of his father’s anger, and set out in
search of his betrothed bride. So he journeyed on, thinking of her all
the way, and rode so quickly that he did not even see what the road was
made of, but went with his horse straight over it; and as he came to the
gate it flew open, and the princess welcomed him with joy, and said
he was her deliverer, and should now be her husband and lord of the
kingdom. When the first joy at their meeting was over, the princess told
him she had heard of his father having forgiven him, and of his wish to
have him home again: so, before his wedding with the princess, he went
to visit his father, taking her with him. Then he told him everything;
how his brothers had cheated and robbed him, and yet that he had borne
all those wrongs for the love of his father. And the old king was very
angry, and wanted to punish his wicked sons; but they made their escape,
and got into a ship and sailed away over the wide sea, and where they
went to nobody knew and nobody cared.

And now the old king gathered together his court, and asked all his
kingdom to come and celebrate the wedding of his son and the princess.
And young and old, noble and squire, gentle and simple, came at once
on the summons; and among the rest came the friendly dwarf, with the
sugarloaf hat, and a new scarlet cloak.

  And the wedding was held, and the merry bells run.
  And all the good people they danced and they sung,
  And feasted and frolick’d I can’t tell how long.




THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN


There was once a king’s son who had a bride whom he loved very much. And
when he was sitting beside her and very happy, news came that his father
lay sick unto death, and desired to see him once again before his end.
Then he said to his beloved: ‘I must now go and leave you, I give you
a ring as a remembrance of me. When I am king, I will return and fetch
you.’ So he rode away, and when he reached his father, the latter was
dangerously ill, and near his death. He said to him: ‘Dear son, I wished
to see you once again before my end, promise me to marry as I wish,’ and
he named a certain king’s daughter who was to be his wife. The son was
in such trouble that he did not think what he was doing, and said: ‘Yes,
dear father, your will shall be done,’ and thereupon the king shut his
eyes, and died.

When therefore the son had been proclaimed king, and the time of
mourning was over, he was forced to keep the promise which he had given
his father, and caused the king’s daughter to be asked in marriage, and
she was promised to him. His first betrothed heard of this, and fretted
so much about his faithfulness that she nearly died. Then her father
said to her: ‘Dearest child, why are you so sad? You shall have
whatsoever you will.’ She thought for a moment and said: ‘Dear father,
I wish for eleven girls exactly like myself in face, figure, and size.’
The father said: ‘If it be possible, your desire shall be fulfilled,’
and he caused a search to be made in his whole kingdom, until eleven
young maidens were found who exactly resembled his daughter in face,
figure, and size.

When they came to the king’s daughter, she had twelve suits of
huntsmen’s clothes made, all alike, and the eleven maidens had to put
on the huntsmen’s clothes, and she herself put on the twelfth suit.
Thereupon she took her leave of her father, and rode away with them,
and rode to the court of her former betrothed, whom she loved so dearly.
Then she asked if he required any huntsmen, and if he would take all of
them into his service. The king looked at her and did not know her, but
as they were such handsome fellows, he said: ‘Yes,’ and that he would
willingly take them, and now they were the king’s twelve huntsmen.

The king, however, had a lion which was a wondrous animal, for he knew
all concealed and secret things. It came to pass that one evening he
said to the king: ‘You think you have twelve huntsmen?’ ‘Yes,’ said the
king, ‘they are twelve huntsmen.’ The lion continued: ‘You are mistaken,
they are twelve girls.’ The king said: ‘That cannot be true! How
will you prove that to me?’ ‘Oh, just let some peas be strewn in the
ante-chamber,’ answered the lion, ‘and then you will soon see. Men have
a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls
trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.’ The king
was well pleased with the counsel, and caused the peas to be strewn.

There was, however, a servant of the king’s who favoured the huntsmen,
and when he heard that they were going to be put to this test he went to
them and repeated everything, and said: ‘The lion wants to make the king
believe that you are girls.’ Then the king’s daughter thanked him, and
said to her maidens: ‘Show some strength, and step firmly on the peas.’
So next morning when the king had the twelve huntsmen called before
him, and they came into the ante-chamber where the peas were lying, they
stepped so firmly on them, and had such a strong, sure walk, that not
one of the peas either rolled or stirred. Then they went away again,
and the king said to the lion: ‘You have lied to me, they walk just like
men.’ The lion said: ‘They have been informed that they were going to
be put to the test, and have assumed some strength. Just let twelve
spinning-wheels be brought into the ante-chamber, and they will go to
them and be pleased with them, and that is what no man would do.’
The king liked the advice, and had the spinning-wheels placed in the
ante-chamber.

But the servant, who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them,
and disclosed the project. So when they were alone the king’s daughter
said to her eleven girls: ‘Show some constraint, and do not look round
at the spinning-wheels.’ And next morning when the king had his twelve
huntsmen summoned, they went through the ante-chamber, and never once
looked at the spinning-wheels. Then the king again said to the lion:
‘You have deceived me, they are men, for they have not looked at the
spinning-wheels.’ The lion replied: ‘They have restrained themselves.’
The king, however, would no longer believe the lion.

The twelve huntsmen always followed the king to the chase, and his
liking for them continually increased. Now it came to pass that
once when they were out hunting, news came that the king’s bride was
approaching. When the true bride heard that, it hurt her so much that
her heart was almost broken, and she fell fainting to the ground. The
king thought something had happened to his dear huntsman, ran up to him,
wanted to help him, and drew his glove off. Then he saw the ring which
he had given to his first bride, and when he looked in her face he
recognized her. Then his heart was so touched that he kissed her, and
when she opened her eyes he said: ‘You are mine, and I am yours, and
no one in the world can alter that.’ He sent a messenger to the other
bride, and entreated her to return to her own kingdom, for he had a wife
already, and someone who had just found an old key did not require a new
one. Thereupon the wedding was celebrated, and the lion was again taken
into favour, because, after all, he had told the truth.




THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN


There was once a merchant who had only one child, a son, that was very
young, and barely able to run alone. He had two richly laden ships then
making a voyage upon the seas, in which he had embarked all his wealth,
in the hope of making great gains, when the news came that both were
lost. Thus from being a rich man he became all at once so very poor that
nothing was left to him but one small plot of land; and there he often
went in an evening to take his walk, and ease his mind of a little of
his trouble.

One day, as he was roaming along in a brown study, thinking with no
great comfort on what he had been and what he now was, and was like
to be, all on a sudden there stood before him a little, rough-looking,
black dwarf. ‘Prithee, friend, why so sorrowful?’ said he to the
merchant; ‘what is it you take so deeply to heart?’ ‘If you would do me
any good I would willingly tell you,’ said the merchant. ‘Who knows but
I may?’ said the little man: ‘tell me what ails you, and perhaps you
will find I may be of some use.’ Then the merchant told him how all his
wealth was gone to the bottom of the sea, and how he had nothing left
but that little plot of land. ‘Oh, trouble not yourself about that,’
said the dwarf; ‘only undertake to bring me here, twelve years hence,
whatever meets you first on your going home, and I will give you as much
as you please.’ The merchant thought this was no great thing to ask;
that it would most likely be his dog or his cat, or something of that
sort, but forgot his little boy Heinel; so he agreed to the bargain, and
signed and sealed the bond to do what was asked of him.

But as he drew near home, his little boy was so glad to see him that he
crept behind him, and laid fast hold of his legs, and looked up in
his face and laughed. Then the father started, trembling with fear and
horror, and saw what it was that he had bound himself to do; but as no
gold was come, he made himself easy by thinking that it was only a joke
that the dwarf was playing him, and that, at any rate, when the money
came, he should see the bearer, and would not take it in.

About a month afterwards he went upstairs into a lumber-room to look
for some old iron, that he might sell it and raise a little money; and
there, instead of his iron, he saw a large pile of gold lying on the
floor. At the sight of this he was overjoyed, and forgetting all about
his son, went into trade again, and became a richer merchant than
before.

Meantime little Heinel grew up, and as the end of the twelve years drew
near the merchant began to call to mind his bond, and became very sad
and thoughtful; so that care and sorrow were written upon his face. The
boy one day asked what was the matter, but his father would not tell for
some time; at last, however, he said that he had, without knowing it,
sold him for gold to a little, ugly-looking, black dwarf, and that the
twelve years were coming round when he must keep his word. Then Heinel
said, ‘Father, give yourself very little trouble about that; I shall be
too much for the little man.’

When the time came, the father and son went out together to the place
agreed upon: and the son drew a circle on the ground, and set himself
and his father in the middle of it. The little black dwarf soon came,
and walked round and round about the circle, but could not find any way
to get into it, and he either could not, or dared not, jump over it. At
last the boy said to him. ‘Have you anything to say to us, my friend, or
what do you want?’ Now Heinel had found a friend in a good fairy, that
was fond of him, and had told him what to do; for this fairy knew what
good luck was in store for him. ‘Have you brought me what you said you
would?’ said the dwarf to the merchant. The old man held his tongue, but
Heinel said again, ‘What do you want here?’ The dwarf said, ‘I come to
talk with your father, not with you.’ ‘You have cheated and taken in my
father,’ said the son; ‘pray give him up his bond at once.’ ‘Fair and
softly,’ said the little old man; ‘right is right; I have paid my money,
and your father has had it, and spent it; so be so good as to let me
have what I paid it for.’ ‘You must have my consent to that first,’ said
Heinel, ‘so please to step in here, and let us talk it over.’ The old
man grinned, and showed his teeth, as if he should have been very glad
to get into the circle if he could. Then at last, after a long talk,
they came to terms. Heinel agreed that his father must give him up, and
that so far the dwarf should have his way: but, on the other hand, the
fairy had told Heinel what fortune was in store for him, if he followed
his own course; and he did not choose to be given up to his hump-backed
friend, who seemed so anxious for his company.

So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the matter, it was settled that
Heinel should be put into an open boat, that lay on the sea-shore hard
by; that the father should push him off with his own hand, and that he
should thus be set adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind and
weather. Then he took leave of his father, and set himself in the boat,
but before it got far off a wave struck it, and it fell with one side
low in the water, so the merchant thought that poor Heinel was lost, and
went home very sorrowful, while the dwarf went his way, thinking that at
any rate he had had his revenge.

The boat, however, did not sink, for the good fairy took care of her
friend, and soon raised the boat up again, and it went safely on. The
young man sat safe within, till at length it ran ashore upon an unknown
land. As he jumped upon the shore he saw before him a beautiful castle
but empty and dreary within, for it was enchanted. ‘Here,’ said he to
himself, ‘must I find the prize the good fairy told me of.’ So he once
more searched the whole palace through, till at last he found a white
snake, lying coiled up on a cushion in one of the chambers.

Now the white snake was an enchanted princess; and she was very glad
to see him, and said, ‘Are you at last come to set me free? Twelve
long years have I waited here for the fairy to bring you hither as she
promised, for you alone can save me. This night twelve men will come:
their faces will be black, and they will be dressed in chain armour.
They will ask what you do here, but give no answer; and let them do
what they will--beat, whip, pinch, prick, or torment you--bear all; only
speak not a word, and at twelve o’clock they must go away. The second
night twelve others will come: and the third night twenty-four, who
will even cut off your head; but at the twelfth hour of that night their
power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come and bring you the
Water of Life, and will wash you with it, and bring you back to life
and health.’ And all came to pass as she had said; Heinel bore all, and
spoke not a word; and the third night the princess came, and fell on his
neck and kissed him. Joy and gladness burst forth throughout the castle,
the wedding was celebrated, and he was crowned king of the Golden
Mountain.

They lived together very happily, and the queen had a son. And thus
eight years had passed over their heads, when the king thought of his
father; and he began to long to see him once again. But the queen was
against his going, and said, ‘I know well that misfortunes will come
upon us if you go.’ However, he gave her no rest till she agreed. At his
going away she gave him a wishing-ring, and said, ‘Take this ring, and
put it on your finger; whatever you wish it will bring you; only promise
never to make use of it to bring me hence to your father’s house.’ Then
he said he would do what she asked, and put the ring on his finger, and
wished himself near the town where his father lived.

Heinel found himself at the gates in a moment; but the guards would
not let him go in, because he was so strangely clad. So he went up to a
neighbouring hill, where a shepherd dwelt, and borrowed his old frock,
and thus passed unknown into the town. When he came to his father’s
house, he said he was his son; but the merchant would not believe him,
and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long
since dead: and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would
not even give him anything to eat. The king, however, still vowed that
he was his son, and said, ‘Is there no mark by which you would know me
if I am really your son?’ ‘Yes,’ said his mother, ‘our Heinel had a mark
like a raspberry on his right arm.’ Then he showed them the mark, and
they knew that what he had said was true.

He next told them how he was king of the Golden Mountain, and was
married to a princess, and had a son seven years old. But the merchant
said, ‘that can never be true; he must be a fine king truly who travels
about in a shepherd’s frock!’ At this the son was vexed; and forgetting
his word, turned his ring, and wished for his queen and son. In an
instant they stood before him; but the queen wept, and said he had
broken his word, and bad luck would follow. He did all he could to
soothe her, and she at last seemed to be appeased; but she was not so in
truth, and was only thinking how she should punish him.

One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her
the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters. Then he sat
himself down, and said, ‘I am very much tired; sit by me, I will rest my
head in your lap, and sleep a while.’ As soon as he had fallen asleep,
however, she drew the ring from his finger, and crept softly away, and
wished herself and her son at home in their kingdom. And when he awoke
he found himself alone, and saw that the ring was gone from his finger.
‘I can never go back to my father’s house,’ said he; ‘they would say I
am a sorcerer: I will journey forth into the world, till I come again to
my kingdom.’

So saying he set out and travelled till he came to a hill, where three
giants were sharing their father’s goods; and as they saw him pass they
cried out and said, ‘Little men have sharp wits; he shall part the goods
between us.’ Now there was a sword that cut off an enemy’s head whenever
the wearer gave the words, ‘Heads off!’; a cloak that made the owner
invisible, or gave him any form he pleased; and a pair of boots that
carried the wearer wherever he wished. Heinel said they must first let
him try these wonderful things, then he might know how to set a value
upon them. Then they gave him the cloak, and he wished himself a fly,
and in a moment he was a fly. ‘The cloak is very well,’ said he: ‘now
give me the sword.’ ‘No,’ said they; ‘not unless you undertake not to
say, “Heads off!” for if you do we are all dead men.’ So they gave it
him, charging him to try it on a tree. He next asked for the boots also;
and the moment he had all three in his power, he wished himself at
the Golden Mountain; and there he was at once. So the giants were left
behind with no goods to share or quarrel about.

As Heinel came near his castle he heard the sound of merry music; and
the people around told him that his queen was about to marry another
husband. Then he threw his cloak around him, and passed through the
castle hall, and placed himself by the side of the queen, where no one
saw him. But when anything to eat was put upon her plate, he took it
away and ate it himself; and when a glass of wine was handed to her, he
took it and drank it; and thus, though they kept on giving her meat and
drink, her plate and cup were always empty.

Upon this, fear and remorse came over her, and she went into her chamber
alone, and sat there weeping; and he followed her there. ‘Alas!’ said
she to herself, ‘was I not once set free? Why then does this enchantment
still seem to bind me?’

‘False and fickle one!’ said he. ‘One indeed came who set thee free, and
he is now near thee again; but how have you used him? Ought he to
have had such treatment from thee?’ Then he went out and sent away the
company, and said the wedding was at an end, for that he was come back
to the kingdom. But the princes, peers, and great men mocked at him.
However, he would enter into no parley with them, but only asked them
if they would go in peace or not. Then they turned upon him and tried
to seize him; but he drew his sword. ‘Heads Off!’ cried he; and with the
word the traitors’ heads fell before him, and Heinel was once more king
of the Golden Mountain.




DOCTOR KNOWALL


There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with
two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two
talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that
the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how well he
ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and would willingly
have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and at length
inquired if he too could not be a doctor. ‘Oh, yes,’ said the doctor,
‘that is soon managed.’ ‘What must I do?’ asked the peasant. ‘In the
first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on
the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into
money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to
medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: “I
am Doctor Knowall,” and have that nailed up above your house-door.’ The
peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored
people awhile, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money
stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such
a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had
the horses harnessed to his carriage, drove out to the village, and
asked Crabb if he were Doctor Knowall. Yes, he was, he said. Then he was
to go with him and bring back the stolen money. ‘Oh, yes, but Grete, my
wife, must go too.’ The lord was willing, and let both of them have a
seat in the carriage, and they all drove away together. When they came
to the nobleman’s castle, the table was spread, and Crabb was told to
sit down and eat. ‘Yes, but my wife, Grete, too,’ said he, and he seated
himself with her at the table. And when the first servant came with a
dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said: ‘Grete,
that was the first,’ meaning that was the servant who brought the first
dish. The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say: ‘That is
the first thief,’ and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said
to his comrade outside: ‘The doctor knows all: we shall fare ill, he
said I was the first.’ The second did not want to go in at all, but was
forced. So when he went in with his dish, the peasant nudged his wife,
and said: ‘Grete, that is the second.’ This servant was equally alarmed,
and he got out as fast as he could. The third fared no better, for the
peasant again said: ‘Grete, that is the third.’ The fourth had to carry
in a dish that was covered, and the lord told the doctor that he was to
show his skill, and guess what was beneath the cover. Actually, there
were crabs. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what to say, and
cried: ‘Ah, poor Crabb.’ When the lord heard that, he cried: ‘There! he
knows it; he must also know who has the money!’

On this the servants looked terribly uneasy, and made a sign to the
doctor that they wished him to step outside for a moment. When therefore
he went out, all four of them confessed to him that they had stolen
the money, and said that they would willingly restore it and give him a
heavy sum into the bargain, if he would not denounce them, for if he
did they would be hanged. They led him to the spot where the money was
concealed. With this the doctor was satisfied, and returned to the hall,
sat down to the table, and said: ‘My lord, now will I search in my book
where the gold is hidden.’ The fifth servant, however, crept into the
stove to hear if the doctor knew still more. But the doctor sat still
and opened his A B C book, turned the pages backwards and forwards, and
looked for the cock. As he could not find it immediately he said: ‘I
know you are there, so you had better come out!’ Then the fellow in the
stove thought that the doctor meant him, and full of terror, sprang out,
crying: ‘That man knows everything!’ Then Doctor Knowall showed the lord
where the money was, but did not say who had stolen it, and received
from both sides much money in reward, and became a renowned man.




THE SEVEN RAVENS


There was once a man who had seven sons, and last of all one daughter.
Although the little girl was very pretty, she was so weak and small that
they thought she could not live; but they said she should at once be
christened.

So the father sent one of his sons in haste to the spring to get some
water, but the other six ran with him. Each wanted to be first at
drawing the water, and so they were in such a hurry that all let their
pitchers fall into the well, and they stood very foolishly looking at
one another, and did not know what to do, for none dared go home. In the
meantime the father was uneasy, and could not tell what made the
young men stay so long. ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘the whole seven must have
forgotten themselves over some game of play’; and when he had waited
still longer and they yet did not come, he flew into a rage and wished
them all turned into ravens. Scarcely had he spoken these words when he
heard a croaking over his head, and looked up and saw seven ravens as
black as coal flying round and round. Sorry as he was to see his wish
so fulfilled, he did not know how what was done could be undone, and
comforted himself as well as he could for the loss of his seven sons
with his dear little daughter, who soon became stronger and every day
more beautiful.

For a long time she did not know that she had ever had any brothers; for
her father and mother took care not to speak of them before her: but one
day by chance she heard the people about her speak of them. ‘Yes,’ said
they, ‘she is beautiful indeed, but still ‘tis a pity that her brothers
should have been lost for her sake.’ Then she was much grieved, and went
to her father and mother, and asked if she had any brothers, and what
had become of them. So they dared no longer hide the truth from her, but
said it was the will of Heaven, and that her birth was only the innocent
cause of it; but the little girl mourned sadly about it every day, and
thought herself bound to do all she could to bring her brothers back;
and she had neither rest nor ease, till at length one day she stole
away, and set out into the wide world to find her brothers, wherever
they might be, and free them, whatever it might cost her.

She took nothing with her but a little ring which her father and mother
had given her, a loaf of bread in case she should be hungry, a little
pitcher of water in case she should be thirsty, and a little stool
to rest upon when she should be weary. Thus she went on and on, and
journeyed till she came to the world’s end; then she came to the sun,
but the sun looked much too hot and fiery; so she ran away quickly to
the moon, but the moon was cold and chilly, and said, ‘I smell flesh
and blood this way!’ so she took herself away in a hurry and came to the
stars, and the stars were friendly and kind to her, and each star sat
upon his own little stool; but the morning star rose up and gave her a
little piece of wood, and said, ‘If you have not this little piece of
wood, you cannot unlock the castle that stands on the glass-mountain,
and there your brothers live.’ The little girl took the piece of wood,
rolled it up in a little cloth, and went on again until she came to the
glass-mountain, and found the door shut. Then she felt for the little
piece of wood; but when she unwrapped the cloth it was not there, and
she saw she had lost the gift of the good stars. What was to be done?
She wanted to save her brothers, and had no key of the castle of the
glass-mountain; so this faithful little sister took a knife out of her
pocket and cut off her little finger, that was just the size of the
piece of wood she had lost, and put it in the door and opened it.

As she went in, a little dwarf came up to her, and said, ‘What are you
seeking for?’ ‘I seek for my brothers, the seven ravens,’ answered she.
Then the dwarf said, ‘My masters are not at home; but if you will wait
till they come, pray step in.’ Now the little dwarf was getting their
dinner ready, and he brought their food upon seven little plates, and
their drink in seven little glasses, and set them upon the table, and
out of each little plate their sister ate a small piece, and out of each
little glass she drank a small drop; but she let the ring that she had
brought with her fall into the last glass.

On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the
dwarf said, ‘Here come my masters.’ When they came in, they wanted to
eat and drink, and looked for their little plates and glasses. Then said
one after the other,

‘Who has eaten from my little plate? And who has been drinking out of my
little glass?’

 ‘Caw! Caw! well I ween
  Mortal lips have this way been.’

When the seventh came to the bottom of his glass, and found there the
ring, he looked at it, and knew that it was his father’s and mother’s,
and said, ‘O that our little sister would but come! then we should be
free.’ When the little girl heard this (for she stood behind the door
all the time and listened), she ran forward, and in an instant all
the ravens took their right form again; and all hugged and kissed each
other, and went merrily home.




THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX


FIRST STORY

There was once upon a time an old fox with nine tails, who believed that
his wife was not faithful to him, and wished to put her to the test. He
stretched himself out under the bench, did not move a limb, and behaved
as if he were stone dead. Mrs Fox went up to her room, shut herself in,
and her maid, Miss Cat, sat by the fire, and did the cooking. When it
became known that the old fox was dead, suitors presented themselves.
The maid heard someone standing at the house-door, knocking. She went
and opened it, and it was a young fox, who said:

 ‘What may you be about, Miss Cat?
  Do you sleep or do you wake?’

She answered:

 ‘I am not sleeping, I am waking,
  Would you know what I am making?
  I am boiling warm beer with butter,
  Will you be my guest for supper?’

‘No, thank you, miss,’ said the fox, ‘what is Mrs Fox doing?’ The maid
replied:

 ‘She is sitting in her room,
  Moaning in her gloom,
  Weeping her little eyes quite red,
  Because old Mr Fox is dead.’

‘Do just tell her, miss, that a young fox is here, who would like to woo
her.’ ‘Certainly, young sir.’

  The cat goes up the stairs trip, trap,
  The door she knocks at tap, tap, tap,
 ‘Mistress Fox, are you inside?’
 ‘Oh, yes, my little cat,’ she cried.
 ‘A wooer he stands at the door out there.’
 ‘What does he look like, my dear?’

‘Has he nine as beautiful tails as the late Mr Fox?’ ‘Oh, no,’ answered
the cat, ‘he has only one.’ ‘Then I will not have him.’

Miss Cat went downstairs and sent the wooer away. Soon afterwards there
was another knock, and another fox was at the door who wished to woo Mrs
Fox. He had two tails, but he did not fare better than the first. After
this still more came, each with one tail more than the other, but they
were all turned away, until at last one came who had nine tails, like
old Mr Fox. When the widow heard that, she said joyfully to the cat:

 ‘Now open the gates and doors all wide,
  And carry old Mr Fox outside.’

But just as the wedding was going to be solemnized, old Mr Fox stirred
under the bench, and cudgelled all the rabble, and drove them and Mrs
Fox out of the house.


SECOND STORY

When old Mr Fox was dead, the wolf came as a suitor, and knocked at the
door, and the cat who was servant to Mrs Fox, opened it for him. The
wolf greeted her, and said:

 ‘Good day, Mrs Cat of Kehrewit,
  How comes it that alone you sit?
  What are you making good?’

The cat replied:

 ‘In milk I’m breaking bread so sweet,
  Will you be my guest, and eat?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Cat,’ answered the wolf. ‘Is Mrs Fox not at home?’

The cat said:

 ‘She sits upstairs in her room,
  Bewailing her sorrowful doom,
  Bewailing her trouble so sore,
  For old Mr Fox is no more.’

The wolf answered:

 ‘If she’s in want of a husband now,
  Then will it please her to step below?’
  The cat runs quickly up the stair,
  And lets her tail fly here and there,
  Until she comes to the parlour door.
  With her five gold rings at the door she knocks:
 ‘Are you within, good Mistress Fox?
  If you’re in want of a husband now,
  Then will it please you to step below?

Mrs Fox asked: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has he a pointed
mouth?’ ‘No,’ answered the cat. ‘Then he won’t do for me.’

When the wolf was gone, came a dog, a stag, a hare, a bear, a lion, and
all the beasts of the forest, one after the other. But one of the good
qualities which old Mr Fox had possessed, was always lacking, and the
cat had continually to send the suitors away. At length came a young
fox. Then Mrs Fox said: ‘Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has a
little pointed mouth?’ ‘Yes,’ said the cat, ‘he has.’ ‘Then let him come
upstairs,’ said Mrs Fox, and ordered the servant to prepare the wedding
feast.

 ‘Sweep me the room as clean as you can,
  Up with the window, fling out my old man!
  For many a fine fat mouse he brought,
  Yet of his wife he never thought,
  But ate up every one he caught.’

Then the wedding was solemnized with young Mr Fox, and there was much
rejoicing and dancing; and if they have not left off, they are dancing
still.




THE SALAD


As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood,
there came up a little old woman, and said to him, ‘Good day, good day;
you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me
something to eat.’ The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in
his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but
she took hold of him, and said, ‘Listen, my friend, to what I am going
to tell you; I will reward you for your kindness; go your way, and after
a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds
sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down
dead: the cloak will fall too; take it, it is a wishing-cloak, and when
you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to
be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will
find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It
is the bird’s heart that will bring you this good luck.’

The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, ‘If all this does
happen, it will be a fine thing for me.’ When he had gone a hundred
steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him,
and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills
and feet; screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if
each wished to have it himself. ‘Well,’ said the huntsman, ‘this is
wonderful; this happens just as the old woman said’; then he shot into
the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the
flock chattering away; but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it.
Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took
out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him.

The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay
the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and
indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and
at last thought to himself, ‘Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am
at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.’

Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his
neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through
a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow,
and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young
lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a witch, and
said to the young lady, ‘There is a young man coming out of the wood who
carries a wonderful prize; we must get it away from him, my dear child,
for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird’s heart that
brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.’ Meantime the
huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, ‘I
have been travelling so long that I should like to go into this castle
and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for anything I want’;
but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful
lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly; and it was
not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else
but looking at the lady’s eyes, and doing everything that she wished.
Then the old woman said, ‘Now is the time for getting the bird’s heart.’
So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his
pillow, for it lay now under the young lady’s, and the old woman took it
away every morning; but he was so much in love that he never missed his
prize.

‘Well,’ said the old witch, ‘we have got the bird’s heart, but not the
wishing-cloak yet, and that we must also get.’ ‘Let us leave him that,’
said the young lady; ‘he has already lost his wealth.’ Then the witch
was very angry, and said, ‘Such a cloak is a very rare and wonderful
thing, and I must and will have it.’ So she did as the old woman told
her, and set herself at the window, and looked about the country and
seemed very sorrowful; then the huntsman said, ‘What makes you so sad?’
‘Alas! dear sir,’ said she, ‘yonder lies the granite rock where all the
costly diamonds grow, and I want so much to go there, that whenever I
think of it I cannot help being sorrowful, for who can reach it? only
the birds and the flies--man cannot.’ ‘If that’s all your grief,’ said
the huntsman, ‘I’ll take you there with all my heart’; so he drew her under
his cloak, and the moment he wished to be on the granite mountain they
were both there. The diamonds glittered so on all sides that they were
delighted with the sight and picked up the finest. But the old witch
made a deep sleep come upon him, and he said to the young lady, ‘Let us
sit down and rest ourselves a little, I am so tired that I cannot stand
any longer.’ So they sat down, and he laid his head in her lap and
fell asleep; and whilst he was sleeping on she took the cloak from
his shoulders, hung it on her own, picked up the diamonds, and wished
herself home again.

When he awoke and found that his lady had tricked him, and left him
alone on the wild rock, he said, ‘Alas! what roguery there is in the
world!’ and there he sat in great grief and fear, not knowing what to
do. Now this rock belonged to fierce giants who lived upon it; and as
he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, ‘I can only
save myself by feigning to be asleep’; so he laid himself down as if he
were in a sound sleep. When the giants came up to him, the first pushed
him with his foot, and said, ‘What worm is this that lies here curled
up?’ ‘Tread upon him and kill him,’ said the second. ‘It’s not worth the
trouble,’ said the third; ‘let him live, he’ll go climbing higher up the
mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.’ And they
passed on. But the huntsman had heard all they said; and as soon as they
were gone, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and when he had sat
there a short time a cloud came rolling around him, and caught him in a
whirlwind and bore him along for some time, till it settled in a garden,
and he fell quite gently to the ground amongst the greens and cabbages.

Then he looked around him, and said, ‘I wish I had something to eat, if
not I shall be worse off than before; for here I see neither apples
nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.’ At last he
thought to himself, ‘I can eat salad, it will refresh and strengthen
me.’ So he picked out a fine head and ate of it; but scarcely had he
swallowed two bites when he felt himself quite changed, and saw with
horror that he was turned into an ass. However, he still felt very
hungry, and the salad tasted very nice; so he ate on till he came
to another kind of salad, and scarcely had he tasted it when he felt
another change come over him, and soon saw that he was lucky enough to
have found his old shape again.

Then he laid himself down and slept off a little of his weariness; and
when he awoke the next morning he broke off a head both of the good and
the bad salad, and thought to himself, ‘This will help me to my fortune
again, and enable me to pay off some folks for their treachery.’ So he
went away to try and find the castle of his friends; and after wandering
about a few days he luckily found it. Then he stained his face all over
brown, so that even his mother would not have known him, and went into
the castle and asked for a lodging; ‘I am so tired,’ said he, ‘that I
can go no farther.’ ‘Countryman,’ said the witch, ‘who are you? and what
is your business?’ ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a messenger sent by the king to
find the finest salad that grows under the sun. I have been lucky
enough to find it, and have brought it with me; but the heat of the sun
scorches so that it begins to wither, and I don’t know that I can carry
it farther.’

When the witch and the young lady heard of his beautiful salad, they
longed to taste it, and said, ‘Dear countryman, let us just taste it.’
‘To be sure,’ answered he; ‘I have two heads of it with me, and will
give you one’; so he opened his bag and gave them the bad. Then the
witch herself took it into the kitchen to be dressed; and when it was
ready she could not wait till it was carried up, but took a few leaves
immediately and put them in her mouth, and scarcely were they swallowed
when she lost her own form and ran braying down into the court in the
form of an ass. Now the servant-maid came into the kitchen, and seeing
the salad ready, was going to carry it up; but on the way she too felt a
wish to taste it as the old woman had done, and ate some leaves; so she
also was turned into an ass and ran after the other, letting the dish
with the salad fall on the ground. The messenger sat all this time with
the beautiful young lady, and as nobody came with the salad and she
longed to taste it, she said, ‘I don’t know where the salad can be.’
Then he thought something must have happened, and said, ‘I will go
into the kitchen and see.’ And as he went he saw two asses in the court
running about, and the salad lying on the ground. ‘All right!’ said
he; ‘those two have had their share.’ Then he took up the rest of
the leaves, laid them on the dish and brought them to the young lady,
saying, ‘I bring you the dish myself that you may not wait any longer.’
So she ate of it, and like the others ran off into the court braying
away.

Then the huntsman washed his face and went into the court that they
might know him. ‘Now you shall be paid for your roguery,’ said he; and
tied them all three to a rope and took them along with him till he
came to a mill and knocked at the window. ‘What’s the matter?’ said the
miller. ‘I have three tiresome beasts here,’ said the other; ‘if you
will take them, give them food and room, and treat them as I tell you,
I will pay you whatever you ask.’ ‘With all my heart,’ said the miller;
‘but how shall I treat them?’ Then the huntsman said, ‘Give the old
one stripes three times a day and hay once; give the next (who was
the servant-maid) stripes once a day and hay three times; and give
the youngest (who was the beautiful lady) hay three times a day and
no stripes’: for he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten.
After this he went back to the castle, where he found everything he
wanted.

Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass
was dead; ‘The other two,’ said he, ‘are alive and eat, but are so
sorrowful that they cannot last long.’ Then the huntsman pitied them,
and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he
gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady
fell upon her knees before him, and said, ‘O dearest huntsman! forgive
me all the ill I have done you; my mother forced me to it, it was
against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak
hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird’s heart, I will give it you
too.’ But he said, ‘Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean
to make you my wife.’ So they were married, and lived together very
happily till they died.




THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS


A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and sensible,
and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither
learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said:
‘There’s a fellow who will give his father some trouble!’ When anything
had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it; but
if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the
night-time, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal
place, he answered: ‘Oh, no father, I’ll not go there, it makes me
shudder!’ for he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at
night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said: ‘Oh,
it makes us shudder!’ The younger sat in a corner and listened with
the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. ‘They are
always saying: “It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder!” It does not
make me shudder,’ thought he. ‘That, too, must be an art of which I
understand nothing!’

Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: ‘Hearken to me,
you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you
too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your
brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.’ ‘Well, father,’ he
replied, ‘I am quite willing to learn something--indeed, if it could but
be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don’t understand
that at all yet.’ The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and
thought to himself: ‘Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is!
He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to
be a sickle must bend himself betimes.’

The father sighed, and answered him: ‘You shall soon learn what it is to
shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.’

Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father
bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward
in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing. ‘Just think,’
said he, ‘when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he
actually wanted to learn to shudder.’ ‘If that be all,’ replied the
sexton, ‘he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon
polish him.’ The father was glad to do it, for he thought: ‘It will
train the boy a little.’ The sexton therefore took him into his house,
and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the sexton awoke
him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and
ring the bell. ‘You shall soon learn what shuddering is,’ thought he,
and secretly went there before him; and when the boy was at the top of
the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell
rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding
hole. ‘Who is there?’ cried he, but the figure made no reply, and did
not move or stir. ‘Give an answer,’ cried the boy, ‘or take yourself
off, you have no business here at night.’

The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might
think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time: ‘What do you want
here?--speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the
steps!’ The sexton thought: ‘He can’t mean to be as bad as his words,’
uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy
called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose,
he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it fell
down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner. Thereupon he
rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed, and
fell asleep. The sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but
he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and wakened the boy,
and asked: ‘Do you know where my husband is? He climbed up the tower
before you did.’ ‘No, I don’t know,’ replied the boy, ‘but someone was
standing by the sounding hole on the other side of the steps, and as he
would neither give an answer nor go away, I took him for a scoundrel,
and threw him downstairs. Just go there and you will see if it was he.
I should be sorry if it were.’ The woman ran away and found her husband,
who was lying moaning in the corner, and had broken his leg.

She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the
boy’s father, ‘Your boy,’ cried she, ‘has been the cause of a great
misfortune! He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke his
leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow out of our house.’ The father was
terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. ‘What wicked tricks
are these?’ said he. ‘The devil must have put them into your head.’
‘Father,’ he replied, ‘do listen to me. I am quite innocent. He was
standing there by night like one intent on doing evil. I did not know
who it was, and I entreated him three times either to speak or to go
away.’ ‘Ah,’ said the father, ‘I have nothing but unhappiness with you.
Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.’

‘Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I
go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate,
understand one art which will support me.’ ‘Learn what you will,’ spoke
the father, ‘it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for you.
Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from whence you
come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be ashamed of you.’
‘Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire nothing more than
that, I can easily keep it in mind.’

When the day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his
pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to
himself: ‘If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!’ Then a man
approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding with
himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they could
see the gallows, the man said to him: ‘Look, there is the tree where
seven men have married the ropemaker’s daughter, and are now learning
how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes, and you will
soon learn how to shudder.’ ‘If that is all that is wanted,’ answered
the youth, ‘it is easily done; but if I learn how to shudder as fast as
that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come back to me early in the
morning.’ Then the youth went to the gallows, sat down beneath it, and
waited till evening came. And as he was cold, he lighted himself a fire,
but at midnight the wind blew so sharply that in spite of his fire, he
could not get warm. And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each
other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself:
‘If you shiver below by the fire, how those up above must freeze and
suffer!’ And as he felt pity for them, he raised the ladder, and climbed
up, unbound one of them after the other, and brought down all seven.
Then he stoked the fire, blew it, and set them all round it to warm
themselves. But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught
their clothes. So he said: ‘Take care, or I will hang you up again.’ The
dead men, however, did not hear, but were quite silent, and let their
rags go on burning. At this he grew angry, and said: ‘If you will not
take care, I cannot help you, I will not be burnt with you,’ and he hung
them up again each in his turn. Then he sat down by his fire and fell
asleep, and the next morning the man came to him and wanted to have
the fifty talers, and said: ‘Well do you know how to shudder?’ ‘No,’
answered he, ‘how should I know? Those fellows up there did not open
their mouths, and were so stupid that they let the few old rags which
they had on their bodies get burnt.’ Then the man saw that he would not
get the fifty talers that day, and went away saying: ‘Such a youth has
never come my way before.’

The youth likewise went his way, and once more began to mutter to
himself: ‘Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!’ A
waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked: ‘Who are
you?’ ‘I don’t know,’ answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked: ‘From
whence do you come?’ ‘I know not.’ ‘Who is your father?’ ‘That I may
not tell you.’ ‘What is it that you are always muttering between your
teeth?’ ‘Ah,’ replied the youth, ‘I do so wish I could shudder, but
no one can teach me how.’ ‘Enough of your foolish chatter,’ said the
waggoner. ‘Come, go with me, I will see about a place for you.’ The
youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn
where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the parlour
the youth again said quite loudly: ‘If I could but shudder! If I could
but shudder!’ The host who heard this, laughed and said: ‘If that is
your desire, there ought to be a good opportunity for you here.’ ‘Ah,
be silent,’ said the hostess, ‘so many prying persons have already lost
their lives, it would be a pity and a shame if such beautiful eyes as
these should never see the daylight again.’

But the youth said: ‘However difficult it may be, I will learn it. For
this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth.’ He let the host have
no rest, until the latter told him, that not far from thence stood a
haunted castle where anyone could very easily learn what shuddering was,
if he would but watch in it for three nights. The king had promised that
he who would venture should have his daughter to wife, and she was the
most beautiful maiden the sun shone on. Likewise in the castle lay great
treasures, which were guarded by evil spirits, and these treasures would
then be freed, and would make a poor man rich enough. Already many men
had gone into the castle, but as yet none had come out again. Then the
youth went next morning to the king, and said: ‘If it be allowed, I will
willingly watch three nights in the haunted castle.’

The king looked at him, and as the youth pleased him, he said: ‘You may
ask for three things to take into the castle with you, but they must
be things without life.’ Then he answered: ‘Then I ask for a fire, a
turning lathe, and a cutting-board with the knife.’

The king had these things carried into the castle for him during the
day. When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself
a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife
beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. ‘Ah, if I could
but shudder!’ said he, ‘but I shall not learn it here either.’ Towards
midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it,
something cried suddenly from one corner: ‘Au, miau! how cold we are!’
‘You fools!’ cried he, ‘what are you crying about? If you are cold, come
and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.’ And when he had said
that, two great black cats came with one tremendous leap and sat down
on each side of him, and looked savagely at him with their fiery
eyes. After a short time, when they had warmed themselves, they said:
‘Comrade, shall we have a game of cards?’ ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘but
just show me your paws.’ Then they stretched out their claws. ‘Oh,’ said
he, ‘what long nails you have! Wait, I must first cut them for you.’
Thereupon he seized them by the throats, put them on the cutting-board
and screwed their feet fast. ‘I have looked at your fingers,’ said he,
‘and my fancy for card-playing has gone,’ and he struck them dead and
threw them out into the water. But when he had made away with these two,
and was about to sit down again by his fire, out from every hole and
corner came black cats and black dogs with red-hot chains, and more
and more of them came until he could no longer move, and they yelled
horribly, and got on his fire, pulled it to pieces, and tried to put
it out. He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were
going too far, he seized his cutting-knife, and cried: ‘Away with you,
vermin,’ and began to cut them down. Some of them ran away, the others
he killed, and threw out into the fish-pond. When he came back he fanned
the embers of his fire again and warmed himself. And as he thus sat, his
eyes would keep open no longer, and he felt a desire to sleep. Then he
looked round and saw a great bed in the corner. ‘That is the very thing
for me,’ said he, and got into it. When he was just going to shut his
eyes, however, the bed began to move of its own accord, and went over
the whole of the castle. ‘That’s right,’ said he, ‘but go faster.’ Then
the bed rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, up and down,
over thresholds and stairs, but suddenly hop, hop, it turned over upside
down, and lay on him like a mountain. But he threw quilts and pillows up
in the air, got out and said: ‘Now anyone who likes, may drive,’ and
lay down by his fire, and slept till it was day. In the morning the king
came, and when he saw him lying there on the ground, he thought the evil
spirits had killed him and he was dead. Then said he: ‘After all it is a
pity,--for so handsome a man.’ The youth heard it, got up, and said: ‘It
has not come to that yet.’ Then the king was astonished, but very glad,
and asked how he had fared. ‘Very well indeed,’ answered he; ‘one
night is past, the two others will pass likewise.’ Then he went to the
innkeeper, who opened his eyes very wide, and said: ‘I never expected to
see you alive again! Have you learnt how to shudder yet?’ ‘No,’ said he,
‘it is all in vain. If someone would but tell me!’

The second night he again went up into the old castle, sat down by the
fire, and once more began his old song: ‘If I could but shudder!’ When
midnight came, an uproar and noise of tumbling about was heard; at
first it was low, but it grew louder and louder. Then it was quiet for
a while, and at length with a loud scream, half a man came down the
chimney and fell before him. ‘Hullo!’ cried he, ‘another half belongs
to this. This is not enough!’ Then the uproar began again, there was a
roaring and howling, and the other half fell down likewise. ‘Wait,’ said
he, ‘I will just stoke up the fire a little for you.’ When he had done
that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a
hideous man was sitting in his place. ‘That is no part of our bargain,’
said the youth, ‘the bench is mine.’ The man wanted to push him away;
the youth, however, would not allow that, but thrust him off with all
his strength, and seated himself again in his own place. Then still more
men fell down, one after the other; they brought nine dead men’s legs
and two skulls, and set them up and played at nine-pins with them. The
youth also wanted to play and said: ‘Listen you, can I join you?’ ‘Yes,
if you have any money.’ ‘Money enough,’ replied he, ‘but your balls are
not quite round.’ Then he took the skulls and put them in the lathe and
turned them till they were round. ‘There, now they will roll better!’
said he. ‘Hurrah! now we’ll have fun!’ He played with them and lost some
of his money, but when it struck twelve, everything vanished from his
sight. He lay down and quietly fell asleep. Next morning the king came
to inquire after him. ‘How has it fared with you this time?’ asked he.
‘I have been playing at nine-pins,’ he answered, ‘and have lost a couple
of farthings.’ ‘Have you not shuddered then?’ ‘What?’ said he, ‘I have
had a wonderful time! If I did but know what it was to shudder!’

The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly:
‘If I could but shudder.’ When it grew late, six tall men came in and
brought a coffin. Then he said: ‘Ha, ha, that is certainly my little
cousin, who died only a few days ago,’ and he beckoned with his finger,
and cried: ‘Come, little cousin, come.’ They placed the coffin on the
ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay
therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. ‘Wait,’ said he, ‘I
will warm you a little,’ and went to the fire and warmed his hand and
laid it on the dead man’s face, but he remained cold. Then he took him
out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his
arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he
thought to himself: ‘When two people lie in bed together, they warm each
other,’ and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by
him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to move.
Then said the youth, ‘See, little cousin, have I not warmed you?’ The
dead man, however, got up and cried: ‘Now will I strangle you.’

‘What!’ said he, ‘is that the way you thank me? You shall at once go
into your coffin again,’ and he took him up, threw him into it, and shut
the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. ‘I cannot
manage to shudder,’ said he. ‘I shall never learn it here as long as I
live.’

Then a man entered who was taller than all others, and looked terrible.
He was old, however, and had a long white beard. ‘You wretch,’ cried he,
‘you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you shall die.’ ‘Not so
fast,’ replied the youth. ‘If I am to die, I shall have to have a say
in it.’ ‘I will soon seize you,’ said the fiend. ‘Softly, softly, do not
talk so big. I am as strong as you are, and perhaps even stronger.’
‘We shall see,’ said the old man. ‘If you are stronger, I will let you
go--come, we will try.’ Then he led him by dark passages to a smith’s
forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground.
‘I can do better than that,’ said the youth, and went to the other
anvil. The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his
white beard hung down. Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil
with one blow, and in it caught the old man’s beard. ‘Now I have you,’
said the youth. ‘Now it is your turn to die.’ Then he seized an iron bar
and beat the old man till he moaned and entreated him to stop, when he
would give him great riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go.
The old man led him back into the castle, and in a cellar showed him
three chests full of gold. ‘Of these,’ said he, ‘one part is for the
poor, the other for the king, the third yours.’ In the meantime it
struck twelve, and the spirit disappeared, so that the youth stood in
darkness. ‘I shall still be able to find my way out,’ said he, and felt
about, found the way into the room, and slept there by his fire.
Next morning the king came and said: ‘Now you must have learnt what
shuddering is?’ ‘No,’ he answered; ‘what can it be? My dead cousin was
here, and a bearded man came and showed me a great deal of money down
below, but no one told me what it was to shudder.’ ‘Then,’ said the
king, ‘you have saved the castle, and shall marry my daughter.’ ‘That
is all very well,’ said he, ‘but still I do not know what it is to
shudder!’

Then the gold was brought up and the wedding celebrated; but howsoever
much the young king loved his wife, and however happy he was, he still
said always: ‘If I could but shudder--if I could but shudder.’ And this
at last angered her. Her waiting-maid said: ‘I will find a cure for him;
he shall soon learn what it is to shudder.’ She went out to the stream
which flowed through the garden, and had a whole bucketful of gudgeons
brought to her. At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was
to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water
with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would
sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried: ‘Oh, what makes me shudder
so?--what makes me shudder so, dear wife? Ah! now I know what it is to
shudder!’




KING GRISLY-BEARD


A great king of a land far away in the East had a daughter who was very
beautiful, but so proud, and haughty, and conceited, that none of the
princes who came to ask her in marriage was good enough for her, and she
only made sport of them.

Once upon a time the king held a great feast, and asked thither all
her suitors; and they all sat in a row, ranged according to their
rank--kings, and princes, and dukes, and earls, and counts, and barons,
and knights. Then the princess came in, and as she passed by them she
had something spiteful to say to every one. The first was too fat: ‘He’s
as round as a tub,’ said she. The next was too tall: ‘What a maypole!’
said she. The next was too short: ‘What a dumpling!’ said she. The
fourth was too pale, and she called him ‘Wallface.’ The fifth was too
red, so she called him ‘Coxcomb.’ The sixth was not straight enough;
so she said he was like a green stick, that had been laid to dry over
a baker’s oven. And thus she had some joke to crack upon every one: but
she laughed more than all at a good king who was there. ‘Look at
him,’ said she; ‘his beard is like an old mop; he shall be called
Grisly-beard.’ So the king got the nickname of Grisly-beard.

But the old king was very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved,
and how she ill-treated all his guests; and he vowed that, willing or
unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar, that
came to the door.

Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play
under the window and beg alms; and when the king heard him, he said,
‘Let him come in.’ So they brought in a dirty-looking fellow; and when
he had sung before the king and the princess, he begged a boon. Then the
king said, ‘You have sung so well, that I will give you my daughter for
your wife.’ The princess begged and prayed; but the king said, ‘I have
sworn to give you to the first comer, and I will keep my word.’ So words
and tears were of no avail; the parson was sent for, and she was married
to the fiddler. When this was over the king said, ‘Now get ready to
go--you must not stay here--you must travel on with your husband.’

Then the fiddler went his way, and took her with him, and they soon came
to a great wood. ‘Pray,’ said she, ‘whose is this wood?’ ‘It belongs
to King Grisly-beard,’ answered he; ‘hadst thou taken him, all had been
thine.’ ‘Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!’ sighed she; ‘would that I had
married King Grisly-beard!’ Next they came to some fine meadows. ‘Whose
are these beautiful green meadows?’ said she. ‘They belong to King
Grisly-beard, hadst thou taken him, they had all been thine.’ ‘Ah!
unlucky wretch that I am!’ said she; ‘would that I had married King
Grisly-beard!’

Then they came to a great city. ‘Whose is this noble city?’ said she.
‘It belongs to King Grisly-beard; hadst thou taken him, it had all been
thine.’ ‘Ah! wretch that I am!’ sighed she; ‘why did I not marry King
Grisly-beard?’ ‘That is no business of mine,’ said the fiddler: ‘why
should you wish for another husband? Am not I good enough for you?’

At last they came to a small cottage. ‘What a paltry place!’ said she;
‘to whom does that little dirty hole belong?’ Then the fiddler said,
‘That is your and my house, where we are to live.’ ‘Where are your
servants?’ cried she. ‘What do we want with servants?’ said he; ‘you
must do for yourself whatever is to be done. Now make the fire, and put
on water and cook my supper, for I am very tired.’ But the princess knew
nothing of making fires and cooking, and the fiddler was forced to help
her. When they had eaten a very scanty meal they went to bed; but the
fiddler called her up very early in the morning to clean the house. Thus
they lived for two days: and when they had eaten up all there was in the
cottage, the man said, ‘Wife, we can’t go on thus, spending money and
earning nothing. You must learn to weave baskets.’ Then he went out and
cut willows, and brought them home, and she began to weave; but it made
her fingers very sore. ‘I see this work won’t do,’ said he: ‘try and
spin; perhaps you will do that better.’ So she sat down and tried to
spin; but the threads cut her tender fingers till the blood ran. ‘See
now,’ said the fiddler, ‘you are good for nothing; you can do no work:
what a bargain I have got! However, I’ll try and set up a trade in pots
and pans, and you shall stand in the market and sell them.’ ‘Alas!’
sighed she, ‘if any of my father’s court should pass by and see me
standing in the market, how they will laugh at me!’

But her husband did not care for that, and said she must work, if she
did not wish to die of hunger. At first the trade went well; for many
people, seeing such a beautiful woman, went to buy her wares, and paid
their money without thinking of taking away the goods. They lived on
this as long as it lasted; and then her husband bought a fresh lot of
ware, and she sat herself down with it in the corner of the market; but
a drunken soldier soon came by, and rode his horse against her stall,
and broke all her goods into a thousand pieces. Then she began to cry,
and knew not what to do. ‘Ah! what will become of me?’ said she; ‘what
will my husband say?’ So she ran home and told him all. ‘Who would
have thought you would have been so silly,’ said he, ‘as to put an
earthenware stall in the corner of the market, where everybody passes?
but let us have no more crying; I see you are not fit for this sort of
work, so I have been to the king’s palace, and asked if they did not
want a kitchen-maid; and they say they will take you, and there you will
have plenty to eat.’

Thus the princess became a kitchen-maid, and helped the cook to do all
the dirtiest work; but she was allowed to carry home some of the meat
that was left, and on this they lived.

She had not been there long before she heard that the king’s eldest son
was passing by, going to be married; and she went to one of the windows
and looked out. Everything was ready, and all the pomp and brightness of
the court was there. Then she bitterly grieved for the pride and folly
which had brought her so low. And the servants gave her some of the rich
meats, which she put into her basket to take home.

All on a sudden, as she was going out, in came the king’s son in golden
clothes; and when he saw a beautiful woman at the door, he took her
by the hand, and said she should be his partner in the dance; but she
trembled for fear, for she saw that it was King Grisly-beard, who was
making sport of her. However, he kept fast hold, and led her in; and the
cover of the basket came off, so that the meats in it fell about. Then
everybody laughed and jeered at her; and she was so abashed, that she
wished herself a thousand feet deep in the earth. She sprang to the
door to run away; but on the steps King Grisly-beard overtook her, and
brought her back and said, ‘Fear me not! I am the fiddler who has lived
with you in the hut. I brought you there because I really loved you. I
am also the soldier that overset your stall. I have done all this only
to cure you of your silly pride, and to show you the folly of your
ill-treatment of me. Now all is over: you have learnt wisdom, and it is
time to hold our marriage feast.’

Then the chamberlains came and brought her the most beautiful robes; and
her father and his whole court were there already, and welcomed her home
on her marriage. Joy was in every face and every heart. The feast was
grand; they danced and sang; all were merry; and I only wish that you
and I had been of the party.




IRON HANS


There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest near his
palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a
huntsman to shoot him a roe, but he did not come back. ‘Perhaps some
accident has befallen him,’ said the king, and the next day he sent out
two more huntsmen who were to search for him, but they too stayed away.
Then on the third day, he sent for all his huntsmen, and said: ‘Scour
the whole forest through, and do not give up until you have found all
three.’ But of these also, none came home again, none were seen again.
From that time forth, no one would any longer venture into the forest,
and it lay there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen
of it, but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it. This lasted for
many years, when an unknown huntsman announced himself to the king as
seeking a situation, and offered to go into the dangerous forest. The
king, however, would not give his consent, and said: ‘It is not safe in
there; I fear it would fare with you no better than with the others,
and you would never come out again.’ The huntsman replied: ‘Lord, I will
venture it at my own risk, of fear I know nothing.’

The huntsman therefore betook himself with his dog to the forest. It was
not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way, and wanted to
pursue it; but hardly had the dog run two steps when it stood before a
deep pool, could go no farther, and a naked arm stretched itself out of
the water, seized it, and drew it under. When the huntsman saw that, he
went back and fetched three men to come with buckets and bale out the
water. When they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body
was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face down to his
knees. They bound him with cords, and led him away to the castle. There
was great astonishment over the wild man; the king, however, had him put
in an iron cage in his courtyard, and forbade the door to be opened
on pain of death, and the queen herself was to take the key into her
keeping. And from this time forth everyone could again go into the
forest with safety.

The king had a son of eight years, who was once playing in the
courtyard, and while he was playing, his golden ball fell into the cage.
The boy ran thither and said: ‘Give me my ball out.’ ‘Not till you have
opened the door for me,’ answered the man. ‘No,’ said the boy, ‘I will
not do that; the king has forbidden it,’ and ran away. The next day he
again went and asked for his ball; the wild man said: ‘Open my door,’
but the boy would not. On the third day the king had ridden out hunting,
and the boy went once more and said: ‘I cannot open the door even if I
wished, for I have not the key.’ Then the wild man said: ‘It lies under
your mother’s pillow, you can get it there.’ The boy, who wanted to have
his ball back, cast all thought to the winds, and brought the key. The
door opened with difficulty, and the boy pinched his fingers. When it
was open the wild man stepped out, gave him the golden ball, and hurried
away. The boy had become afraid; he called and cried after him: ‘Oh,
wild man, do not go away, or I shall be beaten!’ The wild man turned
back, took him up, set him on his shoulder, and went with hasty steps
into the forest. When the king came home, he observed the empty cage,
and asked the queen how that had happened. She knew nothing about it,
and sought the key, but it was gone. She called the boy, but no one
answered. The king sent out people to seek for him in the fields, but
they did not find him. Then he could easily guess what had happened, and
much grief reigned in the royal court.

When the wild man had once more reached the dark forest, he took the boy
down from his shoulder, and said to him: ‘You will never see your father
and mother again, but I will keep you with me, for you have set me free,
and I have compassion on you. If you do all I bid you, you shall fare
well. Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the
world.’ He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept, and the
next morning the man took him to a well, and said: ‘Behold, the gold
well is as bright and clear as crystal, you shall sit beside it, and
take care that nothing falls into it, or it will be polluted. I will
come every evening to see if you have obeyed my order.’ The boy placed
himself by the brink of the well, and often saw a golden fish or a
golden snake show itself therein, and took care that nothing fell in.
As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he
involuntarily put it in the water. He drew it quickly out again, but saw
that it was quite gilded, and whatsoever pains he took to wash the gold
off again, all was to no purpose. In the evening Iron Hans came back,
looked at the boy, and said: ‘What has happened to the well?’ ‘Nothing
nothing,’ he answered, and held his finger behind his back, that the
man might not see it. But he said: ‘You have dipped your finger into
the water, this time it may pass, but take care you do not again let
anything go in.’ By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and
watching it. His finger hurt him again and he passed it over his head,
and then unhappily a hair fell down into the well. He took it quickly
out, but it was already quite gilded. Iron Hans came, and already knew
what had happened. ‘You have let a hair fall into the well,’ said he.
‘I will allow you to watch by it once more, but if this happens for the
third time then the well is polluted and you can no longer remain with
me.’

On the third day, the boy sat by the well, and did not stir his finger,
however much it hurt him. But the time was long to him, and he looked at
the reflection of his face on the surface of the water. And as he
still bent down more and more while he was doing so, and trying to look
straight into the eyes, his long hair fell down from his shoulders into
the water. He raised himself up quickly, but the whole of the hair of
his head was already golden and shone like the sun. You can imagine how
terrified the poor boy was! He took his pocket-handkerchief and tied it
round his head, in order that the man might not see it. When he came he
already knew everything, and said: ‘Take the handkerchief off.’ Then the
golden hair streamed forth, and let the boy excuse himself as he might,
it was of no use. ‘You have not stood the trial and can stay here no
longer. Go forth into the world, there you will learn what poverty is.
But as you have not a bad heart, and as I mean well by you, there is
one thing I will grant you; if you fall into any difficulty, come to the
forest and cry: “Iron Hans,” and then I will come and help you. My
power is great, greater than you think, and I have gold and silver in
abundance.’

Then the king’s son left the forest, and walked by beaten and unbeaten
paths ever onwards until at length he reached a great city. There he
looked for work, but could find none, and he learnt nothing by which he
could help himself. At length he went to the palace, and asked if they
would take him in. The people about court did not at all know what use
they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay. At
length the cook took him into his service, and said he might carry wood
and water, and rake the cinders together. Once when it so happened that
no one else was at hand, the cook ordered him to carry the food to the
royal table, but as he did not like to let his golden hair be seen, he
kept his little cap on. Such a thing as that had never yet come under
the king’s notice, and he said: ‘When you come to the royal table you
must take your hat off.’ He answered: ‘Ah, Lord, I cannot; I have a bad
sore place on my head.’ Then the king had the cook called before him
and scolded him, and asked how he could take such a boy as that into his
service; and that he was to send him away at once. The cook, however,
had pity on him, and exchanged him for the gardener’s boy.

And now the boy had to plant and water the garden, hoe and dig, and bear
the wind and bad weather. Once in summer when he was working alone in
the garden, the day was so warm he took his little cap off that the air
might cool him. As the sun shone on his hair it glittered and flashed so
that the rays fell into the bedroom of the king’s daughter, and up she
sprang to see what that could be. Then she saw the boy, and cried to
him: ‘Boy, bring me a wreath of flowers.’ He put his cap on with all
haste, and gathered wild field-flowers and bound them together. When he
was ascending the stairs with them, the gardener met him, and said: ‘How
can you take the king’s daughter a garland of such common flowers? Go
quickly, and get another, and seek out the prettiest and rarest.’ ‘Oh,
no,’ replied the boy, ‘the wild ones have more scent, and will please
her better.’ When he got into the room, the king’s daughter said: ‘Take
your cap off, it is not seemly to keep it on in my presence.’ He again
said: ‘I may not, I have a sore head.’ She, however, caught at his
cap and pulled it off, and then his golden hair rolled down on his
shoulders, and it was splendid to behold. He wanted to run out, but she
held him by the arm, and gave him a handful of ducats. With these he
departed, but he cared nothing for the gold pieces. He took them to the
gardener, and said: ‘I present them to your children, they can play with
them.’ The following day the king’s daughter again called to him that he
was to bring her a wreath of field-flowers, and then he went in with it,
she instantly snatched at his cap, and wanted to take it away from him,
but he held it fast with both hands. She again gave him a handful of
ducats, but he would not keep them, and gave them to the gardener for
playthings for his children. On the third day things went just the
same; she could not get his cap away from him, and he would not have her
money.

Not long afterwards, the country was overrun by war. The king gathered
together his people, and did not know whether or not he could offer any
opposition to the enemy, who was superior in strength and had a mighty
army. Then said the gardener’s boy: ‘I am grown up, and will go to the
wars also, only give me a horse.’ The others laughed, and said: ‘Seek
one for yourself when we are gone, we will leave one behind us in the
stable for you.’ When they had gone forth, he went into the stable, and
led the horse out; it was lame of one foot, and limped hobblety jib,
hobblety jib; nevertheless he mounted it, and rode away to the dark
forest. When he came to the outskirts, he called ‘Iron Hans’ three
times so loudly that it echoed through the trees. Thereupon the wild man
appeared immediately, and said: ‘What do you desire?’ ‘I want a strong
steed, for I am going to the wars.’ ‘That you shall have, and still more
than you ask for.’ Then the wild man went back into the forest, and it
was not long before a stable-boy came out of it, who led a horse that
snorted with its nostrils, and could hardly be restrained, and behind
them followed a great troop of warriors entirely equipped in iron, and
their swords flashed in the sun. The youth made over his three-legged
horse to the stable-boy, mounted the other, and rode at the head of the
soldiers. When he got near the battlefield a great part of the king’s
men had already fallen, and little was wanting to make the rest give
way. Then the youth galloped thither with his iron soldiers, broke like
a hurricane over the enemy, and beat down all who opposed him. They
began to flee, but the youth pursued, and never stopped, until there
was not a single man left. Instead of returning to the king, however, he
conducted his troop by byways back to the forest, and called forth Iron
Hans. ‘What do you desire?’ asked the wild man. ‘Take back your horse
and your troops, and give me my three-legged horse again.’ All that he
asked was done, and soon he was riding on his three-legged horse. When
the king returned to his palace, his daughter went to meet him, and
wished him joy of his victory. ‘I am not the one who carried away the
victory,’ said he, ‘but a strange knight who came to my assistance with
his soldiers.’ The daughter wanted to hear who the strange knight was,
but the king did not know, and said: ‘He followed the enemy, and I did
not see him again.’ She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but
he smiled, and said: ‘He has just come home on his three-legged horse,
and the others have been mocking him, and crying: “Here comes our
hobblety jib back again!” They asked, too: “Under what hedge have you
been lying sleeping all the time?” So he said: “I did the best of all,
and it would have gone badly without me.” And then he was still more
ridiculed.’

The king said to his daughter: ‘I will proclaim a great feast that shall
last for three days, and you shall throw a golden apple. Perhaps the
unknown man will show himself.’ When the feast was announced, the youth
went out to the forest, and called Iron Hans. ‘What do you desire?’
asked he. ‘That I may catch the king’s daughter’s golden apple.’ ‘It is
as safe as if you had it already,’ said Iron Hans. ‘You shall likewise
have a suit of red armour for the occasion, and ride on a spirited
chestnut-horse.’ When the day came, the youth galloped to the spot, took
his place amongst the knights, and was recognized by no one. The king’s
daughter came forward, and threw a golden apple to the knights, but none
of them caught it but he, only as soon as he had it he galloped away.

On the second day Iron Hans equipped him as a white knight, and gave him
a white horse. Again he was the only one who caught the apple, and
he did not linger an instant, but galloped off with it. The king grew
angry, and said: ‘That is not allowed; he must appear before me and tell
his name.’ He gave the order that if the knight who caught the apple,
should go away again they should pursue him, and if he would not come
back willingly, they were to cut him down and stab him.

On the third day, he received from Iron Hans a suit of black armour and
a black horse, and again he caught the apple. But when he was riding off
with it, the king’s attendants pursued him, and one of them got so near
him that he wounded the youth’s leg with the point of his sword. The
youth nevertheless escaped from them, but his horse leapt so violently
that the helmet fell from the youth’s head, and they could see that he
had golden hair. They rode back and announced this to the king.

The following day the king’s daughter asked the gardener about his
boy. ‘He is at work in the garden; the queer creature has been at the
festival too, and only came home yesterday evening; he has likewise
shown my children three golden apples which he has won.’

The king had him summoned into his presence, and he came and again had
his little cap on his head. But the king’s daughter went up to him and
took it off, and then his golden hair fell down over his shoulders, and
he was so handsome that all were amazed. ‘Are you the knight who came
every day to the festival, always in different colours, and who caught
the three golden apples?’ asked the king. ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘and here
the apples are,’ and he took them out of his pocket, and returned them
to the king. ‘If you desire further proof, you may see the wound which
your people gave me when they followed me. But I am likewise the knight
who helped you to your victory over your enemies.’ ‘If you can perform
such deeds as that, you are no gardener’s boy; tell me, who is your
father?’ ‘My father is a mighty king, and gold have I in plenty as great
as I require.’ ‘I well see,’ said the king, ‘that I owe my thanks to
you; can I do anything to please you?’ ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘that indeed
you can. Give me your daughter to wife.’ The maiden laughed, and said:
‘He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his
golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy,’ and then she went and
kissed him. His father and mother came to the wedding, and were in great
delight, for they had given up all hope of ever seeing their dear
son again. And as they were sitting at the marriage-feast, the music
suddenly stopped, the doors opened, and a stately king came in with a
great retinue. He went up to the youth, embraced him and said: ‘I am
Iron Hans, and was by enchantment a wild man, but you have set me free;
all the treasures which I possess, shall be your property.’




CAT-SKIN


There was once a king, whose queen had hair of the purest gold, and was
so beautiful that her match was not to be met with on the whole face of
the earth. But this beautiful queen fell ill, and when she felt that her
end drew near she called the king to her and said, ‘Promise me that you
will never marry again, unless you meet with a wife who is as beautiful
as I am, and who has golden hair like mine.’ Then when the king in his
grief promised all she asked, she shut her eyes and died. But the king
was not to be comforted, and for a long time never thought of taking
another wife. At last, however, his wise men said, ‘this will not do;
the king must marry again, that we may have a queen.’ So messengers were
sent far and wide, to seek for a bride as beautiful as the late queen.
But there was no princess in the world so beautiful; and if there had
been, still there was not one to be found who had golden hair. So the
messengers came home, and had had all their trouble for nothing.

Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her mother,
and had the same golden hair. And when she was grown up, the king looked
at her and saw that she was just like this late queen: then he said to
his courtiers, ‘May I not marry my daughter? She is the very image of my
dead wife: unless I have her, I shall not find any bride upon the whole
earth, and you say there must be a queen.’ When the courtiers heard this
they were shocked, and said, ‘Heaven forbid that a father should marry
his daughter! Out of so great a sin no good can come.’ And his daughter
was also shocked, but hoped the king would soon give up such thoughts;
so she said to him, ‘Before I marry anyone I must have three dresses:
one must be of gold, like the sun; another must be of shining silver,
like the moon; and a third must be dazzling as the stars: besides this,
I want a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur put together, to
which every beast in the kingdom must give a part of his skin.’ And thus
she thought he would think of the matter no more. But the king made the
most skilful workmen in his kingdom weave the three dresses: one golden,
like the sun; another silvery, like the moon; and a third sparkling,
like the stars: and his hunters were told to hunt out all the beasts in
his kingdom, and to take the finest fur out of their skins: and thus a
mantle of a thousand furs was made.

When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the
night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden
ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three
dresses--of the sun, the moon, and the stars--up in a nutshell, and
wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared
her face and hands with soot. Then she threw herself upon Heaven for
help in her need, and went away, and journeyed on the whole night, till
at last she came to a large wood. As she was very tired, she sat herself
down in the hollow of a tree and soon fell asleep: and there she slept
on till it was midday.

Now as the king to whom the wood belonged was hunting in it, his dogs
came to the tree, and began to snuff about, and run round and round, and
bark. ‘Look sharp!’ said the king to the huntsmen, ‘and see what sort
of game lies there.’ And the huntsmen went up to the tree, and when they
came back again said, ‘In the hollow tree there lies a most wonderful
beast, such as we never saw before; its skin seems to be of a thousand
kinds of fur, but there it lies fast asleep.’ ‘See,’ said the king, ‘if
you can catch it alive, and we will take it with us.’ So the huntsmen
took it up, and the maiden awoke and was greatly frightened, and said,
‘I am a poor child that has neither father nor mother left; have pity on
me and take me with you.’ Then they said, ‘Yes, Miss Cat-skin, you will
do for the kitchen; you can sweep up the ashes, and do things of that
sort.’ So they put her into the coach, and took her home to the king’s
palace. Then they showed her a little corner under the staircase, where
no light of day ever peeped in, and said, ‘Cat-skin, you may lie and
sleep there.’ And she was sent into the kitchen, and made to fetch wood
and water, to blow the fire, pluck the poultry, pick the herbs, sift the
ashes, and do all the dirty work.

Thus Cat-skin lived for a long time very sorrowfully. ‘Ah! pretty
princess!’ thought she, ‘what will now become of thee?’ But it happened
one day that a feast was to be held in the king’s castle, so she said to
the cook, ‘May I go up a little while and see what is going on? I will
take care and stand behind the door.’ And the cook said, ‘Yes, you may
go, but be back again in half an hour’s time, to rake out the ashes.’
Then she took her little lamp, and went into her cabin, and took off the
fur skin, and washed the soot from off her face and hands, so that her
beauty shone forth like the sun from behind the clouds. She next opened
her nutshell, and brought out of it the dress that shone like the sun,
and so went to the feast. Everyone made way for her, for nobody knew
her, and they thought she could be no less than a king’s daughter. But
the king came up to her, and held out his hand and danced with her; and
he thought in his heart, ‘I never saw any one half so beautiful.’

When the dance was at an end she curtsied; and when the king looked
round for her, she was gone, no one knew wither. The guards that stood
at the castle gate were called in: but they had seen no one. The truth
was, that she had run into her little cabin, pulled off her dress,
blackened her face and hands, put on the fur-skin cloak, and was
Cat-skin again. When she went into the kitchen to her work, and began
to rake the ashes, the cook said, ‘Let that alone till the morning, and
heat the king’s soup; I should like to run up now and give a peep: but
take care you don’t let a hair fall into it, or you will run a chance of
never eating again.’

As soon as the cook went away, Cat-skin heated the king’s soup, and
toasted a slice of bread first, as nicely as ever she could; and when it
was ready, she went and looked in the cabin for her little golden ring,
and put it into the dish in which the soup was. When the dance was over,
the king ordered his soup to be brought in; and it pleased him so well,
that he thought he had never tasted any so good before. At the bottom
he saw a gold ring lying; and as he could not make out how it had got
there, he ordered the cook to be sent for. The cook was frightened when
he heard the order, and said to Cat-skin, ‘You must have let a hair fall
into the soup; if it be so, you will have a good beating.’ Then he went
before the king, and he asked him who had cooked the soup. ‘I did,’
answered the cook. But the king said, ‘That is not true; it was better
done than you could do it.’ Then he answered, ‘To tell the truth I did
not cook it, but Cat-skin did.’ ‘Then let Cat-skin come up,’ said the
king: and when she came he said to her, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am a poor
child,’ said she, ‘that has lost both father and mother.’ ‘How came you
in my palace?’ asked he. ‘I am good for nothing,’ said she, ‘but to be
scullion-girl, and to have boots and shoes thrown at my head.’ ‘But how
did you get the ring that was in the soup?’ asked the king. Then she
would not own that she knew anything about the ring; so the king sent
her away again about her business.

After a time there was another feast, and Cat-skin asked the cook to let
her go up and see it as before. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but come again in half
an hour, and cook the king the soup that he likes so much.’ Then she
ran to her little cabin, washed herself quickly, and took her dress
out which was silvery as the moon, and put it on; and when she went in,
looking like a king’s daughter, the king went up to her, and rejoiced at
seeing her again, and when the dance began he danced with her. After the
dance was at an end she managed to slip out, so slyly that the king did
not see where she was gone; but she sprang into her little cabin, and
made herself into Cat-skin again, and went into the kitchen to cook the
soup. Whilst the cook was above stairs, she got the golden necklace and
dropped it into the soup; then it was brought to the king, who ate it,
and it pleased him as well as before; so he sent for the cook, who
was again forced to tell him that Cat-skin had cooked it. Cat-skin was
brought again before the king, but she still told him that she was only
fit to have boots and shoes thrown at her head.

But when the king had ordered a feast to be got ready for the third
time, it happened just the same as before. ‘You must be a witch,
Cat-skin,’ said the cook; ‘for you always put something into your soup,
so that it pleases the king better than mine.’ However, he let her go up
as before. Then she put on her dress which sparkled like the stars, and
went into the ball-room in it; and the king danced with her again, and
thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did then. So whilst
he was dancing with her, he put a gold ring on her finger without her
seeing it, and ordered that the dance should be kept up a long time.
When it was at an end, he would have held her fast by the hand, but she
slipped away, and sprang so quickly through the crowd that he lost sight
of her: and she ran as fast as she could into her little cabin under
the stairs. But this time she kept away too long, and stayed beyond the
half-hour; so she had not time to take off her fine dress, and threw her
fur mantle over it, and in her haste did not blacken herself all over
with soot, but left one of her fingers white.

Then she ran into the kitchen, and cooked the king’s soup; and as soon
as the cook was gone, she put the golden brooch into the dish. When the
king got to the bottom, he ordered Cat-skin to be called once more, and
soon saw the white finger, and the ring that he had put on it whilst
they were dancing: so he seized her hand, and kept fast hold of it, and
when she wanted to loose herself and spring away, the fur cloak fell off
a little on one side, and the starry dress sparkled underneath it.

Then he got hold of the fur and tore it off, and her golden hair and
beautiful form were seen, and she could no longer hide herself: so she
washed the soot and ashes from her face, and showed herself to be the
most beautiful princess upon the face of the earth. But the king said,
‘You are my beloved bride, and we will never more be parted from each
other.’ And the wedding feast was held, and a merry day it was, as ever
was heard of or seen in that country, or indeed in any other.




SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED


There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of
the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose-trees, one of which bore
white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the
two rose-trees, and one was called Snow-white, and the other Rose-red.
They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever two children
in the world were, only Snow-white was more quiet and gentle than
Rose-red. Rose-red liked better to run about in the meadows and fields
seeking flowers and catching butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home
with her mother, and helped her with her housework, or read to her when
there was nothing to do.

The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each
other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow-white said:
‘We will not leave each other,’ Rose-red answered: ‘Never so long as we
live,’ and their mother would add: ‘What one has she must share with the
other.’

They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no
beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully. The little
hare would eat a cabbage-leaf out of their hands, the roe grazed by
their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon
the boughs, and sang whatever they knew.

No mishap overtook them; if they had stayed too late in the forest, and
night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss,
and slept until morning came, and their mother knew this and did not
worry on their account.

Once when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused
them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near
their bed. He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing
and went into the forest. And when they looked round they found that
they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice, and would certainly
have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces
further. And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who
watches over good children.

Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s little cottage so neat that
it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rose-red took care
of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother’s
bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter
Snow-white lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle
was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the
evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said: ‘Go, Snow-white, and
bolt the door,’ and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took
her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls
listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the
floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head
hidden beneath its wings.

One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone
knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in. The mother said:
‘Quick, Rose-red, open the door, it must be a traveller who is seeking
shelter.’ Rose-red went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a
poor man, but it was not; it was a bear that stretched his broad, black
head within the door.

Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered,
and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed. But the bear began
to speak and said: ‘Do not be afraid, I will do you no harm! I am
half-frozen, and only want to warm myself a little beside you.’

‘Poor bear,’ said the mother, ‘lie down by the fire, only take care that
you do not burn your coat.’ Then she cried: ‘Snow-white, Rose-red, come
out, the bear will do you no harm, he means well.’ So they both came
out, and by-and-by the lamb and dove came nearer, and were not afraid
of him. The bear said: ‘Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a
little’; so they brought the broom and swept the bear’s hide clean;
and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and
comfortably. It was not long before they grew quite at home, and played
tricks with their clumsy guest. They tugged his hair with their hands,
put their feet upon his back and rolled him about, or they took a
hazel-switch and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. But the
bear took it all in good part, only when they were too rough he called
out: ‘Leave me alive, children,

  Snow-white, Rose-red,
  Will you beat your wooer dead?’

When it was bed-time, and the others went to bed, the mother said to the
bear: ‘You can lie there by the hearth, and then you will be safe from
the cold and the bad weather.’ As soon as day dawned the two children
let him out, and he trotted across the snow into the forest.

Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself
down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as
much as they liked; and they got so used to him that the doors were
never fastened until their black friend had arrived.

When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one
morning to Snow-white: ‘Now I must go away, and cannot come back for the
whole summer.’ ‘Where are you going, then, dear bear?’ asked Snow-white.
‘I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked
dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged
to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun
has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to
pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves,
does not easily see daylight again.’

Snow-white was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the
door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt
and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow-white
as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about
it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the
trees.

A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest
to get firewood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the
ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and
forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When
they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a
snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a
crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog
tied to a rope, and did not know what to do.

He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried: ‘Why do you
stand there? Can you not come here and help me?’ ‘What are you up to,
little man?’ asked Rose-red. ‘You stupid, prying goose!’ answered the
dwarf: ‘I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking.
The little bit of food that we people get is immediately burnt up with
heavy logs; we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had
just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished;
but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the
tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white
beard; so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek,
milk-faced things laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!’

The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it
was caught too fast. ‘I will run and fetch someone,’ said Rose-red. ‘You
senseless goose!’ snarled the dwarf; ‘why should you fetch someone? You
are already two too many for me; can you not think of something better?’
‘Don’t be impatient,’ said Snow-white, ‘I will help you,’ and she pulled
her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard.

As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay
amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it
up, grumbling to himself: ‘Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine
beard. Bad luck to you!’ and then he swung the bag upon his back, and
went off without even once looking at the children.

Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red went to catch a dish
of fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large
grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in.
They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. ‘Where are you going?’ said
Rose-red; ‘you surely don’t want to go into the water?’ ‘I am not such
a fool!’ cried the dwarf; ‘don’t you see that the accursed fish wants
to pull me in?’ The little man had been sitting there fishing, and
unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishing-line; a
moment later a big fish made a bite and the feeble creature had not
strength to pull it out; the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the
dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of
little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and
was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water.

The girls came just in time; they held him fast and tried to free his
beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast
together. There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut
the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that
he screamed out: ‘Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man’s
face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have
cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people.
I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!’ Then he took
out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word
he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.

It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the
town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them
across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There
they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and
round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a
rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran
up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance
the dwarf, and was going to carry him off.

The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man,
and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go.
As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright he cried
with his shrill voice: ‘Could you not have done it more carefully! You
dragged at my brown coat so that it is all torn and full of holes, you
clumsy creatures!’ Then he took up a sack full of precious stones, and
slipped away again under the rock into his hole. The girls, who by
this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their
business in town.

As they crossed the heath again on their way home they surprised the
dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot,
and had not thought that anyone would come there so late. The evening
sun shone upon the brilliant stones; they glittered and sparkled with
all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared
at them. ‘Why do you stand gaping there?’ cried the dwarf, and his
ashen-grey face became copper-red with rage. He was still cursing when a
loud growling was heard, and a black bear came trotting towards them out
of the forest. The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach
his cave, for the bear was already close. Then in the dread of his heart
he cried: ‘Dear Mr Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures;
look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life; what do you
want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me
between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender
morsels for you, fat as young quails; for mercy’s sake eat them!’ The
bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single
blow with his paw, and he did not move again.

The girls had run away, but the bear called to them: ‘Snow-white and
Rose-red, do not be afraid; wait, I will come with you.’ Then they
recognized his voice and waited, and when he came up to them suddenly
his bearskin fell off, and he stood there a handsome man, clothed all in
gold. ‘I am a king’s son,’ he said, ‘and I was bewitched by that wicked
dwarf, who had stolen my treasures; I have had to run about the forest
as a savage bear until I was freed by his death. Now he has got his
well-deserved punishment.

Snow-white was married to him, and Rose-red to his brother, and they
divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered
together in his cave. The old mother lived peacefully and happily with
her children for many years. She took the two rose-trees with her, and
they stood before her window, and every year bore the most beautiful
roses, white and red.THE BRONZE RING


Once upon a time in a certain country there lived a king whose palace
was surrounded by a spacious garden. But, though the gardeners were many
and the soil was good, this garden yielded neither flowers nor fruits,
not even grass or shady trees.

The King was in despair about it, when a wise old man said to him:

“Your gardeners do not understand their business: but what can you
expect of men whose fathers were cobblers and carpenters? How should
they have learned to cultivate your garden?”

“You are quite right,” cried the King.

“Therefore,” continued the old man, “you should send for a gardener
whose father and grandfather have been gardeners before him, and very
soon your garden will be full of green grass and gay flowers, and you
will enjoy its delicious fruit.”

So the King sent messengers to every town, village, and hamlet in his
dominions, to look for a gardener whose forefathers had been gardeners
also, and after forty days one was found.

“Come with us and be gardener to the King,” they said to him.

“How can I go to the King,” said the gardener, “a poor wretch like me?”

“That is of no consequence,” they answered. “Here are new clothes for
you and your family.”

“But I owe money to several people.”

“We will pay your debts,” they said.

So the gardener allowed himself to be persuaded, and went away with
the messengers, taking his wife and his son with him; and the King,
delighted to have found a real gardener, entrusted him with the care
of his garden. The man found no difficulty in making the royal garden
produce flowers and fruit, and at the end of a year the park was not
like the same place, and the King showered gifts upon his new servant.

The gardener, as you have heard already, had a son, who was a very
handsome young man, with most agreeable manners, and every day he
carried the best fruit of the garden to the King, and all the prettiest
flowers to his daughter. Now this princess was wonderfully pretty and
was just sixteen years old, and the King was beginning to think it was
time that she should be married.

“My dear child,” said he, “you are of an age to take a husband,
therefore I am thinking of marrying you to the son of my prime minister.

“Father,” replied the Princess, “I will never marry the son of the
minister.”

“Why not?” asked the King.

“Because I love the gardener’s son,” answered the Princess.

On hearing this the King was at first very angry, and then he wept and
sighed, and declared that such a husband was not worthy of his daughter;
but the young Princess was not to be turned from her resolution to marry
the gardener’s son.

Then the King consulted his ministers. “This is what you must do,” they
said. “To get rid of the gardener you must send both suitors to a
very distant country, and the one who returns first shall marry your
daughter.”

The King followed this advice, and the minister’s son was presented with
a splendid horse and a purse full of gold pieces, while the gardener’s
son had only an old lame horse and a purse full of copper money, and
every one thought he would never come back from his journey.

The day before they started the Princess met her lover and said to him:

“Be brave, and remember always that I love you. Take this purse full of
jewels and make the best use you can of them for love of me, and come
back quickly and demand my hand.”

The two suitors left the town together, but the minister’s son went off
at a gallop on his good horse, and very soon was lost to sight behind
the most distant hills. He traveled on for some days, and presently
reached a fountain beside which an old woman all in rags sat upon a
stone.

“Good-day to you, young traveler,” said she.

But the minister’s son made no reply.

“Have pity upon me, traveler,” she said again. “I am dying of hunger,
as you see, and three days have I been here and no one has given me
anything.”

“Let me alone, old witch,” cried the young man; “I can do nothing for
you,” and so saying he went on his way.

That same evening the gardener’s son rode up to the fountain upon his
lame gray horse.

“Good-day to you, young traveler,” said the beggar-woman.

“Good-day, good woman,” answered he.

“Young traveler, have pity upon me.”

“Take my purse, good woman,” said he, “and mount behind me, for your
legs can’t be very strong.”

The old woman didn’t wait to be asked twice, but mounted behind him,
and in this style they reached the chief city of a powerful kingdom. The
minister’s son was lodged in a grand inn, the gardener’s son and the old
woman dismounted at the inn for beggars.

The next day the gardener’s son heard a great noise in the street, and
the King’s heralds passed, blowing all kinds of instruments, and crying:

“The King, our master, is old and infirm. He will give a great reward to
whoever will cure him and give him back the strength of his youth.”

Then the old beggar-woman said to her benefactor:

“This is what you must do to obtain the reward which the King promises.
Go out of the town by the south gate, and there you will find three
little dogs of different colors; the first will be white, the second
black, the third red. You must kill them and then burn them separately,
and gather up the ashes. Put the ashes of each dog into a bag of its own
color, then go before the door of the palace and cry out, ‘A celebrated
physician has come from Janina in Albania. He alone can cure the King
and give him back the strength of his youth.’ The King’s physicians will
say, This is an impostor, and not a learned man,’ and they will make all
sorts of difficulties, but you will overcome them all at last, and will
present yourself before the sick King. You must then demand as much wood
as three mules can carry, and a great cauldron, and must shut yourself
up in a room with the Sultan, and when the cauldron boils you must throw
him into it, and there leave him until his flesh is completely separated
from his bones. Then arrange the bones in their proper places, and throw
over them the ashes out of the three bags. The King will come back to
life, and will be just as he was when he was twenty years old. For your
reward you must demand the bronze ring which has the power to grant
you everything you desire. Go, my son, and do not forget any of my
instructions.”

The young man followed the old beggar-woman’s directions. On going out
of the town he found the white, red, and black dogs, and killed and
burnt them, gathering the ashes in three bags. Then he ran to the palace
and cried:

“A celebrated physician has just come from Janina in Albania. He alone
can cure the King and give him back the strength of his youth.”

The King’s physicians at first laughed at the unknown wayfarer, but the
Sultan ordered that the stranger should be admitted. They brought the
cauldron and the loads of wood, and very soon the King was boiling away.
Toward mid-day the gardener’s son arranged the bones in their places,
and he had hardly scattered the ashes over them before the old King
revived, to find himself once more young and hearty.

“How can I reward you, my benefactor?” he cried. “Will you take half my
treasures?”

“No,” said the gardener’s son.

“My daughter’s hand?”

“_No_.”

“Take half my kingdom.”

“No. Give me only the bronze ring which can instantly grant me anything
I wish for.”

“Alas!” said the King, “I set great store by that marvelous ring;
nevertheless, you shall have it.” And he gave it to him.

The gardener’s son went back to say good-by to the old beggar-woman;
then he said to the bronze ring:

“Prepare a splendid ship in which I may continue my journey. Let the
hull be of fine gold, the masts of silver, the sails of brocade; let
the crew consist of twelve young men of noble appearance, dressed like
kings. St. Nicholas will be at the helm. As to the cargo, let it be
diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and carbuncles.”

And immediately a ship appeared upon the sea which resembled in every
particular the description given by the gardener’s son, and, stepping
on board, he continued his journey. Presently he arrived at a great town
and established himself in a wonderful palace. After several days he
met his rival, the minister’s son, who had spent all his money and was
reduced to the disagreeable employment of a carrier of dust and rubbish.
The gardener’s son said to him:

“What is your name, what is your family, and from what country do you
come?”

“I am the son of the prime minister of a great nation, and yet see what
a degrading occupation I am reduced to.”

“Listen to me; though I don’t know anything more about you, I am willing
to help you. I will give you a ship to take you back to your own country
upon one condition.”

“Whatever it may be, I accept it willingly.”

“Follow me to my palace.”

The minister’s son followed the rich stranger, whom he had not
recognized. When they reached the palace the gardener’s son made a sign
to his slaves, who completely undressed the new-comer.

“Make this ring red-hot,” commanded the master, “and mark the man with
it upon his back.”

The slaves obeyed him.

“Now, young man,” said the rich stranger, “I am going to give you a
vessel which will take you back to your own country.”

And, going out, he took the bronze ring and said:

“Bronze ring, obey thy master. Prepare me a ship of which the
half-rotten timbers shall be painted black, let the sails be in rags,
and the sailors infirm and sickly. One shall have lost a leg, another
an arm, the third shall be a hunchback, another lame or club-footed or
blind, and most of them shall be ugly and covered with scars. Go, and
let my orders be executed.”

The minister’s son embarked in this old vessel, and thanks to favorable
winds, at length reached his own country. In spite of the pitiable
condition in which he returned they received him joyfully.

“I am the first to come back,” said he to the King; now fulfil your
promise, and give me the princess in marriage.

So they at once began to prepare for the wedding festivities. As to the
poor princess, she was sorrowful and angry enough about it.

The next morning, at daybreak, a wonderful ship with every sail set came
to anchor before the town. The King happened at that moment to be at the
palace window.

“What strange ship is this,” he cried, “that has a golden hull, silver
masts, and silken sails, and who are the young men like princes who man
it? And do I not see St. Nicholas at the helm? Go at once and invite the
captain of the ship to come to the palace.”

His servants obeyed him, and very soon in came an enchantingly handsome
young prince, dressed in rich silk, ornamented with pearls and diamonds.

“Young man,” said the King, “you are welcome, whoever you may be. Do me
the favor to be my guest as long as you remain in my capital.”

“Many thanks, sire,” replied the captain, “I accept your offer.”

“My daughter is about to be married,” said the King; “will you give her
away?”

“I shall be charmed, sire.”

Soon after came the Princess and her betrothed.

“Why, how is this?” cried the young captain; “would you marry this
charming princess to such a man as that?”

“But he is my prime minister’s son!”

“What does that matter? I cannot give your daughter away. The man she is
betrothed to is one of my servants.”

“Your servant?”

“Without doubt. I met him in a distant town reduced to carrying away
dust and rubbish from the houses. I had pity on him and engaged him as
one of my servants.”

“It is impossible!” cried the King.

“Do you wish me to prove what I say? This young man returned in a vessel
which I fitted out for him, an unseaworthy ship with a black battered
hull, and the sailors were infirm and crippled.”

“It is quite true,” said the King.

“It is false,” cried the minister’s son. “I do not know this man!”

“Sire,” said the young captain, “order your daughter’s betrothed to be
stripped, and see if the mark of my ring is not branded upon his back.”

The King was about to give this order, when the minister’s son, to save
himself from such an indignity, admitted that the story was true.

“And now, sire,” said the young captain, “do you not recognize me?”

“I recognize you,” said the Princess; “you are the gardener’s son whom I
have always loved, and it is you I wish to marry.”

“Young man, you shall be my son-in-law,” cried the King. “The marriage
festivities are already begun, so you shall marry my daughter this very
day.”

And so that very day the gardener’s son married the beautiful Princess.

Several months passed. The young couple were as happy as the day was
long, and the King was more and more pleased with himself for having
secured such a son-in-law.

But, presently, the captain of the golden ship found it necessary to
take a long voyage, and after embracing his wife tenderly he embarked.

Now in the outskirts of the capital there lived an old man, who had
spent his life in studying black arts--alchemy, astrology, magic,
and enchantment. This man found out that the gardener’s son had only
succeeded in marrying the Princess by the help of the genii who obeyed
the bronze ring.

“I will have that ring,” said he to himself. So he went down to the
sea-shore and caught some little red fishes. Really, they were
quite wonderfully pretty. Then he came back, and, passing before the
Princess’s window, he began to cry out:

“Who wants some pretty little red fishes?”

The Princess heard him, and sent out one of her slaves, who said to the
old peddler:

“What will you take for your fish?”

“A bronze ring.”

“A bronze ring, old simpleton! And where shall I find one?”

“Under the cushion in the Princess’s room.”

The slave went back to her mistress.

“The old madman will take neither gold nor silver,” said she.

“What does he want then?”

“A bronze ring that is hidden under a cushion.”

“Find the ring and give it to him,” said the Princess.

And at last the slave found the bronze ring, which the captain of the
golden ship had accidentally left behind and carried it to the man, who
made off with it instantly.

Hardly had he reached his own house when, taking the ring, he said,
“Bronze ring, obey thy master. I desire that the golden ship shall turn
to black wood, and the crew to hideous negroes; that St. Nicholas shall
leave the helm and that the only cargo shall be black cats.”

And the genii of the bronze ring obeyed him.

Finding himself upon the sea in this miserable condition, the young
captain understood that some one must have stolen the bronze ring from
him, and he lamented his misfortune loudly; but that did him no good.

“Alas!” he said to himself, “whoever has taken my ring has probably
taken my dear wife also. What good will it do me to go back to my own
country?” And he sailed about from island to island, and from shore to
shore, believing that wherever he went everybody was laughing at him,
and very soon his poverty was so great that he and his crew and the poor
black cats had nothing to eat but herbs and roots. After wandering about
a long time he reached an island inhabited by mice. The captain landed
upon the shore and began to explore the country. There were mice
everywhere, and nothing but mice. Some of the black cats had followed
him, and, not having been fed for several days, they were fearfully
hungry, and made terrible havoc among the mice.

Then the queen of the mice held a council.

“These cats will eat every one of us,” she said, “if the captain of the
ship does not shut the ferocious animals up. Let us send a deputation to
him of the bravest among us.”

Several mice offered themselves for this mission and set out to find the
young captain.

“Captain,” said they, “go away quickly from our island, or we shall
perish, every mouse of us.”

“Willingly,” replied the young captain, “upon one condition. That is
that you shall first bring me back a bronze ring which some clever
magician has stolen from me. If you do not do this I will land all my
cats upon your island, and you shall be exterminated.”

The mice withdrew in great dismay. “What is to be done?” said the Queen.
“How can we find this bronze ring?” She held a new council, calling in
mice from every quarter of the globe, but nobody knew where the bronze
ring was. Suddenly three mice arrived from a very distant country. One
was blind, the second lame, and the third had her ears cropped.

“Ho, ho, ho!” said the new-comers. “We come from a far distant country.”

“Do you know where the bronze ring is which the genii obey?”

“Ho, ho, ho! we know; an old sorcerer has taken possession of it, and
now he keeps it in his pocket by day and in his mouth by night.”

“Go and take it from him, and come back as soon as possible.”

So the three mice made themselves a boat and set sail for the magician’s
country. When they reached the capital they landed and ran to the
palace, leaving only the blind mouse on the shore to take care of the
boat. Then they waited till it was night. The wicked old man lay down in
bed and put the bronze ring into his mouth, and very soon he was asleep.

“Now, what shall we do?” said the two little animals to each other.

The mouse with the cropped ears found a lamp full of oil and a bottle
full of pepper. So she dipped her tail first in the oil and then in the
pepper, and held it to the sorcerer’s nose.

“Atisha! atisha!” sneezed the old man, but he did not wake, and the
shock made the bronze ring jump out of his mouth. Quick as thought the
lame mouse snatched up the precious talisman and carried it off to the
boat.

Imagine the despair of the magician when he awoke and the bronze ring
was nowhere to be found!

But by that time our three mice had set sail with their prize. A
favoring breeze was carrying them toward the island where the queen
of the mice was awaiting them. Naturally they began to talk about the
bronze ring.

“Which of us deserves the most credit?” they cried all at once.

“I do,” said the blind mouse, “for without my watchfulness our boat
would have drifted away to the open sea.”

“No, indeed,” cried the mouse with the cropped ears; “the credit is
mine. Did I not cause the ring to jump out of the man’s mouth?”

“No, it is mine,” cried the lame one, “for I ran off with the ring.”

And from high words they soon came to blows, and, alas! when the quarrel
was fiercest the bronze ring fell into the sea.

“How are we to face our queen,” said the three mice “when by our
folly we have lost the talisman and condemned our people to be utterly
exterminated? We cannot go back to our country; let us land on this
desert island and there end our miserable lives.” No sooner said than
done. The boat reached the island, and the mice landed.

The blind mouse was speedily deserted by her two sisters, who went off
to hunt flies, but as she wandered sadly along the shore she found a
dead fish, and was eating it, when she felt something very hard. At her
cries the other two mice ran up.

“It is the bronze ring! It is the talisman!” they cried joyfully, and,
getting into their boat again, they soon reached the mouse island. It
was time they did, for the captain was just going to land his cargo of
cats, when a deputation of mice brought him the precious bronze ring.

“Bronze ring,” commanded the young man, “obey thy master. Let my ship
appear as it was before.”

Immediately the genii of the ring set to work, and the old black vessel
became once more the wonderful golden ship with sails of brocade; the
handsome sailors ran to the silver masts and the silken ropes, and very
soon they set sail for the capital.

Ah! how merrily the sailors sang as they flew over the glassy sea!

At last the port was reached.

The captain landed and ran to the palace, where he found the wicked
old man asleep. The Princess clasped her husband in a long embrace. The
magician tried to escape, but he was seized and bound with strong cords.

The next day the sorcerer, tied to the tail of a savage mule loaded with
nuts, was broken into as many pieces as there were nuts upon the mule’s
back.(1)


(1) Traditions Populaires de l’Asie Mineure. Carnoy et Nicolaides.
Paris: Maisonneuve, 1889.




PRINCE HYACINTH AND THE DEAR LITTLE PRINCESS


Once upon a time there lived a king who was deeply in love with a
princess, but she could not marry anyone, because she was under an
enchantment. So the King set out to seek a fairy, and asked what he
could do to win the Princess’s love. The Fairy said to him:

“You know that the Princess has a great cat which she is very fond of.
Whoever is clever enough to tread on that cat’s tail is the man she is
destined to marry.”

The King said to himself that this would not be very difficult, and he
left the Fairy, determined to grind the cat’s tail to powder rather than
not tread on it at all.

You may imagine that it was not long before he went to see the Princess,
and puss, as usual, marched in before him, arching his back. The King
took a long step, and quite thought he had the tail under his foot, but
the cat turned round so sharply that he only trod on air. And so it went
on for eight days, till the King began to think that this fatal tail
must be full of quicksilver--it was never still for a moment.

At last, however, he was lucky enough to come upon puss fast asleep and
with his tail conveniently spread out. So the King, without losing a
moment, set his foot upon it heavily.

With one terrific yell the cat sprang up and instantly changed into a
tall man, who, fixing his angry eyes upon the King, said:

“You shall marry the Princess because you have been able to break the
enchantment, but I will have my revenge. You shall have a son, who will
never be happy until he finds out that his nose is too long, and if you
ever tell anyone what I have just said to you, you shall vanish away
instantly, and no one shall ever see you or hear of you again.”

Though the King was horribly afraid of the enchanter, he could not help
laughing at this threat.

“If my son has such a long nose as that,” he said to himself, “he
must always see it or feel it; at least, if he is not blind or without
hands.”

But, as the enchanter had vanished, he did not waste any more time in
thinking, but went to seek the Princess, who very soon consented to
marry him. But after all, they had not been married very long when the
King died, and the Queen had nothing left to care for but her little
son, who was called Hyacinth. The little Prince had large blue eyes, the
prettiest eyes in the world, and a sweet little mouth, but, alas!
his nose was so enormous that it covered half his face. The Queen was
inconsolable when she saw this great nose, but her ladies assured her
that it was not really as large as it looked; that it was a Roman nose,
and you had only to open any history to see that every hero has a large
nose. The Queen, who was devoted to her baby, was pleased with what they
told her, and when she looked at Hyacinth again, his nose certainly did
not seem to her _quite_ so large.

The Prince was brought up with great care; and, as soon as he could
speak, they told him all sorts of dreadful stories about people who had
short noses. No one was allowed to come near him whose nose did not more
or less resemble his own, and the courtiers, to get into favor with the
Queen, took to pulling their babies’ noses several times every day
to make them grow long. But, do what they would, they were nothing by
comparison with the Prince’s.

When he grew sensible he learned history; and whenever any great prince
or beautiful princess was spoken of, his teachers took care to tell him
that they had long noses.

His room was hung with pictures, all of people with very large noses;
and the Prince grew up so convinced that a long nose was a great beauty,
that he would not on any account have had his own a single inch shorter!

When his twentieth birthday was passed the Queen thought it was time
that he should be married, so she commanded that the portraits of
several princesses should be brought for him to see, and among the
others was a picture of the Dear Little Princess!

Now, she was the daughter of a great king, and would some day possess
several kingdoms herself; but Prince Hyacinth had not a thought to spare
for anything of that sort, he was so much struck with her beauty. The
Princess, whom he thought quite charming, had, however, a little saucy
nose, which, in her face, was the prettiest thing possible, but it was
a cause of great embarrassment to the courtiers, who had got into such
a habit of laughing at little noses that they sometimes found themselves
laughing at hers before they had time to think; but this did not do at
all before the Prince, who quite failed to see the joke, and actually
banished two of his courtiers who had dared to mention disrespectfully
the Dear Little Princess’s tiny nose!

The others, taking warning from this, learned to think twice before they
spoke, and one even went so far as to tell the Prince that, though it
was quite true that no man could be worth anything unless he had a
long nose, still, a woman’s beauty was a different thing; and he knew
a learned man who understood Greek and had read in some old manuscripts
that the beautiful Cleopatra herself had a “tip-tilted” nose!

The Prince made him a splendid present as a reward for this good
news, and at once sent ambassadors to ask the Dear Little Princess in
marriage. The King, her father, gave his consent; and Prince Hyacinth,
who, in his anxiety to see the Princess, had gone three leagues to meet
her was just advancing to kiss her hand when, to the horror of all who
stood by, the enchanter appeared as suddenly as a flash of lightning,
and, snatching up the Dear Little Princess, whirled her away out of
their sight!

The Prince was left quite unconsolable, and declared that nothing should
induce him to go back to his kingdom until he had found her again, and
refusing to allow any of his courtiers to follow him, he mounted his
horse and rode sadly away, letting the animal choose his own path.

So it happened that he came presently to a great plain, across which
he rode all day long without seeing a single house, and horse and rider
were terribly hungry, when, as the night fell, the Prince caught sight
of a light, which seemed to shine from a cavern.

He rode up to it, and saw a little old woman, who appeared to be at
least a hundred years old.

She put on her spectacles to look at Prince Hyacinth, but it was quite
a long time before she could fix them securely because her nose was so
very short.

The Prince and the Fairy (for that was who she was) had no sooner looked
at one another than they went into fits of laughter, and cried at the
same moment, “Oh, what a funny nose!”

“Not so funny as your own,” said Prince Hyacinth to the Fairy; “but,
madam, I beg you to leave the consideration of our noses--such as
they are--and to be good enough to give me something to eat, for I am
starving, and so is my poor horse.”

“With all my heart,” said the Fairy. “Though your nose is so ridiculous
you are, nevertheless, the son of my best friend. I loved your father as
if he had been my brother. Now _he_ had a very handsome nose!”

“And pray what does mine lack?” said the Prince.

“Oh! it doesn’t _lack_ anything,” replied the Fairy. “On the contrary
quite, there is only too much of it. But never mind, one may be a very
worthy man though his nose is too long. I was telling you that I was
your father’s friend; he often came to see me in the old times, and you
must know that I was very pretty in those days; at least, he used to say
so. I should like to tell you of a conversation we had the last time I
ever saw him.”

“Indeed,” said the Prince, “when I have supped it will give me the
greatest pleasure to hear it; but consider, madam, I beg of you, that I
have had nothing to eat to-day.”

“The poor boy is right,” said the Fairy; “I was forgetting. Come in,
then, and I will give you some supper, and while you are eating I can
tell you my story in a very few words--for I don’t like endless tales
myself. Too long a tongue is worse than too long a nose, and I remember
when I was young that I was so much admired for not being a great
chatterer. They used to tell the Queen, my mother, that it was so. For
though you see what I am now, I was the daughter of a great king. My
father----”

“Your father, I dare say, got something to eat when he was hungry!”
 interrupted the Prince.

“Oh! certainly,” answered the Fairy, “and you also shall have supper
directly. I only just wanted to tell you----”

“But I really cannot listen to anything until I have had something
to eat,” cried the Prince, who was getting quite angry; but then,
remembering that he had better be polite as he much needed the Fairy’s
help, he added:

“I know that in the pleasure of listening to you I should quite forget
my own hunger; but my horse, who cannot hear you, must really be fed!”

The Fairy was very much flattered by this compliment, and said, calling
to her servants:

“You shall not wait another minute, you are so polite, and in spite of
the enormous size of your nose you are really very agreeable.”

“Plague take the old lady! How she does go on about my nose!” said the
Prince to himself. “One would almost think that mine had taken all the
extra length that hers lacks! If I were not so hungry I would soon have
done with this chatterpie who thinks she talks very little! How stupid
people are not to see their own faults! That comes of being a princess:
she has been spoiled by flatterers, who have made her believe that she
is quite a moderate talker!”

Meanwhile the servants were putting the supper on the table, and the
prince was much amused to hear the Fairy who asked them a thousand
questions simply for the pleasure of hearing herself speak; especially
he noticed one maid who, no matter what was being said, always contrived
to praise her mistress’s wisdom.

“Well!” he thought, as he ate his supper, “I’m very glad I came here.
This just shows me how sensible I have been in never listening to
flatterers. People of that sort praise us to our faces without shame,
and hide our faults or change them into virtues. For my part I never
will be taken in by them. I know my own defects, I hope.”

Poor Prince Hyacinth! He really believed what he said, and hadn’t an
idea that the people who had praised his nose were laughing at him, just
as the Fairy’s maid was laughing at her; for the Prince had seen her
laugh slyly when she could do so without the Fairy’s noticing her.

However, he said nothing, and presently, when his hunger began to be
appeased, the Fairy said:

“My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more that way, for
your nose casts such a shadow that I really cannot see what I have on my
plate. Ah! thanks. Now let us speak of your father. When I went to his
Court he was only a little boy, but that is forty years ago, and I have
been in this desolate place ever since. Tell me what goes on nowadays;
are the ladies as fond of amusement as ever? In my time one saw them at
parties, theatres, balls, and promenades every day. Dear me! _what_ a
long nose you have! I cannot get used to it!”

“Really, madam,” said the Prince, “I wish you would leave off mentioning
my nose. It cannot matter to you what it is like. I am quite satisfied
with it, and have no wish to have it shorter. One must take what is
given one.”

“Now you are angry with me, my poor Hyacinth,” said the Fairy, “and I
assure you that I didn’t mean to vex you; on the contrary, I wished to
do you a service. However, though I really cannot help your nose being a
shock to me, I will try not to say anything about it. I will even try to
think that you have an ordinary nose. To tell the truth, it would make
three reasonable ones.”

The Prince, who was no longer hungry, grew so impatient at the Fairy’s
continual remarks about his nose that at last he threw himself upon his
horse and rode hastily away. But wherever he came in his journeyings he
thought the people were mad, for they all talked of his nose, and yet
he could not bring himself to admit that it was too long, he had been so
used all his life to hear it called handsome.

The old Fairy, who wished to make him happy, at last hit upon a plan.
She shut the Dear Little Princess up in a palace of crystal, and put
this palace down where the Prince would not fail to find it. His joy at
seeing the Princess again was extreme, and he set to work with all his
might to try to break her prison; but in spite of all his efforts he
failed utterly. In despair he thought at least that he would try to
get near enough to speak to the Dear Little Princess, who, on her part,
stretched out her hand that he might kiss it; but turn which way he
might, he never could raise it to his lips, for his long nose always
prevented it. For the first time he realized how long it really was, and
exclaimed:

“Well, it must be admitted that my nose _is_ too long!”

In an instant the crystal prison flew into a thousand splinters, and
the old Fairy, taking the Dear Little Princess by the hand, said to the
Prince:

“Now, say if you are not very much obliged to me. Much good it was for
me to talk to you about your nose! You would never have found out how
extraordinary it was if it hadn’t hindered you from doing what you
wanted to. You see how self-love keeps us from knowing our own defects
of mind and body. Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse
to see them till we find them in the way of our interests.”

Prince Hyacinth, whose nose was now just like anyone’s else, did not
fail to profit by the lesson he had received. He married the Dear Little
Princess, and they lived happily ever after.(1)


(1) Le Prince Desir et la Princesse Mignonne. Par Madame Leprince de
Beaumont.




EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON


Once upon a time there was a poor husbandman who had many children and
little to give them in the way either of food or clothing. They were all
pretty, but the prettiest of all was the youngest daughter, who was so
beautiful that there were no bounds to her beauty.

So once--it was late on a Thursday evening in autumn, and wild weather
outside, terribly dark, and raining so heavily and blowing so hard that
the walls of the cottage shook again--they were all sitting together by
the fireside, each of them busy with something or other, when suddenly
some one rapped three times against the window-pane. The man went out
to see what could be the matter, and when he got out there stood a great
big white bear.

“Good-evening to you,” said the White Bear.

“Good-evening,” said the man.

“Will you give me your youngest daughter?” said the White Bear; “if you
will, you shall be as rich as you are now poor.”

Truly the man would have had no objection to be rich, but he thought to
himself: “I must first ask my daughter about this,” so he went in and
told them that there was a great white bear outside who had faithfully
promised to make them all rich if he might but have the youngest
daughter.

She said no, and would not hear of it; so the man went out again, and
settled with the White Bear that he should come again next Thursday
evening, and get her answer. Then the man persuaded her, and talked so
much to her about the wealth that they would have, and what a good thing
it would be for herself, that at last she made up her mind to go, and
washed and mended all her rags, made herself as smart as she could, and
held herself in readiness to set out. Little enough had she to take away
with her.

Next Thursday evening the White Bear came to fetch her. She seated
herself on his back with her bundle, and thus they departed. When they
had gone a great part of the way, the White Bear said: “Are you afraid?”

“No, that I am not,” said she.

“Keep tight hold of my fur, and then there is no danger,” said he.

And thus she rode far, far away, until they came to a great mountain.
Then the White Bear knocked on it, and a door opened, and they went into
a castle where there were many brilliantly lighted rooms which shone
with gold and silver, likewise a large hall in which there was a
well-spread table, and it was so magnificent that it would be hard to
make anyone understand how splendid it was. The White Bear gave her a
silver bell, and told her that when she needed anything she had but
to ring this bell, and what she wanted would appear. So after she had
eaten, and night was drawing near, she grew sleepy after her journey,
and thought she would like to go to bed. She rang the bell, and scarcely
had she touched it before she found herself in a chamber where a bed
stood ready made for her, which was as pretty as anyone could wish to
sleep in. It had pillows of silk, and curtains of silk fringed with
gold, and everything that was in the room was of gold or silver, but
when she had lain down and put out the light a man came and lay down
beside her, and behold it was the White Bear, who cast off the form of
a beast during the night. She never saw him, however, for he always came
after she had put out her light, and went away before daylight appeared.

So all went well and happily for a time, but then she began to be very
sad and sorrowful, for all day long she had to go about alone; and
she did so wish to go home to her father and mother and brothers and
sisters. Then the White Bear asked what it was that she wanted, and she
told him that it was so dull there in the mountain, and that she had to
go about all alone, and that in her parents’ house at home there were
all her brothers and sisters, and it was because she could not go to
them that she was so sorrowful.

“There might be a cure for that,” said the White Bear, “if you would
but promise me never to talk with your mother alone, but only when the
others are there too; for she will take hold of your hand,” he said,
“and will want to lead you into a room to talk with you alone; but that
you must by no means do, or you will bring great misery on both of us.”

So one Sunday the White Bear came and said that they could now set out
to see her father and mother, and they journeyed thither, she sitting on
his back, and they went a long, long way, and it took a long, long time;
but at last they came to a large white farmhouse, and her brothers and
sisters were running about outside it, playing, and it was so pretty
that it was a pleasure to look at it.

“Your parents dwell here now,” said the White Bear; “but do not forget
what I said to you, or you will do much harm both to yourself and me.”

“No, indeed,” said she, “I shall never forget;” and as soon as she was
at home the White Bear turned round and went back again.

There were such rejoicings when she went in to her parents that it
seemed as if they would never come to an end. Everyone thought that he
could never be sufficiently grateful to her for all she had done for
them all. Now they had everything that they wanted, and everything was
as good as it could be. They all asked her how she was getting on where
she was. All was well with her too, she said; and she had everything
that she could want. What other answers she gave I cannot say, but I am
pretty sure that they did not learn much from her. But in the afternoon,
after they had dined at midday, all happened just as the White Bear had
said. Her mother wanted to talk with her alone in her own chamber. But
she remembered what the White Bear had said, and would on no account go.
“What we have to say can be said at any time,” she answered. But somehow
or other her mother at last persuaded her, and she was forced to tell
the whole story. So she told how every night a man came and lay down
beside her when the lights were all put out, and how she never saw him,
because he always went away before it grew light in the morning, and how
she continually went about in sadness, thinking how happy she would
be if she could but see him, and how all day long she had to go about
alone, and it was so dull and solitary. “Oh!” cried the mother, in
horror, “you are very likely sleeping with a troll! But I will teach you
a way to see him. You shall have a bit of one of my candles, which you
can take away with you hidden in your breast. Look at him with that when
he is asleep, but take care not to let any tallow drop upon him.”

So she took the candle, and hid it in her breast, and when evening drew
near the White Bear came to fetch her away. When they had gone some
distance on their way, the White Bear asked her if everything had not
happened just as he had foretold, and she could not but own that it had.
“Then, if you have done what your mother wished,” said he, “you have
brought great misery on both of us.” “No,” she said, “I have not done
anything at all.” So when she had reached home and had gone to bed it
was just the same as it had been before, and a man came and lay down
beside her, and late at night, when she could hear that he was sleeping,
she got up and kindled a light, lit her candle, let her light shine on
him, and saw him, and he was the handsomest prince that eyes had ever
beheld, and she loved him so much that it seemed to her that she must
die if she did not kiss him that very moment. So she did kiss him; but
while she was doing it she let three drops of hot tallow fall upon
his shirt, and he awoke. “What have you done now?” said he; “you have
brought misery on both of us. If you had but held out for the space of
one year I should have been free. I have a step-mother who has bewitched
me so that I am a white bear by day and a man by night; but now all is
at an end between you and me, and I must leave you, and go to her. She
lives in a castle which lies east of the sun and west of the moon, and
there too is a princess with a nose which is three ells long, and she
now is the one whom I must marry.”

She wept and lamented, but all in vain, for go he must. Then she asked
him if she could not go with him. But no, that could not be. “Can you
tell me the way then, and I will seek you--that I may surely be allowed
to do!”

“Yes, you may do that,” said he; “but there is no way thither. It lies
east of the sun and west of the moon, and never would you find your way
there.”

When she awoke in the morning both the Prince and the castle were gone,
and she was lying on a small green patch in the midst of a dark, thick
wood. By her side lay the self-same bundle of rags which she had brought
with her from her own home. So when she had rubbed the sleep out of her
eyes, and wept till she was weary, she set out on her way, and thus she
walked for many and many a long day, until at last she came to a great
mountain. Outside it an aged woman was sitting, playing with a golden
apple. The girl asked her if she knew the way to the Prince who lived
with his stepmother in the castle which lay east of the sun and west of
the moon, and who was to marry a princess with a nose which was three
ells long. “How do you happen to know about him?” inquired the old
woman; “maybe you are she who ought to have had him.” “Yes, indeed, I
am,” she said. “So it is you, then?” said the old woman; “I know nothing
about him but that he dwells in a castle which is east of the sun and
west of the moon. You will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you
get to it at all; but you shall have the loan of my horse, and then you
can ride on it to an old woman who is a neighbor of mine: perhaps she
can tell you about him. When you have got there you must just strike the
horse beneath the left ear and bid it go home again; but you may take
the golden apple with you.”

So the girl seated herself on the horse, and rode for a long, long way,
and at last she came to the mountain, where an aged woman was sitting
outside with a gold carding-comb. The girl asked her if she knew the way
to the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon; but she
said what the first old woman had said: “I know nothing about it, but
that it is east of the sun and west of the moon, and that you will be a
long time in getting to it, if ever you get there at all; but you shall
have the loan of my horse to an old woman who lives the nearest to me:
perhaps she may know where the castle is, and when you have got to her
you may just strike the horse beneath the left ear and bid it go home
again.” Then she gave her the gold carding-comb, for it might, perhaps,
be of use to her, she said.

So the girl seated herself on the horse, and rode a wearisome long way
onward again, and after a very long time she came to a great mountain,
where an aged woman was sitting, spinning at a golden spinning-wheel.
Of this woman, too, she inquired if she knew the way to the Prince, and
where to find the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon.
But it was only the same thing once again. “Maybe it was you who should
have had the Prince,” said the old woman. “Yes, indeed, I should have
been the one,” said the girl. But this old crone knew the way no better
than the others--it was east of the sun and west of the moon, she knew
that, “and you will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get
to it at all,” she said; “but you may have the loan of my horse, and I
think you had better ride to the East Wind, and ask him: perhaps he may
know where the castle is, and will blow you thither. But when you have
got to him you must just strike the horse beneath the left ear, and he
will come home again.” And then she gave her the golden spinning-wheel,
saying: “Perhaps you may find that you have a use for it.”

The girl had to ride for a great many days, and for a long and wearisome
time, before she got there; but at last she did arrive, and then she
asked the East Wind if he could tell her the way to the Prince who dwelt
east of the sun and west of the moon. “Well,” said the East Wind, “I
have heard tell of the Prince, and of his castle, but I do not know the
way to it, for I have never blown so far; but, if you like, I will go
with you to my brother the West Wind: he may know that, for he is much
stronger than I am. You may sit on my back, and then I can carry you
there.” So she seated herself on his back, and they did go so swiftly!
When they got there, the East Wind went in and said that the girl whom
he had brought was the one who ought to have had the Prince up at the
castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and that now she
was traveling about to find him again, so he had come there with her,
and would like to hear if the West Wind knew whereabout the castle was.
“No,” said the West Wind; “so far as that have I never blown; but if you
like I will go with you to the South Wind, for he is much stronger than
either of us, and he has roamed far and wide, and perhaps he can tell
you what you want to know. You may seat yourself on my back, and then I
will carry you to him.”.

So she did this, and journeyed to the South Wind, neither was she very
long on the way. When they had got there, the West Wind asked him if he
could tell her the way to the castle that lay east of the sun and west
of the moon, for she was the girl who ought to marry the Prince who
lived there. “Oh, indeed!” said the South Wind, “is that she? Well,”
 said he, “I have wandered about a great deal in my time, and in all
kinds of places, but I have never blown so far as that. If you like,
however, I will go with you to my brother, the North Wind; he is the
oldest and strongest of all of us, and if he does not know where it is
no one in the whole world will be able to tell you. You may sit upon
my back, and then I will carry you there.” So she seated herself on his
back, and off he went from his house in great haste, and they were not
long on the way. When they came near the North Wind’s dwelling, he was
so wild and frantic that they felt cold gusts a long while before they
got there. “What do you want?” he roared out from afar, and they froze
as they heard. Said the South Wind: “It is I, and this is she who should
have had the Prince who lives in the castle which lies east of the sun
and west of the moon. And now she wishes to ask you if you have ever
been there, and can tell her the way, for she would gladly find him
again.”

“Yes,” said the North Wind, “I know where it is. I once blew an aspen
leaf there, but I was so tired that for many days afterward I was not
able to blow at all. However, if you really are anxious to go there, and
are not afraid to go with me, I will take you on my back, and try if I
can blow you there.”

“Get there I must,” said she; “and if there is any way of going I will;
and I have no fear, no matter how fast you go.”

“Very well then,” said the North Wind; “but you must sleep here
to-night, for if we are ever to get there we must have the day before
us.”

The North Wind woke her betimes next morning, and puffed himself up, and
made himself so big and so strong that it was frightful to see him, and
away they went, high up through the air, as if they would not stop until
they had reached the very end of the world. Down below there was such a
storm! It blew down woods and houses, and when they were above the sea
the ships were wrecked by hundreds. And thus they tore on and on, and
a long time went by, and then yet more time passed, and still they were
above the sea, and the North Wind grew tired, and more tired, and at
last so utterly weary that he was scarcely able to blow any longer, and
he sank and sank, lower and lower, until at last he went so low that the
waves dashed against the heels of the poor girl he was carrying. “Art
thou afraid?” said the North Wind. “I have no fear,” said she; and it
was true. But they were not very, very far from land, and there was just
enough strength left in the North Wind to enable him to throw her on to
the shore, immediately under the windows of a castle which lay east of
the sun and west of the moon; but then he was so weary and worn out that
he was forced to rest for several days before he could go to his own
home again.

Next morning she sat down beneath the walls of the castle to play with
the golden apple, and the first person she saw was the maiden with the
long nose, who was to have the Prince. “How much do you want for that
gold apple of yours, girl?” said she, opening the window. “It can’t be
bought either for gold or money,” answered the girl. “If it cannot be
bought either for gold or money, what will buy it? You may say what you
please,” said the Princess.

“Well, if I may go to the Prince who is here, and be with him to-night,
you shall have it,” said the girl who had come with the North Wind. “You
may do that,” said the Princess, for she had made up her mind what she
would do. So the Princess got the golden apple, but when the girl went
up to the Prince’s apartment that night he was asleep, for the Princess
had so contrived it. The poor girl called to him, and shook him, and
between whiles she wept; but she could not wake him. In the morning, as
soon as day dawned, in came the Princess with the long nose, and drove
her out again. In the daytime she sat down once more beneath the windows
of the castle, and began to card with her golden carding-comb; and then
all happened as it had happened before. The Princess asked her what she
wanted for it, and she replied that it was not for sale, either for gold
or money, but that if she could get leave to go to the Prince, and be
with him during the night, she should have it. But when she went up to
the Prince’s room he was again asleep, and, let her call him, or shake
him, or weep as she would, he still slept on, and she could not put any
life in him. When daylight came in the morning, the Princess with the
long nose came too, and once more drove her away. When day had quite
come, the girl seated herself under the castle windows, to spin with
her golden spinning-wheel, and the Princess with the long nose wanted to
have that also. So she opened the window, and asked what she would
take for it. The girl said what she had said on each of the former
occasions--that it was not for sale either for gold or for money, but if
she could get leave to go to the Prince who lived there, and be with him
during the night, she should have it.

“Yes,” said the Princess, “I will gladly consent to that.”

But in that place there were some Christian folk who had been carried
off, and they had been sitting in the chamber which was next to that of
the Prince, and had heard how a woman had been in there who had wept and
called on him two nights running, and they told the Prince of this. So
that evening, when the Princess came once more with her sleeping-drink,
he pretended to drink, but threw it away behind him, for he suspected
that it was a sleeping-drink. So, when the girl went into the Prince’s
room this time he was awake, and she had to tell him how she had come
there. “You have come just in time,” said the Prince, “for I should have
been married to-morrow; but I will not have the long-nosed Princess, and
you alone can save me. I will say that I want to see what my bride can
do, and bid her wash the shirt which has the three drops of tallow on
it. This she will consent to do, for she does not know that it is you
who let them fall on it; but no one can wash them out but one born of
Christian folk: it cannot be done by one of a pack of trolls; and then
I will say that no one shall ever be my bride but the woman who can do
this, and I know that you can.” There was great joy and gladness between
them all that night, but the next day, when the wedding was to take
place, the Prince said, “I must see what my bride can do.” “That you may
do,” said the stepmother.

“I have a fine shirt which I want to wear as my wedding shirt, but three
drops of tallow have got upon it which I want to have washed off, and
I have vowed to marry no one but the woman who is able to do it. If she
cannot do that, she is not worth having.”

Well, that was a very small matter, they thought, and agreed to do it.
The Princess with the long nose began to wash as well as she could,
but, the more she washed and rubbed, the larger the spots grew. “Ah! you
can’t wash at all,” said the old troll-hag, who was her mother. “Give it
to me.” But she too had not had the shirt very long in her hands before
it looked worse still, and, the more she washed it and rubbed it, the
larger and blacker grew the spots.

So the other trolls had to come and wash, but, the more they did, the
blacker and uglier grew the shirt, until at length it was as black as if
it had been up the chimney. “Oh,” cried the Prince, “not one of you is
good for anything at all! There is a beggar-girl sitting outside the
window, and I’ll be bound that she can wash better than any of you! Come
in, you girl there!” he cried. So she came in. “Can you wash this shirt
clean?” he cried. “Oh! I don’t know,” she said; “but I will try.” And
no sooner had she taken the shirt and dipped it in the water than it
was white as driven snow, and even whiter than that. “I will marry you,”
 said the Prince.

Then the old troll-hag flew into such a rage that she burst, and the
Princess with the long nose and all the little trolls must have burst
too, for they have never been heard of since. The Prince and his bride
set free all the Christian folk who were imprisoned there, and took away
with them all the gold and silver that they could carry, and moved far
away from the castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon.(1)


(1) Asbjornsen and Moe.




THE YELLOW DWARF


Once upon a time there lived a queen who had been the mother of a great
many children, and of them all only one daughter was left. But then
_she_ was worth at least a thousand.

Her mother, who, since the death of the King, her father, had nothing in
the world she cared for so much as this little Princess, was so terribly
afraid of losing her that she quite spoiled her, and never tried to
correct any of her faults. The consequence was that this little person,
who was as pretty as possible, and was one day to wear a crown, grew
up so proud and so much in love with her own beauty that she despised
everyone else in the world.

The Queen, her mother, by her caresses and flatteries, helped to make
her believe that there was nothing too good for her. She was dressed
almost always in the prettiest frocks, as a fairy, or as a queen going
out to hunt, and the ladies of the Court followed her dressed as forest
fairies.

And to make her more vain than ever the Queen caused her portrait to be
taken by the cleverest painters and sent it to several neighboring kings
with whom she was very friendly.

When they saw this portrait they fell in love with the Princess--every
one of them, but upon each it had a different effect. One fell ill, one
went quite crazy, and a few of the luckiest set off to see her as soon
as possible, but these poor princes became her slaves the moment they
set eyes on her.

Never has there been a gayer Court. Twenty delightful kings did
everything they could think of to make themselves agreeable, and after
having spent ever so much money in giving a single entertainment thought
themselves very lucky if the Princess said “That’s pretty.”

All this admiration vastly pleased the Queen. Not a day passed but
she received seven or eight thousand sonnets, and as many elegies,
madrigals, and songs, which were sent her by all the poets in the
world. All the prose and the poetry that was written just then was about
Bellissima--for that was the Princess’s name--and all the bonfires that
they had were made of these verses, which crackled and sparkled better
than any other sort of wood.

Bellissima was already fifteen years old, and every one of the Princes
wished to marry her, but not one dared to say so. How could they when
they knew that any of them might have cut off his head five or six times
a day just to please her, and she would have thought it a mere trifle,
so little did she care? You may imagine how hard-hearted her lovers
thought her; and the Queen, who wished to see her married, did not know
how to persuade her to think of it seriously.

“Bellissima,” she said, “I do wish you would not be so proud. What makes
you despise all these nice kings? I wish you to marry one of them, and
you do not try to please me.”

“I am so happy,” Bellissima answered: “do leave me in peace, madam. I
don’t want to care for anyone.”

“But you would be very happy with any of these Princes,” said the Queen,
“and I shall be very angry if you fall in love with anyone who is not
worthy of you.”

But the Princess thought so much of herself that she did not consider
any one of her lovers clever or handsome enough for her; and her mother,
who was getting really angry at her determination not to be married,
began to wish that she had not allowed her to have her own way so much.

At last, not knowing what else to do, she resolved to consult a certain
witch who was called “The Fairy of the Desert.” Now this was very
difficult to do, as she was guarded by some terrible lions; but happily
the Queen had heard a long time before that whoever wanted to pass
these lions safely must throw to them a cake made of millet flour,
sugar-candy, and crocodile’s eggs. This cake she prepared with her own
hands, and putting it in a little basket, she set out to seek the Fairy.
But as she was not used to walking far, she soon felt very tired and sat
down at the foot of a tree to rest, and presently fell fast asleep. When
she awoke she was dismayed to find her basket empty. The cake was all
gone! and, to make matters worse, at that moment she heard the roaring
of the great lions, who had found out that she was near and were coming
to look for her.

“What shall I do?” she cried; “I shall be eaten up,” and being too
frightened to run a single step, she began to cry, and leaned against
the tree under which she had been asleep.

Just then she heard some one say: “H’m, h’m!”

She looked all round her, and then up the tree, and there she saw a
little tiny man, who was eating oranges.

“Oh! Queen,” said he, “I know you very well, and I know how much afraid
you are of the lions; and you are quite right too, for they have eaten
many other people: and what can you expect, as you have not any cake to
give them?”

“I must make up my mind to die,” said the poor Queen. “Alas! I should
not care so much if only my dear daughter were married.”

“Oh! you have a daughter,” cried the Yellow Dwarf (who was so called
because he _was_ a dwarf and had such a yellow face, and lived in the
orange tree). “I’m really glad to hear that, for I’ve been looking for
a wife all over the world. Now, if you will promise that she shall marry
me, not one of the lions, tigers, or bears shall touch you.”

The Queen looked at him and was almost as much afraid of his ugly little
face as she had been of the lions before, so that she could not speak a
word.

“What! you hesitate, madam,” cried the Dwarf. “You must be very fond of
being eaten up alive.”

And, as he spoke, the Queen saw the lions, which were running down a
hill toward them.

Each one had two heads, eight feet, and four rows of teeth, and their
skins were as hard as turtle shells, and were bright red.

At this dreadful sight, the poor Queen, who was trembling like a dove
when it sees a hawk, cried out as loud as she could, “Oh! dear Mr.
Dwarf, Bellissima shall marry you.”

“Oh, indeed!” said he disdainfully. “Bellissima is pretty enough, but I
don’t particularly want to marry her--you can keep her.”

“Oh! noble sir,” said the Queen in great distress, “do not refuse her.
She is the most charming Princess in the world.”

“Oh! well,” he replied, “out of charity I will take her; but be sure and
don’t forget that she is mine.”

As he spoke a little door opened in the trunk of the orange tree, in
rushed the Queen, only just in time, and the door shut with a bang in
the faces of the lions.

The Queen was so confused that at first she did not notice another
little door in the orange tree, but presently it opened and she found
herself in a field of thistles and nettles. It was encircled by a muddy
ditch, and a little further on was a tiny thatched cottage, out of which
came the Yellow Dwarf with a very jaunty air. He wore wooden shoes and
a little yellow coat, and as he had no hair and very long ears he looked
altogether a shocking little object.

“I am delighted,” said he to the Queen, “that, as you are to be my
mother-in-law, you should see the little house in which your Bellissima
will live with me. With these thistles and nettles she can feed a donkey
which she can ride whenever she likes; under this humble roof no
weather can hurt her; she will drink the water of this brook and eat
frogs--which grow very fat about here; and then she will have me always
with her, handsome, agreeable, and gay as you see me now. For if her
shadow stays by her more closely than I do I shall be surprised.”

The unhappy Queen, seeing all at once what a miserable life her daughter
would have with this Dwarf could not bear the idea, and fell down
insensible without saying a word.

When she revived she found to her great surprise that she was lying in
her own bed at home, and, what was more, that she had on the loveliest
lace night cap that she had ever seen in her life. At first she thought
that all her adventures, the terrible lions, and her promise to the
Yellow Dwarf that he should marry Bellissima, must have been a dream,
but there was the new cap with its beautiful ribbon and lace to remind
her that it was all true, which made her so unhappy that she could
neither eat, drink, nor sleep for thinking of it.

The Princess, who, in spite of her wilfulness, really loved her mother
with all her heart, was much grieved when she saw her looking so sad,
and often asked her what was the matter; but the Queen, who didn’t want
her to find out the truth, only said that she was ill, or that one of
her neighbors was threatening to make war against her. Bellissima knew
quite well that something was being hidden from her--and that neither of
these was the real reason of the Queen’s uneasiness. So she made up her
mind that she would go and consult the Fairy of the Desert about it,
especially as she had often heard how wise she was, and she thought that
at the same time she might ask her advice as to whether it would be as
well to be married, or not.

So, with great care, she made some of the proper cake to pacify the
lions, and one night went up to her room very early, pretending that
she was going to bed; but instead of that, she wrapped herself in a long
white veil, and went down a secret staircase, and set off all by herself
to find the Witch.

But when she got as far as the same fatal orange tree, and saw it
covered with flowers and fruit, she stopped and began to gather some
of the oranges--and then, putting down her basket, she sat down to eat
them. But when it was time to go on again the basket had disappeared
and, though she looked everywhere, not a trace of it could she find.
The more she hunted for it, the more frightened she got, and at last she
began to cry. Then all at once she saw before her the Yellow Dwarf.

“What’s the matter with you, my pretty one?” said he. “What are you
crying about?”

“Alas!” she answered; “no wonder that I am crying, seeing that I have
lost the basket of cake that was to help me to get safely to the cave of
the Fairy of the Desert.”

“And what do you want with her, pretty one?” said the little monster,
“for I am a friend of hers, and, for the matter of that, I am quite as
clever as she is.”

“The Queen, my mother,” replied the Princess, “has lately fallen into
such deep sadness that I fear that she will die; and I am afraid that
perhaps I am the cause of it, for she very much wishes me to be married,
and I must tell you truly that as yet I have not found anyone I consider
worthy to be my husband. So for all these reasons I wished to talk to
the Fairy.”

“Do not give yourself any further trouble, Princess,” answered the
Dwarf. “I can tell you all you want to know better than she could. The
Queen, your mother, has promised you in marriage----”

“Has promised _me!_” interrupted the Princess. “Oh! no. I’m sure she has
not. She would have told me if she had. I am too much interested in
the matter for her to promise anything without my consent--you must be
mistaken.”

“Beautiful Princess,” cried the Dwarf suddenly, throwing himself on his
knees before her, “I flatter myself that you will not be displeased
at her choice when I tell you that it is to _me_ she has promised the
happiness of marrying you.”

“You!” cried Bellissima, starting back. “My mother wishes me to marry
you! How can you be so silly as to think of such a thing?”

“Oh! it isn’t that I care much to have that honor,” cried the Dwarf
angrily; “but here are the lions coming; they’ll eat you up in three
mouthfuls, and there will be an end of you and your pride.”

And, indeed, at that moment the poor Princess heard their dreadful howls
coming nearer and nearer.

“What shall I do?” she cried. “Must all my happy days come to an end
like this?”

The malicious Dwarf looked at her and began to laugh spitefully. “At
least,” said he, “you have the satisfaction of dying unmarried. A lovely
Princess like you must surely prefer to die rather than be the wife of a
poor little dwarf like myself.”

“Oh, don’t be angry with me,” cried the Princess, clasping her hands.
“I’d rather marry all the dwarfs in the world than die in this horrible
way.”

“Look at me well, Princess, before you give me your word,” said he. “I
don’t want you to promise me in a hurry.”

“Oh!” cried she, “the lions are coming. I have looked at you enough. I
am so frightened. Save me this minute, or I shall die of terror.”

Indeed, as she spoke she fell down insensible, and when she recovered
she found herself in her own little bed at home; how she got there
she could not tell, but she was dressed in the most beautiful lace and
ribbons, and on her finger was a little ring, made of a single red hair,
which fitted so tightly that, try as she might, she could not get it
off.

When the Princess saw all these things, and remembered what had
happened, she, too, fell into the deepest sadness, which surprised and
alarmed the whole Court, and the Queen more than anyone else. A hundred
times she asked Bellissima if anything was the matter with her; but she
always said that there was nothing.

At last the chief men of the kingdom, anxious to see their Princess
married, sent to the Queen to beg her to choose a husband for her as
soon as possible. She replied that nothing would please her better, but
that her daughter seemed so unwilling to marry, and she recommended them
to go and talk to the Princess about it themselves so this they at once
did. Now Bellissima was much less proud since her adventure with the
Yellow Dwarf, and she could not think of a better way of getting rid
of the little monster than to marry some powerful king, therefore she
replied to their request much more favorably than they had hoped, saying
that, though she was very happy as she was, still, to please them, she
would consent to marry the King of the Gold Mines. Now he was a very
handsome and powerful Prince, who had been in love with the Princess for
years, but had not thought that she would ever care about him at all.
You can easily imagine how delighted he was when he heard the news,
and how angry it made all the other kings to lose for ever the hope of
marrying the Princess; but, after all, Bellissima could not have married
twenty kings--indeed, she had found it quite difficult enough to choose
one, for her vanity made her believe that there was nobody in the world
who was worthy of her.

Preparations were begun at once for the grandest wedding that had ever
been held at the palace. The King of the Gold Mines sent such immense
sums of money that the whole sea was covered with the ships that brought
it. Messengers were sent to all the gayest and most refined Courts,
particularly to the Court of France, to seek out everything rare and
precious to adorn the Princess, although her beauty was so perfect that
nothing she wore could make her look prettier. At least that is what
the King of the Gold Mines thought, and he was never happy unless he was
with her.

As for the Princess, the more she saw of the King the more she liked
him; he was so generous, so handsome and clever, that at last she was
almost as much in love with him as he was with her. How happy they were
as they wandered about in the beautiful gardens together, sometimes
listening to sweet music! And the King used to write songs for
Bellissima. This is one that she liked very much:

  In the forest all is gay
  When my Princess walks that way.
  All the blossoms then are found
  Downward fluttering to the ground,
  Hoping she may tread on them.
  And bright flowers on slender stem
  Gaze up at her as she passes
  Brushing lightly through the grasses.
  Oh! my Princess, birds above
  Echo back our songs of love,
  As through this enchanted land
  Blithe we wander, hand in hand.


They really were as happy as the day was long. All the King’s
unsuccessful rivals had gone home in despair. They said good-by to the
Princess so sadly that she could not help being sorry for them.

“Ah! madam,” the King of the Gold Mines said to her “how is this? Why
do you waste your pity on these princes, who love you so much that all
their trouble would be well repaid by a single smile from you?”

“I should be sorry,” answered Bellissima, “if you had not noticed how
much I pitied these princes who were leaving me for ever; but for you,
sire, it is very different: you have every reason to be pleased with
me, but they are going sorrowfully away, so you must not grudge them my
compassion.”

The King of the Gold Mines was quite overcome by the Princess’s
good-natured way of taking his interference, and, throwing himself at
her feet, he kissed her hand a thousand times and begged her to forgive
him.

At last the happy day came. Everything was ready for Bellissima’s
wedding. The trumpets sounded, all the streets of the town were hung
with flags and strewn with flowers, and the people ran in crowds to the
great square before the palace. The Queen was so overjoyed that she had
hardly been able to sleep at all, and she got up before it was light to
give the necessary orders and to choose the jewels that the Princess was
to wear. These were nothing less than diamonds, even to her shoes, which
were covered with them, and her dress of silver brocade was embroidered
with a dozen of the sun’s rays. You may imagine how much these had cost;
but then nothing could have been more brilliant, except the beauty of
the Princess! Upon her head she wore a splendid crown, her lovely
hair waved nearly to her feet, and her stately figure could easily be
distinguished among all the ladies who attended her.

The King of the Gold Mines was not less noble and splendid; it was easy
to see by his face how happy he was, and everyone who went near him
returned loaded with presents, for all round the great banqueting hall
had been arranged a thousand barrels full of gold, and numberless bags
made of velvet embroidered with pearls and filled with money, each one
containing at least a hundred thousand gold pieces, which were given
away to everyone who liked to hold out his hand, which numbers of people
hastened to do, you may be sure--indeed, some found this by far the most
amusing part of the wedding festivities.

The Queen and the Princess were just ready to set out with the King when
they saw, advancing toward them from the end of the long gallery, two
great basilisks, dragging after them a very badly made box; behind them
came a tall old woman, whose ugliness was even more surprising than her
extreme old age. She wore a ruff of black taffeta, a red velvet hood,
and a farthingale all in rags, and she leaned heavily upon a crutch.
This strange old woman, without saying a single word, hobbled three
times round the gallery, followed by the basilisks, then stopping in the
middle, and brandishing her crutch threateningly, she cried:

“Ho, ho, Queen! Ho, ho, Princess! Do you think you are going to break
with impunity the promise that you made to my friend the Yellow Dwarf? I
am the Fairy of the Desert; without the Yellow Dwarf and his orange
tree my great lions would soon have eaten you up, I can tell you, and in
Fairyland we do not suffer ourselves to be insulted like this. Make up
your minds at once what you will do, for I vow that you shall marry the
Yellow Dwarf. If you don’t, may I burn my crutch!”

“Ah! Princess,” said the Queen, weeping, “what is this that I hear? What
have you promised?”

“Ah! my mother,” replied Bellissima sadly, “what did _you_ promise,
yourself?”

The King of the Gold Mines, indignant at being kept from his happiness
by this wicked old woman, went up to her, and threatening her with his
sword, said:

“Get away out of my country at once, and for ever, miserable creature,
lest I take your life, and so rid myself of your malice.”

He had hardly spoken these words when the lid of the box fell back on
the floor with a terrible noise, and to their horror out sprang the
Yellow Dwarf, mounted upon a great Spanish cat. “Rash youth!” he cried,
rushing between the Fairy of the Desert and the King. “Dare to lay a
finger upon this illustrious Fairy! Your quarrel is with me only. I
am your enemy and your rival. That faithless Princess who would have
married you is promised to me. See if she has not upon her finger a ring
made of one of my hairs. Just try to take it off, and you will soon find
out that I am more powerful than you are!”

“Wretched little monster!” said the King; “do you dare to call yourself
the Princess’s lover, and to lay claim to such a treasure? Do you know
that you are a dwarf--that you are so ugly that one cannot bear to look
at you--and that I should have killed you myself long before this if you
had been worthy of such a glorious death?”

The Yellow Dwarf, deeply enraged at these words, set spurs to his
cat, which yelled horribly, and leaped hither and thither--terrifying
everybody except the brave King, who pursued the Dwarf closely, till he,
drawing a great knife with which he was armed, challenged the King to
meet him in single combat, and rushed down into the courtyard of the
palace with a terrible clatter. The King, quite provoked, followed him
hastily, but they had hardly taken their places facing one another, and
the whole Court had only just had time to rush out upon the balconies to
watch what was going on, when suddenly the sun became as red as blood,
and it was so dark that they could scarcely see at all. The thunder
crashed, and the lightning seemed as if it must burn up everything; the
two basilisks appeared, one on each side of the bad Dwarf, like giants,
mountains high, and fire flew from their mouths and ears, until they
looked like flaming furnaces. None of these things could terrify the
noble young King, and the boldness of his looks and actions reassured
those who were looking on, and perhaps even embarrassed the Yellow Dwarf
himself; but even _his_ courage gave way when he saw what was happening
to his beloved Princess. For the Fairy of the Desert, looking more
terrible than before, mounted upon a winged griffin, and with long
snakes coiled round her neck, had given her such a blow with the lance
she carried that Bellissima fell into the Queen’s arms bleeding and
senseless. Her fond mother, feeling as much hurt by the blow as the
Princess herself, uttered such piercing cries and lamentations that
the King, hearing them, entirely lost his courage and presence of mind.
Giving up the combat, he flew toward the Princess, to rescue or to die
with her; but the Yellow Dwarf was too quick for him. Leaping with his
Spanish cat upon the balcony, he snatched Bellissima from the Queen’s
arms, and before any of the ladies of the Court could stop him he had
sprung upon the roof of the palace and disappeared with his prize.

The King, motionless with horror, looked on despairingly at this
dreadful occurrence, which he was quite powerless to prevent, and to
make matters worse his sight failed him, everything became dark, and he
felt himself carried along through the air by a strong hand.

This new misfortune was the work of the wicked Fairy of the Desert, who
had come with the Yellow Dwarf to help him carry off the Princess,
and had fallen in love with the handsome young King of the Gold Mines
directly she saw him. She thought that if she carried him off to some
frightful cavern and chained him to a rock, then the fear of death would
make him forget Bellissima and become her slave. So, as soon as they
reached the place, she gave him back his sight, but without releasing
him from his chains, and by her magic power she appeared before him as
a young and beautiful fairy, and pretended to have come there quite by
chance.

“What do I see?” she cried. “Is it _you_, dear Prince? What misfortune
has brought you to this dismal place?”

The King, who was quite deceived by her altered appearance, replied:

“Alas! beautiful Fairy, the fairy who brought me here first took away
my sight, but by her voice I recognized her as the Fairy of the Desert,
though what she should have carried me off for I cannot tell you.”

“Ah!” cried the pretended Fairy, “if you have fallen into _her_ hands,
you won’t get away until you have married her. She has carried off more
than one Prince like this, and she will certainly have anything she
takes a fancy to.” While she was thus pretending to be sorry for the
King, he suddenly noticed her feet, which were like those of a griffin,
and knew in a moment that this must be the Fairy of the Desert, for her
feet were the one thing she could not change, however pretty she might
make her face.

Without seeming to have noticed anything, he said, in a confidential
way:

“Not that I have any dislike to the Fairy of the Desert, but I really
cannot endure the way in which she protects the Yellow Dwarf and keeps
me chained here like a criminal. It is true that I love a charming
princess, but if the Fairy should set me free my gratitude would oblige
me to love her only.”

“Do you really mean what you say, Prince?” said the Fairy, quite
deceived.

“Surely,” replied the Prince; “how could I deceive you? You see it is
so much more flattering to my vanity to be loved by a fairy than by
a simple princess. But, even if I am dying of love for her, I shall
pretend to hate her until I am set free.”

The Fairy of the Desert, quite taken in by these words, resolved at once
to transport the Prince to a pleasanter place. So, making him mount
her chariot, to which she had harnessed swans instead of the bats which
generally drew it, away she flew with him. But imagine the distress
of the Prince when, from the giddy height at which they were rushing
through the air, he saw his beloved Princess in a castle built of
polished steel, the walls of which reflected the sun’s rays so
hotly that no one could approach it without being burnt to a cinder!
Bellissima was sitting in a little thicket by a brook, leaning her head
upon her hand and weeping bitterly, but just as they passed she looked
up and saw the King and the Fairy of the Desert. Now, the Fairy was so
clever that she could not only seem beautiful to the King, but even the
poor Princess thought her the most lovely being she had ever seen.

“What!” she cried; “was I not unhappy enough in this lonely castle to
which that frightful Yellow Dwarf brought me? Must I also be made to
know that the King of the Gold Mines ceased to love me as soon as he
lost sight of me? But who can my rival be, whose fatal beauty is greater
than mine?”

While she was saying this, the King, who really loved her as much as
ever, was feeling terribly sad at being so rapidly torn away from his
beloved Princess, but he knew too well how powerful the Fairy was to
have any hope of escaping from her except by great patience and cunning.

The Fairy of the Desert had also seen Bellissima, and she tried to read
in the King’s eyes the effect that this unexpected sight had had upon
him.

“No one can tell you what you wish to know better than I can,” said
he. “This chance meeting with an unhappy princess for whom I once had a
passing fancy, before I was lucky enough to meet you, has affected me a
little, I admit, but you are so much more to me than she is that I would
rather die than leave you.”

“Ah, Prince,” she said, “can I believe that you really love me so much?”

“Time will show, madam,” replied the King; “but if you wish to convince
me that you have some regard for me, do not, I beg of you, refuse to aid
Bellissima.”

“Do you know what you are asking?” said the Fairy of the Desert,
frowning, and looking at him suspiciously. “Do you want me to employ my
art against the Yellow Dwarf, who is my best friend, and take away from
him a proud princess whom I can but look upon as my rival?”

The King sighed, but made no answer--indeed, what was there to be said
to such a clear-sighted person? At last they reached a vast meadow, gay
with all sorts of flowers; a deep river surrounded it, and many little
brooks murmured softly under the shady trees, where it was always cool
and fresh. A little way off stood a splendid palace, the walls of
which were of transparent emeralds. As soon as the swans which drew
the Fairy’s chariot had alighted under a porch, which was paved with
diamonds and had arches of rubies, they were greeted on all sides by
thousands of beautiful beings, who came to meet them joyfully, singing
these words:

  “When Love within a heart would reign,
       Useless to strive against him ‘tis.
  The proud but feel a sharper pain,
       And make a greater triumph his.”


The Fairy of the Desert was delighted to hear them sing of her triumphs;
she led the King into the most splendid room that can be imagined, and
left him alone for a little while, just that he might not feel that
he was a prisoner; but he felt sure that she had not really gone quite
away, but was watching him from some hiding-place. So walking up to a
great mirror, he said to it, “Trusty counsellor, let me see what I can
do to make myself agreeable to the charming Fairy of the Desert; for I
can think of nothing but how to please her.”

And he at once set to work to curl his hair, and, seeing upon a table a
grander coat than his own, he put it on carefully. The Fairy came back
so delighted that she could not conceal her joy.

“I am quite aware of the trouble you have taken to please me,” said she,
“and I must tell you that you have succeeded perfectly already. You see
it is not difficult to do if you really care for me.”

The King, who had his own reasons for wishing to keep the old Fairy in
a good humor, did not spare pretty speeches, and after a time he was
allowed to walk by himself upon the sea-shore. The Fairy of the Desert
had by her enchantments raised such a terrible storm that the boldest
pilot would not venture out in it, so she was not afraid of her
prisoner’s being able to escape; and he found it some relief to think
sadly over his terrible situation without being interrupted by his cruel
captor.

Presently, after walking wildly up and down, he wrote these verses upon
the sand with his stick:

     “At last may I upon this shore
       Lighten my sorrow with soft tears.
     Alas! alas! I see no more
       My Love, who yet my sadness cheers.

     “And thou, O raging, stormy Sea,
       Stirred by wild winds, from depth to height,
     Thou hold’st my loved one far from me,
       And I am captive to thy might.

     “My heart is still more wild than thine,
       For Fate is cruel unto me.
     Why must I thus in exile pine?
       Why is my Princess snatched from me?

     “O! lovely Nymphs, from ocean caves,
       Who know how sweet true love may be,
     Come up and calm the furious waves
       And set a desperate lover free!”


While he was still writing he heard a voice which attracted his
attention in spite of himself. Seeing that the waves were rolling in
higher than ever, he looked all round, and presently saw a lovely lady
floating gently toward him upon the crest of a huge billow, her long
hair spread all about her; in one hand she held a mirror, and in the
other a comb, and instead of feet she had a beautiful tail like a fish,
with which she swam.

The King was struck dumb with astonishment at this unexpected sight; but
as soon as she came within speaking distance, she said to him, “I know
how sad you are at losing your Princess and being kept a prisoner by
the Fairy of the Desert; if you like I will help you to escape from this
fatal place, where you may otherwise have to drag on a weary existence
for thirty years or more.”

The King of the Gold Mines hardly knew what answer to make to this
proposal. Not because he did not wish very much to escape, but he was
afraid that this might be only another device by which the Fairy of
the Desert was trying to deceive him. As he hesitated the Mermaid, who
guessed his thoughts, said to him:

“You may trust me: I am not trying to entrap you. I am so angry with the
Yellow Dwarf and the Fairy of the Desert that I am not likely to wish to
help them, especially since I constantly see your poor Princess, whose
beauty and goodness make me pity her so much; and I tell you that if you
will have confidence in me I will help you to escape.”

“I trust you absolutely,” cried the King, “and I will do whatever you
tell me; but if you have seen my Princess I beg of you to tell me how
she is and what is happening to her.

“We must not waste time in talking,” said she. “Come with me and I will
carry you to the Castle of Steel, and we will leave upon this shore a
figure so like you that even the Fairy herself will be deceived by it.”

So saying, she quickly collected a bundle of sea-weed, and, blowing it
three times, she said:

“My friendly sea-weeds, I order you to stay here stretched upon the sand
until the Fairy of the Desert comes to take you away.” And at once
the sea-weeds became like the King, who stood looking at them in great
astonishment, for they were even dressed in a coat like his, but they
lay there pale and still as the King himself might have lain if one
of the great waves had overtaken him and thrown him senseless upon
the shore. And then the Mermaid caught up the King, and away they swam
joyfully together.

“Now,” said she, “I have time to tell you about the Princess. In spite
of the blow which the Fairy of the Desert gave her, the Yellow Dwarf
compelled her to mount behind him upon his terrible Spanish cat; but she
soon fainted away with pain and terror, and did not recover till they
were within the walls of his frightful Castle of Steel. Here she was
received by the prettiest girls it was possible to find, who had been
carried there by the Yellow Dwarf, who hastened to wait upon her and
showed her every possible attention. She was laid upon a couch covered
with cloth of gold, embroidered with pearls as big as nuts.”

“Ah!” interrupted the King of the Gold Mines, “if Bellissima forgets me,
and consents to marry him, I shall break my heart.”

“You need not be afraid of that,” answered the Mermaid, “the Princess
thinks of no one but you, and the frightful Dwarf cannot persuade her to
look at him.”

“Pray go on with your story,” said the King.

“What more is there to tell you?” replied the Mermaid. “Bellissima was
sitting in the wood when you passed, and saw you with the Fairy of the
Desert, who was so cleverly disguised that the Princess took her to be
prettier than herself; you may imagine her despair, for she thought that
you had fallen in love with her.”

“She believes that I love her!” cried the King. “What a fatal mistake!
What is to be done to undeceive her?”

“You know best,” answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him. “When
people are as much in love with one another as you two are, they don’t
need advice from anyone else.”

As she spoke they reached the Castle of Steel, the side next the sea
being the only one which the Yellow Dwarf had left unprotected by the
dreadful burning walls.

“I know quite well,” said the Mermaid, “that the Princess is sitting by
the brook-side, just where you saw her as you passed, but as you will
have many enemies to fight with before you can reach her, take this
sword; armed with it you may dare any danger, and overcome the greatest
difficulties, only beware of one thing--that is, never to let it fall
from your hand. Farewell; now I will wait by that rock, and if you need
my help in carrying off your beloved Princess I will not fail you, for
the Queen, her mother, is my best friend, and it was for her sake that I
went to rescue you.”

So saying, she gave to the King a sword made from a single diamond,
which was more brilliant than the sun. He could not find words to
express his gratitude, but he begged her to believe that he fully
appreciated the importance of her gift, and would never forget her help
and kindness.

We must now go back to the Fairy of the Desert. When she found that the
King did not return, she hastened out to look for him, and reached the
shore, with a hundred of the ladies of her train, loaded with splendid
presents for him. Some carried baskets full of diamonds, others golden
cups of wonderful workmanship, and amber, coral, and pearls, others,
again, balanced upon their heads bales of the richest and most beautiful
stuffs, while the rest brought fruit and flowers, and even birds. But
what was the horror of the Fairy, who followed this gay troop, when she
saw, stretched upon the sands, the image of the King which the Mermaid
had made with the sea-weeds. Struck with astonishment and sorrow, she
uttered a terrible cry, and threw herself down beside the pretended
King, weeping, and howling, and calling upon her eleven sisters, who
were also fairies, and who came to her assistance. But they were all
taken in by the image of the King, for, clever as they were, the Mermaid
was still cleverer, and all they could do was to help the Fairy of the
Desert to make a wonderful monument over what they thought was the grave
of the King of the Gold Mines. But while they were collecting jasper
and porphyry, agate and marble, gold and bronze, statues and devices,
to immortalize the King’s memory, he was thanking the good Mermaid and
begging her still to help him, which she graciously promised to do as
she disappeared; and then he set out for the Castle of Steel. He walked
fast, looking anxiously round him, and longing once more to see his
darling Bellissima, but he had not gone far before he was surrounded by
four terrible sphinxes who would very soon have torn him to pieces with
their sharp talons if it had not been for the Mermaid’s diamond sword.
For, no sooner had he flashed it before their eyes than down they fell
at his feet quite helpless, and he killed them with one blow. But he
had hardly turned to continue his search when he met six dragons covered
with scales that were harder than iron. Frightful as this encounter was
the King’s courage was unshaken, and by the aid of his wonderful sword
he cut them in pieces one after the other. Now he hoped his difficulties
were over, but at the next turning he was met by one which he did
not know how to overcome. Four-and-twenty pretty and graceful nymphs
advanced toward him, holding garlands of flowers, with which they barred
the way.

“Where are you going, Prince?” they said; “it is our duty to guard this
place, and if we let you pass great misfortunes will happen to you
and to us. We beg you not to insist upon going on. Do you want to kill
four-and-twenty girls who have never displeased you in any way?”

The King did not know what to do or to say. It went against all his
ideas as a knight to do anything a lady begged him not to do; but, as he
hesitated, a voice in his ear said:

“Strike! strike! and do not spare, or your Princess is lost for ever!”

So, without reply to the nymphs, he rushed forward instantly, breaking
their garlands, and scattering them in all directions; and then went
on without further hindrance to the little wood where he had seen
Bellissima. She was seated by the brook looking pale and weary when he
reached her, and he would have thrown himself down at her feet, but she
drew herself away from him with as much indignation as if he had been
the Yellow Dwarf.

“Ah! Princess,” he cried, “do not be angry with me. Let me explain
everything. I am not faithless or to blame for what has happened. I am
a miserable wretch who has displeased you without being able to help
himself.”

“Ah!” cried Bellissima, “did I not see you flying through the air with
the loveliest being imaginable? Was that against your will?”

“Indeed it was, Princess,” he answered; “the wicked Fairy of the Desert,
not content with chaining me to a rock, carried me off in her chariot to
the other end of the earth, where I should even now be a captive but for
the unexpected help of a friendly mermaid, who brought me here to rescue
you, my Princess, from the unworthy hands that hold you. Do not refuse
the aid of your most faithful lover.” So saying, he threw himself at her
feet and held her by her robe. But, alas! in so doing he let fall the
magic sword, and the Yellow Dwarf, who was crouching behind a lettuce,
no sooner saw it than he sprang out and seized it, well knowing its
wonderful power.

The Princess gave a cry of terror on seeing the Dwarf, but this only
irritated the little monster; muttering a few magical words he summoned
two giants, who bound the King with great chains of iron.

“Now,” said the Dwarf, “I am master of my rival’s fate, but I will give
him his life and permission to depart unharmed if you, Princess, will
consent to marry me.”

“Let me die a thousand times rather,” cried the unhappy King.

“Alas!” cried the Princess, “must you die? Could anything be more
terrible?”

“That you should marry that little wretch would be far more terrible,”
 answered the King.

“At least,” continued she, “let us die together.”

“Let me have the satisfaction of dying for you, my Princess,” said he.

“Oh, no, no!” she cried, turning to the Dwarf; “rather than that I will
do as you wish.”

“Cruel Princess!” said the King, “would you make my life horrible to me
by marrying another before my eyes?”

“Not so,” replied the Yellow Dwarf; “you are a rival of whom I am too
much afraid; you shall not see our marriage.” So saying, in spite of
Bellissima’s tears and cries, he stabbed the King to the heart with the
diamond sword.

The poor Princess, seeing her lover lying dead at her feet, could no
longer live without him; she sank down by him and died of a broken
heart.

So ended these unfortunate lovers, whom not even the Mermaid could help,
because all the magic power had been lost with the diamond sword.

As to the wicked Dwarf, he preferred to see the Princess dead rather
than married to the King of the Gold Mines; and the Fairy of the Desert,
when she heard of the King’s adventures, pulled down the grand monument
which she had built, and was so angry at the trick that had been played
her that she hated him as much as she had loved him before.

The kind Mermaid, grieved at the sad fate of the lovers, caused them to
be changed into two tall palm trees, which stand always side by side,
whispering together of their faithful love and caressing one another
with their interlacing branches.(1)


(1) Madame d’Aulnoy.




LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD


Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl,
the prettiest creature was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond
of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman
had made for her a little red riding-hood; which became the girl so
extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding-Hood.

One day her mother, having made some custards, said to her:

“Go, my dear, and see how thy grandmamma does, for I hear she has been
very ill; carry her a custard, and this little pot of butter.”

Little Red Riding-Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who
lived in another village.

As she was going through the wood, she met with Gaffer Wolf, who had
a very great mind to eat her up, but he dared not, because of some
faggot-makers hard by in the forest. He asked her whither she was going.
The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and hear
a wolf talk, said to him:

“I am going to see my grandmamma and carry her a custard and a little
pot of butter from my mamma.”

“Does she live far off?” said the Wolf.

“Oh! ay,” answered Little Red Riding-Hood; “it is beyond that mill you
see there, at the first house in the village.”

“Well,” said the Wolf, “and I’ll go and see her too. I’ll go this way
and you go that, and we shall see who will be there soonest.”

The Wolf began to run as fast as he could, taking the nearest way,
and the little girl went by that farthest about, diverting herself in
gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and making nosegays of such
little flowers as she met with. The Wolf was not long before he got to
the old woman’s house. He knocked at the door--tap, tap.

“Who’s there?”

“Your grandchild, Little Red Riding-Hood,” replied the Wolf,
counterfeiting her voice; “who has brought you a custard and a little
pot of butter sent you by mamma.”

The good grandmother, who was in bed, because she was somewhat ill,
cried out:

“Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up.”

The Wolf pulled the bobbin, and the door opened, and then presently he
fell upon the good woman and ate her up in a moment, for it was above
three days that he had not touched a bit. He then shut the door and went
into the grandmother’s bed, expecting Little Red Riding-Hood, who came
some time afterward and knocked at the door--tap, tap.

“Who’s there?”

Little Red Riding-Hood, hearing the big voice of the Wolf, was at first
afraid; but believing her grandmother had got a cold and was hoarse,
answered:

“‘Tis your grandchild, Little Red Riding-Hood, who has brought you a
custard and a little pot of butter mamma sends you.”

The Wolf cried out to her, softening his voice as much as he could:

“Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up.”

Little Red Riding-Hood pulled the bobbin, and the door opened.

The Wolf, seeing her come in, said to her, hiding himself under the
bed-clothes:

“Put the custard and the little pot of butter upon the stool, and come
and lie down with me.”

Little Red Riding-Hood undressed herself and went into bed, where, being
greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her night-clothes,
she said to her:

“Grandmamma, what great arms you have got!”

“That is the better to hug thee, my dear.”

“Grandmamma, what great legs you have got!”

“That is to run the better, my child.”

“Grandmamma, what great ears you have got!”

“That is to hear the better, my child.”

“Grandmamma, what great eyes you have got!”

“It is to see the better, my child.”

“Grandmamma, what great teeth you have got!”

“That is to eat thee up.”

And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red
Riding-Hood, and ate her all up.




THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD


There were formerly a king and a queen, who were so sorry that they had
no children; so sorry that it cannot be expressed. They went to all the
waters in the world; vows, pilgrimages, all ways were tried, and all to
no purpose.

At last, however, the Queen had a daughter. There was a very fine
christening; and the Princess had for her god-mothers all the fairies
they could find in the whole kingdom (they found seven), that every one
of them might give her a gift, as was the custom of fairies in those
days. By this means the Princess had all the perfections imaginable.

After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company
returned to the King’s palace, where was prepared a great feast for the
fairies. There was placed before every one of them a magnificent cover
with a case of massive gold, wherein were a spoon, knife, and fork, all
of pure gold set with diamonds and rubies. But as they were all sitting
down at table they saw come into the hall a very old fairy, whom they
had not invited, because it was above fifty years since she had been out
of a certain tower, and she was believed to be either dead or enchanted.

The King ordered her a cover, but could not furnish her with a case
of gold as the others, because they had only seven made for the seven
fairies. The old Fairy fancied she was slighted, and muttered some
threats between her teeth. One of the young fairies who sat by her
overheard how she grumbled; and, judging that she might give the little
Princess some unlucky gift, went, as soon as they rose from table, and
hid herself behind the hangings, that she might speak last, and repair,
as much as she could, the evil which the old Fairy might intend.

In the meanwhile all the fairies began to give their gifts to the
Princess. The youngest gave her for gift that she should be the most
beautiful person in the world; the next, that she should have the wit
of an angel; the third, that she should have a wonderful grace in
everything she did; the fourth, that she should dance perfectly well;
the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that
she should play all kinds of music to the utmost perfection.

The old Fairy’s turn coming next, with a head shaking more with spite
than age, she said that the Princess should have her hand pierced with a
spindle and die of the wound. This terrible gift made the whole company
tremble, and everybody fell a-crying.

At this very instant the young Fairy came out from behind the hangings,
and spake these words aloud:

“Assure yourselves, O King and Queen, that your daughter shall not die
of this disaster. It is true, I have no power to undo entirely what
my elder has done. The Princess shall indeed pierce her hand with a
spindle; but, instead of dying, she shall only fall into a profound
sleep, which shall last a hundred years, at the expiration of which a
king’s son shall come and awake her.”

The King, to avoid the misfortune foretold by the old Fairy, caused
immediately proclamation to be made, whereby everybody was forbidden, on
pain of death, to spin with a distaff and spindle, or to have so much as
any spindle in their houses. About fifteen or sixteen years after, the
King and Queen being gone to one of their houses of pleasure, the young
Princess happened one day to divert herself in running up and down the
palace; when going up from one apartment to another, she came into a
little room on the top of the tower, where a good old woman, alone, was
spinning with her spindle. This good woman had never heard of the King’s
proclamation against spindles.

“What are you doing there, goody?” said the Princess.

“I am spinning, my pretty child,” said the old woman, who did not know
who she was.

“Ha!” said the Princess, “this is very pretty; how do you do it? Give it
to me, that I may see if I can do so.”

She had no sooner taken it into her hand than, whether being very hasty
at it, somewhat unhandy, or that the decree of the Fairy had so ordained
it, it ran into her hand, and she fell down in a swoon.

The good old woman, not knowing very well what to do in this affair,
cried out for help. People came in from every quarter in great numbers;
they threw water upon the Princess’s face, unlaced her, struck her on
the palms of her hands, and rubbed her temples with Hungary-water; but
nothing would bring her to herself.

And now the King, who came up at the noise, bethought himself of
the prediction of the fairies, and, judging very well that this must
necessarily come to pass, since the fairies had said it, caused the
Princess to be carried into the finest apartment in his palace, and to
be laid upon a bed all embroidered with gold and silver.

One would have taken her for a little angel, she was so very beautiful;
for her swooning away had not diminished one bit of her complexion; her
cheeks were carnation, and her lips were coral; indeed, her eyes were
shut, but she was heard to breathe softly, which satisfied those about
her that she was not dead. The King commanded that they should not
disturb her, but let her sleep quietly till her hour of awaking was
come.

The good Fairy who had saved her life by condemning her to sleep a
hundred years was in the kingdom of Matakin, twelve thousand leagues
off, when this accident befell the Princess; but she was instantly
informed of it by a little dwarf, who had boots of seven leagues, that
is, boots with which he could tread over seven leagues of ground in one
stride. The Fairy came away immediately, and she arrived, about an hour
after, in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons.

The King handed her out of the chariot, and she approved everything
he had done, but as she had very great foresight, she thought when the
Princess should awake she might not know what to do with herself, being
all alone in this old palace; and this was what she did: she
touched with her wand everything in the palace (except the King
and Queen)--governesses, maids of honor, ladies of the bedchamber,
gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, undercooks, scullions, guards,
with their beefeaters, pages, footmen; she likewise touched all the
horses which were in the stables, pads as well as others, the great dogs
in the outward court and pretty little Mopsey too, the Princess’s little
spaniel, which lay by her on the bed.

Immediately upon her touching them they all fell asleep, that they might
not awake before their mistress and that they might be ready to wait
upon her when she wanted them. The very spits at the fire, as full as
they could hold of partridges and pheasants, did fall asleep also. All
this was done in a moment. Fairies are not long in doing their business.

And now the King and the Queen, having kissed their dear child without
waking her, went out of the palace and put forth a proclamation that
nobody should dare to come near it.

This, however, was not necessary, for in a quarter of an hour’s time
there grew up all round about the park such a vast number of trees,
great and small, bushes and brambles, twining one within another, that
neither man nor beast could pass through; so that nothing could be seen
but the very top of the towers of the palace; and that, too, not unless
it was a good way off. Nobody; doubted but the Fairy gave herein a very
extraordinary sample of her art, that the Princess, while she continued
sleeping, might have nothing to fear from any curious people.

When a hundred years were gone and passed the son of the King then
reigning, and who was of another family from that of the sleeping
Princess, being gone a-hunting on that side of the country, asked:

What those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood?

Everyone answered according as they had heard. Some said:

That it was a ruinous old castle, haunted by spirits.

Others, That all the sorcerers and witches of the country kept there
their sabbath or night’s meeting.

The common opinion was: That an ogre lived there, and that he carried
thither all the little children he could catch, that he might eat them
up at his leisure, without anybody being able to follow him, as having
himself only the power to pass through the wood.

The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very good
countryman spake to him thus:

“May it please your royal highness, it is now about fifty years since I
heard from my father, who heard my grandfather say, that there was then
in this castle a princess, the most beautiful was ever seen; that she
must sleep there a hundred years, and should be waked by a king’s son,
for whom she was reserved.”

The young Prince was all on fire at these words, believing, without
weighing the matter, that he could put an end to this rare adventure;
and, pushed on by love and honor, resolved that moment to look into it.

Scarce had he advanced toward the wood when all the great trees, the
bushes, and brambles gave way of themselves to let him pass through; he
walked up to the castle which he saw at the end of a large avenue which
he went into; and what a little surprised him was that he saw none of
his people could follow him, because the trees closed again as soon as
he had passed through them. However, he did not cease from continuing
his way; a young and amorous prince is always valiant.

He came into a spacious outward court, where everything he saw might
have frozen the most fearless person with horror. There reigned all over
a most frightful silence; the image of death everywhere showed itself,
and there was nothing to be seen but stretched-out bodies of men and
animals, all seeming to be dead. He, however, very well knew, by the
ruby faces and pimpled noses of the beefeaters, that they were only
asleep; and their goblets, wherein still remained some drops of wine,
showed plainly that they fell asleep in their cups.

He then crossed a court paved with marble, went up the stairs and came
into the guard chamber, where guards were standing in their ranks, with
their muskets upon their shoulders, and snoring as loud as they could.
After that he went through several rooms full of gentlemen and ladies,
all asleep, some standing, others sitting. At last he came into a
chamber all gilded with gold, where he saw upon a bed, the curtains of
which were all open, the finest sight was ever beheld--a princess, who
appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and whose bright
and, in a manner, resplendent beauty, had somewhat in it divine. He
approached with trembling and admiration, and fell down before her upon
his knees.

And now, as the enchantment was at an end, the Princess awaked, and
looking on him with eyes more tender than the first view might seem to
admit of:

“Is it you, my Prince?” said she to him. “You have waited a long while.”

The Prince, charmed with these words, and much more with the manner in
which they were spoken, knew not how to show his joy and gratitude;
he assured her that he loved her better than he did himself; their
discourse was not well connected, they did weep more than talk--little
eloquence, a great deal of love. He was more at a loss than she, and we
need not wonder at it; she had time to think on what to say to him; for
it is very probable (though history mentions nothing of it) that the
good Fairy, during so long a sleep, had given her very agreeable dreams.
In short, they talked four hours together, and yet they said not half
what they had to say.

In the meanwhile all the palace awaked; everyone thought upon their
particular business, and as all of them were not in love they were ready
to die for hunger. The chief lady of honor, being as sharp set as other
folks, grew very impatient, and told the Princess aloud that supper
was served up. The Prince helped the Princess to rise; she was entirely
dressed, and very magnificently, but his royal highness took care not
to tell her that she was dressed like his great-grandmother, and had
a point band peeping over a high collar; she looked not a bit less
charming and beautiful for all that.

They went into the great hall of looking-glasses, where they supped, and
were served by the Princess’s officers, the violins and hautboys played
old tunes, but very excellent, though it was now above a hundred years
since they had played; and after supper, without losing any time, the
lord almoner married them in the chapel of the castle, and the chief
lady of honor drew the curtains. They had but very little sleep--the
Princess had no occasion; and the Prince left her next morning to return
to the city, where his father must needs have been in pain for him. The
Prince told him:

That he lost his way in the forest as he was hunting, and that he had
lain in the cottage of a charcoal-burner, who gave him cheese and brown
bread.

The King, his father, who was a good man, believed him; but his mother
could not be persuaded it was true; and seeing that he went almost every
day a-hunting, and that he always had some excuse ready for so doing,
though he had lain out three or four nights together, she began to
suspect that he was married, for he lived with the Princess above two
whole years, and had by her two children, the eldest of which, who was
a daughter, was named Morning, and the youngest, who was a son, they
called Day, because he was a great deal handsomer and more beautiful
than his sister.

The Queen spoke several times to her son, to inform herself after
what manner he did pass his time, and that in this he ought in duty to
satisfy her. But he never dared to trust her with his secret; he feared
her, though he loved her, for she was of the race of the Ogres, and the
King would never have married her had it not been for her vast riches;
it was even whispered about the Court that she had Ogreish inclinations,
and that, whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the
difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them. And so the Prince
would never tell her one word.

But when the King was dead, which happened about two years afterward,
and he saw himself lord and master, he openly declared his marriage; and
he went in great ceremony to conduct his Queen to the palace. They made
a magnificent entry into the capital city, she riding between her two
children.

Soon after the King went to make war with the Emperor Contalabutte, his
neighbor. He left the government of the kingdom to the Queen his mother,
and earnestly recommended to her care his wife and children. He was
obliged to continue his expedition all the summer, and as soon as he
departed the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law to a country house
among the woods, that she might with the more ease gratify her horrible
longing.

Some few days afterward she went thither herself, and said to her clerk
of the kitchen:

“I have a mind to eat little Morning for my dinner to-morrow.”

“Ah! madam,” cried the clerk of the kitchen.

“I will have it so,” replied the Queen (and this she spoke in the tone
of an Ogress who had a strong desire to eat fresh meat), “and will eat
her with a sauce Robert.”

The poor man, knowing very well that he must not play tricks with
Ogresses, took his great knife and went up into little Morning’s
chamber. She was then four years old, and came up to him jumping and
laughing, to take him about the neck, and ask him for some sugar-candy.
Upon which he began to weep, the great knife fell out of his hand, and
he went into the back yard, and killed a little lamb, and dressed it
with such good sauce that his mistress assured him that she had never
eaten anything so good in her life. He had at the same time taken up
little Morning, and carried her to his wife, to conceal her in the
lodging he had at the bottom of the courtyard.

About eight days afterward the wicked Queen said to the clerk of the
kitchen, “I will sup on little Day.”

He answered not a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done
before. He went to find out little Day, and saw him with a little foil
in his hand, with which he was fencing with a great monkey, the child
being then only three years of age. He took him up in his arms and
carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber along
with his sister, and in the room of little Day cooked up a young kid,
very tender, which the Ogress found to be wonderfully good.

This was hitherto all mighty well; but one evening this wicked Queen
said to her clerk of the kitchen:

“I will eat the Queen with the same sauce I had with her children.”

It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able
to deceive her. The young Queen was turned of twenty, not reckoning the
hundred years she had been asleep; and how to find in the yard a beast
so firm was what puzzled him. He took then a resolution, that he might
save his own life, to cut the Queen’s throat; and going up into her
chamber, with intent to do it at once, he put himself into as great
fury as he could possibly, and came into the young Queen’s room with his
dagger in his hand. He would not, however, surprise her, but told
her, with a great deal of respect, the orders he had received from the
Queen-mother.

“Do it; do it” (said she, stretching out her neck). “Execute your
orders, and then I shall go and see my children, my poor children, whom
I so much and so tenderly loved.”

For she thought them dead ever since they had been taken away without
her knowledge.

“No, no, madam” (cried the poor clerk of the kitchen, all in tears);
“you shall not die, and yet you shall see your children again; but then
you must go home with me to my lodgings, where I have concealed them,
and I shall deceive the Queen once more, by giving her in your stead a
young hind.”

Upon this he forthwith conducted her to his chamber, where, leaving her
to embrace her children, and cry along with them, he went and dressed a
young hind, which the Queen had for her supper, and devoured it with
the same appetite as if it had been the young Queen. Exceedingly was
she delighted with her cruelty, and she had invented a story to tell the
King, at his return, how the mad wolves had eaten up the Queen his wife
and her two children.

One evening, as she was, according to her custom, rambling round about
the courts and yards of the palace to see if she could smell any fresh
meat, she heard, in a ground room, little Day crying, for his mamma was
going to whip him, because he had been naughty; and she heard, at the
same time, little Morning begging pardon for her brother.

The Ogress presently knew the voice of the Queen and her children, and
being quite mad that she had been thus deceived, she commanded next
morning, by break of day (with a most horrible voice, which made
everybody tremble), that they should bring into the middle of the great
court a large tub, which she caused to be filled with toads, vipers,
snakes, and all sorts of serpents, in order to have thrown into it the
Queen and her children, the clerk of the kitchen, his wife and maid;
all whom she had given orders should be brought thither with their hands
tied behind them.

They were brought out accordingly, and the executioners were just going
to throw them into the tub, when the King (who was not so soon expected)
entered the court on horseback (for he came post) and asked, with the
utmost astonishment, what was the meaning of that horrible spectacle.

No one dared to tell him, when the Ogress, all enraged to see what had
happened, threw herself head foremost into the tub, and was instantly
devoured by the ugly creatures she had ordered to be thrown into it for
others. The King could not but be very sorry, for she was his mother;
but he soon comforted himself with his beautiful wife and his pretty
children.




CINDERELLA, OR THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER


Once there was a gentleman who married, for his second wife, the
proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen. She had, by a former
husband, two daughters of her own humor, who were, indeed, exactly like
her in all things. He had likewise, by another wife, a young daughter,
but of unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper, which she took
from her mother, who was the best creature in the world.

No sooner were the ceremonies of the wedding over but the mother-in-law
began to show herself in her true colors. She could not bear the good
qualities of this pretty girl, and the less because they made her own
daughters appear the more odious. She employed her in the meanest work
of the house: she scoured the dishes, tables, etc., and scrubbed madam’s
chamber, and those of misses, her daughters; she lay up in a sorry
garret, upon a wretched straw bed, while her sisters lay in fine rooms,
with floors all inlaid, upon beds of the very newest fashion, and where
they had looking-glasses so large that they might see themselves at
their full length from head to foot.

The poor girl bore all patiently, and dared not tell her father, who
would have rattled her off; for his wife governed him entirely. When she
had done her work, she used to go into the chimney-corner, and sit down
among cinders and ashes, which made her commonly be called Cinderwench;
but the youngest, who was not so rude and uncivil as the eldest, called
her Cinderella. However, Cinderella, notwithstanding her mean apparel,
was a hundred times handsomer than her sisters, though they were always
dressed very richly.

It happened that the King’s son gave a ball, and invited all persons of
fashion to it. Our young misses were also invited, for they cut a very
grand figure among the quality. They were mightily delighted at this
invitation, and wonderfully busy in choosing out such gowns, petticoats,
and head-clothes as might become them. This was a new trouble to
Cinderella; for it was she who ironed her sisters’ linen, and plaited
their ruffles; they talked all day long of nothing but how they should
be dressed.

“For my part,” said the eldest, “I will wear my red velvet suit with
French trimming.”

“And I,” said the youngest, “shall have my usual petticoat; but then,
to make amends for that, I will put on my gold-flowered manteau, and my
diamond stomacher, which is far from being the most ordinary one in the
world.”

They sent for the best tire-woman they could get to make up their
head-dresses and adjust their double pinners, and they had their red
brushes and patches from Mademoiselle de la Poche.

Cinderella was likewise called up to them to be consulted in all these
matters, for she had excellent notions, and advised them always for the
best, nay, and offered her services to dress their heads, which they
were very willing she should do. As she was doing this, they said to
her:

“Cinderella, would you not be glad to go to the ball?”

“Alas!” said she, “you only jeer me; it is not for such as I am to go
thither.”

“Thou art in the right of it,” replied they; “it would make the people
laugh to see a Cinderwench at a ball.”

Anyone but Cinderella would have dressed their heads awry, but she was
very good, and dressed them perfectly well They were almost two days
without eating, so much were they transported with joy. They broke above
a dozen laces in trying to be laced up close, that they might have a
fine slender shape, and they were continually at their looking-glass.
At last the happy day came; they went to Court, and Cinderella followed
them with her eyes as long as she could, and when she had lost sight of
them, she fell a-crying.

Her godmother, who saw her all in tears, asked her what was the matter.

“I wish I could--I wish I could--“; she was not able to speak the rest,
being interrupted by her tears and sobbing.

This godmother of hers, who was a fairy, said to her, “Thou wishest thou
couldst go to the ball; is it not so?”

“Y--es,” cried Cinderella, with a great sigh.

“Well,” said her godmother, “be but a good girl, and I will contrive
that thou shalt go.” Then she took her into her chamber, and said to
her, “Run into the garden, and bring me a pumpkin.”

Cinderella went immediately to gather the finest she could get, and
brought it to her godmother, not being able to imagine how this pumpkin
could make her go to the ball. Her godmother scooped out all the inside
of it, having left nothing but the rind; which done, she struck it with
her wand, and the pumpkin was instantly turned into a fine coach, gilded
all over with gold.

She then went to look into her mouse-trap, where she found six mice, all
alive, and ordered Cinderella to lift up a little the trapdoor, when,
giving each mouse, as it went out, a little tap with her wand, the mouse
was that moment turned into a fine horse, which altogether made a very
fine set of six horses of a beautiful mouse-colored dapple-gray. Being
at a loss for a coachman,

“I will go and see,” says Cinderella, “if there is never a rat in the
rat-trap--we may make a coachman of him.”

“Thou art in the right,” replied her godmother; “go and look.”

Cinderella brought the trap to her, and in it there were three huge
rats. The fairy made choice of one of the three which had the largest
beard, and, having touched him with her wand, he was turned into a fat,
jolly coachman, who had the smartest whiskers eyes ever beheld. After
that, she said to her:

“Go again into the garden, and you will find six lizards behind the
watering-pot, bring them to me.”

She had no sooner done so but her godmother turned them into six
footmen, who skipped up immediately behind the coach, with their
liveries all bedaubed with gold and silver, and clung as close behind
each other as if they had done nothing else their whole lives. The Fairy
then said to Cinderella:

“Well, you see here an equipage fit to go to the ball with; are you not
pleased with it?”

“Oh! yes,” cried she; “but must I go thither as I am, in these nasty
rags?”

Her godmother only just touched her with her wand, and, at the same
instant, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all
beset with jewels. This done, she gave her a pair of glass slippers, the
prettiest in the whole world. Being thus decked out, she got up into her
coach; but her godmother, above all things, commanded her not to stay
till after midnight, telling her, at the same time, that if she stayed
one moment longer, the coach would be a pumpkin again, her horses mice,
her coachman a rat, her footmen lizards, and her clothes become just as
they were before.

She promised her godmother she would not fail of leaving the ball before
midnight; and then away she drives, scarce able to contain herself for
joy. The King’s son who was told that a great princess, whom nobody
knew, was come, ran out to receive her; he gave her his hand as she
alighted out of the coach, and led her into the ball, among all the
company. There was immediately a profound silence, they left off
dancing, and the violins ceased to play, so attentive was everyone to
contemplate the singular beauties of the unknown new-comer. Nothing was
then heard but a confused noise of:

“Ha! how handsome she is! Ha! how handsome she is!”

The King himself, old as he was, could not help watching her, and
telling the Queen softly that it was a long time since he had seen so
beautiful and lovely a creature.

All the ladies were busied in considering her clothes and headdress,
that they might have some made next day after the same pattern, provided
they could meet with such fine material and as able hands to make them.

The King’s son conducted her to the most honorable seat, and afterward
took her out to dance with him; she danced so very gracefully that they
all more and more admired her. A fine collation was served up, whereof
the young prince ate not a morsel, so intently was he busied in gazing
on her.

She went and sat down by her sisters, showing them a thousand
civilities, giving them part of the oranges and citrons which the Prince
had presented her with, which very much surprised them, for they did not
know her. While Cinderella was thus amusing her sisters, she heard the
clock strike eleven and three-quarters, whereupon she immediately made a
courtesy to the company and hasted away as fast as she could.

When she got home she ran to seek out her godmother, and, after having
thanked her, she said she could not but heartily wish she might go next
day to the ball, because the King’s son had desired her.

As she was eagerly telling her godmother whatever had passed at the
ball, her two sisters knocked at the door, which Cinderella ran and
opened.

“How long you have stayed!” cried she, gaping, rubbing her eyes and
stretching herself as if she had been just waked out of her sleep; she
had not, however, any manner of inclination to sleep since they went
from home.

“If thou hadst been at the ball,” said one of her sisters, “thou wouldst
not have been tired with it. There came thither the finest princess, the
most beautiful ever was seen with mortal eyes; she showed us a thousand
civilities, and gave us oranges and citrons.”

Cinderella seemed very indifferent in the matter; indeed, she asked them
the name of that princess; but they told her they did not know it, and
that the King’s son was very uneasy on her account and would give all
the world to know who she was. At this Cinderella, smiling, replied:

“She must, then, be very beautiful indeed; how happy you have been!
Could not I see her? Ah! dear Miss Charlotte, do lend me your yellow
suit of clothes which you wear every day.”

“Ay, to be sure!” cried Miss Charlotte; “lend my clothes to such a dirty
Cinderwench as thou art! I should be a fool.”

Cinderella, indeed, expected well such answer, and was very glad of the
refusal; for she would have been sadly put to it if her sister had lent
her what she asked for jestingly.

The next day the two sisters were at the ball, and so was Cinderella,
but dressed more magnificently than before. The King’s son was always by
her, and never ceased his compliments and kind speeches to her; to whom
all this was so far from being tiresome that she quite forgot what her
godmother had recommended to her; so that she, at last, counted the
clock striking twelve when she took it to be no more than eleven; she
then rose up and fled, as nimble as a deer. The Prince followed, but
could not overtake her. She left behind one of her glass slippers, which
the Prince took up most carefully. She got home but quite out of breath,
and in her nasty old clothes, having nothing left her of all her finery
but one of the little slippers, fellow to that she dropped. The guards
at the palace gate were asked:

If they had not seen a princess go out.

Who said: They had seen nobody go out but a young girl, very meanly
dressed, and who had more the air of a poor country wench than a
gentlewoman.

When the two sisters returned from the ball Cinderella asked them: If
they had been well diverted, and if the fine lady had been there.

They told her: Yes, but that she hurried away immediately when it struck
twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one of her little glass
slippers, the prettiest in the world, which the King’s son had taken up;
that he had done nothing but look at her all the time at the ball, and
that most certainly he was very much in love with the beautiful person
who owned the glass slipper.

What they said was very true; for a few days after the King’s son caused
it to be proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, that he would marry her whose
foot the slipper would just fit. They whom he employed began to try it
upon the princesses, then the duchesses and all the Court, but in vain;
it was brought to the two sisters, who did all they possibly could
to thrust their foot into the slipper, but they could not effect it.
Cinderella, who saw all this, and knew her slipper, said to them,
laughing:

“Let me see if it will not fit me.”

Her sisters burst out a-laughing, and began to banter her. The gentleman
who was sent to try the slipper looked earnestly at Cinderella, and,
finding her very handsome, said:

It was but just that she should try, and that he had orders to let
everyone make trial.

He obliged Cinderella to sit down, and, putting the slipper to her foot,
he found it went on very easily, and fitted her as if it had been made
of wax. The astonishment her two sisters were in was excessively great,
but still abundantly greater when Cinderella pulled out of her pocket
the other slipper, and put it on her foot. Thereupon, in came her
godmother, who, having touched with her wand Cinderella’s clothes, made
them richer and more magnificent than any of those she had before.

And now her two sisters found her to be that fine, beautiful lady whom
they had seen at the ball. They threw themselves at her feet to beg
pardon for all the ill-treatment they had made her undergo. Cinderella
took them up, and, as she embraced them, cried:

That she forgave them with all her heart, and desired them always to
love her.

She was conducted to the young prince, dressed as she was; he thought
her more charming than ever, and, a few days after, married her.
Cinderella, who was no less good than beautiful, gave her two sisters
lodgings in the palace, and that very same day matched them with two
great lords of the Court.(1)


(1) Charles Perrault.




ALADDIN AND THE WONDERFUL LAMP


There once lived a poor tailor, who had a son called Aladdin, a
careless, idle boy who would do nothing but play ball all day long in
the streets with little idle boys like himself. This so grieved the
father that he died; yet, in spite of his mother’s tears and prayers,
Aladdin did not mend his ways. One day, when he was playing in the
streets as usual, a stranger asked him his age, and if he was not the
son of Mustapha the tailor. “I am, sir,” replied Aladdin; “but he died
a long while ago.” On this the stranger, who was a famous African
magician, fell on his neck and kissed him, saying, “I am your uncle, and
knew you from your likeness to my brother. Go to your mother and tell
her I am coming.” Aladdin ran home and told his mother of his newly
found uncle. “Indeed, child,” she said, “your father had a brother, but
I always thought he was dead.” However, she prepared supper, and bade
Aladdin seek his uncle, who came laden with wine and fruit. He presently
fell down and kissed the place where Mustapha used to sit, bidding
Aladdin’s mother not to be surprised at not having seen him before, as
he had been forty years out of the country. He then turned to Aladdin,
and asked him his trade, at which the boy hung his head, while his
mother burst into tears. On learning that Aladdin was idle and would
learn no trade, he offered to take a shop for him and stock it with
merchandise. Next day he bought Aladdin a fine suit of clothes and took
him all over the city, showing him the sights, and brought him home at
nightfall to his mother, who was overjoyed to see her son so fine.

The next day the magician led Aladdin into some beautiful gardens a long
way outside the city gates. They sat down by a fountain and the magician
pulled a cake from his girdle, which he divided between them. They then
journeyed onward till they almost reached the mountains. Aladdin was
so tired that he begged to go back, but the magician beguiled him with
pleasant stories, and led him on in spite of himself. At last they came
to two mountains divided by a narrow valley. “We will go no farther,”
 said the false uncle. “I will show you something wonderful; only do you
gather up sticks while I kindle a fire.” When it was lit the magician
threw on it a powder he had about him, at the same time saying some
magical words. The earth trembled a little and opened in front of them,
disclosing a square flat stone with a brass ring in the middle to raise
it by. Aladdin tried to run away, but the magician caught him and gave
him a blow that knocked him down. “What have I done, uncle?” he said
piteously; whereupon the magician said more kindly: “Fear nothing, but
obey me. Beneath this stone lies a treasure which is to be yours, and
no one else may touch it, so you must do exactly as I tell you.” At the
word treasure Aladdin forgot his fears, and grasped the ring as he was
told, saying the names of his father and grandfather. The stone came up
quite easily, and some steps appeared. “Go down,” said the magician; “at
the foot of those steps you will find an open door leading into three
large halls. Tuck up your gown and go through them without touching
anything, or you will die instantly. These halls lead into a garden of
fine fruit trees. Walk on until you come to a niche in a terrace where
stands a lighted lamp. Pour out the oil it contains, and bring it to
me.” He drew a ring from his finger and gave it to Aladdin, bidding him
prosper.

Aladdin found everything as the magician had said, gathered some fruit
off the trees, and, having got the lamp, arrived at the mouth of the
cave. The magician cried out in a great hurry: “Make haste and give me
the lamp.” This Aladdin refused to do until he was out of the cave. The
magician flew into a terrible passion, and throwing some more powder
on to the fire, he said something, and the stone rolled back into its
place.

The magician left Persia for ever, which plainly showed that he was no
uncle of Aladdin’s, but a cunning magician, who had read in his magic
books of a wonderful lamp, which would make him the most powerful man in
the world. Though he alone knew where to find it, he could only receive
it from the hand of another. He had picked out the foolish Aladdin for
this purpose, intending to get the lamp and kill him afterward.

For two days Aladdin remained in the dark, crying and lamenting. At last
he clasped his hands in prayer, and in so doing rubbed the ring, which
the magician had forgotten to take from him. Immediately an enormous and
frightful genie rose out of the earth, saying: “What wouldst thou with
me? I am the Slave of the Ring, and will obey thee in all things.”
 Aladdin fearlessly replied: “Deliver me from this place!” whereupon the
earth opened, and he found himself outside. As soon as his eyes could
bear the light he went home, but fainted on the threshold. When he came
to himself he told his mother what had passed, and showed her the lamp
and the fruits he had gathered in the garden, which were, in reality,
precious stones. He then asked for some food. “Alas! child,” she said,
“I have nothing in the house, but I have spun a little cotton and will
go and sell it.” Aladdin bade her keep her cotton, for he would sell the
lamp instead. As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it might
fetch a higher price. Instantly a hideous genie appeared, and asked what
she would have. She fainted away, but Aladdin, snatching the lamp, said
boldly: “Fetch me something to eat!” The genie returned with a silver
bowl, twelve silver plates containing rich meats, two silver cups, and
two bottles of wine. Aladdin’s mother, when she came to herself, said:
“Whence comes this splendid feast?” “Ask not, but eat,” replied Aladdin.
So they sat at breakfast till it was dinner-time, and Aladdin told his
mother about the lamp. She begged him to sell it, and have nothing to do
with devils. “No,” said Aladdin, “since chance hath made us aware of
its virtues, we will use it, and the ring likewise, which I shall always
wear on my finger.” When they had eaten all the genie had brought,
Aladdin sold one of the silver plates, and so on until none were left.
He then had recourse to the genie, who gave him another set of plates,
and thus they lived for many years.

One day Aladdin heard an order from the Sultan proclaimed that everyone
was to stay at home and close his shutters while the Princess, his
daughter, went to and from the bath. Aladdin was seized by a desire to
see her face, which was very difficult, as she always went veiled. He
hid himself behind the door of the bath, and peeped through a chink. The
Princess lifted her veil as she went in, and looked so beautiful that
Aladdin fell in love with her at first sight. He went home so changed
that his mother was frightened. He told her he loved the Princess so
deeply that he could not live without her, and meant to ask her in
marriage of her father. His mother, on hearing this, burst out laughing,
but Aladdin at last prevailed upon her to go before the Sultan and carry
his request. She fetched a napkin and laid in it the magic fruits from
the enchanted garden, which sparkled and shone like the most beautiful
jewels. She took these with her to please the Sultan, and set out,
trusting in the lamp. The Grand Vizier and the lords of council had
just gone in as she entered the hall and placed herself in front of the
Sultan. He, however, took no notice of her. She went every day for a
week, and stood in the same place. When the council broke up on the
sixth day the Sultan said to his Vizier: “I see a certain woman in the
audience-chamber every day carrying something in a napkin. Call her next
time, that I may find out what she wants.” Next day, at a sign from the
Vizier, she went up to the foot of the throne and remained kneeling till
the Sultan said to her: “Rise, good woman, and tell me what you want.”
 She hesitated, so the Sultan sent away all but the Vizier, and bade
her speak frankly, promising to forgive her beforehand for anything she
might say. She then told him of her son’s violent love for the Princess.
“I prayed him to forget her,” she said, “but in vain; he threatened to
do some desperate deed if I refused to go and ask your Majesty for the
hand of the Princess. Now I pray you to forgive not me alone, but my
son Aladdin.” The Sultan asked her kindly what she had in the
napkin, whereupon she unfolded the jewels and presented them. He was
thunderstruck, and turning to the Vizier said: “What sayest thou? Ought
I not to bestow the Princess on one who values her at such a price?” The
Vizier, who wanted her for his own son, begged the Sultan to withhold
her for three months, in the course of which he hoped his son would
contrive to make him a richer present. The Sultan granted this, and told
Aladdin’s mother that, though he consented to the marriage, she must not
appear before him again for three months.

Aladdin waited patiently for nearly three months, but after two had
elapsed his mother, going into the city to buy oil, found every one
rejoicing, and asked what was going on. “Do you not know,” was the
answer, “that the son of the Grand Vizier is to marry the Sultan’s
daughter to-night?” Breathless, she ran and told Aladdin, who was
overwhelmed at first, but presently bethought him of the lamp. He rubbed
it, and the genie appeared, saying, “What is thy will?” Aladdin replied:
“The Sultan, as thou knowest, has broken his promise to me, and the
Vizier’s son is to have the Princess. My command is that to-night you
bring hither the bride and bridegroom.” “Master, I obey,” said the
genie. Aladdin then went to his chamber, where, sure enough, at midnight
the genie transported the bed containing the Vizier’s son and the
Princess. “Take this new-married man,” he said, “and put him outside in
the cold, and return at daybreak.” Whereupon the genie took the Vizier’s
son out of bed, leaving Aladdin with the Princess. “Fear nothing,”
 Aladdin said to her; “you are my wife, promised to me by your unjust
father, and no harm shall come to you.” The Princess was too frightened
to speak, and passed the most miserable night of her life, while Aladdin
lay down beside her and slept soundly. At the appointed hour the
genie fetched in the shivering bridegroom, laid him in his place, and
transported the bed back to the palace.

Presently the Sultan came to wish his daughter good-morning. The unhappy
Vizier’s son jumped up and hid himself, while the Princess would not say
a word, and was very sorrowful. The Sultan sent her mother to her, who
said: “How comes it, child, that you will not speak to your father? What
has happened?” The Princess sighed deeply, and at last told her mother
how, during the night, the bed had been carried into some strange house,
and what had passed there. Her mother did not believe her in the least,
but bade her rise and consider it an idle dream.

The following night exactly the same thing happened, and next morning,
on the Princess’s refusal to speak, the Sultan threatened to cut off her
head. She then confessed all, bidding him to ask the Vizier’s son if it
were not so. The Sultan told the Vizier to ask his son, who owned the
truth, adding that, dearly as he loved the Princess, he had rather die
than go through another such fearful night, and wished to be separated
from her. His wish was granted, and there was an end to feasting and
rejoicing.

When the three months were over, Aladdin sent his mother to remind the
Sultan of his promise. She stood in the same place as before, and the
Sultan, who had forgotten Aladdin, at once remembered him, and sent for
her. On seeing her poverty the Sultan felt less inclined than ever to
keep his word, and asked his Vizier’s advice, who counselled him to set
so high a value on the Princess that no man living could come up to
it. The Sultan then turned to Aladdin’s mother, saying: “Good woman, a
Sultan must remember his promises, and I will remember mine, but your
son must first send me forty basins of gold brimful of jewels, carried
by forty black slaves, led by as many white ones, splendidly dressed.
Tell him that I await his answer.” The mother of Aladdin bowed low and
went home, thinking all was lost. She gave Aladdin the message, adding:
“He may wait long enough for your answer!” “Not so long, mother, as you
think,” her son replied. “I would do a great deal more than that for the
Princess.” He summoned the genie, and in a few moments the eighty slaves
arrived, and filled up the small house and garden. Aladdin made them
set out to the palace, two and two, followed by his mother. They were
so richly dressed, with such splendid jewels in their girdles, that
everyone crowded to see them and the basins of gold they carried on
their heads. They entered the palace, and, after kneeling before the
Sultan, stood in a half-circle round the throne with their arms crossed,
while Aladdin’s mother presented them to the Sultan. He hesitated no
longer, but said: “Good woman, return and tell your son that I wait for
him with open arms.” She lost no time in telling Aladdin, bidding him
make haste. But Aladdin first called the genie. “I want a scented bath,”
 he said, “a richly embroidered habit, a horse surpassing the Sultan’s,
and twenty slaves to attend me. Besides this, six slaves, beautifully
dressed, to wait on my mother; and lastly, ten thousand pieces of gold
in ten purses.” No sooner said than done. Aladdin mounted his horse and
passed through the streets, the slaves strewing gold as they went. Those
who had played with him in his childhood knew him not, he had grown so
handsome. When the Sultan saw him he came down from his throne, embraced
him, and led him into a hall where a feast was spread, intending to
marry him to the Princess that very day. But Aladdin refused, saying, “I
must build a palace fit for her,” and took his leave. Once home, he said
to the genie: “Build me a palace of the finest marble, set with jasper,
agate, and other precious stones. In the middle you shall build me a
large hall with a dome, its four walls of massy gold and silver, each
having six windows, whose lattices, all except one which is to be left
unfinished, must be set with diamonds and rubies. There must be stables
and horses and grooms and slaves; go and see about it!”

The palace was finished by the next day, and the genie carried him there
and showed him all his orders faithfully carried out, even to the laying
of a velvet carpet from Aladdin’s palace to the Sultan’s. Aladdin’s
mother then dressed herself carefully, and walked to the palace with her
slaves, while he followed her on horseback. The Sultan sent musicians
with trumpets and cymbals to meet them, so that the air resounded with
music and cheers. She was taken to the Princess, who saluted her and
treated her with great honor. At night the Princess said good-by to her
father, and set out on the carpet for Aladdin’s palace, with his mother
at her side, and followed by the hundred slaves. She was charmed at the
sight of Aladdin, who ran to receive her. “Princess,” he said, “blame
your beauty for my boldness if I have displeased you.” She told him
that, having seen him, she willingly obeyed her father in this matter.
After the wedding had taken place Aladdin led her into the hall, where a
feast was spread, and she supped with him, after which they danced till
midnight. Next day Aladdin invited the Sultan to see the palace. On
entering the hall with the four-and-twenty windows, with their rubies,
diamonds, and emeralds, he cried: “It is a world’s wonder! There is only
one thing that surprises me. Was it by accident that one window was
left unfinished?” “No, sir, by design,” returned Aladdin. “I wished
your Majesty to have the glory of finishing this palace.” The Sultan was
pleased, and sent for the best jewelers in the city. He showed them
the unfinished window, and bade them fit it up like the others. “Sir,”
 replied their spokesman, “we cannot find jewels enough.” The Sultan
had his own fetched, which they soon used, but to no purpose, for in
a month’s time the work was not half done. Aladdin, knowing that their
task was vain, bade them undo their work and carry the jewels back, and
the genie finished the window at his command. The Sultan was surprised
to receive his jewels again, and visited Aladdin, who showed him the
window finished. The Sultan embraced him, the envious Vizier meanwhile
hinting that it was the work of enchantment.

Aladdin had won the hearts of the people by his gentle bearing. He was
made captain of the Sultan’s armies, and won several battles for him,
but remained modest and courteous as before, and lived thus in peace and
content for several years.

But far away in Africa the magician remembered Aladdin, and by his magic
arts discovered that Aladdin, instead of perishing miserably in the
cave, had escaped, and had married a princess, with whom he was living
in great honor and wealth. He knew that the poor tailor’s son could only
have accomplished this by means of the lamp, and traveled night and day
until he reached the capital of China, bent on Aladdin’s ruin. As he
passed through the town he heard people talking everywhere about a
marvellous palace. “Forgive my ignorance,” he asked, “what is this
palace you speak Of?” “Have you not heard of Prince Aladdin’s palace,”
 was the reply, “the greatest wonder of the world? I will direct you
if you have a mind to see it.” The magician thanked him who spoke, and
having seen the palace, knew that it had been raised by the Genie of the
Lamp, and became half mad with rage. He determined to get hold of the
lamp, and again plunge Aladdin into the deepest poverty.

Unluckily, Aladdin had gone a-hunting for eight days, which gave the
magician plenty of time. He bought a dozen copper lamps, put them into a
basket, and went to the palace, crying: “New lamps for old!” followed
by a jeering crowd. The Princess, sitting in the hall of four-and-twenty
windows, sent a slave to find out what the noise was about, who came
back laughing, so that the Princess scolded her. “Madam,” replied the
slave, “who can help laughing to see an old fool offering to exchange
fine new lamps for old ones?” Another slave, hearing this, said: “There
is an old one on the cornice there which he can have.” Now this was the
magic lamp, which Aladdin had left there, as he could not take it out
hunting with him. The Princess, not knowing its value, laughingly
bade the slave take it and make the exchange. She went and said to the
magician: “Give me a new lamp for this.” He snatched it and bade the
slave take her choice, amid the jeers of the crowd. Little he cared, but
left off crying his lamps, and went out of the city gates to a lonely
place, where he remained till nightfall, when he pulled out the lamp
and rubbed it. The genie appeared, and at the magician’s command carried
him, together with the palace and the Princess in it, to a lonely place
in Africa.

Next morning the Sultan looked out of the window toward Aladdin’s palace
and rubbed his eyes, for it was gone. He sent for the Vizier and asked
what had become of the palace. The Vizier looked out too, and was lost
in astonishment. He again put it down to enchantment, and this time the
Sultan believed him, and sent thirty men on horseback to fetch Aladdin
in chains. They met him riding home, bound him, and forced him to go
with them on foot. The people, however, who loved him, followed, armed,
to see that he came to no harm. He was carried before the Sultan,
who ordered the executioner to cut off his head. The executioner made
Aladdin kneel down, bandaged his eyes, and raised his scimitar to
strike. At that instant the Vizier, who saw that the crowd had forced
their way into the courtyard and were scaling the walls to rescue
Aladdin, called to the executioner to stay his hand. The people, indeed,
looked so threatening that the Sultan gave way and ordered Aladdin to be
unbound, and pardoned him in the sight of the crowd. Aladdin now
begged to know what he had done. “False wretch!” said the Sultan, “come
thither,” and showed him from the window the place where his palace had
stood. Aladdin was so amazed that he could not say a word. “Where is my
palace and my daughter?” demanded the Sultan. “For the first I am not so
deeply concerned, but my daughter I must have, and you must find her
or lose your head.” Aladdin begged for forty days in which to find her,
promising, if he failed, to return and suffer death at the Sultan’s
pleasure. His prayer was granted, and he went forth sadly from the
Sultan’s presence. For three days he wandered about like a madman,
asking everyone what had become of his palace, but they only laughed and
pitied him. He came to the banks of a river, and knelt down to say his
prayers before throwing himself in. In so doing he rubbed the magic ring
he still wore. The genie he had seen in the cave appeared, and asked his
will. “Save my life, genie,” said Aladdin, “bring my palace back.” “That
is not in my power,” said the genie; “I am only the Slave of the Ring;
you must ask him of the lamp.” “Even so,” said Aladdin, “but thou canst
take me to the palace, and set me down under my dear wife’s window.” He
at once found himself in Africa, under the window of the Princess, and
fell asleep out of sheer weariness.

He was awakened by the singing of the birds, and his heart was lighter.
He saw plainly that all his misfortunes were owing to the loss of the
lamp, and vainly wondered who had robbed him of it.

That morning the Princess rose earlier than she had done since she had
been carried into Africa by the magician, whose company she was forced
to endure once a day. She, however, treated him so harshly that he dared
not live there altogether. As she was dressing, one of her women looked
out and saw Aladdin. The Princess ran and opened the window, and at the
noise she made Aladdin looked up. She called to him to come to her, and
great was the joy of these lovers at seeing each other again. After he
had kissed her Aladdin said: “I beg of you, Princess, in God’s name,
before we speak of anything else, for your own sake and mine, tell me
that has become of an old lamp I left on the cornice in the hall of
four-and-twenty windows, when I went a-hunting.” “Alas!” she said, “I am
the innocent cause of our sorrows,” and told him of the exchange of the
lamp. “Now I know,” cried Aladdin, “that we have to thank the African
magician for this! Where is the lamp?” “He carries it about with him,”
 said the Princess. “I know, for he pulled it out of his breast to show
me. He wishes me to break my faith with you and marry him, saying that
you were beheaded by my father’s command. He is for ever speaking ill of
you but I only reply by my tears. If I persist, I doubt not but he
will use violence.” Aladdin comforted her, and left her for a while.
He changed clothes with the first person he met in the town, and having
bought a certain powder, returned to the Princess, who let him in by
a little side door. “Put on your most beautiful dress,” he said to her
“and receive the magician with smiles, leading him to believe that you
have forgotten me. Invite him to sup with you, and say you wish to taste
the wine of his country. He will go for some and while he is gone I will
tell you what to do.” She listened carefully to Aladdin and when he left
she arrayed herself gaily for the first time since she left China. She
put on a girdle and head-dress of diamonds, and, seeing in a glass that
she was more beautiful than ever, received the magician, saying, to his
great amazement: “I have made up my mind that Aladdin is dead, and that
all my tears will not bring him back to me, so I am resolved to mourn no
more, and have therefore invited you to sup with me; but I am tired of
the wines of China, and would fain taste those of Africa.” The magician
flew to his cellar, and the Princess put the powder Aladdin had given
her in her cup. When he returned she asked him to drink her health in
the wine of Africa, handing him her cup in exchange for his, as a sign
she was reconciled to him. Before drinking the magician made her a
speech in praise of her beauty, but the Princess cut him short, saying:
“Let us drink first, and you shall say what you will afterward.” She set
her cup to her lips and kept it there, while the magician drained his to
the dregs and fell back lifeless. The Princess then opened the door to
Aladdin, and flung her arms round his neck; but Aladdin put her away,
bidding her leave him, as he had more to do. He then went to the dead
magician, took the lamp out of his vest, and bade the genie carry the
palace and all in it back to China. This was done, and the Princess in
her chamber only felt two little shocks, and little thought she was at
home again.

The Sultan, who was sitting in his closet, mourning for his lost
daughter, happened to look up, and rubbed his eyes, for there stood the
palace as before! He hastened thither, and Aladdin received him in the
hall of the four-and-twenty windows, with the Princess at his side.
Aladdin told him what had happened, and showed him the dead body of the
magician, that he might believe. A ten days’ feast was proclaimed, and
it seemed as if Aladdin might now live the rest of his life in peace;
but it was not to be.

The African magician had a younger brother, who was, if possible, more
wicked and more cunning than himself. He traveled to China to avenge his
brother’s death, and went to visit a pious woman called Fatima, thinking
she might be of use to him. He entered her cell and clapped a dagger to
her breast, telling her to rise and do his bidding on pain of death. He
changed clothes with her, colored his face like hers, put on her veil,
and murdered her, that she might tell no tales. Then he went toward the
palace of Aladdin, and all the people, thinking he was the holy woman,
gathered round him, kissing his hands and begging his blessing. When
he got to the palace there was such a noise going on round him that
the Princess bade her slave look out of the window and ask what was the
matter. The slave said it was the holy woman, curing people by her touch
of their ailments, whereupon the Princess, who had long desired to see
Fatima, sent for her. On coming to the Princess the magician offered up
a prayer for her health and prosperity. When he had done the Princess
made him sit by her, and begged him to stay with her always. The false
Fatima, who wished for nothing better, consented, but kept his veil down
for fear of discovery. The Princess showed him the hall, and asked him
what he thought of it. “It is truly beautiful,” said the false Fatima.
“In my mind it wants but one thing.” “And what is that?” said the
Princess. “If only a roc’s egg,” replied he, “were hung up from the
middle of this dome, it would be the wonder of the world.”

After this the Princess could think of nothing but the roc’s egg, and
when Aladdin returned from hunting he found her in a very ill humor. He
begged to know what was amiss, and she told him that all her pleasure in
the hall was spoiled for the want of a roc’s egg hanging from the dome.
“If that is all,” replied Aladdin, “you shall soon be happy.” He left
her and rubbed the lamp, and when the genie appeared commanded him to
bring a roc’s egg. The genie gave such a loud and terrible shriek that
the hall shook. “Wretch!” he cried, “is it not enough that I have done
everything for you, but you must command me to bring my master and hang
him up in the midst of this dome? You and your wife and your palace
deserve to be burnt to ashes, but that this request does not come from
you, but from the brother of the African magician, whom you destroyed.
He is now in your palace disguised as the holy woman--whom he murdered.
He it was who put that wish into your wife’s head. Take care of
yourself, for he means to kill you.” So saying, the genie disappeared.

Aladdin went back to the Princess, saying his head ached, and requesting
that the holy Fatima should be fetched to lay her hands on it. But when
the magician came near, Aladdin, seizing his dagger, pierced him to the
heart. “What have you done?” cried the Princess. “You have killed the
holy woman!” “Not so,” replied Aladdin, “but a wicked magician,” and
told her of how she had been deceived.

After this Aladdin and his wife lived in peace. He succeeded the Sultan
when he died, and reigned for many years, leaving behind him a long line
of kings.(1)


(1) Arabian Nights.




THE TALE OF A YOUTH WHO SET OUT TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS


A father had two sons, of whom the eldest was clever and bright, and
always knew what he was about; but the youngest was stupid, and
couldn’t learn or understand anything. So much so that those who saw him
exclaimed: “What a burden he’ll be to his father!” Now when there was
anything to be done, the eldest had always to do it; but if something
was required later or in the night-time, and the way led through the
churchyard or some such ghostly place, he always replied: “Oh! no,
father: nothing will induce me to go there, it makes me shudder!” for
he was afraid. Or, when they sat of an evening around the fire telling
stories which made one’s flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said:
“Oh! it makes one shudder,” the youngest sat in a corner, heard the
exclamation, and could not understand what it meant. “They are always
saying it makes one shudder! it makes one shudder! Nothing makes me
shudder. It’s probably an art quite beyond me.”

Now it happened that his father said to him one day: “Hearken, you there
in the corner; you are growing big and strong, and you must learn to
earn your own bread. Look at your brother, what pains he takes; but
all the money I’ve spent on your education is thrown away.” “My dear
father,” he replied, “I will gladly learn--in fact, if it were possible
I should like to learn to shudder; I don’t understand that a bit yet.”
 The eldest laughed when he heard this, and thought to himself: “Good
heavens! what a ninny my brother is! he’ll never come to any good;
as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.” The father sighed, and
answered him: “You’ll soon learn to shudder; but that won’t help you to
make a living.”

Shortly after this, when the sexton came to pay them a visit, the father
broke out to him, and told him what a bad hand his youngest son was at
everything: he knew nothing and learned nothing. “Only think! when I
asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood, he actually asked to be
taught to shudder.” “If that’s all he wants,” said the sexton, “I can
teach him that; just you send him to me, I’ll soon polish him up.” The
father was quite pleased with the proposal, because he thought: “It will
be a good discipline for the youth.” And so the sexton took him into his
house, and his duty was to toll the bell. After a few days he woke him
at midnight, and bade him rise and climb into the tower and toll.
“Now, my friend, I’ll teach you to shudder,” thought he. He stole forth
secretly in front, and when the youth was up above, and had turned
round to grasp the bell-rope, he saw, standing opposite the hole of the
belfry, a white figure. “Who’s there?” he called out, but the figure
gave no answer, and neither stirred nor moved. “Answer,” cried the
youth, “or begone; you have no business here at this hour of the night.”
 But the sexton remained motionless, so that the youth might think that
it was a ghost. The youth called out the second time: “What do you want
here? Speak if you are an honest fellow, or I’ll knock you down the
stairs.” The sexton thought: “He can’t mean that in earnest,” so gave
forth no sound, and stood as though he were made of stone. Then the
youth shouted out to him the third time, and as that too had no effect,
he made a dash at the spectre and knocked it down the stairs, so that it
fell about ten steps and remained lying in a corner. Thereupon he tolled
the bell, went home to bed without saying a word, and fell asleep. The
sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but he never appeared.
At last she became anxious, and woke the youth, and asked: “Don’t you
know where my husband is? He went up to the tower in front of you.”
 “No,” answered the youth; “but someone stood on the stairs up there just
opposite the trap-door in the belfry, and because he wouldn’t answer me,
or go away, I took him for a rogue and knocked him down. You’d better go
and see if it was he; I should be much distressed if it were.” The wife
ran and found her husband who was lying groaning in a corner, with his
leg broken.

She carried him down, and then hurried with loud protestations to the
youth’s father. “Your son has been the cause of a pretty misfortune,”
 she cried; “he threw my husband downstairs so that he broke his leg.
Take the good-for-nothing wretch out of our house.” The father was
horrified, hurried to the youth, and gave him a scolding.

“What unholy pranks are these? The evil one must have put them into your
head.” “Father,” he replied, “only listen to me; I am quite guiltless.
He stood there in the night, like one who meant harm. I didn’t know who
it was, and warned him three times to speak or begone.” “Oh!” groaned
the father, “you’ll bring me nothing but misfortune; get out of my
sight, I won’t have anything more to do with you.” “Yes, father,
willingly; only wait till daylight, then I’ll set out and learn to
shudder, and in that way I shall be master of an art which will gain me
a living.” “Learn what you will,” said the father, “it’s all one to me.
Here are fifty dollars for you, set forth into the wide world with them;
but see you tell no one where you come from or who your father is, for
I am ashamed of you.” “Yes, father, whatever you wish; and if that’s all
you ask, I can easily keep it in mind.”

When day broke the youth put the fifty dollars into his pocket, set out
on the hard high road, and kept muttering to himself: “If I could only
shudder! if I could only shudder!” Just at this moment a man came by who
heard the youth speaking to himself, and when they had gone on a bit and
were in sight of the gallows the man said to him: “Look! there is the
tree where seven people have been hanged, and are now learning to fly;
sit down under it and wait till nightfall, and then you’ll pretty soon
learn to shudder.” “If that’s all I have to do,” answered the youth,
“it’s easily done; but if I learn to shudder so quickly, then you shall
have my fifty dollars. Just come back to me to-morrow morning early.”
 Then the youth went to the gallows-tree and sat down underneath it, and
waited for the evening; and because he felt cold he lit himself a fire.
But at midnight it got so chill that in spite of the fire he couldn’t
keep warm. And as the wind blew the corpses one against the other,
tossing them to and fro, he thought to himself: “If you are perishing
down here by the fire, how those poor things up there must be shaking
and shivering!” And because he had a tender heart, he put up a ladder,
which he climbed unhooked one body after the other, and took down all
the seven. Then he stirred the fire, blew it up, and placed them all
round in a circle, that they might warm themselves. But they sat there
and did not move, and the fire caught their clothes. Then he spoke:
“Take care, or I’ll hang you up again.” But the dead men did not hear
and let their rags go on burning. Then he got angry, and said: “If you
aren’t careful yourselves, then I can’t help you, and I don’t mean to
burn with you”; and he hung them up again in a row. Then he sat down at
his fire and fell asleep. On the following morning the man came to him,
and, wishing to get his fifty dollars, said: “Now you know what it is to
shudder.” “No,” he answered, “how should I? Those fellows up there never
opened their mouths, and were so stupid that they let those few old
tatters they have on their bodies burn.” Then the man saw he wouldn’t
get his fifty dollars that day, and went off, saying: “Well, I’m blessed
if I ever met such a person in my life before.”

The youth went too on his way, and began to murmur to himself: “Oh! if I
could only shudder! if I could only shudder!” A carrier who was walking
behind him heard these words, and asked him: “Who are you” “I don’t
know,” said the youth. “Where do you hail from?” “I don’t know.” “Who’s
your father?” “I mayn’t say.” “What are you constantly muttering to
yourself?” “Oh!” said the youth, “I would give worlds to shudder, but no
one can teach me.” “Stuff and nonsense!” spoke the carrier; “come along
with me, and I’ll soon put that right.” The youth went with the carrier,
and in the evening they reached an inn, where they were to spend the
night. Then, just as he was entering the room, he said again, quite
aloud: “Oh! if I could only shudder! if I could only shudder!” The
landlord, who heard this, laughed and said: “If that’s what you’re
sighing for, you shall be given every opportunity here.” “Oh! hold your
tongue!” said the landlord’s wife; “so many people have paid for their
curiosity with their lives, it were a thousand pities if those beautiful
eyes were never again to behold daylight.” But the youth said: “No
matter how difficult, I insist on learning it; why, that’s what I’ve set
out to do.” He left the landlord no peace till he told him that in the
neighborhood stood a haunted castle, where one could easily learn to
shudder if one only kept watch in it for three nights. The King had
promised the man who dared to do this thing his daughter as wife, and
she was the most beautiful maiden under the sun. There was also much
treasure hid in the castle, guarded by evil spirits, which would then
be free, and was sufficient to make a poor man more than rich. Many had
already gone in, but so far none had ever come out again. So the youth
went to the King and spoke: “If I were allowed, I should much like
to watch for three nights in the castle.” The King looked at him, and
because he pleased him, he said: “You can ask for three things, none of
them living, and those you may take with you into the castle.” Then he
answered: “Well, I shall beg for a fire, a turning lathe, and a carving
bench with the knife attached.”

On the following day the King had everything put into the castle; and
when night drew on the youth took up his position there, lit a bright
fire in one of the rooms, placed the carving bench with the knife close
to it, and sat himself down on the turning lathe. “Oh! if I could only
shudder!” he said: “but I sha’n’t learn it here either.” Toward midnight
he wanted to make up the fire, and as he was blowing up a blaze he heard
a shriek from a corner. “Ou, miou! how cold we are!” “You fools!” he
cried; “why do you scream? If you are cold, come and sit at the fire and
warm yourselves.” And as he spoke two huge black cats sprang fiercely
forward and sat down, one on each side of him, and gazed wildly at him
with their fiery eyes. After a time, when they had warmed themselves,
they said: “Friend, shall we play a little game of cards?” “Why not?” he
replied; “but first let me see your paws.” Then they stretched out their
claws. “Ha!” said he; “what long nails you’ve got! Wait a minute: I must
first cut them off.” Thereupon he seized them by the scruff of their
necks, lifted them on to the carving bench, and screwed down their paws
firmly. “After watching you narrowly,” said he, “I no longer feel any
desire to play cards with you”; and with these words he struck them dead
and threw them out into the water. But when he had thus sent the two of
them to their final rest, and was again about to sit down at the fire,
out of every nook and corner came forth black cats and black dogs with
fiery chains in such swarms that he couldn’t possibly get away from
them. They yelled in the most ghastly manner, jumped upon his fire,
scattered it all, and tried to put it out. He looked on quietly for
a time, but when it got beyond a joke he seized his carving-knife and
called out: “Be off, you rabble rout!” and let fly at them. Some of them
fled away, and the others he struck dead and threw them out into the
pond below. When he returned he blew up the sparks of the fire once
more, and warmed himself. And as he sat thus his eyes refused to keep
open any longer, and a desire to sleep stole over him. Then he looked
around him and beheld in the corner a large bed. “The very thing,” he
said, and laid himself down in it. But when he wished to close his
eyes the bed began to move by itself, and ran all round the castle.
“Capital,” he said, “only a little quicker.” Then the bed sped on as if
drawn by six horses, over thresholds and stairs, up this way and down
that. All of a sudden--crash, crash! with a bound it turned over, upside
down, and lay like a mountain on the top of him. But he tossed the
blankets and pillows in the air, emerged from underneath, and said: “Now
anyone who has the fancy for it may go a drive,” lay down at his fire,
and slept till daylight. In the morning the King came, and when he
beheld him lying on the ground he imagined the ghosts had been too much
for him, and that he was dead. Then he said: “What a pity! and such a
fine fellow he was.” The youth heard this, got up, and said: “It’s not
come to that yet.” Then the King was astonished, but very glad, and
asked how it had fared with him. “First-rate,” he answered; “and now
I’ve survived the one night, I shall get through the other two also.”
 The landlord, when he went to him, opened his eyes wide, and said:
“Well, I never thought to see you alive again. Have you learned now what
shuddering is?” “No,” he replied, “it’s quite hopeless; if someone could
only tell me how to!”

The second night he went up again to the old castle, sat down at the
fire, and began his old refrain: “If I could only shudder!” As midnight
approached, a noise and din broke out, at first gentle, but gradually
increasing; then all was quiet for a minute, and at length, with a loud
scream, half of a man dropped down the chimney and fell before him. “Hi,
up there!” shouted he; “there’s another half wanted down here, that’s
not enough”; then the din commenced once more, there was a shrieking
and a yelling, and then the other half fell down. “Wait a bit,” he said;
“I’ll stir up the fire for you.” When he had done this and again looked
around, the two pieces had united, and a horrible-looking man sat on his
seat. “Come,” said the youth, “I didn’t bargain for that, the seat is
mine.” The man tried to shove him away, but the youth wouldn’t allow
it for a moment, and, pushing him off by force, sat down in his place
again. Then more men dropped down, one after the other, who fetching
nine skeleton legs and two skulls, put them up and played ninepins with
them. The youth thought he would like to play too, and said: “Look here;
do you mind my joining the game?” “No, not if you have money.” “I’ve
money enough,” he replied, “but your balls aren’t round enough.” Then
he took the skulls, placed them on his lathe, and turned them till they
were round. “Now they’ll roll along better,” said he, “and houp-la! now
the fun begins.” He played with them and lost some of his money, but
when twelve struck everything vanished before his eyes. He lay down and
slept peacefully. The next morning the King came, anxious for news. “How
have you got on this time?” he asked. “I played ninepins,” he answered,
“and lost a few pence.” “Didn’t you shudder then?” “No such luck,” said
he; “I made myself merry. Oh! if I only knew what it was to shudder!”

On the third night he sat down again on his bench, and said, in the most
desponding way: “If I could only shudder!” When it got late, six big men
came in carrying a coffin. Then he cried: “Ha! ha! that’s most likely
my little cousin who only died a few days ago”; and beckoning with his
finger he called out: “Come, my small cousin, come.” They placed the
coffin on the ground, and he approached it and took off the cover. In
it lay a dead man. He felt his face, and it was cold as ice. “Wait,” he
said “I’ll heat you up a bit,” went to the fire, warmed his hand, and
laid it on the man’s face, but the dead remained cold. Then he lifted
him out, sat down at the fire, laid him on his knee, and rubbed his arms
that the blood should circulate again. When that too had no effect it
occurred to him that if two people lay together in bed they warmed each
other; so he put him into the bed, covered him up, and lay down beside
him; after a time the corpse became warm and began to move. Then the
youth said: “Now, my little cousin, what would have happened if I
hadn’t warmed you?” But the dead man rose up and cried out: “Now I
will strangle you.” “What!” said he, “is that all the thanks I get? You
should be put straight back into your coffin,” lifted him up, threw him
in, and closed the lid. Then the six men came and carried him out again.
“I simply can’t shudder,” he said, “and it’s clear I sha’n’t learn it in
a lifetime here.”

Then a man entered, of more than ordinary size and of a very fearful
appearance; but he was old and had a white beard. “Oh! you miserable
creature, now you will soon know what it is to shudder,” he cried, “for
you must die.” “Not so quickly,” answered the youth. “If I am to die,
you must catch me first.” “I shall soon lay hold of you,” spoke the
monster. “Gently, gently, don’t boast too much, I’m as strong as you,
and stronger too.” “We’ll soon see,” said the old man; “if you are
stronger than I then I’ll let you off; come, let’s have a try.” Then he
led him through some dark passages to a forge, and grasping an axe he
drove one of the anvils with a blow into the earth. “I can do better
than that,” cried the youth, and went to the other anvil. The old man
drew near him in order to watch closely, and his white beard hung right
down. The youth seized the axe, cleft the anvil open, and jammed in the
old man’s beard. “Now I have you,” said the youth; “this time it’s your
turn to die.” Then he seized an iron rod and belabored the old man till
he, whimpering, begged him to leave off, and he would give him great
riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go. The old man led him
back to the castle and showed him in a cellar three chests of gold. “One
of these,” said he, “belongs to the poor, one to the King, and the
third is yours.” At that moment twelve struck, and the spirit vanished,
leaving the youth alone in the dark. “I’ll surely be able to find a way
out,” said he, and groping about he at length found his way back to the
room, and fell asleep at his fire. The next morning the King came, and
said: “Well, now you’ve surely learned to shudder?” “No,” he answered;
“what can it be? My dead cousin was here, and an old bearded man came,
who showed me heaps of money down below there, but what shuddering is no
one has told me.” Then the King spoke: “You have freed the castle from
its curse, and you shall marry my daughter.” “That’s all charming,” he
said; “but I still don’t know what it is to shudder.”

Then the gold was brought up, and the wedding was celebrated, but the
young King, though he loved his wife dearly, and though he was very
happy, still kept on saying: “If I could only shudder! if I could only
shudder!” At last he reduced her to despair. Then her maid said: “I’ll
help you; we’ll soon make him shudder.” So she went out to the stream
that flowed through the garden, and had a pail full of little gudgeons
brought to her. At night, when the young King was asleep, his wife had
to pull the clothes off him, and pour the pail full of little gudgeons
over him, so that the little fish swam all about him. Then he awoke and
cried out: “Oh! how I shudder, how I shudder, dear wife! Yes, now I know
what shuddering is.” (1)


(1) Grimm.




RUMPELSTILTZKIN


There was once upon a time a poor miller who had a very beautiful
daughter. Now it happened one day that he had an audience with the King,
and in order to appear a person of some importance he told him that
he had a daughter who could spin straw into gold. “Now that’s a talent
worth having,” said the King to the miller; “if your daughter is as
clever as you say, bring her to my palace to-morrow, and I’ll put her to
the test.” When the girl was brought to him he led her into a room full
of straw, gave her a spinning-wheel and spindle, and said: “Now set to
work and spin all night till early dawn, and if by that time you haven’t
spun the straw into gold you shall die.” Then he closed the door behind
him and left her alone inside.

So the poor miller’s daughter sat down, and didn’t know what in the
world she was to do. She hadn’t the least idea of how to spin straw into
gold, and became at last so miserable that she began to cry.
Suddenly the door opened, and in stepped a tiny little man and said:
“Good-evening, Miss Miller-maid; why are you crying so bitterly?” “Oh!”
 answered the girl, “I have to spin straw into gold, and haven’t a notion
how it’s done.” “What will you give me if I spin it for you?” asked
the manikin. “My necklace,” replied the girl. The little man took the
necklace, sat himself down at the wheel, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel
went round three times, and the bobbin was full. Then he put on another,
and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the second
too was full; and so it went on till the morning, when all the straw
was spun away, and all the bobbins were full of gold. As soon as the sun
rose the King came, and when he perceived the gold he was astonished and
delighted, but his heart only lusted more than ever after the precious
metal. He had the miller’s daughter put into another room full of straw,
much bigger than the first, and bade her, if she valued her life, spin
it all into gold before the following morning. The girl didn’t know what
to do, and began to cry; then the door opened as before, and the tiny
little man appeared and said: “What’ll you give me if I spin the straw
into gold for you?” “The ring from my finger,” answered the girl. The
manikin took the ring, and whir! round went the spinning-wheel again,
and when morning broke he had spun all the straw into glittering gold.
The King was pleased beyond measure at the sights but his greed for gold
was still not satisfied, and he had the miller’s daughter brought into a
yet bigger room full of straw, and said: “You must spin all this away
in the night; but if you succeed this time you shall become my wife.”
 “She’s only a miller’s daughter, it’s true,” he thought; “but I couldn’t
find a richer wife if I were to search the whole world over.” When the
girl was alone the little man appeared for the third time, and said:
“What’ll you give me if I spin the straw for you once again?” “I’ve
nothing more to give,” answered the girl. “Then promise me when you
are Queen to give me your first child.” “Who knows what may not happen
before that?” thought the miller’s daughter; and besides, she saw no
other way out of it, so she promised the manikin what he demanded, and
he set to work once more and spun the straw into gold. When the
King came in the morning, and found everything as he had desired, he
straightway made her his wife, and the miller’s daughter became a queen.

When a year had passed a beautiful son was born to her, and she thought
no more of the little man, till all of a sudden one day he stepped into
her room and said: “Now give me what you promised.” The Queen was in a
great state, and offered the little man all the riches in her kingdom if
he would only leave her the child. But the manikin said: “No, a living
creature is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world.” Then the
Queen began to cry and sob so bitterly that the little man was sorry for
her, and said: “I’ll give you three days to guess my name, and if you
find it out in that time you may keep your child.”

Then the Queen pondered the whole night over all the names she had ever
heard, and sent a messenger to scour the land, and to pick up far and
near any names he could come across. When the little man arrived on the
following day she began with Kasper, Melchior, Belshazzar, and all the
other names she knew, in a string, but at each one the manikin called
out: “That’s not my name.” The next day she sent to inquire the names
of all the people in the neighborhood, and had a long list of the
most uncommon and extraordinary for the little man when he made
his appearance. “Is your name, perhaps, Sheepshanks Cruickshanks,
Spindleshanks?” but he always replied: “That’s not my name.” On the
third day the messenger returned and announced: “I have not been able to
find any new names, but as I came upon a high hill round the corner of
the wood, where the foxes and hares bid each other good-night, I saw
a little house, and in front of the house burned a fire, and round
the fire sprang the most grotesque little man, hopping on one leg and
crying:

  “To-morrow I brew, to-day I bake,
    And then the child away I’ll take;
    For little deems my royal dame
    That Rumpelstiltzkin is my name!”


You can imagine the Queen’s delight at hearing the name, and when the
little man stepped in shortly afterward and asked: “Now, my lady Queen,
what’s my name?” she asked first: “Is your name Conrad?” “No.” “Is your
name Harry?” “No.” “Is your name perhaps, Rumpelstiltzkin?” “Some demon
has told you that! some demon has told you that!” screamed the little
man, and in his rage drove his right foot so far into the ground that it
sank in up to his waist; then in a passion he seized the left foot with
both hands and tore himself in two.(1)


(1) Grimm.




BEAUTY AND THE BEAST


Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived a merchant who
had been so fortunate in all his undertakings that he was enormously
rich. As he had, however, six sons and six daughters, he found that his
money was not too much to let them all have everything they fancied, as
they were accustomed to do.

But one day a most unexpected misfortune befell them. Their house
caught fire and was speedily burnt to the ground, with all the splendid
furniture, the books, pictures, gold, silver, and precious goods it
contained; and this was only the beginning of their troubles. Their
father, who had until this moment prospered in all ways, suddenly lost
every ship he had upon the sea, either by dint of pirates, shipwreck,
or fire. Then he heard that his clerks in distant countries, whom he
trusted entirely, had proved unfaithful; and at last from great wealth
he fell into the direst poverty.

All that he had left was a little house in a desolate place at least a
hundred leagues from the town in which he had lived, and to this he was
forced to retreat with his children, who were in despair at the idea of
leading such a different life. Indeed, the daughters at first hoped
that their friends, who had been so numerous while they were rich, would
insist on their staying in their houses now they no longer possessed
one. But they soon found that they were left alone, and that their
former friends even attributed their misfortunes to their own
extravagance, and showed no intention of offering them any help. So
nothing was left for them but to take their departure to the cottage,
which stood in the midst of a dark forest, and seemed to be the most
dismal place upon the face of the earth. As they were too poor to have
any servants, the girls had to work hard, like peasants, and the sons,
for their part, cultivated the fields to earn their living. Roughly
clothed, and living in the simplest way, the girls regretted unceasingly
the luxuries and amusements of their former life; only the youngest
tried to be brave and cheerful. She had been as sad as anyone when
misfortune overtook her father, but, soon recovering her natural gaiety,
she set to work to make the best of things, to amuse her father and
brothers as well as she could, and to try to persuade her sisters to
join her in dancing and singing. But they would do nothing of the sort,
and, because she was not as doleful as themselves, they declared that
this miserable life was all she was fit for. But she was really far
prettier and cleverer than they were; indeed, she was so lovely that she
was always called Beauty. After two years, when they were all beginning
to get used to their new life, something happened to disturb their
tranquillity. Their father received the news that one of his ships,
which he had believed to be lost, had come safely into port with a rich
cargo. All the sons and daughters at once thought that their poverty
was at an end, and wanted to set out directly for the town; but their
father, who was more prudent, begged them to wait a little, and, though
it was harvest time, and he could ill be spared, determined to go
himself first, to make inquiries. Only the youngest daughter had any
doubt but that they would soon again be as rich as they were before, or
at least rich enough to live comfortably in some town where they would
find amusement and gay companions once more. So they all loaded their
father with commissions for jewels and dresses which it would have taken
a fortune to buy; only Beauty, feeling sure that it was of no use, did
not ask for anything. Her father, noticing her silence, said: “And what
shall I bring for you, Beauty?”

“The only thing I wish for is to see you come home safely,” she
answered.

But this only vexed her sisters, who fancied she was blaming them for
having asked for such costly things. Her father, however, was pleased,
but as he thought that at her age she certainly ought to like pretty
presents, he told her to choose something.

“Well, dear father,” she said, “as you insist upon it, I beg that you
will bring me a rose. I have not seen one since we came here, and I love
them so much.”

So the merchant set out and reached the town as quickly as possible, but
only to find that his former companions, believing him to be dead, had
divided between them the goods which the ship had brought; and after
six months of trouble and expense he found himself as poor as when he
started, having been able to recover only just enough to pay the cost of
his journey. To make matters worse, he was obliged to leave the town
in the most terrible weather, so that by the time he was within a few
leagues of his home he was almost exhausted with cold and fatigue.
Though he knew it would take some hours to get through the forest, he
was so anxious to be at his journey’s end that he resolved to go on;
but night overtook him, and the deep snow and bitter frost made it
impossible for his horse to carry him any further. Not a house was to
be seen; the only shelter he could get was the hollow trunk of a great
tree, and there he crouched all the night which seemed to him the
longest he had ever known. In spite of his weariness the howling of the
wolves kept him awake, and even when at last the day broke he was not
much better off, for the falling snow had covered up every path, and he
did not know which way to turn.

At length he made out some sort of track, and though at the beginning it
was so rough and slippery that he fell down more than once, it presently
became easier, and led him into an avenue of trees which ended in a
splendid castle. It seemed to the merchant very strange that no snow
had fallen in the avenue, which was entirely composed of orange trees,
covered with flowers and fruit. When he reached the first court of the
castle he saw before him a flight of agate steps, and went up them, and
passed through several splendidly furnished rooms. The pleasant warmth
of the air revived him, and he felt very hungry; but there seemed to be
nobody in all this vast and splendid palace whom he could ask to give
him something to eat. Deep silence reigned everywhere, and at last,
tired of roaming through empty rooms and galleries, he stopped in a room
smaller than the rest, where a clear fire was burning and a couch was
drawn up closely to it. Thinking that this must be prepared for someone
who was expected, he sat down to wait till he should come, and very soon
fell into a sweet sleep.

When his extreme hunger wakened him after several hours, he was still
alone; but a little table, upon which was a good dinner, had been drawn
up close to him, and, as he had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, he
lost no time in beginning his meal, hoping that he might soon have an
opportunity of thanking his considerate entertainer, whoever it might
be. But no one appeared, and even after another long sleep, from which
he awoke completely refreshed, there was no sign of anybody, though a
fresh meal of dainty cakes and fruit was prepared upon the little table
at his elbow. Being naturally timid, the silence began to terrify him,
and he resolved to search once more through all the rooms; but it was of
no use. Not even a servant was to be seen; there was no sign of life in
the palace! He began to wonder what he should do, and to amuse
himself by pretending that all the treasures he saw were his own, and
considering how he would divide them among his children. Then he went
down into the garden, and though it was winter everywhere else, here the
sun shone, and the birds sang, and the flowers bloomed, and the air was
soft and sweet. The merchant, in ecstacies with all he saw and heard,
said to himself:

“All this must be meant for me. I will go this minute and bring my
children to share all these delights.”

In spite of being so cold and weary when he reached the castle, he had
taken his horse to the stable and fed it. Now he thought he would saddle
it for his homeward journey, and he turned down the path which led to
the stable. This path had a hedge of roses on each side of it, and the
merchant thought he had never seen or smelt such exquisite flowers.
They reminded him of his promise to Beauty, and he stopped and had just
gathered one to take to her when he was startled by a strange noise
behind him. Turning round, he saw a frightful Beast, which seemed to be
very angry and said, in a terrible voice:

“Who told you that you might gather my roses? Was it not enough that I
allowed you to be in my palace and was kind to you? This is the way you
show your gratitude, by stealing my flowers! But your insolence shall
not go unpunished.” The merchant, terrified by these furious words,
dropped the fatal rose, and, throwing himself on his knees, cried:
“Pardon me, noble sir. I am truly grateful to you for your hospitality,
which was so magnificent that I could not imagine that you would be
offended by my taking such a little thing as a rose.” But the Beast’s
anger was not lessened by this speech.

“You are very ready with excuses and flattery,” he cried; “but that will
not save you from the death you deserve.”

“Alas!” thought the merchant, “if my daughter could only know what
danger her rose has brought me into!”

And in despair he began to tell the Beast all his misfortunes, and the
reason of his journey, not forgetting to mention Beauty’s request.

“A king’s ransom would hardly have procured all that my other daughters
asked.” he said: “but I thought that I might at least take Beauty her
rose. I beg you to forgive me, for you see I meant no harm.”

The Beast considered for a moment, and then he said, in a less furious
tone:

“I will forgive you on one condition--that is, that you will give me one
of your daughters.”

“Ah!” cried the merchant, “if I were cruel enough to buy my own life at
the expense of one of my children’s, what excuse could I invent to bring
her here?”

“No excuse would be necessary,” answered the Beast. “If she comes at all
she must come willingly. On no other condition will I have her. See if
any one of them is courageous enough, and loves you well enough to come
and save your life. You seem to be an honest man, so I will trust you to
go home. I give you a month to see if either of your daughters will come
back with you and stay here, to let you go free. If neither of them is
willing, you must come alone, after bidding them good-by for ever, for
then you will belong to me. And do not imagine that you can hide from
me, for if you fail to keep your word I will come and fetch you!” added
the Beast grimly.

The merchant accepted this proposal, though he did not really think any
of his daughters could be persuaded to come. He promised to return at
the time appointed, and then, anxious to escape from the presence of the
Beast, he asked permission to set off at once. But the Beast answered
that he could not go until next day.

“Then you will find a horse ready for you,” he said. “Now go and eat
your supper, and await my orders.”

The poor merchant, more dead than alive, went back to his room, where
the most delicious supper was already served on the little table which
was drawn up before a blazing fire. But he was too terrified to eat, and
only tasted a few of the dishes, for fear the Beast should be angry if
he did not obey his orders. When he had finished he heard a great noise
in the next room, which he knew meant that the Beast was coming. As he
could do nothing to escape his visit, the only thing that remained was
to seem as little afraid as possible; so when the Beast appeared and
asked roughly if he had supped well, the merchant answered humbly that
he had, thanks to his host’s kindness. Then the Beast warned him to
remember their agreement, and to prepare his daughter exactly for what
she had to expect.

“Do not get up to-morrow,” he added, “until you see the sun and hear
a golden bell ring. Then you will find your breakfast waiting for you
here, and the horse you are to ride will be ready in the courtyard. He
will also bring you back again when you come with your daughter a month
hence. Farewell. Take a rose to Beauty, and remember your promise!”

The merchant was only too glad when the Beast went away, and though he
could not sleep for sadness, he lay down until the sun rose. Then, after
a hasty breakfast, he went to gather Beauty’s rose, and mounted his
horse, which carried him off so swiftly that in an instant he had lost
sight of the palace, and he was still wrapped in gloomy thoughts when it
stopped before the door of the cottage.

His sons and daughters, who had been very uneasy at his long absence,
rushed to meet him, eager to know the result of his journey, which,
seeing him mounted upon a splendid horse and wrapped in a rich mantle,
they supposed to be favorable. He hid the truth from them at first, only
saying sadly to Beauty as he gave her the rose:

“Here is what you asked me to bring you; you little know what it has
cost.”

But this excited their curiosity so greatly that presently he told
them his adventures from beginning to end, and then they were all very
unhappy. The girls lamented loudly over their lost hopes, and the sons
declared that their father should not return to this terrible castle,
and began to make plans for killing the Beast if it should come to fetch
him. But he reminded them that he had promised to go back. Then the
girls were very angry with Beauty, and said it was all her fault, and
that if she had asked for something sensible this would never have
happened, and complained bitterly that they should have to suffer for
her folly.

Poor Beauty, much distressed, said to them:

“I have, indeed, caused this misfortune, but I assure you I did it
innocently. Who could have guessed that to ask for a rose in the middle
of summer would cause so much misery? But as I did the mischief it is
only just that I should suffer for it. I will therefore go back with my
father to keep his promise.”

At first nobody would hear of this arrangement, and her father and
brothers, who loved her dearly, declared that nothing should make them
let her go; but Beauty was firm. As the time drew near she divided
all her little possessions between her sisters, and said good-by to
everything she loved, and when the fatal day came she encouraged and
cheered her father as they mounted together the horse which had brought
him back. It seemed to fly rather than gallop, but so smoothly that
Beauty was not frightened; indeed, she would have enjoyed the journey if
she had not feared what might happen to her at the end of it. Her father
still tried to persuade her to go back, but in vain. While they were
talking the night fell, and then, to their great surprise, wonderful
colored lights began to shine in all directions, and splendid fireworks
blazed out before them; all the forest was illuminated by them, and
even felt pleasantly warm, though it had been bitterly cold before. This
lasted until they reached the avenue of orange trees, where were statues
holding flaming torches, and when they got nearer to the palace they saw
that it was illuminated from the roof to the ground, and music sounded
softly from the courtyard. “The Beast must be very hungry,” said Beauty,
trying to laugh, “if he makes all this rejoicing over the arrival of his
prey.”

But, in spite of her anxiety, she could not help admiring all the
wonderful things she saw.

The horse stopped at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the
terrace, and when they had dismounted her father led her to the little
room he had been in before, where they found a splendid fire burning,
and the table daintily spread with a delicious supper.

The merchant knew that this was meant for them, and Beauty, who was
rather less frightened now that she had passed through so many rooms and
seen nothing of the Beast, was quite willing to begin, for her long ride
had made her very hungry. But they had hardly finished their meal when
the noise of the Beast’s footsteps was heard approaching, and Beauty
clung to her father in terror, which became all the greater when she saw
how frightened he was. But when the Beast really appeared, though
she trembled at the sight of him, she made a great effort to hide her
terror, and saluted him respectfully.

This evidently pleased the Beast. After looking at her he said, in a
tone that might have struck terror into the boldest heart, though he did
not seem to be angry:

“Good-evening, old man. Good-evening, Beauty.”

The merchant was too terrified to reply, but Beauty answered sweetly:
“Good-evening, Beast.”

“Have you come willingly?” asked the Beast. “Will you be content to stay
here when your father goes away?”

Beauty answered bravely that she was quite prepared to stay.

“I am pleased with you,” said the Beast. “As you have come of your own
accord, you may stay. As for you, old man,” he added, turning to the
merchant, “at sunrise to-morrow you will take your departure. When the
bell rings get up quickly and eat your breakfast, and you will find the
same horse waiting to take you home; but remember that you must never
expect to see my palace again.”

Then turning to Beauty, he said:

“Take your father into the next room, and help him to choose everything
you think your brothers and sisters would like to have. You will find
two traveling-trunks there; fill them as full as you can. It is only
just that you should send them something very precious as a remembrance
of yourself.”

Then he went away, after saying, “Good-by, Beauty; good-by, old man”;
and though Beauty was beginning to think with great dismay of her
father’s departure, she was afraid to disobey the Beast’s orders; and
they went into the next room, which had shelves and cupboards all round
it. They were greatly surprised at the riches it contained. There were
splendid dresses fit for a queen, with all the ornaments that were to
be worn with them; and when Beauty opened the cupboards she was quite
dazzled by the gorgeous jewels that lay in heaps upon every shelf. After
choosing a vast quantity, which she divided between her sisters--for she
had made a heap of the wonderful dresses for each of them--she opened
the last chest, which was full of gold.

“I think, father,” she said, “that, as the gold will be more useful to
you, we had better take out the other things again, and fill the trunks
with it.” So they did this; but the more they put in the more room there
seemed to be, and at last they put back all the jewels and dresses they
had taken out, and Beauty even added as many more of the jewels as she
could carry at once; and then the trunks were not too full, but they
were so heavy that an elephant could not have carried them!

“The Beast was mocking us,” cried the merchant; “he must have pretended
to give us all these things, knowing that I could not carry them away.”

“Let us wait and see,” answered Beauty. “I cannot believe that he meant
to deceive us. All we can do is to fasten them up and leave them ready.”

So they did this and returned to the little room, where, to their
astonishment, they found breakfast ready. The merchant ate his with a
good appetite, as the Beast’s generosity made him believe that he might
perhaps venture to come back soon and see Beauty. But she felt sure that
her father was leaving her for ever, so she was very sad when the bell
rang sharply for the second time, and warned them that the time had come
for them to part. They went down into the courtyard, where two horses
were waiting, one loaded with the two trunks, the other for him to
ride. They were pawing the ground in their impatience to start, and the
merchant was forced to bid Beauty a hasty farewell; and as soon as he
was mounted he went off at such a pace that she lost sight of him in an
instant. Then Beauty began to cry, and wandered sadly back to her
own room. But she soon found that she was very sleepy, and as she had
nothing better to do she lay down and instantly fell asleep. And then
she dreamed that she was walking by a brook bordered with trees, and
lamenting her sad fate, when a young prince, handsomer than anyone she
had ever seen, and with a voice that went straight to her heart, came
and said to her, “Ah, Beauty! you are not so unfortunate as you suppose.
Here you will be rewarded for all you have suffered elsewhere. Your
every wish shall be gratified. Only try to find me out, no matter how I
may be disguised, as I love you dearly, and in making me happy you will
find your own happiness. Be as true-hearted as you are beautiful, and we
shall have nothing left to wish for.”

“What can I do, Prince, to make you happy?” said Beauty.

“Only be grateful,” he answered, “and do not trust too much to your
eyes. And, above all, do not desert me until you have saved me from my
cruel misery.”

After this she thought she found herself in a room with a stately and
beautiful lady, who said to her:

“Dear Beauty, try not to regret all you have left behind you, for you
are destined to a better fate. Only do not let yourself be deceived by
appearances.”

Beauty found her dreams so interesting that she was in no hurry to
awake, but presently the clock roused her by calling her name softly
twelve times, and then she got up and found her dressing-table set
out with everything she could possibly want; and when her toilet was
finished she found dinner was waiting in the room next to hers. But
dinner does not take very long when you are all by yourself, and very
soon she sat down cosily in the corner of a sofa, and began to think
about the charming Prince she had seen in her dream.

“He said I could make him happy,” said Beauty to herself.

“It seems, then, that this horrible Beast keeps him a prisoner. How
can I set him free? I wonder why they both told me not to trust to
appearances? I don’t understand it. But, after all, it was only a
dream, so why should I trouble myself about it? I had better go and find
something to do to amuse myself.”

So she got up and began to explore some of the many rooms of the palace.

The first she entered was lined with mirrors, and Beauty saw herself
reflected on every side, and thought she had never seen such a charming
room. Then a bracelet which was hanging from a chandelier caught her
eye, and on taking it down she was greatly surprised to find that it
held a portrait of her unknown admirer, just as she had seen him in her
dream. With great delight she slipped the bracelet on her arm, and went
on into a gallery of pictures, where she soon found a portrait of the
same handsome Prince, as large as life, and so well painted that as she
studied it he seemed to smile kindly at her. Tearing herself away from
the portrait at last, she passed through into a room which contained
every musical instrument under the sun, and here she amused herself for
a long while in trying some of them, and singing until she was tired.
The next room was a library, and she saw everything she had ever wanted
to read, as well as everything she had read, and it seemed to her that a
whole lifetime would not be enough to even read the names of the books,
there were so many. By this time it was growing dusk, and wax candles
in diamond and ruby candlesticks were beginning to light themselves in
every room.

Beauty found her supper served just at the time she preferred to have
it, but she did not see anyone or hear a sound, and, though her father
had warned her that she would be alone, she began to find it rather
dull.

But presently she heard the Beast coming, and wondered tremblingly if he
meant to eat her up now.

However, as he did not seem at all ferocious, and only said gruffly:

“Good-evening, Beauty,” she answered cheerfully and managed to conceal
her terror. Then the Beast asked her how she had been amusing herself,
and she told him all the rooms she had seen.

Then he asked if she thought she could be happy in his palace; and
Beauty answered that everything was so beautiful that she would be very
hard to please if she could not be happy. And after about an hour’s talk
Beauty began to think that the Beast was not nearly so terrible as she
had supposed at first. Then he got up to leave her, and said in his
gruff voice:

“Do you love me, Beauty? Will you marry me?”

“Oh! what shall I say?” cried Beauty, for she was afraid to make the
Beast angry by refusing.

“Say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without fear,” he replied.

“Oh! no, Beast,” said Beauty hastily.

“Since you will not, good-night, Beauty,” he said.

And she answered, “Good-night, Beast,” very glad to find that her
refusal had not provoked him. And after he was gone she was very soon in
bed and asleep, and dreaming of her unknown Prince. She thought he came
and said to her:

“Ah, Beauty! why are you so unkind to me? I fear I am fated to be
unhappy for many a long day still.”

And then her dreams changed, but the charming Prince figured in
them all; and when morning came her first thought was to look at the
portrait, and see if it was really like him, and she found that it
certainly was.

This morning she decided to amuse herself in the garden, for the sun
shone, and all the fountains were playing; but she was astonished to
find that every place was familiar to her, and presently she came to the
brook where the myrtle trees were growing where she had first met the
Prince in her dream, and that made her think more than ever that he must
be kept a prisoner by the Beast. When she was tired she went back to
the palace, and found a new room full of materials for every kind of
work--ribbons to make into bows, and silks to work into flowers. Then
there was an aviary full of rare birds, which were so tame that they
flew to Beauty as soon as they saw her, and perched upon her shoulders
and her head.

“Pretty little creatures,” she said, “how I wish that your cage was
nearer to my room, that I might often hear you sing!”

So saying she opened a door, and found, to her delight, that it led into
her own room, though she had thought it was quite the other side of the
palace.

There were more birds in a room farther on, parrots and cockatoos that
could talk, and they greeted Beauty by name; indeed, she found them so
entertaining that she took one or two back to her room, and they talked
to her while she was at supper; after which the Beast paid her his usual
visit, and asked her the same questions as before, and then with a gruff
“good-night” he took his departure, and Beauty went to bed to dream of
her mysterious Prince. The days passed swiftly in different amusements,
and after a while Beauty found out another strange thing in the palace,
which often pleased her when she was tired of being alone. There was one
room which she had not noticed particularly; it was empty, except that
under each of the windows stood a very comfortable chair; and the first
time she had looked out of the window it had seemed to her that a black
curtain prevented her from seeing anything outside. But the second time
she went into the room, happening to be tired, she sat down in one of
the chairs, when instantly the curtain was rolled aside, and a most
amusing pantomime was acted before her; there were dances, and colored
lights, and music, and pretty dresses, and it was all so gay that Beauty
was in ecstacies. After that she tried the other seven windows in turn,
and there was some new and surprising entertainment to be seen from each
of them, so that Beauty never could feel lonely any more. Every evening
after supper the Beast came to see her, and always before saying
good-night asked her in his terrible voice:

“Beauty, will you marry me?”

And it seemed to Beauty, now she understood him better, that when she
said, “No, Beast,” he went away quite sad. But her happy dreams of the
handsome young Prince soon made her forget the poor Beast, and the only
thing that at all disturbed her was to be constantly told to distrust
appearances, to let her heart guide her, and not her eyes, and many
other equally perplexing things, which, consider as she would, she could
not understand.

So everything went on for a long time, until at last, happy as she was,
Beauty began to long for the sight of her father and her brothers and
sisters; and one night, seeing her look very sad, the Beast asked her
what was the matter. Beauty had quite ceased to be afraid of him. Now
she knew that he was really gentle in spite of his ferocious looks and
his dreadful voice. So she answered that she was longing to see her
home once more. Upon hearing this the Beast seemed sadly distressed, and
cried miserably.

“Ah! Beauty, have you the heart to desert an unhappy Beast like this?
What more do you want to make you happy? Is it because you hate me that
you want to escape?”

“No, dear Beast,” answered Beauty softly, “I do not hate you, and I
should be very sorry never to see you any more, but I long to see my
father again. Only let me go for two months, and I promise to come back
to you and stay for the rest of my life.”

The Beast, who had been sighing dolefully while she spoke, now replied:

“I cannot refuse you anything you ask, even though it should cost me my
life. Take the four boxes you will find in the room next to your own,
and fill them with everything you wish to take with you. But remember
your promise and come back when the two months are over, or you may have
cause to repent it, for if you do not come in good time you will find
your faithful Beast dead. You will not need any chariot to bring you
back. Only say good-by to all your brothers and sisters the night before
you come away, and when you have gone to bed turn this ring round upon
your finger and say firmly: ‘I wish to go back to my palace and see my
Beast again.’ Good-night, Beauty. Fear nothing, sleep peacefully, and
before long you shall see your father once more.”

As soon as Beauty was alone she hastened to fill the boxes with all the
rare and precious things she saw about her, and only when she was tired
of heaping things into them did they seem to be full.

Then she went to bed, but could hardly sleep for joy. And when at last
she did begin to dream of her beloved Prince she was grieved to see him
stretched upon a grassy bank, sad and weary, and hardly like himself.

“What is the matter?” she cried.

He looked at her reproachfully, and said:

“How can you ask me, cruel one? Are you not leaving me to my death
perhaps?”

“Ah! don’t be so sorrowful,” cried Beauty; “I am only going to assure
my father that I am safe and happy. I have promised the Beast faithfully
that I will come back, and he would die of grief if I did not keep my
word!”

“What would that matter to you?” said the Prince “Surely you would not
care?”

“Indeed, I should be ungrateful if I did not care for such a kind
Beast,” cried Beauty indignantly. “I would die to save him from pain. I
assure you it is not his fault that he is so ugly.”

Just then a strange sound woke her--someone was speaking not very far
away; and opening her eyes she found herself in a room she had never
seen before, which was certainly not nearly so splendid as those she
was used to in the Beast’s palace. Where could she be? She got up and
dressed hastily, and then saw that the boxes she had packed the night
before were all in the room. While she was wondering by what magic
the Beast had transported them and herself to this strange place she
suddenly heard her father’s voice, and rushed out and greeted
him joyfully. Her brothers and sisters were all astonished at her
appearance, as they had never expected to see her again, and there was
no end to the questions they asked her. She had also much to hear
about what had happened to them while she was away, and of her father’s
journey home. But when they heard that she had only come to be with them
for a short time, and then must go back to the Beast’s palace for ever,
they lamented loudly. Then Beauty asked her father what he thought could
be the meaning of her strange dreams, and why the Prince constantly
begged her not to trust to appearances. After much consideration, he
answered: “You tell me yourself that the Beast, frightful as he
is, loves you dearly, and deserves your love and gratitude for his
gentleness and kindness; I think the Prince must mean you to understand
that you ought to reward him by doing as he wishes you to, in spite of
his ugliness.”

Beauty could not help seeing that this seemed very probable; still, when
she thought of her dear Prince who was so handsome, she did not feel at
all inclined to marry the Beast. At any rate, for two months she need
not decide, but could enjoy herself with her sisters. But though they
were rich now, and lived in town again, and had plenty of acquaintances,
Beauty found that nothing amused her very much; and she often thought of
the palace, where she was so happy, especially as at home she never once
dreamed of her dear Prince, and she felt quite sad without him.

Then her sisters seemed to have got quite used to being without her, and
even found her rather in the way, so she would not have been sorry when
the two months were over but for her father and brothers, who begged her
to stay, and seemed so grieved at the thought of her departure that she
had not the courage to say good-by to them. Every day when she got up
she meant to say it at night, and when night came she put it off again,
until at last she had a dismal dream which helped her to make up her
mind. She thought she was wandering in a lonely path in the palace
gardens, when she heard groans which seemed to come from some bushes
hiding the entrance of a cave, and running quickly to see what could be
the matter, she found the Beast stretched out upon his side, apparently
dying. He reproached her faintly with being the cause of his distress,
and at the same moment a stately lady appeared, and said very gravely:

“Ah! Beauty, you are only just in time to save his life. See what
happens when people do not keep their promises! If you had delayed one
day more, you would have found him dead.”

Beauty was so terrified by this dream that the next morning she
announced her intention of going back at once, and that very night she
said good-by to her father and all her brothers and sisters, and as soon
as she was in bed she turned her ring round upon her finger, and said
firmly, “I wish to go back to my palace and see my Beast again,” as she
had been told to do.

Then she fell asleep instantly, and only woke up to hear the clock
saying “Beauty, Beauty” twelve times in its musical voice, which told
her at once that she was really in the palace once more. Everything
was just as before, and her birds were so glad to see her! But Beauty
thought she had never known such a long day, for she was so anxious to
see the Beast again that she felt as if suppertime would never come.

But when it did come and no Beast appeared she was really frightened;
so, after listening and waiting for a long time, she ran down into the
garden to search for him. Up and down the paths and avenues ran poor
Beauty, calling him in vain, for no one answered, and not a trace of him
could she find; until at last, quite tired, she stopped for a minute’s
rest, and saw that she was standing opposite the shady path she had seen
in her dream. She rushed down it, and, sure enough, there was the cave,
and in it lay the Beast--asleep, as Beauty thought. Quite glad to have
found him, she ran up and stroked his head, but, to her horror, he did
not move or open his eyes.

“Oh! he is dead; and it is all my fault,” said Beauty, crying bitterly.

But then, looking at him again, she fancied he still breathed, and,
hastily fetching some water from the nearest fountain, she sprinkled it
over his face, and, to her great delight, he began to revive.

“Oh! Beast, how you frightened me!” she cried. “I never knew how much
I loved you until just now, when I feared I was too late to save your
life.”

“Can you really love such an ugly creature as I am?” said the Beast
faintly. “Ah! Beauty, you only came just in time. I was dying because
I thought you had forgotten your promise. But go back now and rest, I
shall see you again by and by.”

Beauty, who had half expected that he would be angry with her, was
reassured by his gentle voice, and went back to the palace, where supper
was awaiting her; and afterward the Beast came in as usual, and talked
about the time she had spent with her father, asking if she had enjoyed
herself, and if they had all been very glad to see her.

Beauty answered politely, and quite enjoyed telling him all that had
happened to her. And when at last the time came for him to go, and he
asked, as he had so often asked before, “Beauty, will you marry me?”

She answered softly, “Yes, dear Beast.”

As she spoke a blaze of light sprang up before the windows of the
palace; fireworks crackled and guns banged, and across the avenue of
orange trees, in letters all made of fire-flies, was written: “Long live
the Prince and his Bride.”

Turning to ask the Beast what it could all mean, Beauty found that he
had disappeared, and in his place stood her long-loved Prince! At the
same moment the wheels of a chariot were heard upon the terrace, and two
ladies entered the room. One of them Beauty recognized as the stately
lady she had seen in her dreams; the other was also so grand and queenly
that Beauty hardly knew which to greet first.

But the one she already knew said to her companion:

“Well, Queen, this is Beauty, who has had the courage to rescue your
son from the terrible enchantment. They love one another, and only your
consent to their marriage is wanting to make them perfectly happy.”

“I consent with all my heart,” cried the Queen. “How can I ever thank
you enough, charming girl, for having restored my dear son to his
natural form?”

And then she tenderly embraced Beauty and the Prince, who had meanwhile
been greeting the Fairy and receiving her congratulations.

“Now,” said the Fairy to Beauty, “I suppose you would like me to send
for all your brothers and sisters to dance at your wedding?”

And so she did, and the marriage was celebrated the very next day
with the utmost splendor, and Beauty and the Prince lived happily ever
after.(1)


(1) La Belle et la Bete. Par Madame de Villeneuve.




THE MASTER-MAID


Once upon a time there was a king who had many sons. I do not exactly
know how many there were, but the youngest of them could not stay
quietly at home, and was determined to go out into the world and try his
luck, and after a long time the King was forced to give him leave to go.
When he had traveled about for several days, he came to a giant’s house,
and hired himself to the giant as a servant. In the morning the giant
had to go out to pasture his goats, and as he was leaving the house he
told the King’s son that he must clean out the stable. “And after you
have done that,” he said, “you need not do any more work to-day, for you
have come to a kind master, and that you shall find. But what I set you
to do must be done both well and thoroughly, and you must on no account
go into any of the rooms which lead out of the room in which you slept
last night. If you do, I will take your life.”

“Well to be sure, he is an easy master!” said the Prince to himself as
he walked up and down the room humming and singing, for he thought there
would be plenty of time left to clean out the stable; “but it would be
amusing to steal a glance into his other rooms as well,” thought the
Prince, “for there must be something that he is afraid of my seeing,
as I am not allowed to enter them.” So he went into the first room.
A cauldron was hanging from the walls; it was boiling, but the Prince
could see no fire under it. “I wonder what is inside it,” he thought,
and dipped a lock of his hair in, and the hair became just as if it were
all made of copper. “That’s a nice kind of soup. If anyone were to taste
that his throat would be gilded,” said the youth, and then he went into
the next chamber. There, too, a cauldron was hanging from the wall,
bubbling and boiling, but there was no fire under this either. “I will
just try what this is like too,” said the Prince, thrusting another lock
of his hair into it, and it came out silvered over. “Such costly soup is
not to be had in my father’s palace,” said the Prince; “but everything
depends on how it tastes,” and then he went into the third room. There,
too, a cauldron was hanging from the wall, boiling, exactly the same
as in the two other rooms, and the Prince took pleasure in trying this
also, so he dipped a lock of hair in, and it came out so brightly gilded
that it shone again. “Some talk about going from bad to worse,” said the
Prince; “but this is better and better. If he boils gold here, what can
he boil in there?” He was determined to see, and went through the door
into the fourth room. No cauldron was to be seen there, but on a bench
someone was seated who was like a king’s daughter, but, whosoever she
was, she was so beautiful that never in the Prince’s life had he seen
her equal.

“Oh! in heaven’s name what are you doing here?” said she who sat upon
the bench.

“I took the place of servant here yesterday,” said the Prince.

“May you soon have a better place, if you have come to serve here!” said
she.

“Oh, but I think I have got a kind master,” said the Prince. “He has not
given me hard work to do to-day. When I have cleaned out the stable I
shall be done.”

“Yes, but how will you be able to do that?” she asked again. “If you
clean it out as other people do, ten pitchforksful will come in for
every one you throw out. But I will teach you how to do it; you must
turn your pitchfork upside down, and work with the handle, and then all
will fly out of its own accord.”

“Yes, I will attend to that,” said the Prince, and stayed sitting where
he was the whole day, for it was soon settled between them that they
would marry each other, he and the King’s daughter; so the first day of
his service with the giant did not seem long to him. But when evening
was drawing near she said that it would now be better for him to clean
out the stable before the giant came home. When he got there he had a
fancy to try if what she had said were true, so he began to work in the
same way that he had seen the stable-boys doing in his father’s stables,
but he soon saw that he must give up that, for when he had worked a very
short time he had scarcely any room left to stand. So he did what the
Princess had taught him, turned the pitchfork round, and worked with the
handle, and in the twinkling of an eye the stable was as clean as if
it had been scoured. When he had done that, he went back again into the
room in which the giant had given him leave to stay, and there he walked
backward and forward on the floor, and began to hum and sing.

Then came the giant home with the goats. “Have you cleaned the stable?”
 asked the giant.

“Yes, now it is clean and sweet, master,” said the King’s son.

“I shall see about that,” said the giant, and went round to the stable,
but it was just as the Prince had said.

“You have certainly been talking to my Master-maid, for you never got
that out of your own head,” said the giant.

“Master-maid! What kind of a thing is that, master?” said the Prince,
making himself look as stupid as an ass; “I should like to see that.”

“Well, you will see her quite soon enough,” said the giant.

On the second morning the giant had again to go out with his goats,
so he told the Prince that on that day he was to fetch home his horse,
which was out on the mountain-side, and when he had done that he might
rest himself for the remainder of the day, “for you have come to a kind
master, and that you shall find,” said the giant once more. “But do not
go into any of the rooms that I spoke of yesterday, or I will wring your
head off,” said he, and then went away with his flock of goats.

“Yes, indeed, you are a kind master,” said the Prince; “but I will go
in and talk to the Master-maid again; perhaps before long she may like
better to be mine than yours.”

So he went to her. Then she asked him what he had to do that day.

“Oh! not very dangerous work, I fancy,” said the King’s son. “I have
only to go up the mountain-side after his horse.”

“Well, how do you mean to set about it?” asked the Master-maid.

“Oh! there is no great art in riding a horse home,” said the King’s son.
“I think I must have ridden friskier horses before now.”

“Yes, but it is not so easy a thing as you think to ride the horse
home,” said the Master-maid; “but I will teach you what to do. When you
go near it, fire will burst out of its nostrils like flames from a pine
torch; but be very careful, and take the bridle which is hanging by the
door there, and fling the bit straight into his jaws, and then it will
become so tame that you will be able to do what you like with it.” He
said he would bear this in mind, and then he again sat in there the
whole day by the Master-maid, and they chatted and talked of one thing
and another, but the first thing and the last now was, how happy and
delightful it would be if they could but marry each other, and get
safely away from the giant; and the Prince would have forgotten both the
mountain-side and the horse if the Master-maid had not reminded him of
them as evening drew near, and said that now it would be better if he
went to fetch the horse before the giant came. So he did this, and
took the bridle which was hanging on a crook, and strode up the
mountain-side, and it was not long before he met with the horse, and
fire and red flames streamed forth out of its nostrils. But the youth
carefully watched his opportunity, and just as it was rushing at him
with open jaws he threw the bit straight into its mouth, and the horse
stood as quiet as a young lamb, and there was no difficulty at all in
getting it home to the stable. Then the Prince went back into his room
again, and began to hum and to sing.

Toward evening the giant came home. “Have you fetched the horse back
from the mountain-side?” he asked.

“That I have, master; it was an amusing horse to ride, but I rode him
straight home, and put him in the stable too,” said the Prince.

“I will see about that,” said the giant, and went out to the stable,
but the horse was standing there just as the Prince had said. “You have
certainly been talking with my Master-maid, for you never got that out
of your own head,” said the giant again.

“Yesterday, master, you talked about this Master-maid, and to-day you
are talking about her; ah, heaven bless you, master, why will you not
show me the thing? for it would be a real pleasure to me to see it,”
 said the Prince, who again pretended to be silly and stupid.

“Oh! you will see her quite soon enough,” said the giant.

On the morning of the third day the giant again had to go into the wood
with the goats. “To-day you must go underground and fetch my taxes,”
 he said to the Prince. “When you have done this, you may rest for the
remainder of the day, for you shall see what an easy master you have
come to,” and then he went away.

“Well, however easy a master you may be, you set me very hard work
to do,” thought the Prince; “but I will see if I cannot find your
Master-maid; you say she is yours, but for all that she may be able
to tell me what to do now,” and he went back to her. So, when the
Master-maid asked him what the giant had set him to do that day, he told
her that he was to go underground and get the taxes.

“And how will you set about that?” said the Master-maid.

“Oh! you must tell me how to do it,” said the Prince, “for I have never
yet been underground, and even if I knew the way I do not know how much
I am to demand.”

“Oh! yes, I will soon tell you that; you must go to the rock there under
the mountain-ridge, and take the club that is there, and knock on the
rocky wall,” said the Master-maid. “Then someone will come out who will
sparkle with fire; you shall tell him your errand, and when he asks you
how much you want to have you are to say: ‘As much as I can carry.’”

“Yes, I will keep that in mind,” said he, and then he sat there with the
Master-maid the whole day, until night drew near, and he would gladly
have stayed there till now if the Master-maid had not reminded him that
it was time to be off to fetch the taxes before the giant came.

So he set out on his way, and did exactly what the Master-maid had told
him. He went to the rocky wall, and took the club, and knocked on it.
Then came one so full of sparks that they flew both out of his eyes and
his nose. “What do you want?” said he.

“I was to come here for the giant, and demand the tax for him,” said the
King’s son.

“How much are you to have then?” said the other.

“I ask for no more than I am able to carry with me,” said the Prince.

“It is well for you that you have not asked for a horse-load,” said he
who had come out of the rock. “But now come in with me.”

This the Prince did, and what a quantity of gold and silver he saw! It
was lying inside the mountain like heaps of stones in a waste place, and
he got a load that was as large as he was able to carry, and with that
he went his way. So in the evening, when the giant came home with the
goats, the Prince went into the chamber and hummed and sang again as he
had done on the other two evenings.

“Have you been for the tax?” said the giant.

“Yes, that I have, master,” said the Prince.

“Where have you put it then?” said the giant again.

“The bag of gold is standing there on the bench,” said the Prince.

“I will see about that,” said the giant, and went away to the bench,
but the bag was standing there, and it was so full that gold and silver
dropped out when the giant untied the string.

“You have certainly been talking with my Master-maid!” said the giant,
“and if you have I will wring your neck.”

“Master-maid?” said the Prince; “yesterday my master talked about this
Master-maid, and to-day he is talking about her again, and the first
day of all it was talk of the same kind. I do wish I could see the thing
myself,” said he.

“Yes, yes, wait till to-morrow,” said the giant, “and then I myself will
take you to her.”

“Ah! master, I thank you--but you are only mocking me,” said the King’s
son.

Next day the giant took him to the Master-maid. “Now you shall kill him,
and boil him in the great big cauldron you know of, and when you have
got the broth ready give me a call,” said the giant; then he lay down
on the bench to sleep, and almost immediately began to snore so that it
sounded like thunder among the hills.

So the Master-maid took a knife, and cut the Prince’s little finger, and
dropped three drops of blood upon a wooden stool; then she took all the
old rags, and shoe-soles, and all the rubbish she could lay hands on,
and put them in the cauldron; and then she filled a chest with gold
dust, and a lump of salt, and a water-flask which was hanging by the
door, and she also took with her a golden apple, and two gold chickens;
and then she and the Prince went away with all the speed they could,
and when they had gone a little way they came to the sea, and then
they sailed, but where they got the ship from I have never been able to
learn.

Now, when the giant had slept a good long time, he began to stretch
himself on the bench on which he was lying. “Will it soon boil?” said
he.

“It is just beginning,” said the first drop of blood on the stool.

So the giant lay down to sleep again, and slept for a long, long time.
Then he began to move about a little again. “Will it soon be ready now?”
 said he, but he did not look up this time any more than he had done the
first time, for he was still half asleep.

“Half done!” said the second drop of blood, and the giant believed it
was the Master-maid again, and turned himself on the bench, and lay down
to sleep once more. When he had slept again for many hours, he began to
move and stretch himself. “Is it not done yet?” said he.

“It is quite ready,” said the third drop of blood. Then the giant began
to sit up and rub his eyes, but he could not see who it was who had
spoken to him, so he asked for the Master-maid, and called her. But
there was no one to give him an answer.

“Ah! well, she has just stolen out for a little,” thought the giant, and
he took a spoon, and went off to the cauldron to have a taste; but there
was nothing in it but shoe-soles, and rags, and such trumpery as that,
and all was boiled up together, so that he could not tell whether it
was porridge or milk pottage. When he saw this, he understood what had
happened, and fell into such a rage that he hardly knew what he was
doing. Away he went after the Prince and the Master-maid so fast that
the wind whistled behind him, and it was not long before he came to the
water, but he could not get over it. “Well, well, I will soon find a
cure for that; I have only to call my river-sucker,” said the giant, and
he did call him. So his river-sucker came and lay down, and drank one,
two, three draughts, and with that the water in the sea fell so low that
the giant saw the Master-maid and the Prince out on the sea in their
ship. “Now you must throw out the lump of salt,” said the Master-maid,
and the Prince did so, and it grew up into such a great high mountain
right across the sea that the giant could not come over it, and the
river-sucker could not drink any more water. “Well, well, I will soon
find a cure for that,” said the giant, so he called to his hill-borer
to come and bore through the mountain so that the river-sucker might be
able to drink up the water again. But just as the hole was made, and the
river-sucker was beginning to drink, the Master-maid told the Prince to
throw one or two drops out of the flask, and when he did this the sea
instantly became full of water again, and before the river-sucker
could take one drink they reached the land and were in safety. So they
determined to go home to the Prince’s father, but the Prince would on no
account permit the Master-maid to walk there, for he thought that it was
unbecoming either for her or for him to go on foot.

“Wait here the least little bit of time, while I go home for the seven
horses which stand in my father’s stable,” said he; “it is not far off,
and I shall not be long away, but I will not let my betrothed bride go
on foot to the palace.”

“Oh! no, do not go, for if you go home to the King’s palace you will
forget me, I foresee that.”

“How could I forget you? We have suffered so much evil together, and
love each other so much,” said the Prince; and he insisted on going home
for the coach with the seven horses, and she was to wait for him there,
by the sea-shore. So at last the Master-maid had to yield, for he was
so absolutely determined to do it. “But when you get there you must
not even give yourself time to greet anyone, but go straight into the
stable, and take the horses, and put them in the coach, and drive back
as quickly as you can. For they will all come round about you; but you
must behave just as if you did not see them, and on no account must you
taste anything, for if you do it will cause great misery both to you and
to me,” said she; and this he promised.

But when he got home to the King’s palace one of his brothers was just
going to be married, and the bride and all her kith and kin had come
to the palace; so they all thronged round him, and questioned him about
this and that, and wanted him to go in with them; but he behaved as if
he did not see them, and went straight to the stable, and got out the
horses and began to harness them. When they saw that they could not by
any means prevail on him to go in with them, they came out to him with
meat and drink, and the best of everything that they had prepared for
the wedding; but the Prince refused to touch anything, and would do
nothing but put the horses in as quickly as he could. At last, however,
the bride’s sister rolled an apple across the yard to him, and said: “As
you won’t eat anything else, you may like to take a bite of that, for
you must be both hungry and thirsty after your long journey.” And he
took up the apple and bit a piece out of it. But no sooner had he got
the piece of apple in his mouth than he forgot the Master-maid and that
he was to go back in the coach to fetch her.

“I think I must be mad! what do I want with this coach and horses?” said
he; and then he put the horses back into the stable, and went into the
King’s palace, and there it was settled that he should marry the bride’s
sister, who had rolled the apple to him.

The Master-maid sat by the sea-shore for a long, long time, waiting
for the Prince, but no Prince came. So she went away, and when she had
walked a short distance she came to a little hut which stood all alone
in a small wood, hard by the King’s palace. She entered it and asked if
she might be allowed to stay there. The hut belonged to an old crone,
who was also an ill-tempered and malicious troll. At first she would not
let the Master-maid remain with her; but at last, after a long time, by
means of good words and good payment, she obtained leave. But the hut
was as dirty and black inside as a pigsty, so the Master-maid said that
she would smarten it up a little, that it might look a little more like
what other people’s houses looked inside. The old crone did not like
this either. She scowled, and was very cross, but the Master-maid did
not trouble herself about that. She took out her chest of gold, and
flung a handful of it or so into the fire, and the gold boiled up and
poured out over the whole of the hut, until every part of it both inside
and out was gilded. But when the gold began to bubble up the old hag
grew so terrified that she fled as if the Evil One himself were pursuing
her, and she did not remember to stoop down as she went through the
doorway, and so she split her head and died. Next morning the sheriff
came traveling by there. He was greatly astonished when he saw the gold
hut shining and glittering there in the copse, and he was still more
astonished when he went in and caught sight of the beautiful young
maiden who was sitting there; he fell in love with her at once, and
straightway on the spot he begged her, both prettily and kindly, to
marry him.

“Well, but have you a great deal of money?” said the Master-maid.

“Oh! yes; so far as that is concerned, I am not ill off,” said the
sheriff. So now he had to go home to get the money, and in the evening
he came back, bringing with him a bag with two bushels in it, which he
set down on the bench. Well, as he had such a fine lot of money, the
Master-maid said she would have him, so they sat down to talk.

But scarcely had they sat down together before the Master-maid wanted to
jump up again. “I have forgotten to see to the fire,” she said.

“Why should you jump up to do that?” said the sheriff; “I will do that!”
 So he jumped up, and went to the chimney in one bound.

“Just tell me when you have got hold of the shovel,” said the
Master-maid.

“Well, I have hold of it now,” said the sheriff.

“Then you may hold the shovel, and the shovel you, and pour red-hot
coals over you, till day dawns,” said the Master-maid. So the sheriff
had to stand there the whole night and pour red-hot coals over himself,
and, no matter how much he cried and begged and entreated, the red-hot
coals did not grow the colder for that. When the day began to dawn, and
he had power to throw down the shovel, he did not stay long where he
was, but ran away as fast as he possibly could; and everyone who met him
stared and looked after him, for he was flying as if he were mad, and he
could not have looked worse if he had been both flayed and tanned, and
everyone wondered where he had been, but for very shame he would tell
nothing.

The next day the attorney came riding by the place where the Master-maid
dwelt. He saw how brightly the hut shone and gleamed through the wood,
and he too went into it to see who lived there, and when he entered and
saw the beautiful young maiden he fell even more in love with her than
the sheriff had done, and began to woo her at once. So the Master-maid
asked him, as she had asked the sheriff, if he had a great deal of
money, and the attorney said he was not ill off for that, and would at
once go home to get it; and at night he came with a great big sack of
money--this time it was a four-bushel sack--and set it on the bench by
the Master-maid. So she promised to have him, and he sat down on the
bench by her to arrange about it, but suddenly she said that she had
forgotten to lock the door of the porch that night, and must do it.

“Why should you do that?” said the attorney; “sit still, I will do it.”

So he was on his feet in a moment, and out in the porch.

“Tell me when you have got hold of the door-latch,” said the
Master-maid.

“I have hold of it now,” cried the attorney.

“Then you may hold the door, and the door you, and may you go between
wall and wall till day dawns.”

What a dance the attorney had that night! He had never had such a waltz
before, and he never wished to have such a dance again. Sometimes he was
in front of the door, and sometimes the door was in front of him, and
it went from one side of the porch to the other, till the attorney was
well-nigh beaten to death. At first he began to abuse the Master-maid,
and then to beg and pray, but the door did not care for anything but
keeping him where he was till break of day.

As soon as the door let go its hold of him, off went the attorney. He
forgot who ought to be paid off for what he had suffered, he forgot
both his sack of money and his wooing, for he was so afraid lest the
house-door should come dancing after him. Everyone who met him stared
and looked after him, for he was flying like a madman, and he could not
have looked worse if a herd of rams had been butting at him all night
long.

On the third day the bailiff came by, and he too saw the gold house
in the little wood, and he too felt that he must go and see who lived
there; and when he caught sight of the Master-maid he became so much in
love with her that he wooed her almost before he greeted her.

The Master-maid answered him as she had answered the other two, that
if he had a great deal of money, she would have him. “So far as that is
concerned, I am not ill off,” said the bailiff; so he was at once told
to go home and fetch it, and this he did. At night he came back, and he
had a still larger sack of money with him than the attorney had brought;
it must have been at least six bushels, and he set it down on the bench.
So it was settled that he was to have the Master-maid. But hardly had
they sat down together before she said that she had forgotten to bring
in the calf, and must go out to put it in the byre.

“No, indeed, you shall not do that,” said the bailiff; “I am the one to
do that.” And, big and fat as he was, he went out as briskly as a boy.

“Tell me when you have got hold of the calf’s tail,” said the
Master-maid.

“I have hold of it now,” cried the bailiff.

“Then may you hold the calf’s tail, and the calf’s tail hold you,
and may you go round the world together till day dawns!” said the
Master-maid. So the bailiff had to bestir himself, for the calf went
over rough and smooth, over hill and dale, and, the more the bailiff
cried and screamed, the faster the calf went. When daylight began to
appear, the bailiff was half dead; and so glad was he to leave loose
of the calf’s tail, that he forgot the sack of money and all else. He
walked now slowly--more slowly than the sheriff and the attorney had
done, but, the slower he went, the more time had everyone to stare and
look at him; and they used it too, and no one can imagine how tired out
and ragged he looked after his dance with the calf.

On the following day the wedding was to take place in the King’s palace,
and the elder brother was to drive to church with his bride, and the
brother who had been with the giant with her sister. But when they had
seated themselves in the coach and were about to drive off from the
palace one of the trace-pins broke, and, though they made one, two, and
three to put in its place, that did not help them, for each broke in
turn, no matter what kind of wood they used to make them of. This went
on for a long time, and they could not get away from the palace, so they
were all in great trouble. Then the sheriff said (for he too had been
bidden to the wedding at Court): “Yonder away in the thicket dwells a
maiden, and if you can get her to lend you the handle of the shovel that
she uses to make up her fire I know very well that it will hold fast.”
 So they sent off a messenger to the thicket, and begged so prettily that
they might have the loan of her shovel-handle of which the sheriff had
spoken that they were not refused; so now they had a trace-pin which
would not snap in two.

But all at once, just as they were starting, the bottom of the coach
fell in pieces. They made a new bottom as fast as they could, but, no
matter how they nailed it together, or what kind of wood they used,
no sooner had they got the new bottom into the coach and were about to
drive off than it broke again, so that they were still worse off than
when they had broken the trace-pin. Then the attorney said, for he too
was at the wedding in the palace: “Away there in the thicket dwells
a maiden, and if you could but get her to lend you one-half of her
porch-door I am certain that it will hold together.” So they again sent
a messenger to the thicket, and begged so prettily for the loan of the
gilded porch-door of which the attorney had told them that they got it
at once. They were just setting out again, but now the horses were not
able to draw the coach. They had six horses already, and now they put in
eight, and then ten, and then twelve, but the more they put in, and
the more the coachman whipped them, the less good it did; and the coach
never stirred from the spot. It was already beginning to be late in the
day, and to church they must and would go, so everyone who was in the
palace was in a state of distress. Then the bailiff spoke up and said:
“Out there in the gilded cottage in the thicket dwells a girl, and if
you could but get her to lend you her calf I know it could draw the
coach, even if it were as heavy as a mountain.” They all thought that
it was ridiculous to be drawn to church by a calf, but there was nothing
else for it but to send a messenger once more, and beg as prettily as
they could, on behalf of the King, that she would let them have the loan
of the calf that the bailiff had told them about. The Master-maid let
them have it immediately--this time also she would not say “no.”

Then they harnessed the calf to see if the coach would move; and away
it went, over rough and smooth, over stock and stone, so that they could
scarcely breathe, and sometimes they were on the ground, and sometimes
up in the air; and when they came to the church the coach began to
go round and round like a spinning-wheel, and it was with the utmost
difficulty and danger that they were able to get out of the coach and
into the church. And when they went back again the coach went quicker
still, so that most of them did not know how they got back to the palace
at all.

When they had seated themselves at the table the Prince who had been in
service with the giant said that he thought they ought to have invited
the maiden who had lent them the shovel-handle, and the porch-door,
and the calf up to the palace, “for,” said he, “if we had not got these
three things, we should never have got away from the palace.”

The King also thought that this was both just and proper, so he sent
five of his best men down to the gilded hut, to greet the maiden
courteously from the King, and to beg her to be so good as to come up to
the palace to dinner at mid-day.

“Greet the King, and tell him that, if he is too good to come to me, I
am too good to come to him,” replied the Master-maid.

So the King had to go himself, and the Master-maid went with him
immediately, and, as the King believed that she was more than she
appeared to be, he seated her in the place of honor by the youngest
bridegroom. When they had sat at the table for a short time, the
Master-maid took out the cock, and the hen, and the golden apple which
she had brought away with her from the giant’s house, and set them on
the table in front of her, and instantly the cock and the hen began to
fight with each other for the golden apple.

“Oh! look how those two there are fighting for the golden apple,” said
the King’s son.

“Yes, and so did we two fight to get out that time when we were in the
mountain,” said the Master-maid.

So the Prince knew her again, and you may imagine how delighted he was.
He ordered the troll-witch who had rolled the apple to him to be torn
in pieces between four-and-twenty horses, so that not a bit of her was
left, and then for the first time they began really to keep the wedding,
and, weary as they were, the sheriff, the attorney, and the bailiff kept
it up too.(1)


(1) Asbjornsen and Moe.




WHY THE SEA IS SALT


Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were two brothers, the one rich
and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came, the poor one had not a bite
in the house, either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and
begged him, in God’s name, to give him something for Christmas Day. It
was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced to give
something to him, and he was not better pleased at being asked now than
he generally was.

“If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole ham,” said he.
The poor one immediately thanked him, and promised this.

“Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight to Dead Man’s
Hall,” said the rich brother, throwing the ham to him.

“Well, I will do what I have promised,” said the other, and he took
the ham and set off. He went on and on for the livelong day, and at
nightfall he came to a place where there was a bright light.

“I have no doubt this is the place,” thought the man with the ham.

An old man with a long white beard was standing in the outhouse,
chopping Yule logs.

“Good-evening,” said the man with the ham.

“Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this late hour?” said the
man.

“I am going to Dead Man’s Hall, if only I am on the right track,”
 answered the poor man.

“Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here,” said the old man. “When
you get inside they will all want to buy your ham, for they don’t get
much meat to eat there; but you must not sell it unless you can get the
hand-mill which stands behind the door for it. When you come out again
I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which is useful for almost
everything.”

So the man with the ham thanked the other for his good advice, and
rapped at the door.

When he got in, everything happened just as the old man had said it
would: all the people, great and small, came round him like ants on an
ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the ham.

“By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for our Christmas dinner,
but, since you have set your hearts upon it, I must just give it up to
you,” said the man. “But, if I sell it, I will have the hand-mill which
is standing there behind the door.”

At first they would not hear of this, and haggled and bargained with
the man, but he stuck to what he had said, and the people were forced
to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out again into the yard, he
asked the old wood-cutter how he was to stop the hand-mill, and when he
had learned that, he thanked him and set off home with all the speed he
could, but did not get there until after the clock had struck twelve on
Christmas Eve.

“Where in the world have you been?” said the old woman. “Here I have sat
waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay across each
other under the Christmas porridge-pot.”

“Oh! I could not come before; I had something of importance to see
about, and a long way to go, too; but now you shall just see!” said the
man, and then he set the hand-mill on the table, and bade it first grind
light, then a table-cloth, and then meat, and beer, and everything else
that was good for a Christmas Eve’s supper; and the mill ground all that
he ordered. “Bless me!” said the old woman as one thing after another
appeared; and she wanted to know where her husband had got the mill
from, but he would not tell her that.

“Never mind where I got it; you can see that it is a good one, and the
water that turns it will never freeze,” said the man. So he ground meat
and drink, and all kinds of good things, to last all Christmas-tide, and
on the third day he invited all his friends to come to a feast.

Now when the rich brother saw all that there was at the banquet and in
the house, he was both vexed and angry, for he grudged everything his
brother had. “On Christmas Eve he was so poor that he came to me and
begged for a trifle, for God’s sake, and now he gives a feast as if he
were both a count and a king!” thought he. “But, for heaven’s sake, tell
me where you got your riches from,” said he to his brother.

“From behind the door,” said he who owned the mill, for he did not
choose to satisfy his brother on that point; but later in the evening,
when he had taken a drop too much, he could not refrain from telling how
he had come by the hand-mill. “There you see what has brought me all my
wealth!” said he, and brought out the mill, and made it grind first one
thing and then another. When the brother saw that, he insisted on having
the mill, and after a great deal of persuasion got it; but he had to
give three hundred dollars for it, and the poor brother was to keep it
till the haymaking was over, for he thought: “If I keep it as long as
that, I can make it grind meat and drink that will last many a long
year.” During that time you may imagine that the mill did not grow
rusty, and when hay-harvest came the rich brother got it, but the other
had taken good care not to teach him how to stop it. It was evening when
the rich man got the mill home, and in the morning he bade the old woman
go out and spread the hay after the mowers, and he would attend to the
house himself that day, he said.

So, when dinner-time drew near, he set the mill on the kitchen-table,
and said: “Grind herrings and milk pottage, and do it both quickly and
well.”

So the mill began to grind herrings and milk pottage, and first all
the dishes and tubs were filled, and then it came out all over the
kitchen-floor. The man twisted and turned it, and did all he could to
make the mill stop, but, howsoever he turned it and screwed it, the mill
went on grinding, and in a short time the pottage rose so high that the
man was like to be drowned. So he threw open the parlor door, but it was
not long before the mill had ground the parlor full too, and it was
with difficulty and danger that the man could go through the stream of
pottage and get hold of the door-latch. When he got the door open, he
did not stay long in the room, but ran out, and the herrings and pottage
came after him, and it streamed out over both farm and field. Now the
old woman, who was out spreading the hay, began to think dinner was long
in coming, and said to the women and the mowers: “Though the master does
not call us home, we may as well go. It may be that he finds he is not
good at making pottage and I should do well to help him.” So they began
to straggle homeward, but when they had got a little way up the hill
they met the herrings and pottage and bread, all pouring forth and
winding about one over the other, and the man himself in front of the
flood. “Would to heaven that each of you had a hundred stomachs! Take
care that you are not drowned in the pottage!” he cried as he went by
them as if Mischief were at his heels, down to where his brother dwelt.
Then he begged him, for God’s sake, to take the mill back again, and
that in an instant, for, said he: “If it grind one hour more the whole
district will be destroyed by herrings and pottage.” But the brother
would not take it until the other paid him three hundred dollars, and
that he was obliged to do. Now the poor brother had both the money and
the mill again. So it was not long before he had a farmhouse much finer
than that in which his brother lived, but the mill ground him so much
money that he covered it with plates of gold; and the farmhouse lay
close by the sea-shore, so it shone and glittered far out to sea.
Everyone who sailed by there now had to be put in to visit the rich man
in the gold farmhouse, and everyone wanted to see the wonderful mill,
for the report of it spread far and wide, and there was no one who had
not heard tell of it.

After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill.
He asked if it could make salt. “Yes, it could make salt,” said he who
owned it, and when the skipper heard that, he wished with all his might
and main to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought,
if he had it, he would get off having to sail far away over the perilous
sea for freights of salt. At first the man would not hear of parting
with it, but the skipper begged and prayed, and at last the man sold it
to him, and got many, many thousand dollars for it. When the skipper
had got the mill on his back he did not stay there long, for he was so
afraid that the man would change his mind, and he had no time to ask
how he was to stop it grinding, but got on board his ship as fast as he
could.

When he had gone a little way out to sea he took the mill on deck.
“Grind salt, and grind both quickly and well,” said the skipper. So the
mill began to grind salt, till it spouted out like water, and when
the skipper had got the ship filled he wanted to stop the mill, but
whichsoever way he turned it, and how much soever he tried, it went on
grinding, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher, until at last the
ship sank. There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day
by day, it grinds on; and that is why the sea is salt.(1)


(1) Asbjornsen and Moe.




THE MASTER CAT; OR, PUSS IN BOOTS


There was a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than
his mill, his ass, and his cat. The partition was soon made. Neither
scrivener nor attorney was sent for. They would soon have eaten up all
the poor patrimony. The eldest had the mill, the second the ass, and
the youngest nothing but the cat. The poor young fellow was quite
comfortless at having so poor a lot.

“My brothers,” said he, “may get their living handsomely enough by
joining their stocks together; but for my part, when I have eaten up my
cat, and made me a muff of his skin, I must die of hunger.”

The Cat, who heard all this, but made as if he did not, said to him with
a grave and serious air:

“Do not thus afflict yourself, my good master. You have nothing else to
do but to give me a bag and get a pair of boots made for me that I may
scamper through the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you
have not so bad a portion in me as you imagine.”

The Cat’s master did not build very much upon what he said. He had often
seen him play a great many cunning tricks to catch rats and mice, as
when he used to hang by the heels, or hide himself in the meal, and
make as if he were dead; so that he did not altogether despair of his
affording him some help in his miserable condition. When the Cat had
what he asked for he booted himself very gallantly, and putting his bag
about his neck, he held the strings of it in his two forepaws and went
into a warren where was great abundance of rabbits. He put bran and
sow-thistle into his bag, and stretching out at length, as if he had
been dead, he waited for some young rabbits, not yet acquainted with the
deceits of the world, to come and rummage his bag for what he had put
into it.

Scarce was he lain down but he had what he wanted. A rash and foolish
young rabbit jumped into his bag, and Monsieur Puss, immediately drawing
close the strings, took and killed him without pity. Proud of his prey,
he went with it to the palace and asked to speak with his majesty.
He was shown upstairs into the King’s apartment, and, making a low
reverence, said to him:

“I have brought you, sir, a rabbit of the warren, which my noble lord
the Marquis of Carabas” (for that was the title which puss was pleased
to give his master) “has commanded me to present to your majesty from
him.”

“Tell thy master,” said the king, “that I thank him and that he does me
a great deal of pleasure.”

Another time he went and hid himself among some standing corn, holding
still his bag open, and when a brace of partridges ran into it he drew
the strings and so caught them both. He went and made a present of these
to the king, as he had done before of the rabbit which he took in the
warren. The king, in like manner, received the partridges with great
pleasure, and ordered him some money for drink.

The Cat continued for two or three months thus to carry his Majesty,
from time to time, game of his master’s taking. One day in particular,
when he knew for certain that he was to take the air along the
river-side, with his daughter, the most beautiful princess in the world,
he said to his master:

“If you will follow my advice your fortune is made. You have nothing
else to do but go and wash yourself in the river, in that part I shall
show you, and leave the rest to me.”

The Marquis of Carabas did what the Cat advised him to, without knowing
why or wherefore. While he was washing the King passed by, and the Cat
began to cry out:

“Help! help! My Lord Marquis of Carabas is going to be drowned.”

At this noise the King put his head out of the coach-window, and,
finding it was the Cat who had so often brought him such good game,
he commanded his guards to run immediately to the assistance of his
Lordship the Marquis of Carabas. While they were drawing the poor
Marquis out of the river, the Cat came up to the coach and told the King
that, while his master was washing, there came by some rogues, who
went off with his clothes, though he had cried out: “Thieves! thieves!”
 several times, as loud as he could.

This cunning Cat had hidden them under a great stone. The King
immediately commanded the officers of his wardrobe to run and fetch one
of his best suits for the Lord Marquis of Carabas.

The King caressed him after a very extraordinary manner, and as the fine
clothes he had given him extremely set off his good mien (for he was
well made and very handsome in his person), the King’s daughter took a
secret inclination to him, and the Marquis of Carabas had no sooner cast
two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances but she fell in love
with him to distraction. The King would needs have him come into the
coach and take part of the airing. The Cat, quite overjoyed to see his
project begin to succeed, marched on before, and, meeting with some
countrymen, who were mowing a meadow, he said to them:

“Good people, you who are mowing, if you do not tell the King that
the meadow you mow belongs to my Lord Marquis of Carabas, you shall be
chopped as small as herbs for the pot.”

The King did not fail asking of the mowers to whom the meadow they were
mowing belonged.

“To my Lord Marquis of Carabas,” answered they altogether, for the Cat’s
threats had made them terribly afraid.

“You see, sir,” said the Marquis, “this is a meadow which never fails to
yield a plentiful harvest every year.”

The Master Cat, who went still on before, met with some reapers, and
said to them:

“Good people, you who are reaping, if you do not tell the King that all
this corn belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as
small as herbs for the pot.”

The King, who passed by a moment after, would needs know to whom all
that corn, which he then saw, did belong.

“To my Lord Marquis of Carabas,” replied the reapers, and the King was
very well pleased with it, as well as the Marquis, whom he congratulated
thereupon. The Master Cat, who went always before, said the same words
to all he met, and the King was astonished at the vast estates of my
Lord Marquis of Carabas.

Monsieur Puss came at last to a stately castle, the master of which was
an ogre, the richest had ever been known; for all the lands which the
King had then gone over belonged to this castle. The Cat, who had taken
care to inform himself who this ogre was and what he could do, asked
to speak with him, saying he could not pass so near his castle without
having the honor of paying his respects to him.

The ogre received him as civilly as an ogre could do, and made him sit
down.

“I have been assured,” said the Cat, “that you have the gift of being
able to change yourself into all sorts of creatures you have a mind to;
you can, for example, transform yourself into a lion, or elephant, and
the like.”

“That is true,” answered the ogre very briskly; “and to convince you,
you shall see me now become a lion.”

Puss was so sadly terrified at the sight of a lion so near him that he
immediately got into the gutter, not without abundance of trouble and
danger, because of his boots, which were of no use at all to him in
walking upon the tiles. A little while after, when Puss saw that the
ogre had resumed his natural form, he came down, and owned he had been
very much frightened.

“I have been, moreover, informed,” said the Cat, “but I know not how to
believe it, that you have also the power to take on you the shape of the
smallest animals; for example, to change yourself into a rat or a mouse;
but I must own to you I take this to be impossible.”

“Impossible!” cried the ogre; “you shall see that presently.”

And at the same time he changed himself into a mouse, and began to run
about the floor. Puss no sooner perceived this but he fell upon him and
ate him up.

Meanwhile the King, who saw, as he passed, this fine castle of the
ogre’s, had a mind to go into it. Puss, who heard the noise of his
Majesty’s coach running over the draw-bridge, ran out, and said to the
King:

“Your Majesty is welcome to this castle of my Lord Marquis of Carabas.”

“What! my Lord Marquis,” cried the King, “and does this castle also
belong to you? There can be nothing finer than this court and all the
stately buildings which surround it; let us go into it, if you please.”

The Marquis gave his hand to the Princess, and followed the King,
who went first. They passed into a spacious hall, where they found a
magnificent collation, which the ogre had prepared for his friends, who
were that very day to visit him, but dared not to enter, knowing
the King was there. His Majesty was perfectly charmed with the good
qualities of my Lord Marquis of Carabas, as was his daughter, who
had fallen violently in love with him, and, seeing the vast estate he
possessed, said to him, after having drunk five or six glasses:

“It will be owing to yourself only, my Lord Marquis, if you are not my
son-in-law.”

The Marquis, making several low bows, accepted the honor which his
Majesty conferred upon him, and forthwith, that very same day, married
the Princess.

Puss became a great lord, and never ran after mice any more but only for
his diversion.(1)


(1) Charles Perrault.




FELICIA AND THE POT OF PINKS


Once upon a time there was a poor laborer who, feeling that he had not
much longer to live, wished to divide his possessions between his son
and daughter, whom he loved dearly.

So he called them to him, and said: “Your mother brought me as her dowry
two stools and a straw bed; I have, besides, a hen, a pot of pinks, and
a silver ring, which were given me by a noble lady who once lodged in my
poor cottage. When she went away she said to me:

“‘Be careful of my gifts, good man; see that you do not lose the ring or
forget to water the pinks. As for your daughter, I promise you that she
shall be more beautiful than anyone you ever saw in your life; call her
Felicia, and when she grows up give her the ring and the pot of pinks to
console her for her poverty.’ Take them both, then, my dear child,” he
added, “and your brother shall have everything else.”

The two children seemed quite contented, and when their father died they
wept for him, and divided his possessions as he had told them. Felicia
believed that her brother loved her, but when she sat down upon one of
the stools he said angrily:

“Keep your pot of pinks and your ring, but let my things alone. I like
order in my house.”

Felicia, who was very gentle, said nothing, but stood up crying quietly;
while Bruno, for that was her brother’s name, sat comfortably by the
fire. Presently, when supper-time came, Bruno had a delicious egg, and
he threw the shell to Felicia, saying:

“There, that is all I can give you; if you don’t like it, go out and
catch frogs; there are plenty of them in the marsh close by.” Felicia
did not answer, but she cried more bitterly than ever, and went away
to her own little room. She found it filled with the sweet scent of the
pinks, and, going up to them, she said sadly:

“Beautiful pinks, you are so sweet and so pretty, you are the only
comfort I have left. Be very sure that I will take care of you, and
water you well, and never allow any cruel hand to tear you from your
stems.”

As she leaned over them she noticed that they were very dry. So taking
her pitcher, she ran off in the clear moonlight to the fountain, which
was at some distance. When she reached it she sat down upon the brink
to rest, but she had hardly done so when she saw a stately lady coming
toward her, surrounded by numbers of attendants. Six maids of honor
carried her train, and she leaned upon the arm of another.

When they came near the fountain a canopy was spread for her, under
which was placed a sofa of cloth-of-gold, and presently a dainty supper
was served, upon a table covered with dishes of gold and crystal, while
the wind in the trees and the falling water of the fountain murmured the
softest music.

Felicia was hidden in the shade, too much astonished by all she saw to
venture to move; but in a few moments the Queen said:

“I fancy I see a shepherdess near that tree; bid her come hither.”

So Felicia came forward and saluted the Queen timidly, but with so much
grace that all were surprised.

“What are you doing here, my pretty child?” asked the Queen. “Are you
not afraid of robbers?”

“Ah! madam,” said Felicia, “a poor shepherdess who has nothing to lose
does not fear robbers.”

“You are not very rich, then?” said the Queen, smiling.

“I am so poor,” answered Felicia, “that a pot of pinks and a silver ring
are my only possessions in the world.”

“But you have a heart,” said the Queen. “What should you say if anybody
wanted to steal that?”

“I do not know what it is like to lose one’s heart, madam,” she replied;
“but I have always heard that without a heart one cannot live, and if it
is broken one must die; and in spite of my poverty I should be sorry not
to live.”

“You are quite right to take care of your heart, pretty one,” said the
Queen. “But tell me, have you supped?”

“No, madam,” answered Felicia; “my brother ate all the supper there
was.”

Then the Queen ordered that a place should be made for her at the table,
and herself loaded Felicia’s plate with good things; but she was too
much astonished to be hungry.

“I want to know what you were doing at the fountain so late?” said the
Queen presently.

“I came to fetch a pitcher of water for my pinks, madam,” she answered,
stooping to pick up the pitcher which stood beside her; but when she
showed it to the Queen she was amazed to see that it had turned to gold,
all sparkling with great diamonds, and the water, of which it was full,
was more fragrant than the sweetest roses. She was afraid to take it
until the Queen said:

“It is yours, Felicia; go and water your pinks with it, and let it
remind you that the Queen of the Woods is your friend.”

The shepherdess threw herself at the Queen’s feet, and thanked her
humbly for her gracious words.

“Ah! madam,” she cried, “if I might beg you to stay here a moment I
would run and fetch my pot of pinks for you--they could not fall into
better hands.”

“Go, Felicia,” said the Queen, stroking her cheek softly; “I will wait
here until you come back.”

So Felicia took up her pitcher and ran to her little room, but while she
had been away Bruno had gone in and taken the pot of pinks, leaving a
great cabbage in its place. When she saw the unlucky cabbage Felicia was
much distressed, and did not know what to do; but at last she ran back
to the fountain, and, kneeling before the Queen, said:

“Madam, Bruno has stolen my pot of pinks, so I have nothing but my
silver ring; but I beg you to accept it as a proof of my gratitude.”

“But if I take your ring, my pretty shepherdess,” said the Queen, “you
will have nothing left; and what will you do then?”

“Ah! madam,” she answered simply, “if I have your friendship I shall do
very well.”

So the Queen took the ring and put it on her finger, and mounted her
chariot, which was made of coral studded with emeralds, and drawn by six
milk-white horses. And Felicia looked after her until the winding of
the forest path hid her from her sight, and then she went back to the
cottage, thinking over all the wonderful things that had happened.

The first thing she did when she reached her room was to throw the
cabbage out of the window.

But she was very much surprised to hear an odd little voice cry out:
“Oh! I am half killed!” and could not tell where it came from, because
cabbages do not generally speak.

As soon as it was light, Felicia, who was very unhappy about her pot of
pinks, went out to look for it, and the first thing she found was the
unfortunate cabbage. She gave it a push with her foot, saying: “What are
you doing here, and how dared you put yourself in the place of my pot of
pinks?”

“If I hadn’t been carried,” replied the cabbage, “you may be very sure
that I shouldn’t have thought of going there.”

It made her shiver with fright to hear the cabbage talk, but he went on:

“If you will be good enough to plant me by my comrades again, I can tell
you where your pinks are at this moment--hidden in Bruno’s bed!”

Felicia was in despair when she heard this, not knowing how she was
to get them back. But she replanted the cabbage very kindly in his old
place, and, as she finished doing it, she saw Bruno’s hen, and said,
catching hold of it:

“Come here, horrid little creature! you shall suffer for all the unkind
things my brother has done to me.”

“Ah! shepherdess,” said the hen, “don’t kill me; I am rather a gossip,
and I can tell you some surprising things that you will like to hear.
Don’t imagine that you are the daughter of the poor laborer who brought
you up; your mother was a queen who had six girls already, and the King
threatened that unless she had a son who could inherit his kingdom she
should have her head cut off.

“So when the Queen had another little daughter she was quite frightened,
and agreed with her sister (who was a fairy) to exchange her for the
fairy’s little son. Now the Queen had been shut up in a great tower
by the King’s orders, and when a great many days went by and still she
heard nothing from the Fairy she made her escape from the window by
means of a rope ladder, taking her little baby with her. After wandering
about until she was half dead with cold and fatigue she reached this
cottage. I was the laborer’s wife, and was a good nurse, and the Queen
gave you into my charge, and told me all her misfortunes, and then died
before she had time to say what was to become of you.

“As I never in all my life could keep a secret, I could not help telling
this strange tale to my neighbors, and one day a beautiful lady came
here, and I told it to her also. When I had finished she touched me with
a wand she held in her hand, and instantly I became a hen, and there was
an end of my talking! I was very sad, and my husband, who was out
when it happened, never knew what had become of me. After seeking me
everywhere he believed that I must have been drowned, or eaten up by
wild beasts in the forest. That same lady came here once more, and
commanded that you should be called Felicia, and left the ring and
the pot of pinks to be given to you; and while she was in the house
twenty-five of the King’s guards came to search for you, doubtless
meaning to kill you; but she muttered a few words, and immediately they
all turned into cabbages. It was one of them whom you threw out of your
window yesterday.

“I don’t know how it was that he could speak--I have never heard either
of them say a word before, nor have I been able to do it myself until
now.”

The Princess was greatly astonished at the hen’s story, and said kindly:
“I am truly sorry for you, my poor nurse, and wish it was in my power to
restore you to your real form. But we must not despair; it seems to
me, after what you have told me, that something must be going to happen
soon. Just now, however, I must go and look for my pinks, which I love
better than anything in the world.”

Bruno had gone out into the forest, never thinking that Felicia
would search in his room for the pinks, and she was delighted by
his unexpected absence, and thought to get them back without further
trouble. But as soon as she entered the room she saw a terrible army
of rats, who were guarding the straw bed; and when she attempted to
approach it they sprang at her, biting and scratching furiously. Quite
terrified, she drew back, crying out: “Oh! my dear pinks, how can you
stay here in such bad company?”

Then she suddenly bethought herself of the pitcher of water, and, hoping
that it might have some magic power, she ran to fetch it, and sprinkled
a few drops over the fierce-looking swarm of rats. In a moment not a
tail or a whisker was to be seen. Each one had made for his hole as fast
as his legs could carry him, so that the Princess could safely take her
pot of pinks. She found them nearly dying for want of water, and hastily
poured all that was left in the pitcher upon them. As she bent over
them, enjoying their delicious scent, a soft voice, that seemed to
rustle among the leaves, said:

“Lovely Felicia, the day has come at last when I may have the happiness
of telling you how even the flowers love you and rejoice in your
beauty.”

The Princess, quite overcome by the strangeness of hearing a cabbage,
a hen, and a pink speak, and by the terrible sight of an army of rats,
suddenly became very pale, and fainted away.

At this moment in came Bruno. Working hard in the heat had not improved
his temper, and when he saw that Felicia had succeeded in finding her
pinks he was so angry that he dragged her out into the garden and shut
the door upon her. The fresh air soon made her open her pretty eyes, and
there before her stood the Queen of the Woods, looking as charming as
ever.

“You have a bad brother,” she said; “I saw he turned you out. Shall I
punish him for it?”

“Ah! no, madam,” she said; “I am not angry with him.

“But supposing he was not your brother, after all, what would you say
then?” asked the Queen.

“Oh! but I think he must be,” said Felicia.

“What!” said the Queen, “have you not heard that you are a Princess?”

“I was told so a little while ago, madam, but how could I believe it
without a single proof?”

“Ah! dear child,” said the Queen, “the way you speak assures me that, in
spite of your humble upbringing, you are indeed a real princess, and I
can save you from being treated in such a way again.”

She was interrupted at this moment by the arrival of a very handsome
young man. He wore a coat of green velvet fastened with emerald clasps,
and had a crown of pinks on his head. He knelt upon one knee and kissed
the Queen’s hand.

“Ah!” she cried, “my pink, my dear son, what a happiness to see you
restored to your natural shape by Felicia’s aid!” And she embraced him
joyfully. Then, turning to Felicia, she said:

“Charming Princess, I know all the hen told you, but you cannot have
heard that the zephyrs, to whom was entrusted the task of carrying my
son to the tower where the Queen, your mother, so anxiously waited for
him, left him instead in a garden of flowers, while they flew off to
tell your mother. Whereupon a fairy with whom I had quarrelled changed
him into a pink, and I could do nothing to prevent it.

“You can imagine how angry I was, and how I tried to find some means of
undoing the mischief she had done; but there was no help for it. I could
only bring Prince Pink to the place where you were being brought up,
hoping that when you grew up he might love you, and by your care be
restored to his natural form. And you see everything has come right, as
I hoped it would. Your giving me the silver ring was the sign that the
power of the charm was nearly over, and my enemy’s last chance was to
frighten you with her army of rats. That she did not succeed in doing;
so now, my dear Felicia, if you will be married to my son with this
silver ring your future happiness is certain. Do you think him handsome
and amiable enough to be willing to marry him?”

“Madam,” replied Felicia, blushing, “you overwhelm me with your
kindness. I know that you are my mother’s sister, and that by your art
you turned the soldiers who were sent to kill me into cabbages, and my
nurse into a hen, and that you do me only too much honor in proposing
that I shall marry your son. How can I explain to you the cause of my
hesitation? I feel, for the first time in my life, how happy it would
make me to be beloved. Can you indeed give me the Prince’s heart?”

“It is yours already, lovely Princess!” he cried, taking her hand in
his; “but for the horrible enchantment which kept me silent I should
have told you long ago how dearly I love you.”

This made the Princess very happy, and the Queen, who could not bear
to see her dressed like a poor shepherdess, touched her with her wand,
saying:

“I wish you to be attired as befits your rank and beauty.” And
immediately the Princess’s cotton dress became a magnificent robe of
silver brocade embroidered with carbuncles, and her soft dark hair was
encircled by a crown of diamonds, from which floated a clear white veil.
With her bright eyes, and the charming color in her cheeks, she was
altogether such a dazzling sight that the Prince could hardly bear it.

“How pretty you are, Felicia!” he cried. “Don’t keep me in suspense, I
entreat you; say that you will marry me.”

“Ah!” said the Queen, smiling, “I think she will not refuse now.”

Just then Bruno, who was going back to his work, came out of the
cottage, and thought he must be dreaming when he saw Felicia; but she
called him very kindly, and begged the Queen to take pity on him.

“What!” she said, “when he was so unkind to you?”

“Ah! madam,” said the Princess, “I am so happy that I should like
everybody else to be happy too.”

The Queen kissed her, and said: “Well, to please you, let me see what I
can do for this cross Bruno.” And with a wave of her wand she turned the
poor little cottage into a splendid palace, full of treasures; only the
two stools and the straw bed remained just as they were, to remind him
of his former poverty. Then the Queen touched Bruno himself, and made
him gentle and polite and grateful, and he thanked her and the Princess
a thousand times. Lastly, the Queen restored the hen and the cabbages
to their natural forms, and left them all very contented. The Prince and
Princess were married as soon as possible with great splendor, and lived
happily ever after.(1)


(1) Fortunee. Par Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy.




THE WHITE CAT


Once upon a time there was a king who had three sons, who were all so
clever and brave that he began to be afraid that they would want to
reign over the kingdom before he was dead. Now the King, though he felt
that he was growing old, did not at all wish to give up the government
of his kingdom while he could still manage it very well, so he thought
the best way to live in peace would be to divert the minds of his sons
by promises which he could always get out of when the time came for
keeping them.

So he sent for them all, and, after speaking to them kindly, he added:

“You will quite agree with me, my dear children, that my great age makes
it impossible for me to look after my affairs of state as carefully as
I once did. I begin to fear that this may affect the welfare of my
subjects, therefore I wish that one of you should succeed to my crown;
but in return for such a gift as this it is only right that you should
do something for me. Now, as I think of retiring into the country, it
seems to me that a pretty, lively, faithful little dog would be very
good company for me; so, without any regard for your ages, I promise
that the one who brings me the most beautiful little dog shall succeed
me at once.”

The three Princes were greatly surprised by their father’s sudden fancy
for a little dog, but as it gave the two younger ones a chance they
would not otherwise have had of being king, and as the eldest was
too polite to make any objection, they accepted the commission with
pleasure. They bade farewell to the King, who gave them presents of
silver and precious stones, and appointed to meet them at the same hour,
in the same place, after a year had passed, to see the little dogs they
had brought for him.

Then they went together to a castle which was about a league from the
city, accompanied by all their particular friends, to whom they gave a
grand banquet, and the three brothers promised to be friends always,
to share whatever good fortune befell them, and not to be parted by
any envy or jealousy; and so they set out, agreeing to meet at the same
castle at the appointed time, to present themselves before the King
together. Each one took a different road, and the two eldest met with
many adventures; but it is about the youngest that you are going to
hear. He was young, and gay, and handsome, and knew everything that a
prince ought to know; and as for his courage, there was simply no end to
it.

Hardly a day passed without his buying several dogs--big and little,
greyhounds, mastiffs, spaniels, and lapdogs. As soon as he had bought a
pretty one he was sure to see a still prettier, and then he had to get
rid of all the others and buy that one, as, being alone, he found it
impossible to take thirty or forty thousand dogs about with him. He
journeyed from day to day, not knowing where he was going, until at
last, just at nightfall, he reached a great, gloomy forest. He did not
know his way, and, to make matters worse, it began to thunder, and
the rain poured down. He took the first path he could find, and after
walking for a long time he fancied he saw a faint light, and began to
hope that he was coming to some cottage where he might find shelter for
the night. At length, guided by the light, he reached the door of the
most splendid castle he could have imagined. This door was of gold
covered with carbuncles, and it was the pure red light which shone from
them that had shown him the way through the forest. The walls were of
the finest porcelain in all the most delicate colors, and the Prince saw
that all the stories he had ever read were pictured upon them; but as he
was terribly wet, and the rain still fell in torrents, he could not stay
to look about any more, but came back to the golden door. There he saw
a deer’s foot hanging by a chain of diamonds, and he began to wonder who
could live in this magnificent castle.

“They must feel very secure against robbers,” he said to himself. “What
is to hinder anyone from cutting off that chain and digging out those
carbuncles, and making himself rich for life?”

He pulled the deer’s foot, and immediately a silver bell sounded and the
door flew open, but the Prince could see nothing but numbers of hands
in the air, each holding a torch. He was so much surprised that he stood
quite still, until he felt himself pushed forward by other hands, so
that, though he was somewhat uneasy, he could not help going on. With
his hand on his sword, to be prepared for whatever might happen, he
entered a hall paved with lapis-lazuli, while two lovely voices sang:


     “The hands you see floating above
       Will swiftly your bidding obey;
     If your heart dreads not conquering Love,
       In this place you may fearlessly stay.”


The Prince could not believe that any danger threatened him when he was
welcomed in this way, so, guided by the mysterious hands, he went toward
a door of coral, which opened of its own accord, and he found himself
in a vast hall of mother-of-pearl, out of which opened a number of other
rooms, glittering with thousands of lights, and full of such beautiful
pictures and precious things that the Prince felt quite bewildered.
After passing through sixty rooms the hands that conducted him stopped,
and the Prince saw a most comfortable-looking arm-chair drawn up close
to the chimney-corner; at the same moment the fire lighted itself, and
the pretty, soft, clever hands took off the Prince’s wet, muddy clothes,
and presented him with fresh ones made of the richest stuffs, all
embroidered with gold and emeralds. He could not help admiring
everything he saw, and the deft way in which the hands waited on him,
though they sometimes appeared so suddenly that they made him jump.

When he was quite ready--and I can assure you that he looked very
different from the wet and weary Prince who had stood outside in the
rain, and pulled the deer’s foot--the hands led him to a splendid room,
upon the walls of which were painted the histories of Puss in Boots and
a number of other famous cats. The table was laid for supper with
two golden plates, and golden spoons and forks, and the sideboard was
covered with dishes and glasses of crystal set with precious stones. The
Prince was wondering who the second place could be for, when suddenly
in came about a dozen cats carrying guitars and rolls of music, who took
their places at one end of the room, and under the direction of a cat
who beat time with a roll of paper began to mew in every imaginable key,
and to draw their claws across the strings of the guitars, making the
strangest kind of music that could be heard. The Prince hastily stopped
up his ears, but even then the sight of these comical musicians sent him
into fits of laughter.

“What funny thing shall I see next?” he said to himself, and instantly
the door opened, and in came a tiny figure covered by a long black veil.
It was conducted by two cats wearing black mantles and carrying swords,
and a large party of cats followed, who brought in cages full of rats
and mice.

The Prince was so much astonished that he thought he must be dreaming,
but the little figure came up to him and threw back its veil, and he saw
that it was the loveliest little white cat it is possible to imagine.
She looked very young and very sad, and in a sweet little voice that
went straight to his heart she said to the Prince:

“King’s son, you are welcome; the Queen of the Cats is glad to see you.”

“Lady Cat,” replied the Prince, “I thank you for receiving me so kindly,
but surely you are no ordinary pussy-cat? Indeed, the way you speak and
the magnificence of your castle prove it plainly.”

“King’s son,” said the White Cat, “I beg you to spare me these
compliments, for I am not used to them. But now,” she added, “let supper
be served, and let the musicians be silent, as the Prince does not
understand what they are saying.”

So the mysterious hands began to bring in the supper, and first they put
on the table two dishes, one containing stewed pigeons and the other a
fricassee of fat mice. The sight of the latter made the Prince feel as
if he could not enjoy his supper at all; but the White Cat, seeing this,
assured him that the dishes intended for him were prepared in a separate
kitchen, and he might be quite certain that they contained neither rats
nor mice; and the Prince felt so sure that she would not deceive him
that he had no more hesitation in beginning. Presently he noticed
that on the little paw that was next him the White Cat wore a bracelet
containing a portrait, and he begged to be allowed to look at it. To his
great surprise he found it represented an extremely handsome young man,
who was so like himself that it might have been his own portrait! The
White Cat sighed as he looked at it, and seemed sadder than ever, and
the Prince dared not ask any questions for fear of displeasing her; so
he began to talk about other things, and found that she was interested
in all the subjects he cared for himself, and seemed to know quite well
what was going on in the world. After supper they went into another
room, which was fitted up as a theatre, and the cats acted and danced
for their amusement, and then the White Cat said good-night to him, and
the hands conducted him into a room he had not seen before, hung with
tapestry worked with butterflies’ wings of every color; there were
mirrors that reached from the ceiling to the floor, and a little white
bed with curtains of gauze tied up with ribbons. The Prince went to bed
in silence, as he did not quite know how to begin a conversation with
the hands that waited on him, and in the morning he was awakened by
a noise and confusion outside of his window, and the hands came and
quickly dressed him in hunting costume. When he looked out all the cats
were assembled in the courtyard, some leading greyhounds, some blowing
horns, for the White Cat was going out hunting. The hands led a wooden
horse up to the Prince, and seemed to expect him to mount it, at which
he was very indignant; but it was no use for him to object, for he
speedily found himself upon its back, and it pranced gaily off with him.

The White Cat herself was riding a monkey, which climbed even up to
the eagles’ nests when she had a fancy for the young eaglets. Never was
there a pleasanter hunting party, and when they returned to the castle
the Prince and the White Cat supped together as before, but when they
had finished she offered him a crystal goblet, which must have contained
a magic draught, for, as soon as he had swallowed its contents, he
forgot everything, even the little dog that he was seeking for the King,
and only thought how happy he was to be with the White Cat! And so the
days passed, in every kind of amusement, until the year was nearly gone.
The Prince had forgotten all about meeting his brothers: he did not even
know what country he belonged to; but the White Cat knew when he ought
to go back, and one day she said to him:

“Do you know that you have only three days left to look for the little
dog for your father, and your brothers have found lovely ones?”

Then the Prince suddenly recovered his memory, and cried:

“What can have made me forget such an important thing? My whole fortune
depends upon it; and even if I could in such a short time find a dog
pretty enough to gain me a kingdom, where should I find a horse who
would carry me all that way in three days?” And he began to be very
vexed. But the White Cat said to him: “King’s son, do not trouble
yourself; I am your friend, and will make everything easy for you. You
can still stay here for a day, as the good wooden horse can take you to
your country in twelve hours.”

“I thank you, beautiful Cat,” said the Prince; “but what good will it do
me to get back if I have not a dog to take to my father?”

“See here,” answered the White Cat, holding up an acorn; “there is a
prettier one in this than in the Dogstar!”

“Oh! White Cat dear,” said the Prince, “how unkind you are to laugh at
me now!”

“Only listen,” she said, holding the acorn to his ear.

And inside it he distinctly heard a tiny voice say: “Bow-wow!”

The Prince was delighted, for a dog that can be shut up in an acorn must
be very small indeed. He wanted to take it out and look at it, but the
White Cat said it would be better not to open the acorn till he was
before the King, in case the tiny dog should be cold on the journey. He
thanked her a thousand times, and said good-by quite sadly when the time
came for him to set out.

“The days have passed so quickly with you,” he said, “I only wish I
could take you with me now.”

But the White Cat shook her head and sighed deeply in answer.

After all the Prince was the first to arrive at the castle where he had
agreed to meet his brothers, but they came soon after, and stared in
amazement when they saw the wooden horse in the courtyard jumping like a
hunter.

The Prince met them joyfully, and they began to tell him all their
adventures; but he managed to hide from them what he had been doing, and
even led them to think that a turnspit dog which he had with him was the
one he was bringing for the King. Fond as they all were of one another,
the two eldest could not help being glad to think that their dogs
certainly had a better chance. The next morning they started in the same
chariot. The elder brothers carried in baskets two such tiny, fragile
dogs that they hardly dared to touch them. As for the turnspit, he ran
after the chariot, and got so covered with mud that one could hardly see
what he was like at all. When they reached the palace everyone crowded
round to welcome them as they went into the King’s great hall; and when
the two brothers presented their little dogs nobody could decide which
was the prettier. They were already arranging between themselves to
share the kingdom equally, when the youngest stepped forward, drawing
from his pocket the acorn the White Cat had given him. He opened it
quickly, and there upon a white cushion they saw a dog so small that it
could easily have been put through a ring. The Prince laid it upon the
ground, and it got up at once and began to dance. The King did not know
what to say, for it was impossible that anything could be prettier than
this little creature. Nevertheless, as he was in no hurry to part with
his crown, he told his sons that, as they had been so successful the
first time, he would ask them to go once again, and seek by land and sea
for a piece of muslin so fine that it could be drawn through the eye of
a needle. The brothers were not very willing to set out again, but
the two eldest consented because it gave them another chance, and they
started as before. The youngest again mounted the wooden horse, and rode
back at full speed to his beloved White Cat. Every door of the castle
stood wide open, and every window and turret was illuminated, so it
looked more wonderful than before. The hands hastened to meet him, and
led the wooden horse off to the stable, while he hurried in to find the
White Cat. She was asleep in a little basket on a white satin cushion,
but she very soon started up when she heard the Prince, and was
overjoyed at seeing him once more.

“How could I hope that you would come back to me King’s son?” she said.
And then he stroked and petted her, and told her of his successful
journey, and how he had come back to ask her help, as he believed that
it was impossible to find what the King demanded. The White Cat looked
serious, and said she must think what was to be done, but that, luckily,
there were some cats in the castle who could spin very well, and if
anybody could manage it they could, and she would set them the task
herself.

And then the hands appeared carrying torches, and conducted the Prince
and the White Cat to a long gallery which overlooked the river, from
the windows of which they saw a magnificent display of fireworks of all
sorts; after which they had supper, which the Prince liked even better
than the fireworks, for it was very late, and he was hungry after his
long ride. And so the days passed quickly as before; it was impossible
to feel dull with the White Cat, and she had quite a talent for
inventing new amusements--indeed, she was cleverer than a cat has any
right to be. But when the Prince asked her how it was that she was so
wise, she only said:

“King’s son, do not ask me; guess what you please. I may not tell you
anything.”

The Prince was so happy that he did not trouble himself at all about the
time, but presently the White Cat told him that the year was gone, and
that he need not be at all anxious about the piece of muslin, as they
had made it very well.

“This time,” she added, “I can give you a suitable escort”; and on
looking out into the courtyard the Prince saw a superb chariot of
burnished gold, enameled in flame color with a thousand different
devices. It was drawn by twelve snow-white horses, harnessed four
abreast; their trappings were flame-colored velvet, embroidered with
diamonds. A hundred chariots followed, each drawn by eight horses,
and filled with officers in splendid uniforms, and a thousand guards
surrounded the procession. “Go!” said the White Cat, “and when you
appear before the King in such state he surely will not refuse you the
crown which you deserve. Take this walnut, but do not open it until you
are before him, then you will find in it the piece of stuff you asked me
for.”

“Lovely Blanchette,” said the Prince, “how can I thank you properly for
all your kindness to me? Only tell me that you wish it, and I will
give up for ever all thought of being king, and will stay here with you
always.”

“King’s son,” she replied, “it shows the goodness of your heart that you
should care so much for a little white cat, who is good for nothing but
to catch mice; but you must not stay.”

So the Prince kissed her little paw and set out. You can imagine how
fast he traveled when I tell you that they reached the King’s palace in
just half the time it had taken the wooden horse to get there. This time
the Prince was so late that he did not try to meet his brothers at their
castle, so they thought he could not be coming, and were rather glad of
it, and displayed their pieces of muslin to the King proudly, feeling
sure of success. And indeed the stuff was very fine, and would go
through the eye of a very large needle; but the King, who was only too
glad to make a difficulty, sent for a particular needle, which was kept
among the Crown jewels, and had such a small eye that everybody saw at
once that it was impossible that the muslin should pass through it. The
Princes were angry, and were beginning to complain that it was a trick,
when suddenly the trumpets sounded and the youngest Prince came in. His
father and brothers were quite astonished at his magnificence, and after
he had greeted them he took the walnut from his pocket and opened it,
fully expecting to find the piece of muslin, but instead there was only
a hazel-nut. He cracked it, and there lay a cherry-stone. Everybody was
looking on, and the King was chuckling to himself at the idea of finding
the piece of muslin in a nutshell.

However, the Prince cracked the cherry-stone, but everyone laughed when
he saw it contained only its own kernel. He opened that and found a
grain of wheat, and in that was a millet seed. Then he himself began to
wonder, and muttered softly:

“White Cat, White Cat, are you making fun of me?”

In an instant he felt a cat’s claw give his hand quite a sharp scratch,
and hoping that it was meant as an encouragement he opened the millet
seed, and drew out of it a piece of muslin four hundred ells long, woven
with the loveliest colors and most wonderful patterns; and when the
needle was brought it went through the eye six times with the greatest
ease! The King turned pale, and the other Princes stood silent and
sorrowful, for nobody could deny that this was the most marvelous piece
of muslin that was to be found in the world.

Presently the King turned to his sons, and said, with a deep sigh:

“Nothing could console me more in my old age than to realize your
willingness to gratify my wishes. Go then once more, and whoever at the
end of a year can bring back the loveliest princess shall be married
to her, and shall, without further delay, receive the crown, for my
successor must certainly be married.” The Prince considered that he had
earned the kingdom fairly twice over but still he was too well bred
to argue about it, so he just went back to his gorgeous chariot, and,
surrounded by his escort, returned to the White Cat faster than he had
come. This time she was expecting him, the path was strewn with flowers,
and a thousand braziers were burning scented woods which perfumed the
air. Seated in a gallery from which she could see his arrival, the White
Cat waited for him. “Well, King’s son,” she said, “here you are once
more, without a crown.” “Madam,” said he, “thanks to your generosity I
have earned one twice over; but the fact is that my father is so loth to
part with it that it would be no pleasure to me to take it.”

“Never mind,” she answered, “it’s just as well to try and deserve it. As
you must take back a lovely princess with you next time I will be on
the look-out for one for you. In the meantime let us enjoy ourselves;
to-night I have ordered a battle between my cats and the river rats on
purpose to amuse you.” So this year slipped away even more pleasantly
than the preceding ones. Sometimes the Prince could not help asking the
White Cat how it was she could talk.

“Perhaps you are a fairy,” he said. “Or has some enchanter changed you
into a cat?”

But she only gave him answers that told him nothing. Days go by so
quickly when one is very happy that it is certain the Prince would never
have thought of its being time to go back, when one evening as they sat
together the White Cat said to him that if he wanted to take a lovely
princess home with him the next day he must be prepared to do what she
told him.

“Take this sword,” she said, “and cut off my head!”

“I!” cried the Prince, “I cut off your head! Blanchette darling, how
could I do it?”

“I entreat you to do as I tell you, King’s son,” she replied.

The tears came into the Prince’s eyes as he begged her to ask him
anything but that--to set him any task she pleased as a proof of his
devotion, but to spare him the grief of killing his dear Pussy. But
nothing he could say altered her determination, and at last he drew his
sword, and desperately, with a trembling hand, cut off the little white
head. But imagine his astonishment and delight when suddenly a lovely
princess stood before him, and, while he was still speechless with
amazement, the door opened and a goodly company of knights and ladies
entered, each carrying a cat’s skin! They hastened with every sign of
joy to the Princess, kissing her hand and congratulating her on being
once more restored to her natural shape. She received them graciously,
but after a few minutes begged that they would leave her alone with the
Prince, to whom she said:

“You see, Prince, that you were right in supposing me to be no ordinary
cat. My father reigned over six kingdoms. The Queen, my mother, whom he
loved dearly, had a passion for traveling and exploring, and when I
was only a few weeks old she obtained his permission to visit a certain
mountain of which she had heard many marvelous tales, and set out,
taking with her a number of her attendants. On the way they had to pass
near an old castle belonging to the fairies. Nobody had ever been into
it, but it was reported to be full of the most wonderful things, and
my mother remembered to have heard that the fairies had in their garden
such fruits as were to be seen and tasted nowhere else. She began to
wish to try them for herself, and turned her steps in the direction of
the garden. On arriving at the door, which blazed with gold and jewels,
she ordered her servants to knock loudly, but it was useless; it seemed
as if all the inhabitants of the castle must be asleep or dead. Now the
more difficult it became to obtain the fruit, the more the Queen was
determined that have it she would. So she ordered that they should bring
ladders, and get over the wall into the garden; but though the wall did
not look very high, and they tied the ladders together to make them very
long, it was quite impossible to get to the top.

“The Queen was in despair, but as night was coming on she ordered
that they should encamp just where they were, and went to bed herself,
feeling quite ill, she was so disappointed. In the middle of the night
she was suddenly awakened, and saw to her surprise a tiny, ugly old
woman seated by her bedside, who said to her:

“‘I must say that we consider it somewhat troublesome of your Majesty to
insist upon tasting our fruit; but to save you annoyance, my sisters
and I will consent to give you as much as you can carry away, on one
condition--that is, that you shall give us your little daughter to bring
up as our own.’

“‘Ah! my dear madam,’ cried the Queen, ‘is there nothing else that you
will take for the fruit? I will give you my kingdoms willingly.’

“‘No,’ replied the old fairy, ‘we will have nothing but your little
daughter. She shall be as happy as the day is long, and we will give her
everything that is worth having in fairy-land, but you must not see her
again until she is married.’

“‘Though it is a hard condition,’ said the Queen, ‘I consent, for I
shall certainly die if I do not taste the fruit, and so I should lose my
little daughter either way.’

“So the old fairy led her into the castle, and, though it was still the
middle of the night, the Queen could see plainly that it was far more
beautiful than she had been told, which you can easily believe, Prince,”
 said the White Cat, “when I tell you that it was this castle that we are
now in. ‘Will you gather the fruit yourself, Queen?’ said the old fairy,
‘or shall I call it to come to you?’

“‘I beg you to let me see it come when it is called,’ cried the Queen;
‘that will be something quite new.’ The old fairy whistled twice, then
she cried:

“‘Apricots, peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, pears, melons, grapes,
apples, oranges, lemons, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, come!’

“And in an instant they came tumbling in one over another, and yet they
were neither dusty nor spoilt, and the Queen found them quite as good as
she had fancied them. You see they grew upon fairy trees.

“The old fairy gave her golden baskets in which to take the fruit away,
and it was as much as four hundred mules could carry. Then she reminded
the Queen of her agreement, and led her back to the camp, and next
morning she went back to her kingdom, but before she had gone very far
she began to repent of her bargain, and when the King came out to meet
her she looked so sad that he guessed that something had happened, and
asked what was the matter. At first the Queen was afraid to tell him,
but when, as soon as they reached the palace, five frightful little
dwarfs were sent by the fairies to fetch me, she was obliged to confess
what she had promised. The King was very angry, and had the Queen and
myself shut up in a great tower and safely guarded, and drove the little
dwarfs out of his kingdom; but the fairies sent a great dragon who ate
up all the people he met, and whose breath burnt up everything as he
passed through the country; and at last, after trying in vain to rid
himself of this monster, the King, to save his subjects, was obliged to
consent that I should be given up to the fairies. This time they came
themselves to fetch me, in a chariot of pearl drawn by sea-horses,
followed by the dragon, who was led with chains of diamonds. My cradle
was placed between the old fairies, who loaded me with caresses, and
away we whirled through the air to a tower which they had built on
purpose for me. There I grew up surrounded with everything that was
beautiful and rare, and learning everything that is ever taught to a
princess, but without any companions but a parrot and a little dog, who
could both talk; and receiving every day a visit from one of the old
fairies, who came mounted upon the dragon. One day, however, as I sat at
my window I saw a handsome young prince, who seemed to have been hunting
in the forest which surrounded my prison, and who was standing and
looking up at me. When he saw that I observed him he saluted me with
great deference. You can imagine that I was delighted to have some one
new to talk to, and in spite of the height of my window our conversation
was prolonged till night fell, then my prince reluctantly bade me
farewell. But after that he came again many times and at last I
consented to marry him, but the question was how was I to escape from my
tower. The fairies always supplied me with flax for my spinning, and by
great diligence I made enough cord for a ladder that would reach to
the foot of the tower; but, alas! just as my prince was helping me to
descend it, the crossest and ugliest of the old fairies flew in. Before
he had time to defend himself my unhappy lover was swallowed up by the
dragon. As for me, the fairies, furious at having their plans defeated,
for they intended me to marry the king of the dwarfs, and I utterly
refused, changed me into a white cat. When they brought me here I found
all the lords and ladies of my father’s court awaiting me under the same
enchantment, while the people of lesser rank had been made invisible,
all but their hands.

“As they laid me under the enchantment the fairies told me all my
history, for until then I had quite believed that I was their child, and
warned me that my only chance of regaining my natural form was to win
the love of a prince who resembled in every way my unfortunate lover.

“And you have won it, lovely Princess,” interrupted the Prince.

“You are indeed wonderfully like him,” resumed the Princess--“in voice,
in features, and everything; and if you really love me all my troubles
will be at an end.”

“And mine too,” cried the Prince, throwing himself at her feet, “if you
will consent to marry me.”

“I love you already better than anyone in the world,” she said; “but
now it is time to go back to your father, and we shall hear what he says
about it.”

So the Prince gave her his hand and led her out, and they mounted the
chariot together; it was even more splendid than before, and so was the
whole company. Even the horses’ shoes were of rubies with diamond nails,
and I suppose that is the first time such a thing was ever seen.

As the Princess was as kind and clever as she was beautiful, you may
imagine what a delightful journey the Prince found it, for everything
the Princess said seemed to him quite charming.

When they came near the castle where the brothers were to meet, the
Princess got into a chair carried by four of the guards; it was hewn out
of one splendid crystal, and had silken curtains, which she drew round
her that she might not be seen.

The Prince saw his brothers walking upon the terrace, each with a lovely
princess, and they came to meet him, asking if he had also found a wife.
He said that he had found something much rarer--a white cat! At which
they laughed very much, and asked him if he was afraid of being eaten up
by mice in the palace. And then they set out together for the town. Each
prince and princess rode in a splendid carriage; the horses were decked
with plumes of feathers, and glittered with gold. After them came the
youngest prince, and last of all the crystal chair, at which everybody
looked with admiration and curiosity. When the courtiers saw them coming
they hastened to tell the King.

“Are the ladies beautiful?” he asked anxiously.

And when they answered that nobody had ever before seen such lovely
princesses he seemed quite annoyed.

However, he received them graciously, but found it impossible to choose
between them.

Then turning to his youngest son he said:

“Have you come back alone, after all?”

“Your Majesty,” replied the Prince, “will find in that crystal chair a
little white cat, which has such soft paws, and mews so prettily, that I
am sure you will be charmed with it.”

The King smiled, and went to draw back the curtains himself, but at a
touch from the Princess the crystal shivered into a thousand splinters,
and there she stood in all her beauty; her fair hair floated over her
shoulders and was crowned with flowers, and her softly falling robe was
of the purest white. She saluted the King gracefully, while a murmur of
admiration rose from all around.

“Sire,” she said, “I am not come to deprive you of the throne you fill
so worthily. I have already six kingdoms, permit me to bestow one upon
you, and upon each of your sons. I ask nothing but your friendship, and
your consent to my marriage with your youngest son; we shall still have
three kingdoms left for ourselves.”

The King and all the courtiers could not conceal their joy and
astonishment, and the marriage of the three Princes was celebrated at
once. The festivities lasted several months, and then each king and
queen departed to their own kingdom and lived happily ever after.(1)


(1) La Chatte blanche. Par Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy.




THE WATER-LILY. THE GOLD-SPINNERS


Once upon a time, in a large forest, there lived an old woman and
three maidens. They were all three beautiful, but the youngest was the
fairest. Their hut was quite hidden by trees, and none saw their beauty
but the sun by day, and the moon by night, and the eyes of the stars.
The old woman kept the girls hard at work, from morning till night,
spinning gold flax into yarn, and when one distaff was empty another was
given them, so they had no rest. The thread had to be fine and even, and
when done was locked up in a secret chamber by the old woman, who twice
or thrice every summer went a journey. Before she went she gave out work
for each day of her absence, and always returned in the night, so that
the girls never saw what she brought back with her, neither would she
tell them whence the gold flax came, nor what it was to be used for.

Now, when the time came round for the old woman to set out on one of
these journeys, she gave each maiden work for six days, with the usual
warning: “Children, don’t let your eyes wander, and on no account speak
to a man, for, if you do, your thread will lose its brightness, and
misfortunes of all kinds will follow.” They laughed at this oft-repeated
caution, saying to each other: “How can our gold thread lose its
brightness, and have we any chance of speaking to a man?”

On the third day after the old woman’s departure a young prince, hunting
in the forest, got separated from his companions, and completely lost.
Weary of seeking his way, he flung himself down under a tree, leaving
his horse to browse at will, and fell asleep.

The sun had set when he awoke and began once more to try and find his
way out of the forest. At last he perceived a narrow foot-path, which he
eagerly followed and found that it led him to a small hut. The maidens,
who were sitting at the door of their hut for coolness, saw him
approaching, and the two elder were much alarmed, for they remembered
the old woman’s warning; but the youngest said: “Never before have I
seen anyone like him; let me have one look.” They entreated her to come
in, but, seeing that she would not, left her, and the Prince, coming up,
courteously greeted the maiden, and told her he had lost his way in the
forest and was both hungry and weary. She set food before him, and
was so delighted with his conversation that she forgot the old woman’s
caution, and lingered for hours. In the meantime the Prince’s companions
sought him far and wide, but to no purpose, so they sent two messengers
to tell the sad news to the King, who immediately ordered a regiment of
cavalry and one of infantry to go and look for him.

After three days’ search, they found the hut. The Prince was still
sitting by the door and had been so happy in the maiden’s company that
the time had seemed like a single hour. Before leaving he promised to
return and fetch her to his father’s court, where he would make her his
bride. When he had gone, she sat down to her wheel to make up for
lost time, but was dismayed to find that her thread had lost all
its brightness. Her heart beat fast and she wept bitterly, for she
remembered the old woman’s warning and knew not what misfortune might
now befall her.

The old woman returned in the night and knew by the tarnished thread
what had happened in her absence. She was furiously angry and told
the maiden that she had brought down misery both on herself and on the
Prince. The maiden could not rest for thinking of this. At last she
could bear it no longer, and resolved to seek help from the Prince.

As a child she had learned to understand the speech of birds, and this
was now of great use to her, for, seeing a raven pluming itself on a
pine bough, she cried softly to it: “Dear bird, cleverest of all birds,
as well as swiftest on wing, wilt thou help me?” “How can I help
thee?” asked the raven. She answered: “Fly away, until thou comest to a
splendid town, where stands a king’s palace; seek out the king’s son
and tell him that a great misfortune has befallen me.” Then she told the
raven how her thread had lost its brightness, how terribly angry the old
woman was, and how she feared some great disaster. The raven promised
faithfully to do her bidding, and, spreading its wings, flew away. The
maiden now went home and worked hard all day at winding up the yarn her
elder sisters had spun, for the old woman would let her spin no longer.
Toward evening she heard the raven’s “craa, craa,” from the pine tree
and eagerly hastened thither to hear the answer.

By great good fortune the raven had found a wind wizard’s son in the
palace garden, who understood the speech of birds, and to him he had
entrusted the message. When the Prince heard it, he was very sorrowful,
and took counsel with his friends how to free the maiden. Then he said
to the wind wizard’s son: “Beg the raven to fly quickly back to the
maiden and tell her to be ready on the ninth night, for then will I come
and fetch her away.” The wind wizard’s son did this, and the raven flew
so swiftly that it reached the hut that same evening. The maiden thanked
the bird heartily and went home, telling no one what she had heard.

As the ninth night drew near she became very unhappy, for she feared
lest some terrible mischance should arise and ruin all. On this night
she crept quietly out of the house and waited trembling at some little
distance from the hut. Presently she heard the muffled tramp of horses,
and soon the armed troop appeared, led by the Prince, who had prudently
marked all the trees beforehand, in order to know the way. When he saw
the maiden he sprang from his horse, lifted her into the saddle, and
then, mounting behind, rode homeward. The moon shone so brightly that
they had no difficulty in seeing the marked trees.

By and by the coming of dawn loosened the tongues of all the birds,
and, had the Prince only known what they were saying, or the maiden
been listening, they might have been spared much sorrow, but they were
thinking only of each other, and when they came out of the forest the
sun was high in the heavens.

Next morning, when the youngest girl did not come to her work, the old
woman asked where she was. The sisters pretended not to know, but the
old woman easily guessed what had happened, and, as she was in reality
a wicked witch, determined to punish the fugitives. Accordingly, she
collected nine different kinds of enchanters’ nightshade, added some
salt, which she first bewitched, and, doing all up in a cloth into the
shape of a fluffy ball, sent it after them on the wings of the wind,
saying:

  “Whirlwind!--mother of the wind!
  Lend thy aid ‘gainst her who sinned!
  Carry with thee this magic ball.
  Cast her from his arms for ever,
  Bury her in the rippling river.”


At midday the Prince and his men came to a deep river, spanned by so
narrow a bridge that only one rider could cross at a time. The horse on
which the Prince and the maiden were riding had just reached the middle
when the magic ball flew by. The horse in its fright suddenly reared,
and before anyone could stop it flung the maiden into the swift current
below. The Prince tried to jump in after her, but his men held him back,
and in spite of his struggles led him home, where for six weeks he shut
himself up in a secret chamber, and would neither eat nor drink, so
great was his grief. At last he became so ill his life was despaired of,
and in great alarm the King caused all the wizards of his country to be
summoned. But none could cure him. At last the wind wizard’s son said to
the King: “Send for the old wizard from Finland he knows more than all
the wizards of your kingdom put together.” A messenger was at once sent
to Finland, and a week later the old wizard himself arrived on the wings
of the wind. “Honored King,” said the wizard, “the wind has blown this
illness upon your son, and a magic ball has snatched away his beloved.
This it is which makes him grieve so constantly. Let the wind blow upon
him that it may blow away his sorrow.” Then the King made his son go
out into the wind, and he gradually recovered and told his father all.
“Forget the maiden,” said the King, “and take another bride”; but the
Prince said he could never love another.

A year afterward he came suddenly upon the bridge where his beloved met
her death. As he recalled the misfortune he wept bitterly, and would
have given all he possessed to have her once more alive. In the midst
of his grief he thought he heard a voice singing, and looked round, but
could see no one. Then he heard the voice again, and it said:

“Alas! bewitched and all forsaken,  ‘Tis I must lie for ever here!
My beloved no thought has taken  To free his bride, that was so dear.”

He was greatly astonished, sprang from his horse, and looked everywhere
to see if no one were hidden under the bridge; but no one was there.
Then he noticed a yellow water-lily floating on the surface of the
water, half hidden by its broad leaves; but flowers do not sing, and
in great surprise he waited, hoping to hear more. Then again the voice
sang:

     “Alas! bewitched and all forsaken,
       ‘Tis I must lie for ever here!
     My beloved no thought has taken
       To free his bride, that was so dear.”

The Prince suddenly remembered the gold-spinners, and said to himself:
“If I ride thither, who knows but that they could explain this to me?”
 He at once rode to the hut, and found the two maidens at the fountain.
He told them what had befallen their sister the year before, and how he
had twice heard a strange song, but yet could see no singer. They said
that the yellow water-lily could be none other than their sister, who
was not dead, but transformed by the magic ball. Before he went to bed,
the eldest made a cake of magic herbs, which she gave him to eat. In the
night he dreamed that he was living in the forest and could understand
all that the birds said to each other. Next morning he told this to the
maidens, and they said that the charmed cake had caused it, and advised
him to listen well to the birds, and see what they could tell him, and
when he had recovered his bride they begged him to return and deliver
them from their wretched bondage.

Having promised this, he joyfully returned home, and as he was riding
through the forest he could perfectly understand all that the birds
said. He heard a thrush say to a magpie: “How stupid men are! they
cannot understand the simplest thing. It is now quite a year since the
maiden was transformed into a water-lily, and, though she sings so sadly
that anyone going over the bridge must hear her, yet no one comes to
her aid. Her former bridegroom rode over it a few days ago and heard her
singing, but was no wiser than the rest.”

“And he is to blame for all her misfortunes,” added the magpie. “If he
heeds only the words of men she will remain a flower for ever. She
were soon delivered were the matter only laid before the old wizard of
Finland.”

After hearing this, the Prince wondered how he could get a message
conveyed to Finland. He heard one swallow say to another: “Come, let us
fly to Finland; we can build better nests there.”

“Stop, kind friends!” cried the Prince. “Will you do something for me?”
 The birds consented, and he said: “Take a thousand greetings from me
to the wizard of Finland, and ask him how I may restore a maiden
transformed into a flower to her own form.”

The swallows flew away, and the Prince rode on to the bridge. There he
waited, hoping to hear the song. But he heard nothing but the rushing of
the water and the moaning of the wind, and, disappointed, rode home.

Shortly after, he was sitting in the garden, thinking that the swallows
must have forgotten his message, when he saw an eagle flying above him.
The bird gradually descended until it perched on a tree close to the
Prince and said: “The wizard of Finland greets thee and bids me say that
thou mayest free the maiden thus: Go to the river and smear thyself all
over with mud; then say: ‘From a man into a crab,’ and thou wilt become
a crab. Plunge boldly into the water, swim as close as thou canst to the
water-lily’s roots, and loosen them from the mud and reeds. This done,
fasten thy claws into the roots and rise with them to the surface. Let
the water flow all over the flower, and drift with the current until
thou comest to a mountain ash tree on the left bank. There is near it
a large stone. Stop there and say: ‘From a crab into a man, from a
water-lily into a maiden,’ and ye both will be restored to your own
forms.”

Full of doubt and fear, the Prince let some time pass before he was bold
enough to attempt to rescue the maiden. Then a crow said to him: “Why
dost thou hesitate? The old wizard has not told thee wrong, neither have
the birds deceived thee; hasten and dry the maiden’s tears.”

“Nothing worse than death can befall me,” thought the Prince, “and death
is better than endless sorrow.” So he mounted his horse and went to
the bridge. Again he heard the water-lily’s lament, and, hesitating no
longer, smeared himself all over with mud, and, saying: “From a man into
a crab,” plunged into the river. For one moment the water hissed in
his ears, and then all was silent. He swam up to the plant and began
to loosen its roots, but so firmly were they fixed in the mud and reeds
that this took him a long time. He then grasped them and rose to the
surface, letting the water flow over the flower. The current carried
them down the stream, but nowhere could he see the mountain ash. At last
he saw it, and close by the large stone. Here he stopped and said: “From
a crab into a man, from a water-lily into a maiden,” and to his delight
found himself once more a prince, and the maiden was by his side. She
was ten times more beautiful than before, and wore a magnificent pale
yellow robe, sparkling with jewels. She thanked him for having freed her
from the cruel witch’s power, and willingly consented to marry him.

But when they came to the bridge where he had left his horse it was
nowhere to be seen, for, though the Prince thought he had been a crab
only a few hours, he had in reality been under the water for more than
ten days. While they were wondering how they should reach his father’s
court, they saw a splendid coach driven by six gaily caparisoned horses
coming along the bank. In this they drove to the palace. The King and
Queen were at church, weeping for their son, whom they had long mourned
for dead. Great was their delight and astonishment when the Prince
entered, leading the beautiful maiden by the hand. The wedding was at
once celebrated and there was feasting and merry-making throughout the
kingdom for six weeks.

Some time afterward the Prince and his bride were sitting in the garden,
when a crow said to them: “Ungrateful creatures! Have you forgotten the
two poor maidens who helped you in your distress? Must they spin gold
flax for ever? Have no pity on the old witch. The three maidens are
princesses, whom she stole away when they were children together, with
all the silver utensils, which she turned into gold flax. Poison were
her fittest punishment.”

The Prince was ashamed of having forgotten his promise and set out at
once, and by great good fortune reached the hut when the old woman was
away. The maidens had dreamed that he was coming, and were ready to go
with him, but first they made a cake in which they put poison, and
left it on a table where the old woman was likely to see it when she
returned. She _did_ see it, and thought it looked so tempting that she
greedily ate it up and at once died.

In the secret chamber were found fifty wagon-loads of gold flax, and as
much more was discovered buried. The hut was razed to the ground, and
the Prince and his bride and her two sisters lived happily ever after.




THE TERRIBLE HEAD


Once upon a time there was a king whose only child was a girl. Now the
King had been very anxious to have a son, or at least a grandson, to
come after him, but he was told by a prophet whom he consulted that his
own daughter’s son should kill him. This news terrified him so much that
he determined never to let his daughter be married, for he thought it
was better to have no grandson at all than to be killed by his grandson.
He therefore called his workmen together, and bade them dig a deep round
hole in the earth, and then he had a prison of brass built in the hole,
and then, when it was finished, he locked up his daughter. No man ever
saw her, and she never saw even the fields and the sea, but only the sky
and the sun, for there was a wide open window in the roof of the house
of brass. So the Princess would sit looking up at the sky, and watching
the clouds float across, and wondering whether she should ever get out
of her prison. Now one day it seemed to her that the sky opened above
her, and a great shower of shining gold fell through the window in the
roof, and lay glittering in her room. Not very long after, the Princess
had a baby, a little boy, but when the King her father heard of it he
was very angry and afraid, for now the child was born that should be his
death. Yet, cowardly as he was, he had not quite the heart to kill
the Princess and her baby outright, but he had them put in a huge
brass-bound chest and thrust out to sea, that they might either be
drowned or starved, or perhaps come to a country where they would be out
of his way.

So the Princess and the baby floated and drifted in the chest on the sea
all day and night, but the baby was not afraid of the waves nor of the
wind, for he did not know that they could hurt him, and he slept quite
soundly. And the Princess sang a song over him, and this was her song:

  “Child, my child, how sound you sleep!
  Though your mother’s care is deep,
  You can lie with heart at rest
  In the narrow brass-bound chest;
  In the starless night and drear
  You can sleep, and never hear
  Billows breaking, and the cry
  Of the night-wind wandering by;
  In soft purple mantle sleeping
  With your little face on mine,
  Hearing not your mother weeping
  And the breaking of the brine.”


Well, the daylight came at last, and the great chest was driven by the
waves against the shore of an island. There the brass-bound chest lay,
with the Princess and her baby in it, till a man of that country came
past, and saw it, and dragged it on to the beach, and when he had broken
it open, behold! there was a beautiful lady and a little boy. So he took
them home, and was very kind to them, and brought up the boy till he was
a young man. Now when the boy had come to his full strength the King of
that country fell in love with his mother, and wanted to marry her, but
he knew that she would never part from her boy. So he thought of a plan
to get rid of the boy, and this was his plan: A great Queen of a country
not far off was going to be married, and this king said that all his
subjects must bring him wedding presents to give her. And he made a
feast to which he invited them all, and they all brought their presents;
some brought gold cups, and some brought necklaces of gold and amber,
and some brought beautiful horses; but the boy had nothing, though he
was the son of a princess, for his mother had nothing to give him. Then
the rest of the company began to laugh at him, and the King said: “If
you have nothing else to give, at least you might go and fetch the
Terrible Head.”

The boy was proud, and spoke without thinking:

“Then I swear that I _will_ bring the Terrible Head, if it may be
brought by a living man. But of what head you speak I know not.”

Then they told him that somewhere, a long way off, there dwelt three
dreadful sisters, monstrous ogrish women, with golden wings and claws
of brass, and with serpents growing on their heads instead of hair. Now
these women were so awful to look on that whoever saw them was turned
at once into stone. And two of them could not be put to death, but the
youngest, whose face was very beautiful, could be killed, and it was
_her_ head that the boy had promised to bring. You may imagine it was no
easy adventure.

When he heard all this he was perhaps sorry that he had sworn to bring
the Terrible Head, but he was determined to keep his oath. So he went
out from the feast, where they all sat drinking and making merry, and
he walked alone beside the sea in the dusk of the evening, at the place
where the great chest, with himself and his mother in it, had been cast
ashore.

There he went and sat down on a rock, looking toward the sea, and
wondering how he should begin to fulfill his vow. Then he felt some one
touch him on the shoulder; and he turned, and saw a young man like a
king’s son, having with him a tall and beautiful lady, whose blue eyes
shone like stars. They were taller than mortal men, and the young man
had a staff in his hand with golden wings on it, and two golden serpents
twisted round it, and he had wings on his cap and on his shoes. He spoke
to the boy, and asked him why he was so unhappy; and the boy told him
how he had sworn to bring the Terrible Head, and knew not how to begin
to set about the adventure.

Then the beautiful lady also spoke, and said that “it was a foolish oath
and a hasty, but it might be kept if a brave man had sworn it.” Then the
boy answered that he was not afraid, if only he knew the way.

Then the lady said that to kill the dreadful woman with the golden wings
and the brass claws, and to cut off her head, he needed three things:
first, a Cap of Darkness, which would make him invisible when he wore
it; next, a Sword of Sharpness, which would cleave iron at one blow; and
last, the Shoes of Swiftness, with which he might fly in the air.

The boy answered that he knew not where such things were to be procured,
and that, wanting them, he could only try and fail. Then the young man,
taking off his own shoes, said: “First, you shall use these shoes till
you have taken the Terrible Head, and then you must give them back to
me. And with these shoes you will fly as fleet as a bird, or a thought,
over the land or over the waves of the sea, wherever the shoes know the
way. But there are ways which they do not know, roads beyond the borders
of the world. And these roads have you to travel. Now first you must
go to the Three Gray Sisters, who live far off in the north, and are so
very cold that they have only one eye and one tooth among the three. You
must creep up close to them, and as one of them passes the eye to the
other you must seize it, and refuse to give it up till they have told
you the way to the Three Fairies of the Garden, and _they_ will give you
the Cap of Darkness and the Sword of Sharpness, and show you how to wing
beyond this world to the land of the Terrible Head.”

Then the beautiful lady said: “Go forth at once, and do not return to
say good-by to your mother, for these things must be done quickly, and
the Shoes of Swiftness themselves will carry you to the land of the
Three Gray Sisters--for they know the measure of that way.”

So the boy thanked her, and he fastened on the Shoes of Swiftness, and
turned to say good-by to the young man and the lady. But, behold! they
had vanished, he knew not how or where! Then he leaped in the air to try
the Shoes of Swiftness, and they carried him more swiftly than the wind,
over the warm blue sea, over the happy lands of the south, over the
northern peoples who drank mare’s milk and lived in great wagons,
wandering after their flocks. Across the wide rivers, where the wild
fowl rose and fled before him, and over the plains and the cold North
Sea he went, over the fields of snow and the hills of ice, to a place
where the world ends, and all water is frozen, and there are no men, nor
beasts, nor any green grass. There in a blue cave of the ice he found
the Three Gray Sisters, the oldest of living things. Their hair was as
white as the snow, and their flesh of an icy blue, and they mumbled and
nodded in a kind of dream, and their frozen breath hung round them like
a cloud. Now the opening of the cave in the ice was narrow, and it
was not easy to pass in without touching one of the Gray Sisters. But,
floating on the Shoes of Swiftness, the boy just managed to steal in,
and waited till one of the sisters said to another, who had their one
eye:

“Sister, what do you see? do you see old times coming back?”

“No, sister.”

“Then give _me_ the eye, for perhaps I can see farther than you.”

Then the first sister passed the eye to the second, but as the second
groped for it the boy caught it cleverly out of her hand.

“Where is the eye, sister?” said the second gray woman.

“You have taken it yourself, sister,” said the first gray woman.

“Have you lost the eye, sister? have you lost the eye?” said the third
gray woman; “shall we _never_ find it again, and see old times coming
back?”

Then the boy slipped from behind them out of the cold cave into the air,
and he laughed aloud.

When the gray women heard that laugh they began to weep, for now they
knew that a stranger had robbed them, and that they could not help
themselves, and their tears froze as they fell from the hollows where no
eyes were, and rattled on the icy ground of the cave. Then they began to
implore the boy to give them their eye back again, and he could not help
being sorry for them, they were so pitiful. But he said he would never
give them the eye till they told him the way to the Fairies of the
Garden.

Then they wrung their hands miserably, for they guessed why he had come,
and how he was going to try to win the Terrible Head. Now the Dreadful
Women were akin to the Three Gray Sisters, and it was hard for them to
tell the boy the way. But at last they told him to keep always south,
and with the land on his left and the sea on his right, till he reached
the Island of the Fairies of the Garden. Then he gave them back the
eye, and they began to look out once more for the old times coming back
again. But the boy flew south between sea and land, keeping the land
always on his left hand, till he saw a beautiful island crowned with
flowering trees. There he alighted, and there he found the Three Fairies
of the Garden. They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed
one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and
singing round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their
song:

       THE SONG OF THE WESTERN FAIRIES

     Round and round the apples of gold,
       Round and round dance we;
     Thus do we dance from the days of old
       About the enchanted tree;
     Round, and round, and round we go,
     While the spring is green, or the stream shall flow,
       Or the wind shall stir the sea!

     There is none may taste of the golden fruit
       Till the golden new time come
     Many a tree shall spring from shoot,
     Many a blossom be withered at root,
       Many a song be dumb;
     Broken and still shall be many a lute
       Or ever the new times come!

     Round and round the tree of gold,
       Round and round dance we,
     So doth the great world spin from of old,
     Summer and winter, and fire and cold,
     Song that is sung, and tale that is told,
     Even as we dance, that fold and unfold
       Round the stem of the fairy tree!


These grave dancing fairies were very unlike the Grey Women, and they
were glad to see the boy, and treated him kindly. Then they asked him
why he had come; and he told them how he was sent to find the Sword of
Sharpness and the Cap of Darkness. And the fairies gave him these, and
a wallet, and a shield, and belted the sword, which had a diamond blade,
round his waist, and the cap they set on his head, and told him that now
even they could not see him though they were fairies. Then he took it
off, and they each kissed him and wished him good fortune, and then they
began again their eternal dance round the golden tree, for it is their
business to guard it till the new times come, or till the world’s
ending. So the boy put the cap on his head, and hung the wallet round
his waist, and the shining shield on his shoulders, and flew beyond the
great river that lies coiled like a serpent round the whole world. And
by the banks of that river, there he found the three Terrible Women all
asleep beneath a poplar tree, and the dead poplar leaves lay all about
them. Their golden wings were folded and their brass claws were crossed,
and two of them slept with their hideous heads beneath their wings
like birds, and the serpents in their hair writhed out from under the
feathers of gold. But the youngest slept between her two sisters, and
she lay on her back, with her beautiful sad face turned to the sky; and
though she slept her eyes were wide open. If the boy had seen her he
would have been changed into stone by the terror and the pity of it,
she was so awful; but he had thought of a plan for killing her without
looking on her face. As soon as he caught sight of the three from far
off he took his shining shield from his shoulders, and held it up like
a mirror, so that he saw the Dreadful Women reflected in it, and did not
see the Terrible Head itself. Then he came nearer and nearer, till he
reckoned that he was within a sword’s stroke of the youngest, and he
guessed where he should strike a back blow behind him. Then he drew the
Sword of Sharpness and struck once, and the Terrible Head was cut from
the shoulders of the creature, and the blood leaped out and struck him
like a blow. But he thrust the Terrible Head into his wallet, and flew
away without looking behind. Then the two Dreadful Sisters who were left
wakened, and rose in the air like great birds; and though they could not
see him because of his Cap of Darkness, they flew after him up the wind,
following by the scent through the clouds, like hounds hunting in a
wood. They came so close that he could hear the clatter of their golden
wings, and their shrieks to each other: “_here, here,_” “_no, there;
this way he went,_” as they chased him. But the Shoes of Swiftness flew
too fast for them, and at last their cries and the rattle of their wings
died away as he crossed the great river that runs round the world.

Now when the horrible creatures were far in the distance, and the boy
found himself on the right side of the river, he flew straight eastward,
trying to seek his own country. But as he looked down from the air he
saw a very strange sight--a beautiful girl chained to a stake at the
high-water mark of the sea. The girl was so frightened or so tired that
she was only prevented from falling by the iron chain about her waist,
and there she hung, as if she were dead. The boy was very sorry for her
and flew down and stood beside her. When he spoke she raised her head
and looked round, but his voice only seemed to frighten her. Then he
remembered that he was wearing the Cap of Darkness, and that she could
only hear him, not see him. So he took it off, and there he stood before
her, the handsomest young man she had ever seen in all her life, with
short curly yellow hair, and blue eyes, and a laughing face. And he
thought her the most beautiful girl in the world. So first with one blow
of the Sword of Sharpness he cut the iron chain that bound her, and then
he asked her what she did there, and why men treated her so cruelly. And
she told him that she was the daughter of the King of that country, and
that she was tied there to be eaten by a monstrous beast out of the sea;
for the beast came and devoured a girl every day. Now the lot had fallen
on her; and as she was just saying this a long fierce head of a cruel
sea creature rose out of the waves and snapped at the girl. But the
beast had been too greedy and too hurried, so he missed his aim the
first time. Before he could rise and bite again the boy had whipped the
Terrible Head out of his wallet and held it up. And when the sea beast
leaped out once more its eyes fell on the head, and instantly it was
turned into a stone. And the stone beast is there on the sea-coast to
this day.

Then the boy and the girl went to the palace of the King, her father,
where everyone was weeping for her death, and they could hardly believe
their eyes when they saw her come back well. And the King and Queen made
much of the boy, and could not contain themselves for delight when they
found he wanted to marry their daughter. So the two were married with
the most splendid rejoicings, and when they had passed some time at
court they went home in a ship to the boy’s own country. For he could
not carry his bride through the air, so he took the Shoes of Swiftness,
and the Cap of Darkness, and the Sword of Sharpness up to a lonely place
in the hills. There he left them, and there they were found by the man
and woman who had met him at home beside the sea, and had helped him to
start on his journey.

When this had been done the boy and his bride set forth for home, and
landed at the harbor of his native land. But whom should he meet in the
very street of the town but his own mother, flying for her life from the
wicked King, who now wished to kill her because he found that she would
never marry him! For if she had liked the King ill before, she liked him
far worse now that he had caused her son to disappear so suddenly. She
did not know, of course, where the boy had gone, but thought the King
had slain him secretly. So now she was running for her very life,
and the wicked King was following her with a sword in his hand. Then,
behold! she ran into her son’s very arms, but he had only time to kiss
her and step in front of her, when the King struck at him with his
sword. The boy caught the blow on his shield, and cried to the King:

“I swore to bring you the Terrible Head, and see how I keep my oath!”

Then he drew forth the head from his wallet, and when the King’s eyes
fell on it, instantly he was turned into stone, just as he stood there
with his sword lifted!

Now all the people rejoiced, because the wicked King should rule them no
longer. And they asked the boy to be their king, but he said no, he must
take his mother home to her father’s house. So the people chose for king
the man who had been kind to his mother when first she was cast on the
island in the great chest.

Presently the boy and his mother and his wife set sail for his mother’s
own country, from which she had been driven so unkindly. But on the way
they stayed at the court of a king, and it happened that he was
holding games, and giving prizes to the best runners, boxers, and
quoit-throwers. Then the boy would try his strength with the rest, but
he threw the quoit so far that it went beyond what had ever been thrown
before, and fell in the crowd, striking a man so that he died. Now this
man was no other than the father of the boy’s mother, who had fled away
from his own kingdom for fear his grandson should find him and kill him
after all. Thus he was destroyed by his own cowardice and by chance, and
thus the prophecy was fulfilled. But the boy and his wife and his mother
went back to the kingdom that was theirs, and lived long and happily
after all their troubles.




THE STORY OF PRETTY GOLDILOCKS


Once upon a time there was a princess who was the prettiest creature in
the world. And because she was so beautiful, and because her hair was
like the finest gold, and waved and rippled nearly to the ground, she
was called Pretty Goldilocks. She always wore a crown of flowers, and
her dresses were embroidered with diamonds and pearls, and everybody who
saw her fell in love with her.

Now one of her neighbors was a young king who was not married. He was
very rich and handsome, and when he heard all that was said about Pretty
Goldilocks, though he had never seen her, he fell so deeply in love
with her that he could neither eat nor drink. So he resolved to send an
ambassador to ask her in marriage. He had a splendid carriage made for
his ambassador, and gave him more than a hundred horses and a hundred
servants, and told him to be sure and bring the Princess back with him.
After he had started nothing else was talked of at Court, and the King
felt so sure that the Princess would consent that he set his people to
work at pretty dresses and splendid furniture, that they might be
ready by the time she came. Meanwhile, the ambassador arrived at the
Princess’s palace and delivered his little message, but whether she
happened to be cross that day, or whether the compliment did not please
her, is not known. She only answered that she was very much obliged
to the King, but she had no wish to be married. The ambassador set off
sadly on his homeward way, bringing all the King’s presents back with
him, for the Princess was too well brought up to accept the pearls
and diamonds when she would not accept the King, so she had only kept
twenty-five English pins that he might not be vexed.

When the ambassador reached the city, where the King was waiting
impatiently, everybody was very much annoyed with him for not bringing
the Princess, and the King cried like a baby, and nobody could console
him. Now there was at the Court a young man, who was more clever and
handsome than anyone else. He was called Charming, and everyone loved
him, excepting a few envious people who were angry at his being the
King’s favorite and knowing all the State secrets. He happened to one
day be with some people who were speaking of the ambassador’s return
and saying that his going to the Princess had not done much good, when
Charming said rashly:

“If the King had sent me to the Princess Goldilocks I am sure she would
have come back with me.”

His enemies at once went to the King and said:

“You will hardly believe, sire, what Charming has the audacity to
say--that if _he_ had been sent to the Princess Goldilocks she would
certainly have come back with him. He seems to think that he is so much
handsomer than you that the Princess would have fallen in love with him
and followed him willingly.” The King was very angry when he heard this.

“Ha, ha!” said he; “does he laugh at my unhappiness, and think himself
more fascinating than I am? Go, and let him be shut up in my great tower
to die of hunger.”

So the King’s guards went to fetch Charming, who had thought no more of
his rash speech, and carried him off to prison with great cruelty. The
poor prisoner had only a little straw for his bed, and but for a little
stream of water which flowed through the tower he would have died of
thirst.

One day when he was in despair he said to himself:

“How can I have offended the King? I am his most faithful subject, and
have done nothing against him.”

The King chanced to be passing the tower and recognized the voice of his
former favorite. He stopped to listen in spite of Charming’s enemies,
who tried to persuade him to have nothing more to do with the traitor.
But the King said:

“Be quiet, I wish to hear what he says.”

And then he opened the tower door and called to Charming, who came very
sadly and kissed the King’s hand, saying:

“What have I done, sire, to deserve this cruel treatment?”

“You mocked me and my ambassador,” said the King, “and you said that
if I had sent you for the Princess Goldilocks you would certainly have
brought her back.”

“It is quite true, sire,” replied Charming; “I should have drawn such a
picture of you, and represented your good qualities in such a way,
that I am certain the Princess would have found you irresistible. But I
cannot see what there is in that to make you angry.”

The King could not see any cause for anger either when the matter was
presented to him in this light, and he began to frown very fiercely at
the courtiers who had so misrepresented his favorite.

So he took Charming back to the palace with him, and after seeing that
he had a very good supper he said to him:

“You know that I love Pretty Goldilocks as much as ever, her refusal has
not made any difference to me; but I don’t know how to make her change
her mind; I really should like to send you, to see if you can persuade
her to marry me.”

Charming replied that he was perfectly willing to go, and would set out
the very next day.

“But you must wait till I can get a grand escort for you,” said the
King. But Charming said that he only wanted a good horse to ride, and
the King, who was delighted at his being ready to start so promptly,
gave him letters to the Princess, and bade him good speed. It was on a
Monday morning that he set out all alone upon his errand, thinking of
nothing but how he could persuade the Princess Goldilocks to marry
the King. He had a writing-book in his pocket, and whenever any happy
thought struck him he dismounted from his horse and sat down under
the trees to put it into the harangue which he was preparing for the
Princess, before he forgot it.

One day when he had started at the very earliest dawn, and was riding
over a great meadow, he suddenly had a capital idea, and, springing from
his horse, he sat down under a willow tree which grew by a little river.
When he had written it down he was looking round him, pleased to find
himself in such a pretty place, when all at once he saw a great golden
carp lying gasping and exhausted upon the grass. In leaping after little
flies she had thrown herself high upon the bank, where she had lain till
she was nearly dead. Charming had pity upon her, and, though he couldn’t
help thinking that she would have been very nice for dinner, he picked
her up gently and put her back into the water. As soon as Dame Carp
felt the refreshing coolness of the water she sank down joyfully to the
bottom of the river, then, swimming up to the bank quite boldly, she
said:

“I thank you, Charming, for the kindness you have done me. You have
saved my life; one day I will repay you.” So saying, she sank down into
the water again, leaving Charming greatly astonished at her politeness.

Another day, as he journeyed on, he saw a raven in great distress. The
poor bird was closely pursued by an eagle, which would soon have eaten
it up, had not Charming quickly fitted an arrow to his bow and shot the
eagle dead. The raven perched upon a tree very joyfully.

“Charming,” said he, “it was very generous of you to rescue a poor
raven; I am not ungrateful, some day I will repay you.”

Charming thought it was very nice of the raven to say so, and went on
his way.

Before the sun rose he found himself in a thick wood where it was too
dark for him to see his path, and here he heard an owl crying as if it
were in despair.

“Hark!” said he, “that must be an owl in great trouble, I am sure it has
gone into a snare”; and he began to hunt about, and presently found a
great net which some bird-catchers had spread the night before.

“What a pity it is that men do nothing but torment and persecute poor
creatures which never do them any harm!” said he, and he took out his
knife and cut the cords of the net, and the owl flitted away into the
darkness, but then turning, with one flicker of her wings, she came back
to Charming and said:

“It does not need many words to tell you how great a service you have
done me. I was caught; in a few minutes the fowlers would have been
here--without your help I should have been killed. I am grateful, and
one day I will repay you.”

These three adventures were the only ones of any consequence that befell
Charming upon his journey, and he made all the haste he could to reach
the palace of the Princess Goldilocks.

When he arrived he thought everything he saw delightful and magnificent.
Diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles, and the gold and silver, the
beautiful dresses, the sweetmeats and pretty things that were everywhere
quite amazed him; he thought to himself: “If the Princess consents to
leave all this, and come with me to marry the King, he may think himself
lucky!”

Then he dressed himself carefully in rich brocade, with scarlet and
white plumes, and threw a splendid embroidered scarf over his shoulder,
and, looking as gay and as graceful as possible, he presented himself at
the door of the palace, carrying in his arm a tiny pretty dog which
he had bought on the way. The guards saluted him respectfully, and a
messenger was sent to the Princess to announce the arrival of Charming
as ambassador of her neighbor the King.

“Charming,” said the Princess, “the name promises well; I have no doubt
that he is good looking and fascinates everybody.”

“Indeed he does, madam,” said all her maids of honor in one breath. “We
saw him from the window of the garret where we were spinning flax, and
we could do nothing but look at him as long as he was in sight.”

“Well to be sure,” said the Princess, “that’s how you amuse yourselves,
is it? Looking at strangers out of the window! Be quick and give me my
blue satin embroidered dress, and comb out my golden hair. Let somebody
make me fresh garlands of flowers, and give me my high-heeled shoes and
my fan, and tell them to sweep my great hall and my throne, for I want
everyone to say I am really ‘Pretty Goldilocks.’”

You can imagine how all her maids scurried this way and that to make the
Princess ready, and how in their haste they knocked their heads together
and hindered each other, till she thought they would never have done.
However, at last they led her into the gallery of mirrors that she might
assure herself that nothing was lacking in her appearance, and then
she mounted her throne of gold, ebony, and ivory, while her ladies took
their guitars and began to sing softly. Then Charming was led in, and
was so struck with astonishment and admiration that at first not a word
could he say. But presently he took courage and delivered his harangue,
bravely ending by begging the Princess to spare him the disappointment
of going back without her.

“Sir Charming,” answered she, “all the reasons you have given me are
very good ones, and I assure you that I should have more pleasure in
obliging you than anyone else, but you must know that a month ago as I
was walking by the river with my ladies I took off my glove, and as I
did so a ring that I was wearing slipped off my finger and rolled into
the water. As I valued it more than my kingdom, you may imagine how
vexed I was at losing it, and I vowed to never listen to any proposal of
marriage unless the ambassador first brought me back my ring. So now
you know what is expected of you, for if you talked for fifteen days and
fifteen nights you could not make me change my mind.”

Charming was very much surprised by this answer, but he bowed low to the
Princess, and begged her to accept the embroidered scarf and the tiny
dog he had brought with him. But she answered that she did not want any
presents, and that he was to remember what she had just told him. When
he got back to his lodging he went to bed without eating any supper, and
his little dog, who was called Frisk, couldn’t eat any either, but came
and lay down close to him. All night Charming sighed and lamented.

“How am I to find a ring that fell into the river a month ago?” said
he. “It is useless to try; the Princess must have told me to do it on
purpose, knowing it was impossible.” And then he sighed again.

Frisk heard him and said:

“My dear master, don’t despair; the luck may change, you are too good
not to be happy. Let us go down to the river as soon as it is light.”

But Charming only gave him two little pats and said nothing, and very
soon he fell asleep.

At the first glimmer of dawn Frisk began to jump about, and when he had
waked Charming they went out together, first into the garden, and then
down to the river’s brink, where they wandered up and down. Charming was
thinking sadly of having to go back unsuccessful when he heard someone
calling: “Charming, Charming!” He looked all about him and thought he
must be dreaming, as he could not see anybody. Then he walked on and the
voice called again: “Charming, Charming!”

“Who calls me?” said he. Frisk, who was very small and could look
closely into the water, cried out: “I see a golden carp coming.” And
sure enough there was the great carp, who said to Charming:

“You saved my life in the meadow by the willow tree, and I promised that
I would repay you. Take this, it is Princess Goldilock’s ring.” Charming
took the ring out of Dame Carp’s mouth, thanking her a thousand times,
and he and tiny Frisk went straight to the palace, where someone told
the Princess that he was asking to see her.

“Ah! poor fellow,” said she, “he must have come to say good-by, finding
it impossible to do as I asked.”

So in came Charming, who presented her with the ring and said:

“Madam, I have done your bidding. Will it please you to marry my
master?” When the Princess saw her ring brought back to her unhurt she
was so astonished that she thought she must be dreaming.

“Truly, Charming,” said she, “you must be the favorite of some fairy, or
you could never have found it.”

“Madam,” answered he, “I was helped by nothing but my desire to obey
your wishes.”

“Since you are so kind,” said she, “perhaps you will do me another
service, for till it is done I will never be married. There is a prince
not far from here whose name is Galifron, who once wanted to marry me,
but when I refused he uttered the most terrible threats against me, and
vowed that he would lay waste my country. But what could I do? I could
not marry a frightful giant as tall as a tower, who eats up people as
a monkey eats chestnuts, and who talks so loud that anybody who has to
listen to him becomes quite deaf. Nevertheless, he does not cease to
persecute me and to kill my subjects. So before I can listen to your
proposal you must kill him and bring me his head.”

Charming was rather dismayed at this command, but he answered:

“Very well, Princess, I will fight this Galifron; I believe that he will
kill me, but at any rate I shall die in your defense.”

Then the Princess was frightened and said everything she could think of
to prevent Charming from fighting the giant, but it was of no use, and
he went out to arm himself suitably, and then, taking little Frisk with
him, he mounted his horse and set out for Galifron’s country. Everyone
he met told him what a terrible giant Galifron was, and that nobody
dared go near him; and the more he heard, the more frightened he grew.
Frisk tried to encourage him by saying: “While you are fighting the
giant, dear master, I will go and bite his heels, and when he stoops
down to look at me you can kill him.”

Charming praised his little dog’s plan, but knew that this help would
not do much good.

At last he drew near the giant’s castle, and saw to his horror that
every path that led to it was strewn with bones. Before long he saw
Galifron coming. His head was higher than the tallest trees, and he sang
in a terrible voice:

  “Bring out your little boys and girls,
  Pray do not stay to do their curls,
  For I shall eat so very many,
  I shall not know if they have any.”


Thereupon Charming sang out as loud as he could to the same tune:

  “Come out and meet the valiant Charming
  Who finds you not at all alarming;
  Although he is not very tall,
  He’s big enough to make you fall.”


The rhymes were not very correct, but you see he had made them up so
quickly that it is a miracle that they were not worse; especially as he
was horribly frightened all the time. When Galifron heard these words he
looked all about him, and saw Charming standing, sword in hand this put
the giant into a terrible rage, and he aimed a blow at Charming with his
huge iron club, which would certainly have killed him if it had reached
him, but at that instant a raven perched upon the giant’s head, and,
pecking with its strong beak and beating with its great wings so
confused and blinded him that all his blows fell harmlessly upon the
air, and Charming, rushing in, gave him several strokes with his sharp
sword so that he fell to the ground. Whereupon Charming cut off his head
before he knew anything about it, and the raven from a tree close by
croaked out:

“You see I have not forgotten the good turn you did me in killing the
eagle. To-day I think I have fulfilled my promise of repaying you.”

“Indeed, I owe you more gratitude than you ever owed me,” replied
Charming.

And then he mounted his horse and rode off with Galifron’s head.

When he reached the city the people ran after him in crowds, crying:

“Behold the brave Charming, who has killed the giant!” And their shouts
reached the Princess’s ear, but she dared not ask what was happening,
for fear she should hear that Charming had been killed. But very soon
he arrived at the palace with the giant’s head, of which she was still
terrified, though it could no longer do her any harm.

“Princess,” said Charming, “I have killed your enemy; I hope you will
now consent to marry the King my master.”

“Oh dear! no,” said the Princess, “not until you have brought me some
water from the Gloomy Cavern.

“Not far from here there is a deep cave, the entrance to which is
guarded by two dragons with fiery eyes, who will not allow anyone to
pass them. When you get into the cavern you will find an immense hole,
which you must go down, and it is full of toads and snakes; at the
bottom of this hole there is another little cave, in which rises the
Fountain of Health and Beauty. It is some of this water that I really
must have: everything it touches becomes wonderful. The beautiful things
will always remain beautiful, and the ugly things become lovely. If one
is young one never grows old, and if one is old one becomes young. You
see, Charming, I could not leave my kingdom without taking some of it
with me.”

“Princess,” said he, “you at least can never need this water, but I am
an unhappy ambassador, whose death you desire. Where you send me I will
go, though I know I shall never return.”

And, as the Princess Goldilocks showed no sign of relenting, he started
with his little dog for the Gloomy Cavern. Everyone he met on the way
said:

“What a pity that a handsome young man should throw away his life so
carelessly! He is going to the cavern alone, though if he had a
hundred men with him he could not succeed. Why does the Princess ask
impossibilities?” Charming said nothing, but he was very sad. When he
was near the top of a hill he dismounted to let his horse graze, while
Frisk amused himself by chasing flies. Charming knew he could not be far
from the Gloomy Cavern, and on looking about him he saw a black hideous
rock from which came a thick smoke, followed in a moment by one of the
dragons with fire blazing from his mouth and eyes. His body was yellow
and green, and his claws scarlet, and his tail was so long that it lay
in a hundred coils. Frisk was so terrified at the sight of it that he
did not know where to hide. Charming, quite determined to get the water
or die, now drew his sword, and, taking the crystal flask which Pretty
Goldilocks had given him to fill, said to Frisk:

“I feel sure that I shall never come back from this expedition; when I
am dead, go to the Princess and tell her that her errand has cost me
my life. Then find the King my master, and relate all my adventures to
him.”

As he spoke he heard a voice calling: “Charming, Charming!”

“Who calls me?” said he; then he saw an owl sitting in a hollow tree,
who said to him:

“You saved my life when I was caught in the net, now I can repay you.
Trust me with the flask, for I know all the ways of the Gloomy Cavern,
and can fill it from the Fountain of Beauty.” Charming was only too glad
to give her the flask, and she flitted into the cavern quite unnoticed
by the dragon, and after some time returned with the flask, filled to
the very brim with sparkling water. Charming thanked her with all his
heart, and joyfully hastened back to the town.

He went straight to the palace and gave the flask to the Princess, who
had no further objection to make. So she thanked Charming, and ordered
that preparations should be made for her departure, and they soon set
out together. The Princess found Charming such an agreeable companion
that she sometimes said to him: “Why didn’t we stay where we were? I
could have made you king, and we should have been so happy!”

But Charming only answered:

“I could not have done anything that would have vexed my master so
much, even for a kingdom, or to please you, though I think you are as
beautiful as the sun.”

At last they reached the King’s great city, and he came out to meet the
Princess, bringing magnificent presents, and the marriage was celebrated
with great rejoicings. But Goldilocks was so fond of Charming that she
could not be happy unless he was near her, and she was always singing
his praises.

“If it hadn’t been for Charming,” she said to the King, “I should never
have come here; you ought to be very much obliged to him, for he did the
most impossible things and got me water from the Fountain of Beauty, so
I can never grow old, and shall get prettier every year.”

Then Charming’s enemies said to the King:

“It is a wonder that you are not jealous, the Queen thinks there is
nobody in the world like Charming. As if anybody you had sent could not
have done just as much!”

“It is quite true, now I come to think of it,” said the King. “Let him
be chained hand and foot, and thrown into the tower.”

So they took Charming, and as a reward for having served the King so
faithfully he was shut up in the tower, where he only saw the jailer,
who brought him a piece of black bread and a pitcher of water every day.

However, little Frisk came to console him, and told him all the news.

When Pretty Goldilocks heard what had happened she threw herself at the
King’s feet and begged him to set Charming free, but the more she cried,
the more angry he was, and at last she saw that it was useless to say
any more; but it made her very sad. Then the King took it into his
head that perhaps he was not handsome enough to please the Princess
Goldilocks, and he thought he would bathe his face with the water
from the Fountain of Beauty, which was in the flask on a shelf in the
Princess’s room, where she had placed it that she might see it often.
Now it happened that one of the Princess’s ladies in chasing a spider
had knocked the flask off the shelf and broken it, and every drop of the
water had been spilt. Not knowing what to do, she had hastily swept away
the pieces of crystal, and then remembered that in the King’s room she
had seen a flask of exactly the same shape, also filled with sparkling
water. So, without saying a word, she fetched it and stood it upon the
Queen’s shelf.

Now the water in this flask was what was used in the kingdom for getting
rid of troublesome people. Instead of having their heads cut off in the
usual way, their faces were bathed with the water, and they instantly
fell asleep and never woke up any more. So, when the King, thinking
to improve his beauty, took the flask and sprinkled the water upon his
face, _he_ fell asleep, and nobody could wake him.

Little Frisk was the first to hear the news, and he ran to tell
Charming, who sent him to beg the Princess not to forget the poor
prisoner. All the palace was in confusion on account of the King’s
death, but tiny Frisk made his way through the crowd to the Princess’s
side, and said:

“Madam, do not forget poor Charming.”

Then she remembered all he had done for her, and without saying a word
to anyone went straight to the tower, and with her own hands took off
Charming’s chains. Then, putting a golden crown upon his head, and the
royal mantle upon his shoulders, she said:

“Come, faithful Charming, I make you king, and will take you for my
husband.”

Charming, once more free and happy, fell at her feet and thanked her for
her gracious words.

Everybody was delighted that he should be king, and the wedding, which
took place at once, was the prettiest that can be imagined, and Prince
Charming and Princess Goldilocks lived happily ever after.(1)


(1) Madame d’Aulnoy.




THE HISTORY OF WHITTINGTON


Dick Whittington was a very little boy when his father and mother died;
so little, indeed, that he never knew them, nor the place where he was
born. He strolled about the country as ragged as a colt, till he met
with a wagoner who was going to London, and who gave him leave to walk
all the way by the side of his wagon without paying anything for his
passage. This pleased little Whittington very much, as he wanted to see
London sadly, for he had heard that the streets were paved with
gold, and he was willing to get a bushel of it; but how great was his
disappointment, poor boy! when he saw the streets covered with dirt
instead of gold, and found himself in a strange place, without a friend,
without food, and without money.

Though the wagoner was so charitable as to let him walk up by the side
of the wagon for nothing, he took care not to know him when he came to
town, and the poor boy was, in a little time, so cold and hungry that he
wished himself in a good kitchen and by a warm fire in the country.

In his distress he asked charity of several people, and one of them bid
him “Go to work for an idle rogue.” “That I will,” said Whittington,
“with all my heart; I will work for you if you will let me.”

The man, who thought this savored of wit and impertinence (though the
poor lad intended only to show his readiness to work), gave him a blow
with a stick which broke his head so that the blood ran down. In this
situation, and fainting for want of food, he laid himself down at the
door of one Mr. Fitzwarren, a merchant, where the cook saw him, and,
being an ill-natured hussy, ordered him to go about his business or she
would scald him. At this time Mr. Fitzwarren came from the Exchange, and
began also to scold at the poor boy, bidding him to go to work.

Whittington answered that he should be glad to work if anybody would
employ him, and that he should be able if he could get some victuals to
eat, for he had had nothing for three days, and he was a poor country
boy, and knew nobody, and nobody would employ him.

He then endeavored to get up, but he was so very weak that he fell down
again, which excited so much compassion in the merchant that he ordered
the servants to take him in and give him some meat and drink, and let
him help the cook to do any dirty work that she had to set him about.
People are too apt to reproach those who beg with being idle, but give
themselves no concern to put them in the way of getting business to do,
or considering whether they are able to do it, which is not charity.

But we return to Whittington, who could have lived happy in this worthy
family had he not been bumped about by the cross cook, who must be
always roasting and basting, or when the spit was idle employed her
hands upon poor Whittington! At last Miss Alice, his master’s daughter,
was informed of it, and then she took compassion on the poor boy, and
made the servants treat him kindly.

Besides the crossness of the cook, Whittington had another difficulty
to get over before he could be happy. He had, by order of his master, a
flock-bed placed for him in a garret, where there was a number of rats
and mice that often ran over the poor boy’s nose and disturbed him
in his sleep. After some time, however, a gentleman who came to his
master’s house gave Whittington a penny for brushing his shoes. This
he put into his pocket, being determined to lay it out to the best
advantage; and the next day, seeing a woman in the street with a cat
under her arm, he ran up to know the price of it. The woman (as the cat
was a good mouser) asked a deal of money for it, but on Whittington’s
telling her he had but a penny in the world, and that he wanted a cat
sadly, she let him have it.

This cat Whittington concealed in the garret, for fear she should be
beat about by his mortal enemy the cook, and here she soon killed or
frightened away the rats and mice, so that the poor boy could now sleep
as sound as a top.

Soon after this the merchant, who had a ship ready to sail, called
for his servants, as his custom was, in order that each of them might
venture something to try their luck; and whatever they sent was to pay
neither freight nor custom, for he thought justly that God Almighty
would bless him the more for his readiness to let the poor partake of
his fortune.

All the servants appeared but poor Whittington, who, having neither
money nor goods, could not think of sending anything to try his luck;
but his good friend Miss Alice, thinking his poverty kept him away,
ordered him to be called.

She then offered to lay down something for him, but the merchant told
his daughter that would not do, it must be something of his own. Upon
which poor Whittington said he had nothing but a cat which he bought
for a penny that was given him. “Fetch thy cat, boy,” said the merchant,
“and send her.” Whittington brought poor puss and delivered her to the
captain, with tears in his eyes, for he said he should now be disturbed
by the rats and mice as much as ever. All the company laughed at
the adventure but Miss Alice, who pitied the poor boy, and gave him
something to buy another cat.

While puss was beating the billows at sea, poor Whittington was severely
beaten at home by his tyrannical mistress the cook, who used him so
cruelly, and made such game of him for sending his cat to sea, that
at last the poor boy determined to run away from his place, and having
packed up the few things he had, he set out very early in the morning on
All-Hallows day. He traveled as far as Holloway, and there sat down on
a stone to consider what course he should take; but while he was thus
ruminating, Bow bells, of which there were only six, began to ring; and
he thought their sounds addressed him in this manner:

  “Turn again, Whittington,
  Thrice Lord Mayor of London.”


“Lord Mayor of London!” said he to himself, “what would not one endure
to be Lord Mayor of London, and ride in such a fine coach? Well, I’ll go
back again, and bear all the pummelling and ill-usage of Cicely rather
than miss the opportunity of being Lord Mayor!” So home he went, and
happily got into the house and about his business before Mrs. Cicely
made her appearance.

We must now follow Miss Puss to the coast of Africa. How perilous are
voyages at sea, how uncertain the winds and the waves, and how many
accidents attend a naval life!

The ship that had the cat on board was long beaten at sea, and at last,
by contrary winds, driven on a part of the coast of Barbary which was
inhabited by Moors unknown to the English. These people received our
countrymen with civility, and therefore the captain, in order to trade
with them, showed them the patterns of the goods he had on board, and
sent some of them to the King of the country, who was so well pleased
that he sent for the captain and the factor to come to his palace, which
was about a mile from the sea. Here they were placed, according to the
custom of the country, on rich carpets, flowered with gold and silver;
and the King and Queen being seated at the upper end of the room, dinner
was brought in, which consisted of many dishes; but no sooner were the
dishes put down but an amazing number of rats and mice came from all
quarters and devoured all the meat in an instant.

The factor, in surprise, turned round to the nobles and asked if these
vermin were not offensive. “Oh! yes,” said they, “very offensive; and
the King would give half his treasure to be freed of them, for they
not only destroy his dinner, as you see, but they assault him in his
chamber, and even in bed, so that he is obliged to be watched while he
is sleeping, for fear of them.”

The factor jumped for joy; he remembered poor Whittington and his
cat, and told the King he had a creature on board the ship that would
despatch all these vermin immediately. The King’s heart heaved so high
at the joy which this news gave him that his turban dropped off his
head. “Bring this creature to me,” said he; “vermin are dreadful in a
court, and if she will perform what you say I will load your ship with
gold and jewels in exchange for her.” The factor, who knew his business,
took this opportunity to set forth the merits of Miss Puss. He told his
Majesty that it would be inconvenient to part with her, as, when she
was gone, the rats and mice might destroy the goods in the ship--but to
oblige his Majesty he would fetch her. “Run, run,” said the Queen; “I am
impatient to see the dear creature.”

Away flew the factor, while another dinner was providing, and returned
with the cat just as the rats and mice were devouring that also. He
immediately put down Miss Puss, who killed a great number of them.

The King rejoiced greatly to see his old enemies destroyed by so small a
creature, and the Queen was highly pleased, and desired the cat might
be brought near that she might look at her. Upon which the factor called
“Pussy, pussy, pussy!” and she came to him. He then presented her to the
Queen, who started back, and was afraid to touch a creature who had made
such havoc among the rats and mice; however, when the factor stroked
the cat and called “Pussy, pussy!” the Queen also touched her and cried
“Putty, putty!” for she had not learned English.

He then put her down on the Queen’s lap, where she, purring, played with
her Majesty’s hand, and then sang herself to sleep.

The King, having seen the exploits of Miss Puss, and being informed that
her kittens would stock the whole country, bargained with the captain
and factor for the whole ship’s cargo, and then gave them ten times as
much for the cat as all the rest amounted to. On which, taking leave of
their Majesties and other great personages at court, they sailed with a
fair wind for England, whither we must now attend them.

The morn had scarcely dawned when Mr. Fitzwarren arose to count over
the cash and settle the business for that day. He had just entered the
counting-house, and seated himself at the desk, when somebody came,
tap, tap, at the door. “Who’s there?” said Mr. Fitzwarren. “A friend,”
 answered the other. “What friend can come at this unseasonable time?” “A
real friend is never unseasonable,” answered the other. “I come to bring
you good news of your ship Unicorn.” The merchant bustled up in such a
hurry that he forgot his gout; instantly opened the door, and who should
be seen waiting but the captain and factor, with a cabinet of jewels,
and a bill of lading, for which the merchant lifted up his eyes and
thanked heaven for sending him such a prosperous voyage. Then they told
him the adventures of the cat, and showed him the cabinet of jewels
which they had brought for Mr. Whittington. Upon which he cried out with
great earnestness, but not in the most poetical manner:

  “Go, send him in, and tell him of his fame,
  And call him Mr. Whittington by name.”


It is not our business to animadvert upon these lines; we are not
critics, but historians. It is sufficient for us that they are the words
of Mr. Fitzwarren; and though it is beside our purpose, and perhaps not
in our power to prove him a good poet, we shall soon convince the reader
that he was a good man, which was a much better character; for when some
who were present told him that this treasure was too much for such a
poor boy as Whittington, he said: “God forbid that I should deprive him
of a penny; it is his own, and he shall have it to a farthing.” He then
ordered Mr. Whittington in, who was at this time cleaning the kitchen
and would have excused himself from going into the counting-house,
saying the room was swept and his shoes were dirty and full of
hob-nails. The merchant, however, made him come in, and ordered a chair
to be set for him. Upon which, thinking they intended to make sport
of him, as had been too often the case in the kitchen, he besought his
master not to mock a poor simple fellow, who intended them no harm, but
let him go about his business. The merchant, taking him by the hand,
said: “Indeed, Mr. Whittington, I am in earnest with you, and sent for
you to congratulate you on your great success. Your cat has procured you
more money than I am worth in the world, and may you long enjoy it and
be happy!”

At length, being shown the treasure, and convinced by them that all of
it belonged to him, he fell upon his knees and thanked the Almighty for
his providential care of such a poor and miserable creature. He then
laid all the treasure at his master’s feet, who refused to take any part
of it, but told him he heartily rejoiced at his prosperity, and hoped
the wealth he had acquired would be a comfort to him, and would make
him happy. He then applied to his mistress, and to his good friend
Miss Alice, who refused to take any part of the money, but told him she
heartily rejoiced at his good success, and wished him all imaginable
felicity. He then gratified the captain, factor, and the ship’s crew for
the care they had taken of his cargo. He likewise distributed presents
to all the servants in the house, not forgetting even his old enemy the
cook, though she little deserved it.

After this Mr. Fitzwarren advised Mr. Whittington to send for the
necessary people and dress himself like a gentleman, and made him the
offer of his house to live in till he could provide himself with a
better.

Now it came to pass when Mr. Whittington’s face was washed, his hair
curled, and he dressed in a rich suit of clothes, that he turned out
a genteel young fellow; and, as wealth contributes much to give a man
confidence, he in a little time dropped that sheepish behavior which
was principally occasioned by a depression of spirits, and soon grew a
sprightly and good companion, insomuch that Miss Alice, who had formerly
pitied him, now fell in love with him.

When her father perceived they had this good liking for each other
he proposed a match between them, to which both parties cheerfully
consented, and the Lord Mayor, Court of Aldermen, Sheriffs, the Company
of Stationers, the Royal Academy of Arts, and a number of eminent
merchants attended the ceremony, and were elegantly treated at an
entertainment made for that purpose.

History further relates that they lived very happy, had several
children, and died at a good old age. Mr. Whittington served as Sheriff
of London and was three times Lord Mayor. In the last year of his
mayoralty he entertained King Henry V and his Queen, after his
conquest of France, upon which occasion the King, in consideration of
Whittington’s merit, said: “Never had prince such a subject”; which
being told to Whittington at the table, he replied: “Never had subject
such a king.” His Majesty, out of respect to his good character,
conferred the honor of knighthood on him soon after.

Sir Richard many years before his death constantly fed a great number
of poor citizens, built a church and a college to it, with a yearly
allowance for poor scholars, and near it erected a hospital.

He also built Newgate for criminals, and gave liberally to St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital and other public charities.




THE WONDERFUL SHEEP


Once upon a time--in the days when the fairies lived--there was a king
who had three daughters, who were all young, and clever, and beautiful;
but the youngest of the three, who was called Miranda, was the prettiest
and the most beloved.

The King, her father, gave her more dresses and jewels in a month than
he gave the others in a year; but she was so generous that she shared
everything with her sisters, and they were all as happy and as fond of
one another as they could be.

Now, the King had some quarrelsome neighbors, who, tired of leaving him
in peace, began to make war upon him so fiercely that he feared he would
be altogether beaten if he did not make an effort to defend himself.
So he collected a great army and set off to fight them, leaving the
Princesses with their governess in a castle where news of the war was
brought every day--sometimes that the King had taken a town, or won a
battle, and, at last, that he had altogether overcome his enemies and
chased them out of his kingdom, and was coming back to the castle as
quickly as possible, to see his dear little Miranda whom he loved so
much.

The three Princesses put on dresses of satin, which they had had made
on purpose for this great occasion, one green, one blue, and the third
white; their jewels were the same colors. The eldest wore emeralds, the
second turquoises, and the youngest diamonds, and thus adorned they
went to meet the King, singing verses which they had composed about his
victories.

When he saw them all so beautiful and so gay he embraced them tenderly,
but gave Miranda more kisses than either of the others.

Presently a splendid banquet was served, and the King and his daughters
sat down to it, and as he always thought that there was some special
meaning in everything, he said to the eldest:

“Tell me why you have chosen a green dress.”

“Sire,” she answered, “having heard of your victories I thought that
green would signify my joy and the hope of your speedy return.”

“That is a very good answer,” said the King; “and you, my daughter,” he
continued, “why did you take a blue dress?”

“Sire,” said the Princess, “to show that we constantly hoped for your
success, and that the sight of you is as welcome to me as the sky with
its most beautiful stars.”

“Why,” said the King, “your wise answers astonish me, and you, Miranda.
What made you dress yourself all in white?

“Because, sire,” she answered, “white suits me better than anything
else.”

“What!” said the King angrily, “was that all you thought of, vain
child?”

“I thought you would be pleased with me,” said the Princess; “that was
all.”

The King, who loved her, was satisfied with this, and even pretended to
be pleased that she had not told him all her reasons at first.

“And now,” said he, “as I have supped well, and it is not time yet to go
to bed, tell me what you dreamed last night.”

The eldest said she had dreamed that he brought her a dress, and the
precious stones and gold embroidery on it were brighter than the sun.

The dream of the second was that the King had brought her a spinning
wheel and a distaff, that she might spin him some shirts.

But the youngest said: “I dreamed that my second sister was to be
married, and on her wedding-day, you, father, held a golden ewer and
said: ‘Come, Miranda, and I will hold the water that you may dip your
hands in it.’”

The King was very angry indeed when he heard this dream, and frowned
horribly; indeed, he made such an ugly face that everyone knew how angry
he was, and he got up and went off to bed in a great hurry; but he could
not forget his daughter’s dream.

“Does the proud girl wish to make me her slave?” he said to himself. “I
am not surprised at her choosing to dress herself in white satin without
a thought of me. She does not think me worthy of her consideration! But
I will soon put an end to her pretensions!”

He rose in a fury, and although it was not yet daylight, he sent for the
Captain of his Bodyguard, and said to him:

“You have heard the Princess Miranda’s dream? I consider that it means
strange things against me, therefore I order you to take her away into
the forest and kill her, and, that I may be sure it is done, you must
bring me her heart and her tongue. If you attempt to deceive me you
shall be put to death!”

The Captain of the Guard was very much astonished when he heard this
barbarous order, but he did not dare to contradict the King for fear of
making him still more angry, or causing him to send someone else, so he
answered that he would fetch the Princess and do as the King had said.
When he went to her room they would hardly let him in, it was so early,
but he said that the King had sent for Miranda, and she got up quickly
and came out; a little black girl called Patypata held up her train, and
her pet monkey and her little dog ran after her. The monkey was called
Grabugeon, and the little dog Tintin.

The Captain of the Guard begged Miranda to come down into the garden
where the King was enjoying the fresh air, and when they got there, he
pretended to search for him, but as he was not to be found, he said:

“No doubt his Majesty has strolled into the forest,” and he opened the
little door that led to it and they went through.

By this time the daylight had begun to appear, and the Princess, looking
at her conductor, saw that he had tears in his eyes and seemed too sad
to speak.

“What is the matter?” she said in the kindest way. “You seem very
sorrowful.”

“Alas! Princess,” he answered, “who would not be sorrowful who was
ordered to do such a terrible thing as I am? The King has commanded me
to kill you here, and carry your heart and your tongue to him, and if I
disobey I shall lose my life.”

The poor Princess was terrified, she grew very pale and began to cry
softly.

Looking up at the Captain of the Guard with her beautiful eyes, she said
gently:

“Will you really have the heart to kill me? I have never done you any
harm, and have always spoken well of you to the King. If I had deserved
my father’s anger I would suffer without a murmur, but, alas! he is
unjust to complain of me, when I have always treated him with love and
respect.”

“Fear nothing, Princess,” said the Captain of the Guard. “I would far
rather die myself than hurt you; but even if I am killed you will not
be safe: we must find some way of making the King believe that you are
dead.”

“What can we do?” said Miranda; “unless you take him my heart and my
tongue he will never believe you.”

The Princess and the Captain of the Guard were talking so earnestly that
they did not think of Patypata, but she had overheard all they said, and
now came and threw herself at Miranda’s feet.

“Madam,” she said, “I offer you my life; let me be killed, I shall be
only too happy to die for such a kind mistress.”

“Why, Patypata,” cried the Princess, kissing her, “that would never do;
your life is as precious to me as my own, especially after such a proof
of your affection as you have just given me.”

“You are right, Princess,” said Grabugeon, coming forward, “to love such
a faithful slave as Patypata; she is of more use to you than I am, I
offer you my tongue and my heart most willingly, especially as I wish to
make a great name for myself in Goblin Land.”

“No, no, my little Grabugeon,” replied Miranda, “I cannot bear the
thought of taking your life.”

“Such a good little dog as I am,” cried Tintin, “could not think of
letting either of you die for his mistress. If anyone is to die for her
it must be me.”

And then began a great dispute between Patypata, Grabugeon, and Tintin,
and they came to high words, until at last Grabugeon, who was quicker
than the others, ran up to the very top of the nearest tree, and let
herself fall, head first, to the ground, and there she lay--quite dead!

The Princess was very sorry, but as Grabugeon was really dead, she
allowed the Captain of the Guard to take her tongue; but, alas! it
was such a little one--not bigger than the Princess’s thumb--that they
decided sorrowfully that it was of no use at all: the King would not
have been taken in by it for a moment!

“Alas! my little monkey,” cried the Princess, “I have lost you, and yet
I am no better off than I was before.”

“The honor of saving your life is to be mine,” interrupted Patypata,
and, before they could prevent her, she had picked up a knife and cut
her head off in an instant.

But when the Captain of the Guard would have taken her tongue it turned
out to be quite black, so that would not have deceived the King either.

“Am I not unlucky?” cried the poor Princess; “I lose everything I love,
and am none the better for it.”

“If you had accepted my offer,” said Tintin, “you would only have had me
to regret, and I should have had all your gratitude.”

Miranda kissed her little dog, crying so bitterly, that at last she
could bear it no longer, and turned away into the forest. When she
looked back the Captain of the Guard was gone, and she was alone, except
for Patypata, Grabugeon, and Tintin, who lay upon the ground. She could
not leave the place until she had buried them in a pretty little mossy
grave at the foot of a tree, and she wrote their names upon the bark of
the tree, and how they had all died to save her life. And then she began
to think where she could go for safety--for this forest was so close to
her father’s castle that she might be seen and recognized by the first
passer-by, and, besides that, it was full of lions and wolves, who would
have snapped up a princess just as soon as a stray chicken. So she began
to walk as fast as she could, but the forest was so large and the sun
was so hot that she nearly died of heat and terror and fatigue; look
which way she would there seemed to be no end to the forest, and she
was so frightened that she fancied every minute that she heard the King
running after her to kill her. You may imagine how miserable she was,
and how she cried as she went on, not knowing which path to follow, and
with the thorny bushes scratching her dreadfully and tearing her pretty
frock to pieces.

At last she heard the bleating of a sheep, and said to herself:

“No doubt there are shepherds here with their flocks; they will show me
the way to some village where I can live disguised as a peasant girl.
Alas! it is not always kings and princes who are the happiest people in
the world. Who could have believed that I should ever be obliged to run
away and hide because the King, for no reason at all, wishes to kill
me?”

So saying she advanced toward the place where she heard the bleating,
but what was her surprise when, in a lovely little glade quite
surrounded by trees, she saw a large sheep; its wool was as white as
snow, and its horns shone like gold; it had a garland of flowers round
its neck, and strings of great pearls about its legs, and a collar of
diamonds; it lay upon a bank of orange-flowers, under a canopy of cloth
of gold which protected it from the heat of the sun. Nearly a hundred
other sheep were scattered about, not eating the grass, but some
drinking coffee, lemonade, or sherbet, others eating ices, strawberries
and cream, or sweetmeats, while others, again, were playing games. Many
of them wore golden collars with jewels, flowers, and ribbons.

Miranda stopped short in amazement at this unexpected sight, and was
looking in all directions for the shepherd of this surprising flock,
when the beautiful sheep came bounding toward her.

“Approach, lovely Princess,” he cried; “have no fear of such gentle and
peaceable animals as we are.”

“What a marvel!” cried the Princess, starting back a little. “Here is a
sheep that can talk.”

“Your monkey and your dog could talk, madam,” said he; “are you more
astonished at us than at them?”

“A fairy gave them the power to speak,” replied Miranda. “So I was used
to them.”

“Perhaps the same thing has happened to us,” he said, smiling
sheepishly. “But, Princess, what can have led you here?”

“A thousand misfortunes, Sir Sheep,” she answered.

“I am the unhappiest princess in the world, and I am seeking a shelter
against my father’s anger.”

“Come with me, madam,” said the Sheep; “I offer you a hiding-place which
you only will know of, and where you will be mistress of everything you
see.”

“I really cannot follow you,” said Miranda, “for I am too tired to walk
another step.”

The Sheep with the golden horns ordered that his chariot should be
fetched, and a moment after appeared six goats, harnessed to a pumpkin,
which was so big that two people could quite well sit in it, and was all
lined with cushions of velvet and down. The Princess stepped into it,
much amused at such a new kind of carriage, the King of the Sheep took
his place beside her, and the goats ran away with them at full speed,
and only stopped when they reached a cavern, the entrance to which
was blocked by a great stone. This the King touched with his foot, and
immediately it fell down, and he invited the Princess to enter without
fear. Now, if she had not been so alarmed by everything that had
happened, nothing could have induced her to go into this frightful cave,
but she was so afraid of what might be behind her that she would have
thrown herself even down a well at this moment. So, without hesitation,
she followed the Sheep, who went before her, down, down, down, until she
thought they must come out at the other side of the world--indeed, she
was not sure that he wasn’t leading her into Fairyland. At last she saw
before her a great plain, quite covered with all sorts of flowers, the
scent of which seemed to her nicer than anything she had ever smelled
before; a broad river of orange-flower water flowed round it and
fountains of wine of every kind ran in all directions and made the
prettiest little cascades and brooks. The plain was covered with the
strangest trees, there were whole avenues where partridges, ready
roasted, hung from every branch, or, if you preferred pheasants, quails,
turkeys, or rabbits, you had only to turn to the right hand or to the
left and you were sure to find them. In places the air was darkened by
showers of lobster-patties, white puddings, sausages, tarts, and all
sorts of sweetmeats, or with pieces of gold and silver, diamonds and
pearls. This unusual kind of rain, and the pleasantness of the whole
place, would, no doubt, have attracted numbers of people to it, if the
King of the Sheep had been of a more sociable disposition, but from all
accounts it is evident that he was as grave as a judge.

As it was quite the nicest time of the year when Miranda arrived in this
delightful land the only palace she saw was a long row of orange trees,
jasmines, honeysuckles, and musk-roses, and their interlacing branches
made the prettiest rooms possible, which were hung with gold and silver
gauze, and had great mirrors and candlesticks, and most beautiful
pictures. The Wonderful Sheep begged that the Princess would consider
herself queen over all that she saw, and assured her that, though for
some years he had been very sad and in great trouble, she had it in her
power to make him forget all his grief.

“You are so kind and generous, noble Sheep,” said the Princess, “that I
cannot thank you enough, but I must confess that all I see here seems to
me so extraordinary that I don’t know what to think of it.”

As she spoke a band of lovely fairies came up and offered her amber
baskets full of fruit, but when she held out her hands to them they
glided away, and she could feel nothing when she tried to touch them.

“Oh!” she cried, “what can they be? Whom am I with?” and she began to
cry.

At this instant the King of the Sheep came back to her, and was so
distracted to find her in tears that he could have torn his wool.

“What is the matter, lovely Princess?” he cried. “Has anyone failed to
treat you with due respect?”

“Oh! no,” said Miranda; “only I am not used to living with sprites and
with sheep that talk, and everything here frightens me. It was very kind
of you to bring me to this place, but I shall be even more grateful to
you if you will take me up into the world again.”

“Do not be afraid,” said the Wonderful Sheep; “I entreat you to have
patience, and listen to the story of my misfortunes. I was once a king,
and my kingdom was the most splendid in the world. My subjects loved me,
my neighbors envied and feared me. I was respected by everyone, and it
was said that no king ever deserved it more.

“I was very fond of hunting, and one day, while chasing a stag, I left
my attendants far behind; suddenly I saw the animal leap into a pool of
water, and I rashly urged my horse to follow it, but before we had gone
many steps I felt an extraordinary heat, instead of the coolness of the
water; the pond dried up, a great gulf opened before me, out of which
flames of fire shot up, and I fell helplessly to the bottom of a
precipice.

“I gave myself up for lost, but presently a voice said: ‘Ungrateful
Prince, even this fire is hardly enough to warm your cold heart!’

“‘Who complains of my coldness in this dismal place?’ I cried.

“‘An unhappy being who loves you hopelessly,’ replied the voice, and at
the same moment the flames began to flicker and cease to burn, and I
saw a fairy, whom I had known as long as I could remember, and whose
ugliness had always horrified me. She was leaning upon the arm of a
most beautiful young girl, who wore chains of gold on her wrists and was
evidently her slave.

“‘Why, Ragotte,’ I said, for that was the fairy’s name, ‘what is the
meaning of all this? Is it by your orders that I am here?’

“‘And whose fault is it,’ she answered, ‘that you have never understood
me until now? Must a powerful fairy like myself condescend to explain
her doings to you who are no better than an ant by comparison, though
you think yourself a great king?’

“‘Call me what you like,’ I said impatiently; ‘but what is it that you
want--my crown, or my cities, or my treasures?’

“‘Treasures!’ said the fairy, disdainfully. ‘If I chose I could make
any one of my scullions richer and more powerful than you. I do not
want your treasures, but,’ she added softly, ‘if you will give me your
heart--if you will marry me--I will add twenty kingdoms to the one you
have already; you shall have a hundred castles full of gold and five
hundred full of silver, and, in short, anything you like to ask me for.’

“‘Madam Ragotte,’ said I, ‘when one is at the bottom of a pit where one
has fully expected to be roasted alive, it is impossible to think of
asking such a charming person as you are to marry one! I beg that you
will set me at liberty, and then I shall hope to answer you fittingly.’

“‘Ah!’ said she, ‘if you really loved me you would not care where you
were--a cave, a wood, a fox-hole, a desert, would please you equally
well. Do not think that you can deceive me; you fancy you are going to
escape, but I assure you that you are going to stay here and the first
thing I shall give you to do will be to keep my sheep--they are very
good company and speak quite as well as you do.

“As she spoke she advanced, and led me to this plain where we now stand,
and showed me her flock, but I paid little attention to it or to her.

“To tell the truth, I was so lost in admiration of her beautiful slave
that I forgot everything else, and the cruel Ragotte, perceiving this,
turned upon her so furious and terrible a look that she fell lifeless to
the ground.

“At this dreadful sight I drew my sword and rushed at Ragotte, and
should certainly have cut off her head had she not by her magic arts
chained me to the spot on which I stood; all my efforts to move were
useless, and at last, when I threw myself down on the ground in despair,
she said to me, with a scornful smile:

“‘I intend to make you feel my power. It seems that you are a lion at
present, I mean you to be a sheep.’

“So saying, she touched me with her wand, and I became what you see. I
did not lose the power of speech, or of feeling the misery of my present
state.

“‘For five years,’ she said, ‘you shall be a sheep, and lord of this
pleasant land, while I, no longer able to see your face, which I loved
so much, shall be better able to hate you as you deserve to be hated.’

“She disappeared as she finished speaking, and if I had not been too
unhappy to care about anything I should have been glad that she was
gone.

“The talking sheep received me as their king, and told me that they,
too, were unfortunate princes who had, in different ways, offended the
revengeful fairy, and had been added to her flock for a certain number
of years; some more, some less. From time to time, indeed, one regains
his own proper form and goes back again to his place in the upper world;
but the other beings whom you saw are the rivals or the enemies of
Ragotte, whom she has imprisoned for a hundred years or so; though even
they will go back at last. The young slave of whom I told you about is
one of these; I have seen her often, and it has been a great pleasure to
me. She never speaks to me, and if I were nearer to her I know I should
find her only a shadow, which would be very annoying. However, I noticed
that one of my companions in misfortune was also very attentive to this
little sprite, and I found out that he had been her lover, whom the
cruel Ragotte had taken away from her long before; since then I have
cared for, and thought of, nothing but how I might regain my freedom.
I have often been in the forest; that is where I have seen you, lovely
Princess, sometimes driving your chariot, which you did with all the
grace and skill in the world; sometimes riding to the chase on so
spirited a horse that it seemed as if no one but yourself could have
managed it, and sometimes running races on the plain with the Princesses
of your Court--running so lightly that it was you always who won the
prize. Oh! Princess, I have loved you so long, and yet how dare I
tell you of my love! what hope can there be for an unhappy sheep like
myself?”

Miranda was so surprised and confused by all that she had heard that
she hardly knew what answer to give to the King of the Sheep, but she
managed to make some kind of little speech, which certainly did not
forbid him to hope, and said that she should not be afraid of the
shadows now she knew that they would some day come to life again.
“Alas!” she continued, “if my poor Patypata, my dear Grabugeon, and
pretty little Tintin, who all died for my sake, were equally well off, I
should have nothing left to wish for here!”

Prisoner though he was, the King of the Sheep had still some powers and
privileges.

“Go,” said he to his Master of the Horse, “go and seek the shadows of
the little black girl, the monkey, and the dog: they will amuse our
Princess.”

And an instant afterward Miranda saw them coming toward her, and their
presence gave her the greatest pleasure, though they did not come near
enough for her to touch them.

The King of the Sheep was so kind and amusing, and loved Miranda so
dearly, that at last she began to love him too. Such a handsome
sheep, who was so polite and considerate, could hardly fail to please,
especially if one knew that he was really a king, and that his strange
imprisonment would soon come to an end. So the Princess’s days passed
very gaily while she waited for the happy time to come. The King of
the Sheep, with the help of all the flock, got up balls, concerts, and
hunting parties, and even the shadows joined in all the fun, and came,
making believe to be their own real selves.

One evening, when the couriers arrived (for the King sent most carefully
for news--and they always brought the very best kinds), it was announced
that the sister of the Princess Miranda was going to be married to
a great Prince, and that nothing could be more splendid than all the
preparations for the wedding.

“Ah!” cried the young Princess, “how unlucky I am to miss the sight of
so many pretty things! Here am I imprisoned under the earth, with no
company but sheep and shadows, while my sister is to be adorned like a
queen and surrounded by all who love and admire her, and everyone but
myself can go to wish her joy!”

“Why do you complain, Princess?” said the King of the Sheep. “Did I say
that you were not to go to the wedding? Set out as soon as you please;
only promise me that you will come back, for I love you too much to be
able to live without you.”

Miranda was very grateful to him, and promised faithfully that nothing
in the world should keep her from coming back. The King caused an escort
suitable to her rank to be got ready for her, and she dressed herself
splendidly, not forgetting anything that could make her more beautiful.
Her chariot was of mother-of-pearl, drawn by six dun-colored griffins
just brought from the other side of the world, and she was attended by a
number of guards in splendid uniforms, who were all at least eight feet
high and had come from far and near to ride in the Princess’s train.

Miranda reached her father’s palace just as the wedding ceremony began,
and everyone, as soon as she came in, was struck with surprise at
her beauty and the splendor of her jewels. She heard exclamations
of admiration on all sides; and the King her father looked at her so
attentively that she was afraid he must recognize her; but he was so
sure that she was dead that the idea never occurred to him.

However, the fear of not getting away made her leave before the marriage
was over. She went out hastily, leaving behind her a little coral casket
set with emeralds. On it was written in diamond letters: “Jewels for the
Bride,” and when they opened it, which they did as soon as it was found,
there seemed to be no end to the pretty things it contained. The King,
who had hoped to join the unknown Princess and find out who she was,
was dreadfully disappointed when she disappeared so suddenly, and gave
orders that if she ever came again the doors were to be shut that she
might not get away so easily. Short as Miranda’s absence had been, it
had seemed like a hundred years to the King of the Sheep. He was waiting
for her by a fountain in the thickest part of the forest, and the ground
was strewn with splendid presents which he had prepared for her to show
his joy and gratitude at her coming back.

As soon as she was in sight he rushed to meet her, leaping and bounding
like a real sheep. He caressed her tenderly, throwing himself at her
feet and kissing her hands, and told her how uneasy he had been in
her absence, and how impatient for her return, with an eloquence which
charmed her.

After some time came the news that the King’s second daughter was going
to be married. When Miranda heard it she begged the King of the Sheep
to allow her to go and see the wedding as before. This request made him
feel very sad, as if some misfortune must surely come of it, but his
love for the Princess being stronger than anything else he did not like
to refuse her.

“You wish to leave me, Princess,” said he; “it is my unhappy fate--you
are not to blame. I consent to your going, but, believe me, I can give
you no stronger proof of my love than by so doing.”

The Princess assured him that she would only stay a very short time, as
she had done before, and begged him not to be uneasy, as she would be
quite as much grieved if anything detained her as he could possibly be.

So, with the same escort, she set out, and reached the palace as the
marriage ceremony began. Everybody was delighted to see her; she was
so pretty that they thought she must be some fairy princess, and the
Princes who were there could not take their eyes off her.

The King was more glad than anyone else that she had come again, and
gave orders that the doors should all be shut and bolted that very
minute. When the wedding was all but over the Princess got up quickly,
hoping to slip away unnoticed among the crowd, but, to her great dismay,
she found every door fastened.

She felt more at ease when the King came up to her, and with the
greatest respect begged her not to run away so soon, but at least to
honor him by staying for the splendid feast which was prepared for the
Princes and Princesses. He led her into a magnificent hall, where all
the Court was assembled, and himself taking up the golden bowl full of
water, he offered it to her that she might dip her pretty fingers into
it.

At this the Princess could no longer contain herself; throwing herself
at the King’s feet, she cried out:

“My dream has come true after all--you have offered me water to wash my
hands on my sister’s wedding day, and it has not vexed you to do it.”

The King recognized her at once--indeed, he had already thought several
times how much like his poor little Miranda she was.

“Oh! my dear daughter,” he cried, kissing her, “can you ever forget my
cruelty? I ordered you to be put to death because I thought your dream
portended the loss of my crown. And so it did,” he added, “for now your
sisters are both married and have kingdoms of their own--and mine shall
be for you.” So saying he put his crown on the Princess’s head and
cried:

“Long live Queen Miranda!”

All the Court cried: “Long live Queen Miranda!” after him, and the young
Queen’s two sisters came running up, and threw their arms round her
neck, and kissed her a thousand times, and then there was such a
laughing and crying, talking and kissing, all at once, and Miranda
thanked her father, and began to ask after everyone--particularly
the Captain of the Guard, to whom she owed so much; but, to her great
sorrow, she heard that he was dead. Presently they sat down to the
banquet, and the King asked Miranda to tell them all that had happened
to her since the terrible morning when he had sent the Captain of the
Guard to fetch her. This she did with so much spirit that all the guests
listened with breathless interest. But while she was thus enjoying
herself with the King and her sisters, the King of the Sheep was waiting
impatiently for the time of her return, and when it came and went, and
no Princess appeared, his anxiety became so great that he could bear it
no longer.

“She is not coming back any more,” he cried. “My miserable sheep’s
face displeases her, and without Miranda what is left to me, wretched
creature that I am! Oh! cruel Ragotte; my punishment is complete.”

For a long time he bewailed his sad fate like this, and then, seeing
that it was growing dark, and that still there was no sign of the
Princess, he set out as fast as he could in the direction of the town.
When he reached the palace he asked for Miranda, but by this time
everyone had heard the story of her adventures, and did not want her to
go back again to the King of the Sheep, so they refused sternly to let
him see her. In vain he begged and prayed them to let him in; though
his entreaties might have melted hearts of stone they did not move the
guards of the palace, and at last, quite broken-hearted, he fell dead at
their feet.

In the meantime the King, who had not the least idea of the sad thing
that was happening outside the gate of his palace, proposed to Miranda
that she should be driven in her chariot all round the town, which was
to be illuminated with thousands and thousands of torches, placed in
windows and balconies, and in all the grand squares. But what a sight
met her eyes at the very entrance of the palace! There lay her dear,
kind sheep, silent and motionless, upon the pavement!

She threw herself out of the chariot and ran to him, crying bitterly,
for she realized that her broken promise had cost him his life, and for
a long, long time she was so unhappy that they thought she would have
died too.

So you see that even a princess is not always happy--especially if she
forgets to keep her word; and the greatest misfortunes often happen to
people just as they think they have obtained their heart’s desires!(1)


(1) Madame d’Aulnoy.




LITTLE THUMB


There was, once upon a time, a man and his wife fagot-makers by trade,
who had several children, all boys. The eldest was but ten years old,
and the youngest only seven.

They were very poor, and their seven children incommoded them greatly,
because not one of them was able to earn his bread. That which gave
them yet more uneasiness was that the youngest was of a very puny
constitution, and scarce ever spoke a word, which made them take that
for stupidity which was a sign of good sense. He was very little, and
when born no bigger than one’s thumb, which made him be called Little
Thumb.

The poor child bore the blame of whatsoever was done amiss in the house,
and, guilty or not, was always in the wrong; he was, notwithstanding,
more cunning and had a far greater share of wisdom than all his brothers
put together; and, if he spake little, he heard and thought the more.

There happened now to come a very bad year, and the famine was so great
that these poor people resolved to rid themselves of their children. One
evening, when they were all in bed and the fagot-maker was sitting with
his wife at the fire, he said to her, with his heart ready to burst with
grief:

“Thou seest plainly that we are not able to keep our children, and I
cannot see them starve to death before my face; I am resolved to lose
them in the wood to-morrow, which may very easily be done; for, while
they are busy in tying up fagots, we may run away, and leave them,
without their taking any notice.”

“Ah!” cried his wife; “and canst thou thyself have the heart to take thy
children out along with thee on purpose to lose them?”

In vain did her husband represent to her their extreme poverty: she
would not consent to it; she was indeed poor, but she was their mother.
However, having considered what a grief it would be to her to see them
perish with hunger, she at last consented, and went to bed all in tears.

Little Thumb heard every word that had been spoken; for observing, as
he lay in his bed, that they were talking very busily, he got up softly,
and hid himself under his father’s stool, that he might hear what they
said without being seen. He went to bed again, but did not sleep a wink
all the rest of the night, thinking on what he had to do. He got up
early in the morning, and went to the river-side, where he filled his
pockets full of small white pebbles, and then returned home.

They all went abroad, but Little Thumb never told his brothers one
syllable of what he knew. They went into a very thick forest, where they
could not see one another at ten paces distance. The fagot-maker began
to cut wood, and the children to gather up the sticks to make fagots.
Their father and mother, seeing them busy at their work, got away from
them insensibly, and ran away from them all at once, along a by-way
through the winding bushes.

When the children saw they were left alone, they began to cry as loud as
they could. Little Thumb let them cry on, knowing very well how to get
home again, for, as he came, he took care to drop all along the way the
little white pebbles he had in his pockets. Then he said to them:

“Be not afraid, brothers; father and mother have left us here, but I
will lead you home again, only follow me.”

They did so, and he brought them home by the very same way they came
into the forest. They dared not go in, but sat themselves down at the
door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.

The very moment the fagot-maker and his wife reached home the lord of
the manor sent them ten crowns, which he had owed them a long while, and
which they never expected. This gave them new life, for the poor people
were almost famished. The fagot-maker sent his wife immediately to the
butcher’s. As it was a long while since they had eaten a bit, she bought
thrice as much meat as would sup two people. When they had eaten, the
woman said:

“Alas! where are now our poor children? they would make a good feast of
what we have left here; but it was you, William, who had a mind to lose
them: I told you we should repent of it. What are they now doing in the
forest? Alas! dear God, the wolves have perhaps already eaten them up;
thou art very inhuman thus to have lost thy children.”

The fagot-maker grew at last quite out of patience, for she repeated it
above twenty times, that they should repent of it, and that she was in
the right of it for so saying. He threatened to beat her if she did not
hold her tongue. It was not that the fagot-maker was not, perhaps, more
vexed than his wife, but that she teased him, and that he was of the
humor of a great many others, who love wives to speak well, but
think those very importunate who are continually doing so. She was
half-drowned in tears, crying out:

“Alas! where are now my children, my poor children?”

She spoke this so very loud that the children, who were at the gate,
began to cry out all together:

“Here we are! Here we are!”

She ran immediately to open the door, and said, hugging them:

“I am glad to see you, my dear children; you are very hungry and weary;
and my poor Peter, thou art horribly bemired; come in and let me clean
thee.”

Now, you must know that Peter was her eldest son, whom she loved above
all the rest, because he was somewhat carroty, as she herself was. They
sat down to supper, and ate with such a good appetite as pleased both
father and mother, whom they acquainted how frightened they were in
the forest, speaking almost always all together. The good folks were
extremely glad to see their children once more at home, and this joy
continued while the ten crowns lasted; but, when the money was all gone,
they fell again into their former uneasiness, and resolved to lose them
again; and, that they might be the surer of doing it, to carry them to a
much greater distance than before.

They could not talk of this so secretly but they were overheard by
Little Thumb, who made account to get out of this difficulty as well as
the former; but, though he got up very early in the morning to go and
pick up some little pebbles, he was disappointed, for he found the
house-door double-locked, and was at a stand what to do. When their
father had given each of them a piece of bread for their breakfast,
Little Thumb fancied he might make use of this instead of the pebbles by
throwing it in little bits all along the way they should pass; and so he
put the bread in his pocket.

Their father and mother brought them into the thickest and most obscure
part of the forest, when, stealing away into a by-path, they there left
them. Little Thumb was not very uneasy at it, for he thought he could
easily find the way again by means of his bread, which he had scattered
all along as he came; but he was very much surprised when he could not
find so much as one crumb; the birds had come and had eaten it up, every
bit. They were now in great affliction, for the farther they went the
more they were out of their way, and were more and more bewildered in
the forest.

Night now came on, and there arose a terribly high wind, which made them
dreadfully afraid. They fancied they heard on every side of them the
howling of wolves coming to eat them up. They scarce dared to speak or
turn their heads. After this, it rained very hard, which wetted them to
the skin; their feet slipped at every step they took, and they fell into
the mire, whence they got up in a very dirty pickle; their hands were
quite benumbed.

Little Thumb climbed up to the top of a tree, to see if he could
discover anything; and having turned his head about on every side, he
saw at last a glimmering light, like that of a candle, but a long way
from the forest. He came down, and, when upon the ground, he could see
it no more, which grieved him sadly. However, having walked for some
time with his brothers toward that side on which he had seen the light,
he perceived it again as he came out of the wood.

They came at last to the house where this candle was, not without an
abundance of fear: for very often they lost sight of it, which happened
every time they came into a bottom. They knocked at the door, and a good
woman came and opened it; she asked them what they would have.

Little Thumb told her they were poor children who had been lost in the
forest, and desired to lodge there for God’s sake.

The woman, seeing them so very pretty, began to weep, and said to them:

“Alas! poor babies; whither are ye come? Do ye know that this house
belongs to a cruel ogre who eats up little children?”

“Ah! dear madam,” answered Little Thumb (who trembled every joint of
him, as well as his brothers), “what shall we do? To be sure the wolves
of the forest will devour us to-night if you refuse us to lie here; and
so we would rather the gentleman should eat us; and perhaps he may take
pity upon us, especially if you please to beg it of him.”

The Ogre’s wife, who believed she could conceal them from her husband
till morning, let them come in, and brought them to warm themselves at a
very good fire; for there was a whole sheep upon the spit, roasting for
the Ogre’s supper.

As they began to be a little warm they heard three or four great raps at
the door; this was the Ogre, who had come home. Upon this she hid them
under the bed and went to open the door. The Ogre presently asked if
supper was ready and the wine drawn, and then sat himself down to table.
The sheep was as yet all raw and bloody; but he liked it the better for
that. He sniffed about to the right and left, saying:

“I smell fresh meat.”

“What you smell so,” said his wife, “must be the calf which I have just
now killed and flayed.”

“I smell fresh meat, I tell thee once more,” replied the Ogre, looking
crossly at his wife; “and there is something here which I do not
understand.”

As he spoke these words he got up from the table and went directly to
the bed.

“Ah, ah!” said he; “I see then how thou wouldst cheat me, thou cursed
woman; I know not why I do not eat thee up too, but it is well for thee
that thou art a tough old carrion. Here is good game, which comes very
quickly to entertain three ogres of my acquaintance who are to pay me a
visit in a day or two.”

With that he dragged them out from under the bed one by one. The poor
children fell upon their knees, and begged his pardon; but they had to
do with one of the most cruel ogres in the world, who, far from having
any pity on them, had already devoured them with his eyes, and told
his wife they would be delicate eating when tossed up with good
savory sauce. He then took a great knife, and, coming up to these poor
children, whetted it upon a great whet-stone which he held in his left
hand. He had already taken hold of one of them when his wife said to
him:

“Why need you do it now? Is it not time enough to-morrow?”

“Hold your prating,” said the Ogre; “they will eat the tenderer.

“But you have so much meat already,” replied his wife, “you have no
occasion; here are a calf, two sheep, and half a hog.”

“That is true,” said the Ogre; “give them their belly full that they may
not fall away, and put them to bed.”

The good woman was overjoyed at this, and gave them a good supper; but
they were so much afraid they could not eat a bit. As for the Ogre,
he sat down again to drink, being highly pleased that he had got
wherewithal to treat his friends. He drank a dozen glasses more than
ordinary, which got up into his head and obliged him to go to bed.

The Ogre had seven daughters, all little children, and these young
ogresses had all of them very fine complexions, because they used to
eat fresh meat like their father; but they had little gray eyes, quite
round, hooked noses, and very long sharp teeth, standing at a
good distance from each other. They were not as yet over and above
mischievous, but they promised very fair for it, for they had already
bitten little children, that they might suck their blood.

They had been put to bed early, with every one a crown of gold upon her
head. There was in the same chamber a bed of the like bigness, and it
was into this bed the Ogre’s wife put the seven little boys, after which
she went to bed to her husband.

Little Thumb, who had observed that the Ogre’s daughters had crowns of
gold upon their heads, and was afraid lest the Ogre should repent his
not killing them, got up about midnight, and, taking his brothers’
bonnets and his own, went very softly and put them upon the heads of
the seven little ogresses, after having taken off their crowns of gold,
which he put upon his own head and his brothers’, that the Ogre might
take them for his daughters, and his daughters for the little boys whom
he wanted to kill.

All this succeeded according to his desire; for, the Ogre waking about
midnight, and sorry that he deferred to do that till morning which
he might have done over-night, threw himself hastily out of bed, and,
taking his great knife,

“Let us see,” said he, “how our little rogues do, and not make two jobs
of the matter.”

He then went up, groping all the way, into his daughters’ chamber, and,
coming to the bed where the little boys lay, and who were every soul of
them fast asleep, except Little Thumb, who was terribly afraid when
he found the Ogre fumbling about his head, as he had done about his
brothers’, the Ogre, feeling the golden crowns, said:

“I should have made a fine piece of work of it, truly; I find I drank
too much last night.”

Then he went to the bed where the girls lay; and, having found the boys’
little bonnets,

“Ah!” said he, “my merry lads, are you there? Let us work as we ought.”

And saying these words, without more ado, he cut the throats of all his
seven daughters.

Well pleased with what he had done, he went to bed again to his wife.
So soon as Little Thumb heard the Ogre snore, he waked his brothers, and
bade them all put on their clothes presently and follow him. They stole
down softly into the garden, and got over the wall. They kept running
about all night, and trembled all the while, without knowing which way
they went.

The Ogre, when he awoke, said to his wife: “Go upstairs and dress those
young rascals who came here last night.”

The wife was very much surprised at this goodness of her husband, not
dreaming after what manner she should dress them; but, thinking that
he had ordered her to go and put on their clothes, she went up, and was
strangely astonished when she perceived her seven daughters killed, and
weltering in their blood.

She fainted away, for this is the first expedient almost all women find
in such cases. The Ogre, fearing his wife would be too long in doing
what he had ordered, went up himself to help her. He was no less amazed
than his wife at this frightful spectacle.

“Ah! what have I done?” cried he. “The wretches shall pay for it, and
that instantly.”

He threw a pitcher of water upon his wife’s face, and, having brought
her to herself, said:

“Give me quickly my boots of seven leagues, that I may go and catch
them.”

He went out, and, having run over a vast deal of ground, both on
this side and that, he came at last into the very road where the poor
children were, and not above a hundred paces from their father’s house.
They espied the Ogre, who went at one step from mountain to mountain,
and over rivers as easily as the narrowest kennels. Little Thumb, seeing
a hollow rock near the place where they were, made his brothers hide
themselves in it, and crowded into it himself, minding always what would
become of the Ogre.

The Ogre, who found himself much tired with his long and fruitless
journey (for these boots of seven leagues greatly fatigued the wearer),
had a great mind to rest himself, and, by chance, went to sit down upon
the rock where the little boys had hid themselves. As it was impossible
he could be more weary than he was, he fell asleep, and, after reposing
himself some time, began to snore so frightfully that the poor children
were no less afraid of him than when he held up his great knife and was
going to cut their throats. Little Thumb was not so much frightened as
his brothers, and told them that they should run away immediately toward
home while the Ogre was asleep so soundly, and that they should not be
in any pain about him. They took his advice, and got home presently.
Little Thumb came up to the Ogre, pulled off his boots gently and put
them on his own legs. The boots were very long and large, but, as they
were fairies, they had the gift of becoming big and little, according to
the legs of those who wore them; so that they fitted his feet and legs
as well as if they had been made on purpose for him. He went immediately
to the Ogre’s house, where he saw his wife crying bitterly for the loss
of the Ogre’s murdered daughters.

“Your husband,” said Little Thumb, “is in very great danger, being taken
by a gang of thieves, who have sworn to kill him if he does not give
them all his gold and silver. The very moment they held their daggers
at his throat he perceived me, and desired me to come and tell you the
condition he is in, and that you should give me whatsoever he has of
value, without retaining any one thing; for otherwise they will kill him
without mercy; and, as his case is very pressing, he desired me to make
use (you see I have them on) of his boots, that I might make the more
haste and to show you that I do not impose upon you.”

The good woman, being sadly frightened, gave him all she had: for this
Ogre was a very good husband, though he used to eat up little children.
Little Thumb, having thus got all the Ogre’s money, came home to his
father’s house, where he was received with abundance of joy.

There are many people who do not agree in this circumstance, and pretend
that Little Thumb never robbed the Ogre at all, and that he only thought
he might very justly, and with a safe conscience, take off his boots
of seven leagues, because he made no other use of them but to run after
little children. These folks affirm that they are very well assured of
this, and the more as having drunk and eaten often at the fagot-maker’s
house. They aver that when Little Thumb had taken off the Ogre’s boots
he went to Court, where he was informed that they were very much in pain
about a certain army, which was two hundred leagues off, and the success
of a battle. He went, say they, to the King, and told him that, if he
desired it, he would bring him news from the army before night.

The King promised him a great sum of money upon that condition. Little
Thumb was as good as his word, and returned that very same night with
the news; and, this first expedition causing him to be known, he got
whatever he pleased, for the King paid him very well for carrying his
orders to the army. After having for some time carried on the business
of a messenger, and gained thereby great wealth, he went home to his
father, where it was impossible to express the joy they were all in at
his return. He made the whole family very easy, bought places for his
father and brothers, and, by that means, settled them very handsomely in
the world, and, in the meantime, made his court to perfection.(1)


(1) Charles Perrault.




THE FORTY THIEVES


In a town in Persia there dwelt two brothers, one named Cassim, the
other Ali Baba. Cassim was married to a rich wife and lived in plenty,
while Ali Baba had to maintain his wife and children by cutting wood in
a neighboring forest and selling it in the town. One day, when Ali Baba
was in the forest, he saw a troop of men on horseback, coming toward him
in a cloud of dust. He was afraid they were robbers, and climbed into
a tree for safety. When they came up to him and dismounted, he counted
forty of them. They unbridled their horses and tied them to trees. The
finest man among them, whom Ali Baba took to be their captain, went a
little way among some bushes, and said: “Open, Sesame!”(1) so plainly
that Ali Baba heard him. A door opened in the rocks, and having made the
troop go in, he followed them, and the door shut again of itself. They
stayed some time inside, and Ali Baba, fearing they might come out and
catch him, was forced to sit patiently in the tree. At last the door
opened again, and the Forty Thieves came out. As the Captain went in
last he came out first, and made them all pass by him; he then closed
the door, saying: “Shut, Sesame!” Every man bridled his horse and
mounted, the Captain put himself at their head, and they returned as
they came.


(1) Sesame is a kind of grain.


Then Ali Baba climbed down and went to the door concealed among the
bushes, and said: “Open, Sesame!” and it flew open. Ali Baba, who
expected a dull, dismal place, was greatly surprised to find it large
and well lighted, hollowed by the hand of man in the form of a vault,
which received the light from an opening in the ceiling. He saw rich
bales of merchandise--silk, stuff-brocades, all piled together, and gold
and silver in heaps, and money in leather purses. He went in and the
door shut behind him. He did not look at the silver, but brought out as
many bags of gold as he thought his asses, which were browsing outside,
could carry, loaded them with the bags, and hid it all with fagots.
Using the words: “Shut, Sesame!” he closed the door and went home.

Then he drove his asses into the yard, shut the gates, carried the
money-bags to his wife, and emptied them out before her. He bade her
keep the secret, and he would go and bury the gold. “Let me first
measure it,” said his wife. “I will go borrow a measure of someone,
while you dig the hole.” So she ran to the wife of Cassim and borrowed a
measure. Knowing Ali Baba’s poverty, the sister was curious to find out
what sort of grain his wife wished to measure, and artfully put some
suet at the bottom of the measure. Ali Baba’s wife went home and set the
measure on the heap of gold, and filled it and emptied it often, to her
great content. She then carried it back to her sister, without noticing
that a piece of gold was sticking to it, which Cassim’s wife perceived
directly her back was turned. She grew very curious, and said to Cassim
when he came home: “Cassim, your brother is richer than you. He does not
count his money, he measures it.” He begged her to explain this riddle,
which she did by showing him the piece of money and telling him where
she found it. Then Cassim grew so envious that he could not sleep, and
went to his brother in the morning before sunrise. “Ali Baba,” he said,
showing him the gold piece, “you pretend to be poor and yet you measure
gold.” By this Ali Baba perceived that through his wife’s folly Cassim
and his wife knew their secret, so he confessed all and offered Cassim a
share. “That I expect,” said Cassim; “but I must know where to find the
treasure, otherwise I will discover all, and you will lose all.” Ali
Baba, more out of kindness than fear, told him of the cave, and the very
words to use. Cassim left Ali Baba, meaning to be beforehand with him
and get the treasure for himself. He rose early next morning, and set
out with ten mules loaded with great chests. He soon found the place,
and the door in the rock. He said: “Open, Sesame!” and the door opened
and shut behind him. He could have feasted his eyes all day on the
treasures, but he now hastened to gather together as much of it as
possible; but when he was ready to go he could not remember what to say
for thinking of his great riches. Instead of “Sesame,” he said: “Open,
Barley!” and the door remained fast. He named several different sorts of
grain, all but the right one, and the door still stuck fast. He was so
frightened at the danger he was in that he had as much forgotten the
word as if he had never heard it.

About noon the robbers returned to their cave, and saw Cassim’s mules
roving about with great chests on their backs. This gave them the alarm;
they drew their sabres, and went to the door, which opened on their
Captain’s saying: “Open, Sesame!” Cassim, who had heard the trampling of
their horses’ feet, resolved to sell his life dearly, so when the door
opened he leaped out and threw the Captain down. In vain, however, for
the robbers with their sabres soon killed him. On entering the cave they
saw all the bags laid ready, and could not imagine how anyone had got in
without knowing their secret. They cut Cassim’s body into four quarters,
and nailed them up inside the cave, in order to frighten anyone who
should venture in, and went away in search of more treasure.

As night drew on Cassim’s wife grew very uneasy, and ran to her
brother-in-law, and told him where her husband had gone. Ali Baba did
his best to comfort her, and set out to the forest in search of Cassim.
The first thing he saw on entering the cave was his dead brother. Full
of horror, he put the body on one of his asses, and bags of gold on the
other two, and, covering all with some fagots, returned home. He drove
the two asses laden with gold into his own yard, and led the other to
Cassim’s house. The door was opened by the slave Morgiana, whom he knew
to be both brave and cunning. Unloading the ass, he said to her: “This
is the body of your master, who has been murdered, but whom we must bury
as though he had died in his bed. I will speak with you again, but now
tell your mistress I am come.” The wife of Cassim, on learning the fate
of her husband, broke out into cries and tears, but Ali Baba offered to
take her to live with him and his wife if she would promise to keep
his counsel and leave everything to Morgiana; whereupon she agreed, and
dried her eyes.

Morgiana, meanwhile, sought an apothecary and asked him for some
lozenges. “My poor master,” she said, “can neither eat nor speak, and
no one knows what his distemper is.” She carried home the lozenges and
returned next day weeping, and asked for an essence only given to those
just about to die. Thus, in the evening, no one was surprised to hear
the wretched shrieks and cries of Cassim’s wife and Morgiana, telling
everyone that Cassim was dead. The day after Morgiana went to an old
cobbler near the gates of the town who opened his stall early, put a
piece of gold in his hand, and bade him follow her with his needle and
thread. Having bound his eyes with a handkerchief, she took him to the
room where the body lay, pulled off the bandage, and bade him sew the
quarters together, after which she covered his eyes again and led him
home. Then they buried Cassim, and Morgiana his slave followed him to
the grave, weeping and tearing her hair, while Cassim’s wife stayed at
home uttering lamentable cries. Next day she went to live with Ali Baba,
who gave Cassim’s shop to his eldest son.

The Forty Thieves, on their return to the cave, were much astonished to
find Cassim’s body gone and some of their money-bags. “We are certainly
discovered,” said the Captain, “and shall be undone if we cannot find
out who it is that knows our secret. Two men must have known it; we have
killed one, we must now find the other. To this end one of you who
is bold and artful must go into the city dressed as a traveler, and
discover whom we have killed, and whether men talk of the strange manner
of his death. If the messenger fails he must lose his life, lest we be
betrayed.” One of the thieves started up and offered to do this, and
after the rest had highly commended him for his bravery he disguised
himself, and happened to enter the town at daybreak, just by Baba
Mustapha’s stall. The thief bade him good-day, saying: “Honest man, how
can you possibly see to stitch at your age?” “Old as I am,” replied the
cobbler, “I have very good eyes, and will you believe me when I tell you
that I sewed a dead body together in a place where I had less light than
I have now.” The robber was overjoyed at his good fortune, and, giving
him a piece of gold, desired to be shown the house where he stitched
up the dead body. At first Mustapha refused, saying that he had been
blindfolded; but when the robber gave him another piece of gold he began
to think he might remember the turnings if blindfolded as before. This
means succeeded; the robber partly led him, and was partly guided by
him, right in front of Cassim’s house, the door of which the robber
marked with a piece of chalk. Then, well pleased, he bade farewell to
Baba Mustapha and returned to the forest. By and by Morgiana, going out,
saw the mark the robber had made, quickly guessed that some mischief was
brewing, and fetching a piece of chalk marked two or three doors on each
side, without saying anything to her master or mistress.

The thief, meantime, told his comrades of his discovery. The Captain
thanked him, and bade him show him the house he had marked. But when
they came to it they saw that five or six of the houses were chalked
in the same manner. The guide was so confounded that he knew not what
answer to make, and when they returned he was at once beheaded for
having failed. Another robber was dispatched, and, having won over Baba
Mustapha, marked the house in red chalk; but Morgiana being again too
clever for them, the second messenger was put to death also. The Captain
now resolved to go himself, but, wiser than the others, he did not
mark the house, but looked at it so closely that he could not fail to
remember it. He returned, and ordered his men to go into the neighboring
villages and buy nineteen mules, and thirty-eight leather jars, all
empty except one, which was full of oil. The Captain put one of his men,
fully armed, into each, rubbing the outside of the jars with oil from
the full vessel. Then the nineteen mules were loaded with thirty-seven
robbers in jars, and the jar of oil, and reached the town by dusk. The
Captain stopped his mules in front of Ali Baba’s house, and said to Ali
Baba, who was sitting outside for coolness: “I have brought some oil
from a distance to sell at to-morrow’s market, but it is now so late
that I know not where to pass the night, unless you will do me the favor
to take me in.” Though Ali Baba had seen the Captain of the robbers in
the forest, he did not recognize him in the disguise of an oil merchant.
He bade him welcome, opened his gates for the mules to enter, and
went to Morgiana to bid her prepare a bed and supper for his guest. He
brought the stranger into his hall, and after they had supped went again
to speak to Morgiana in the kitchen, while the Captain went into the
yard under pretense of seeing after his mules, but really to tell his
men what to do. Beginning at the first jar and ending at the last, he
said to each man: “As soon as I throw some stones from the window of the
chamber where I lie, cut the jars open with your knives and come out,
and I will be with you in a trice.” He returned to the house,
and Morgiana led him to his chamber. She then told Abdallah, her
fellow-slave, to set on the pot to make some broth for her master, who
had gone to bed. Meanwhile her lamp went out, and she had no more oil in
the house. “Do not be uneasy,” said Abdallah; “go into the yard and take
some out of one of those jars.” Morgiana thanked him for his advice,
took the oil pot, and went into the yard. When she came to the first jar
the robber inside said softly: “Is it time?”

Any other slave but Morgiana, on finding a man in the jar instead of the
oil she wanted, would have screamed and made a noise; but she, knowing
the danger her master was in, bethought herself of a plan, and answered
quietly: “Not yet, but presently.” She went to all the jars, giving
the same answer, till she came to the jar of oil. She now saw that her
master, thinking to entertain an oil merchant, had let thirty-eight
robbers into his house. She filled her oil pot, went back to the
kitchen, and, having lit her lamp, went again to the oil jar and filled
a large kettle full of oil. When it boiled she went and poured enough
oil into every jar to stifle and kill the robber inside. When this brave
deed was done she went back to the kitchen, put out the fire and the
lamp, and waited to see what would happen.

In a quarter of an hour the Captain of the robbers awoke, got up,
and opened the window. As all seemed quiet, he threw down some little
pebbles which hit the jars. He listened, and as none of his men seemed
to stir he grew uneasy, and went down into the yard. On going to the
first jar and saying, “Are you asleep?” he smelt the hot boiled oil, and
knew at once that his plot to murder Ali Baba and his household had been
discovered. He found all the gang was dead, and, missing the oil out of
the last jar, became aware of the manner of their death. He then forced
the lock of a door leading into a garden, and climbing over several
walls made his escape. Morgiana heard and saw all this, and, rejoicing
at her success, went to bed and fell asleep.

At daybreak Ali Baba arose, and, seeing the oil jars still there, asked
why the merchant had not gone with his mules. Morgiana bade him look
in the first jar and see if there was any oil. Seeing a man, he started
back in terror. “Have no fear,” said Morgiana; “the man cannot harm
you: he is dead.” Ali Baba, when he had recovered somewhat from his
astonishment, asked what had become of the merchant. “Merchant!” said
she, “he is no more a merchant than I am!” and she told him the whole
story, assuring him that it was a plot of the robbers of the forest, of
whom only three were left, and that the white and red chalk marks had
something to do with it. Ali Baba at once gave Morgiana her freedom,
saying that he owed her his life. They then buried the bodies in Ali
Baba’s garden, while the mules were sold in the market by his slaves.

The Captain returned to his lonely cave, which seemed frightful to
him without his lost companions, and firmly resolved to avenge them by
killing Ali Baba. He dressed himself carefully, and went into the town,
where he took lodgings in an inn. In the course of a great many journeys
to the forest he carried away many rich stuffs and much fine linen, and
set up a shop opposite that of Ali Baba’s son. He called himself Cogia
Hassan, and as he was both civil and well dressed he soon made friends
with Ali Baba’s son, and through him with Ali Baba, whom he was
continually asking to sup with him. Ali Baba, wishing to return his
kindness, invited him into his house and received him smiling, thanking
him for his kindness to his son. When the merchant was about to take his
leave Ali Baba stopped him, saying: “Where are you going, sir, in such
haste? Will you not stay and sup with me?” The merchant refused, saying
that he had a reason; and, on Ali Baba’s asking him what that was, he
replied: “It is, sir, that I can eat no victuals that have any salt
in them.” “If that is all,” said Ali Baba, “let me tell you that there
shall be no salt in either the meat or the bread that we eat to-night.”
 He went to give this order to Morgiana, who was much surprised. “Who is
this man,” she said, “who eats no salt with his meat?” “He is an honest
man, Morgiana,” returned her master; “therefore do as I bid you.” But
she could not withstand a desire to see this strange man, so she helped
Abdallah to carry up the dishes, and saw in a moment that Cogia Hassan
was the robber Captain, and carried a dagger under his garment. “I am
not surprised,” she said to herself, “that this wicked man, who intends
to kill my master, will eat no salt with him; but I will hinder his
plans.”

She sent up the supper by Abdallah, while she made ready for one of the
boldest acts that could be thought on. When the dessert had been served,
Cogia Hassan was left alone with Ali Baba and his son, whom he thought
to make drunk and then to murder them. Morgiana, meanwhile, put on a
head-dress like a dancing-girl’s, and clasped a girdle round her waist,
from which hung a dagger with a silver hilt, and said to Abdallah: “Take
your tabor, and let us go and divert our master and his guest.” Abdallah
took his tabor and played before Morgiana until they came to the door,
where Abdallah stopped playing and Morgiana made a low courtesy. “Come
in, Morgiana,” said Ali Baba, “and let Cogia Hassan see what you can
do”; and, turning to Cogia Hassan, he said: “She’s my slave and my
housekeeper.” Cogia Hassan was by no means pleased, for he feared
that his chance of killing Ali Baba was gone for the present; but he
pretended great eagerness to see Morgiana, and Abdallah began to play
and Morgiana to dance. After she had performed several dances she drew
her dagger and made passes with it, sometimes pointing it at her own
breast, sometimes at her master’s, as if it were part of the dance.
Suddenly, out of breath, she snatched the tabor from Abdallah with her
left hand, and, holding the dagger in her right hand, held out the tabor
to her master. Ali Baba and his son put a piece of gold into it, and
Cogia Hassan, seeing that she was coming to him, pulled out his purse to
make her a present, but while he was putting his hand into it Morgiana
plunged the dagger into his heart.

“Unhappy girl!” cried Ali Baba and his son, “what have you done to ruin
us?”

“It was to preserve you, master, not to ruin you,” answered Morgiana.
“See here,” opening the false merchant’s garment and showing the dagger;
“see what an enemy you have entertained! Remember, he would eat no salt
with you, and what more would you have? Look at him! he is both the
false oil merchant and the Captain of the Forty Thieves.”

Ali Baba was so grateful to Morgiana for thus saving his life that he
offered her to his son in marriage, who readily consented, and a few
days after the wedding was celebrated with greatest splendor.

At the end of a year Ali Baba, hearing nothing of the two remaining
robbers, judged they were dead, and set out to the cave. The door opened
on his saying: “Open Sesame!” He went in, and saw that nobody had been
there since the Captain left it. He brought away as much gold as he
could carry, and returned to town. He told his son the secret of
the cave, which his son handed down in his turn, so the children and
grandchildren of Ali Baba were rich to the end of their lives.(1)


(1) Arabian Nights.




HANSEL AND GRETTEL


Once upon a time there dwelt on the outskirts of a large forest a poor
woodcutter with his wife and two children; the boy was called Hansel and
the girl Grettel. He had always little enough to live on, and once, when
there was a great famine in the land, he couldn’t even provide them with
daily bread. One night, as he was tossing about in bed, full of cares
and worry, he sighed and said to his wife: “What’s to become of us? how
are we to support our poor children, now that we have nothing more for
ourselves?” “I’ll tell you what, husband,” answered the woman; “early
to-morrow morning we’ll take the children out into the thickest part
of the wood; there we shall light a fire for them and give them each a
piece of bread; then we’ll go on to our work and leave them alone. They
won’t be able to find their way home, and we shall thus be rid of them.”
 “No, wife,” said her husband, “that I won’t do; how could I find it in
my heart to leave my children alone in the wood? The wild beasts would
soon come and tear them to pieces.” “Oh! you fool,” said she, “then we
must all four die of hunger, and you may just as well go and plane the
boards for our coffins”; and she left him no peace till he consented.
“But I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor children,” added the
husband.

The children, too, had not been able to sleep for hunger, and had heard
what their step-mother had said to their father. Grettel wept bitterly
and spoke to Hansel: “Now it’s all up with us.” “No, no, Grettel,” said
Hansel, “don’t fret yourself; I’ll be able to find a way to escape, no
fear.” And when the old people had fallen asleep he got up, slipped
on his little coat, opened the back door and stole out. The moon was
shining clearly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house
glittered like bits of silver. Hansel bent down and filled his pocket
with as many of them as he could cram in. Then he went back and said to
Grettel: “Be comforted, my dear little sister, and go to sleep: God will
not desert us”; and he lay down in bed again.

At daybreak, even before the sun was up, the woman came and woke the two
children: “Get up, you lie-abeds, we’re all going to the forest to fetch
wood.” She gave them each a bit of bread and said: “There’s something
for your luncheon, but don’t you eat it up before, for it’s all you’ll
get.” Grettel took the bread under her apron, as Hansel had the stones
in his pocket. Then they all set out together on the way to the forest.
After they had walked for a little, Hansel stood still and looked back
at the house, and this maneuver he repeated again and again. His father
observed him, and said: “Hansel, what are you gazing at there, and why
do you always remain behind? Take care, and don’t lose your footing.”
 “Oh! father,” said Hansel, “I am looking back at my white kitten, which
is sitting on the roof, waving me a farewell.” The woman exclaimed:
“What a donkey you are! that isn’t your kitten, that’s the morning sun
shining on the chimney.” But Hansel had not looked back at his kitten,
but had always dropped one of the white pebbles out of his pocket on to
the path.

When they had reached the middle of the forest the father said: “Now,
children, go and fetch a lot of wood, and I’ll light a fire that you
may not feel cold.” Hansel and Grettel heaped up brushwood till they had
made a pile nearly the size of a small hill. The brushwood was set fire
to, and when the flames leaped high the woman said: “Now lie down at the
fire, children, and rest yourselves: we are going into the forest to cut
down wood; when we’ve finished we’ll come back and fetch you.” Hansel
and Grettel sat down beside the fire, and at midday ate their little
bits of bread. They heard the strokes of the axe, so they thought their
father was quite near. But it was no axe they heard, but a bough he had
tied on a dead tree, and that was blown about by the wind. And when they
had sat for a long time their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell
fast asleep. When they awoke at last it was pitch dark. Grettel began
to cry, and said: “How are we ever to get out of the wood?” But Hansel
comforted her. “Wait a bit,” he said, “till the moon is up, and then
we’ll find our way sure enough.” And when the full moon had risen he
took his sister by the hand and followed the pebbles, which shone like
new threepenny bits, and showed them the path. They walked on through
the night, and at daybreak reached their father’s house again. They
knocked at the door, and when the woman opened it she exclaimed: “You
naughty children, what a time you’ve slept in the wood! we thought
you were never going to come back.” But the father rejoiced, for
his conscience had reproached him for leaving his children behind by
themselves.

Not long afterward there was again great dearth in the land, and the
children heard their mother address their father thus in bed one night:
“Everything is eaten up once more; we have only half a loaf in the
house, and when that’s done it’s all up with us. The children must be
got rid of; we’ll lead them deeper into the wood this time, so that
they won’t be able to find their way out again. There is no other way
of saving ourselves.” The man’s heart smote him heavily, and he thought:
“Surely it would be better to share the last bite with one’s children!”
 But his wife wouldn’t listen to his arguments, and did nothing but scold
and reproach him. If a man yields once he’s done for, and so, because he
had given in the first time, he was forced to do so the second.

But the children were awake, and had heard the conversation. When the
old people were asleep Hansel got up, and wanted to go out and pick up
pebbles again, as he had done the first time; but the woman had barred
the door, and Hansel couldn’t get out. But he consoled his little
sister, and said: “Don’t cry, Grettel, and sleep peacefully, for God is
sure to help us.”

At early dawn the woman came and made the children get up. They received
their bit of bread, but it was even smaller than the time before. On the
way to the wood Hansel crumbled it in his pocket, and every few minutes
he stood still and dropped a crumb on the ground. “Hansel, what are you
stopping and looking about you for?” said the father. “I’m looking back
at my little pigeon, which is sitting on the roof waving me a farewell,”
 answered Hansel. “Fool!” said the wife; “that isn’t your pigeon, it’s
the morning sun glittering on the chimney.” But Hansel gradually threw
all his crumbs on the path. The woman led the children still deeper into
the forest farther than they had ever been in their lives before. Then
a big fire was lit again, and the mother said: “Just sit down there,
children, and if you’re tired you can sleep a bit; we’re going into the
forest to cut down wood, and in the evening when we’re finished we’ll
come back to fetch you.” At midday Grettel divided her bread with
Hansel, for he had strewn his all along their path. Then they fell
asleep, and evening passed away, but nobody came to the poor children.
They didn’t awake till it was pitch dark, and Hansel comforted his
sister, saying: “Only wait, Grettel, till the moon rises, then we shall
see the bread-crumbs I scattered along the path; they will show us the
way back to the house.” When the moon appeared they got up, but they
found no crumbs, for the thousands of birds that fly about the woods
and fields had picked them all up. “Never mind,” said Hansel to Grettel;
“you’ll see we’ll find a way out”; but all the same they did not. They
wandered about the whole night, and the next day, from morning till
evening, but they could not find a path out of the wood. They were very
hungry, too, for they had nothing to eat but a few berries they found
growing on the ground. And at last they were so tired that their legs
refused to carry them any longer, so they lay down under a tree and fell
fast asleep.

On the third morning after they had left their father’s house they set
about their wandering again, but only got deeper and deeper into the
wood, and now they felt that if help did not come to them soon they must
perish. At midday they saw a beautiful little snow-white bird sitting on
a branch, which sang so sweetly that they stopped still and listened to
it. And when its song was finished it flapped its wings and flew on in
front of them. They followed it and came to a little house, on the roof
of which it perched; and when they came quite near they saw that the
cottage was made of bread and roofed with cakes, while the window was
made of transparent sugar. “Now we’ll set to,” said Hansel, “and have a
regular blow-out.(1) I’ll eat a bit of the roof, and you, Grettel,
can eat some of the window, which you’ll find a sweet morsel.” Hansel
stretched up his hand and broke off a little bit of the roof to see what
it was like, and Grettel went to the casement and began to nibble at it.
Thereupon a shrill voice called out from the room inside:

  “Nibble, nibble, little mouse,
  Who’s nibbling my house?”

The children answered:

  “Tis Heaven’s own child,
  The tempest wild,”

and went on eating, without putting themselves about. Hansel, who
thoroughly appreciated the roof, tore down a big bit of it, while
Grettel pushed out a whole round window-pane, and sat down the better
to enjoy it. Suddenly the door opened, and an ancient dame leaning on
a staff hobbled out. Hansel and Grettel were so terrified that they let
what they had in their hands fall. But the old woman shook her head and
said: “Oh, ho! you dear children, who led you here? Just come in and
stay with me, no ill shall befall you.” She took them both by the hand
and let them into the house, and laid a most sumptuous dinner before
them--milk and sugared pancakes, with apples and nuts. After they had
finished, two beautiful little white beds were prepared for them, and
when Hansel and Grettel lay down in them they felt as if they had got
into heaven.


(1) He was a vulgar boy!


The old woman had appeared to be most friendly, but she was really an
old witch who had waylaid the children, and had only built the little
bread house in order to lure them in. When anyone came into her power
she killed, cooked, and ate him, and held a regular feast-day for the
occasion. Now witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but, like
beasts, they have a keen sense of smell, and know when human beings pass
by. When Hansel and Grettel fell into her hands she laughed maliciously,
and said jeeringly: “I’ve got them now; they sha’n’t escape me.” Early
in the morning, before the children were awake, she rose up, and when
she saw them both sleeping so peacefully, with their round rosy cheeks,
she muttered to herself: “That’ll be a dainty bite.” Then she seized
Hansel with her bony hand and carried him into a little stable, and
barred the door on him; he might scream as much as he liked, it did him
no good. Then she went to Grettel, shook her till she awoke, and
cried: “Get up, you lazy-bones, fetch water and cook something for your
brother. When he’s fat I’ll eat him up.” Grettel began to cry bitterly,
but it was of no use; she had to do what the wicked witch bade her.

So the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Grettel got nothing but
crab-shells. Every morning the old woman hobbled out to the stable and
cried: “Hansel, put out your finger, that I may feel if you are getting
fat.” But Hansel always stretched out a bone, and the old dame, whose
eyes were dim, couldn’t see it, and thinking always it was Hansel’s
finger, wondered why he fattened so slowly. When four weeks had passed
and Hansel still remained thin, she lost patience and determined to wait
no longer. “Hi, Grettel,” she called to the girl, “be quick and get some
water. Hansel may be fat or thin, I’m going to kill him to-morrow and
cook him.” Oh! how the poor little sister sobbed as she carried the
water, and how the tears rolled down her cheeks! “Kind heaven help us
now!” she cried; “if only the wild beasts in the wood had eaten us, then
at least we should have died together.” “Just hold your peace,” said the
old hag; “it won’t help you.”

Early in the morning Grettel had to go out and hang up the kettle full
of water, and light the fire. “First we’ll bake,” said the old dame;
“I’ve heated the oven already and kneaded the dough.” She pushed Grettel
out to the oven, from which fiery flames were already issuing. “Creep
in,” said the witch, “and see if it’s properly heated, so that we can
shove in the bread.” For when she had got Grettel in she meant to close
the oven and let the girl bake, that she might eat her up too. But
Grettel perceived her intention, and said: “I don’t know how I’m to do
it; how do I get in?” “You silly goose!” said the hag, “the opening is
big enough; see, I could get in myself,” and she crawled toward it, and
poked her head into the oven. Then Grettel gave her a shove that sent
her right in, shut the iron door, and drew the bolt. Gracious! how she
yelled, it was quite horrible; but Grettel fled, and the wretched old
woman was left to perish miserably.

Grettel flew straight to Hansel, opened the little stable-door, and
cried: “Hansel, we are free; the old witch is dead.” Then Hansel sprang
like a bird out of a cage when the door is opened. How they rejoiced,
and fell on each other’s necks, and jumped for joy, and kissed one
another! And as they had no longer any cause for fear, they went in the
old hag’s house, and here they found, in every corner of the room, boxes
with pearls and precious stones. “These are even better than pebbles,”
 said Hansel, and crammed his pockets full of them; and Grettel said:
“I too will bring something home,” and she filled her apron full. “But
now,” said Hansel, “let’s go and get well away from the witch’s wood.”
 When they had wandered about for some hours they came to a big lake.
“We can’t get over,” said Hansel; “I see no bridge of any sort or kind.”
 “Yes, and there’s no ferry-boat either,” answered Grettel; “but look,
there swims a white duck; if I ask her she’ll help us over,” and she
called out:

  “Here are two children, mournful very,
  Seeing neither bridge nor ferry;
  Take us upon your white back,
  And row us over, quack, quack!”


The duck swam toward them, and Hansel got on her back and bade his
little sister sit beside him. “No,” answered Grettel, “we should be too
heavy a load for the duck: she shall carry us across separately.” The
good bird did this, and when they were landed safely on the other side,
and had gone for a while, the wood became more and more familiar to
them, and at length they saw their father’s house in the distance. Then
they set off to run, and bounding into the room fell on their father’s
neck. The man had not passed a happy hour since he left them in the
wood, but the woman had died. Grettel shook out her apron so that the
pearls and precious stones rolled about the room, and Hansel threw down
one handful after the other out of his pocket. Thus all their troubles
were ended, and they lived happily ever afterward.

My story is done. See! there runs a little mouse; anyone who catches it
may make himself a large fur cap out of it.(1)


(1) Grimm.




SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED


A poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of
it, in which grew two rose trees, one bearing white roses and the other
red. She had two children, who were just like the two rose trees; one
was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red, and they were the sweetest
and best children in the world, always diligent and always cheerful; but
Snow-white was quieter and more gentle than Rose-red. Rose-red loved
to run about the fields and meadows, and to pick flowers and catch
butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home with her mother and helped her
in the household, or read aloud to her when there was no work to do. The
two children loved each other so dearly that they always walked about
hand in hand whenever they went out together, and when Snow-white said,
“We will never desert each other,” Rose-red answered: “No, not as long
as we live”; and the mother added: “Whatever one gets she shall share
with the other.” They often roamed about in the woods gathering berries
and no beast offered to hurt them; on the contrary, they came up to them
in the most confiding manner; the little hare would eat a cabbage leaf
from their hands, the deer grazed beside them, the stag would bound past
them merrily, and the birds remained on the branches and sang to them
with all their might.

No evil ever befell them; if they tarried late in the wood and night
overtook them, they lay down together on the moss and slept till
morning, and their mother knew they were quite safe, and never felt
anxious about them. Once, when they had slept all night in the wood and
had been wakened by the morning sun, they perceived a beautiful child
in a shining white robe sitting close to their resting-place. The figure
got up, looked at them kindly, but said nothing, and vanished into the
wood. And when they looked round about them they became aware that they
had slept quite close to a precipice, over which they would certainly
have fallen had they gone on a few steps further in the darkness. And
when they told their mother of their adventure, she said what they had
seen must have been the angel that guards good children.

Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s cottage so beautifully clean
and neat that it was a pleasure to go into it. In summer Rose-red looked
after the house, and every morning before her mother awoke she placed
a bunch of flowers before the bed, from each tree a rose. In winter
Snow-white lit the fire and put on the kettle, which was made of brass,
but so beautifully polished that it shone like gold. In the evening when
the snowflakes fell their mother said: “Snow-white, go and close the
shutters,” and they drew round the fire, while the mother put on her
spectacles and read aloud from a big book and the two girls listened and
sat and span. Beside them on the ground lay a little lamb, and behind
them perched a little white dove with its head tucked under its wings.

One evening as they sat thus cosily together someone knocked at the door
as though he desired admittance. The mother said: “Rose-red, open
the door quickly; it must be some traveler seeking shelter.” Rose-red
hastened to unbar the door, and thought she saw a poor man standing in
the darkness outside; but it was no such thing, only a bear, who poked
his thick black head through the door. Rose-red screamed aloud and
sprang back in terror, the lamb began to bleat, the dove flapped its
wings, and Snow-white ran and hid behind her mother’s bed. But the bear
began to speak, and said: “Don’t be afraid: I won’t hurt you. I am half
frozen, and only wish to warm myself a little.” “My poor bear,” said the
mother, “lie down by the fire, only take care you don’t burn your fur.”
 Then she called out: “Snow-white and Rose-red, come out; the bear will
do you no harm; he is a good, honest creature.” So they both came out of
their hiding-places, and gradually the lamb and dove drew near too, and
they all forgot their fear. The bear asked the children to beat the snow
a little out of his fur, and they fetched a brush and scrubbed him till
he was dry. Then the beast stretched himself in front of the fire, and
growled quite happily and comfortably. The children soon grew quite at
their ease with him, and led their helpless guest a fearful life. They
tugged his fur with their hands, put their small feet on his back, and
rolled him about here and there, or took a hazel wand and beat him
with it; and if he growled they only laughed. The bear submitted to
everything with the best possible good-nature, only when they went too
far he cried: “Oh! children, spare my life!

  “Snow-white and Rose-red,
  Don’t beat your lover dead.”

When it was time to retire for the night, and the others went to bed,
the mother said to the bear: “You can lie there on the hearth, in
heaven’s name; it will be shelter for you from the cold and wet.” As
soon as day dawned the children led him out, and he trotted over the
snow into the wood. From this time on the bear came every evening at
the same hour, and lay down by the hearth and let the children play what
pranks they liked with him; and they got so accustomed to him that the
door was never shut till their black friend had made his appearance.

When spring came, and all outside was green, the bear said one morning
to Snow-white: “Now I must go away, and not return again the whole
summer.” “Where are you going to, dear bear?” asked Snow-white. “I
must go to the wood and protect my treasure from the wicked dwarfs.
In winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged to remain
underground, for they can’t work their way through; but now, when the
sun has thawed and warmed the ground, they break through and come up
above to spy the land and steal what they can; what once falls into
their hands and into their caves is not easily brought back to light.”
 Snow-white was quite sad over their friend’s departure, and when she
unbarred the door for him, the bear, stepping out, caught a piece of
his fur in the door-knocker, and Snow-white thought she caught sight of
glittering gold beneath it, but she couldn’t be certain of it; and the
bear ran hastily away, and soon disappeared behind the trees.

A short time after this the mother sent the children into the wood to
collect fagots. They came in their wanderings upon a big tree which lay
felled on the ground, and on the trunk among the long grass they
noticed something jumping up and down, but what it was they couldn’t
distinguish. When they approached nearer they perceived a dwarf with a
wizened face and a beard a yard long. The end of the beard was jammed
into a cleft of the tree, and the little man sprang about like a dog
on a chain, and didn’t seem to know what he was to do. He glared at the
girls with his fiery red eyes, and screamed out: “What are you standing
there for? Can’t you come and help me?” “What were you doing, little
man?” asked Rose-red. “You stupid, inquisitive goose!” replied the
dwarf; “I wanted to split the tree, in order to get little chips of
wood for our kitchen fire; those thick logs that serve to make fires for
coarse, greedy people like yourselves quite burn up all the little food
we need. I had successfully driven in the wedge, and all was going well,
but the cursed wood was so slippery that it suddenly sprang out, and the
tree closed up so rapidly that I had no time to take my beautiful white
beard out, so here I am stuck fast, and I can’t get away; and you silly,
smooth-faced, milk-and-water girls just stand and laugh! Ugh! what
wretches you are!”

The children did all in their power, but they couldn’t get the beard
out; it was wedged in far too firmly. “I will run and fetch somebody,”
 said Rose-red. “Crazy blockheads!” snapped the dwarf; “what’s the good
of calling anyone else? You’re already two too many for me. Does
nothing better occur to you than that?” “Don’t be so impatient,” said
Snow-white, “I’ll see you get help,” and taking her scissors out of
her pocket she cut off the end of his beard. As soon as the dwarf felt
himself free he seized a bag full of gold which was hidden among the
roots of the tree, lifted it up, and muttered aloud: “Curse these rude
wretches, cutting off a piece of my splendid beard!” With these words he
swung the bag over his back, and disappeared without as much as looking
at the children again.

Shortly after this Snow-white and Rose-red went out to get a dish of
fish. As they approached the stream they saw something which looked like
an enormous grasshopper springing toward the water as if it were going
to jump in. They ran forward and recognized their old friend the dwarf.
“Where are you going to?” asked Rose-red; “you’re surely not going to
jump into the water?” “I’m not such a fool,” screamed the dwarf. “Don’t
you see that cursed fish is trying to drag me in?” The little man
had been sitting on the bank fishing, when unfortunately the wind had
entangled his beard in the line; and when immediately afterward a big
fish bit, the feeble little creature had no strength to pull it out; the
fish had the upper fin, and dragged the dwarf toward him. He clung on
with all his might to every rush and blade of grass, but it didn’t help
him much; he had to follow every movement of the fish, and was in great
danger of being drawn into the water. The girls came up just at the
right moment, held him firm, and did all they could to disentangle his
beard from the line; but in vain, beard and line were in a hopeless
muddle. Nothing remained but to produce the scissors and cut the beard,
by which a small part of it was sacrificed.

When the dwarf perceived what they were about he yelled to them: “Do
you call that manners, you toad-stools! to disfigure a fellow’s face? It
wasn’t enough that you shortened my beard before, but you must now
needs cut off the best bit of it. I can’t appear like this before my own
people. I wish you’d been in Jericho first.” Then he fetched a sack of
pearls that lay among the rushes, and without saying another word he
dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.

It happened that soon after this the mother sent the two girls to the
town to buy needles, thread, laces, and ribbons. Their road led over a
heath where huge boulders of rock lay scattered here and there. While
trudging along they saw a big bird hovering in the air, circling slowly
above them, but always descending lower, till at last it settled on
a rock not far from them. Immediately afterward they heard a sharp,
piercing cry. They ran forward, and saw with horror that the eagle had
pounced on their old friend the dwarf, and was about to carry him off.
The tender-hearted children seized hold of the little man, and struggled
so long with the bird that at last he let go his prey. When the dwarf
had recovered from the first shock he screamed in his screeching voice:
“Couldn’t you have treated me more carefully? You have torn my thin
little coat all to shreds, useless, awkward hussies that you are!” Then
he took a bag of precious stones and vanished under the rocks into his
cave. The girls were accustomed to his ingratitude, and went on their
way and did their business in town. On their way home, as they were
again passing the heath, they surprised the dwarf pouring out his
precious stones on an open space, for he had thought no one would pass
by at so late an hour. The evening sun shone on the glittering stones,
and they glanced and gleamed so beautifully that the children stood
still and gazed on them. “What are you standing there gaping for?”
 screamed the dwarf, and his ashen-gray face became scarlet with rage.
He was about to go off with these angry words when a sudden growl was
heard, and a black bear trotted out of the wood. The dwarf jumped up in
great fright, but he hadn’t time to reach his place of retreat, for the
bear was already close to him. Then he cried in terror: “Dear Mr.
Bear, spare me! I’ll give you all my treasure. Look at those beautiful
precious stones lying there. Spare my life! what pleasure would you get
from a poor feeble little fellow like me? You won’t feel me between your
teeth. There, lay hold of these two wicked girls, they will be a tender
morsel for you, as fat as young quails; eat them up, for heaven’s sake.”
 But the bear, paying no attention to his words, gave the evil little
creature one blow with his paw, and he never moved again.

The girls had run away, but the bear called after them: “Snow-white
and Rose-red, don’t be afraid; wait, and I’ll come with you.” Then they
recognized his voice and stood still, and when the bear was quite close
to them his skin suddenly fell off, and a beautiful man stood beside
them, all dressed in gold. “I am a king’s son,” he said, “and have been
doomed by that unholy little dwarf, who had stolen my treasure, to roam
about the woods as a wild bear till his death should set me free. Now he
has got his well-merited punishment.”

Snow-white married him, and Rose-red his brother, and they divided the
great treasure the dwarf had collected in his cave between them. The
old mother lived for many years peacefully with her children; and she
carried the two rose trees with her, and they stood in front of her
window, and every year they bore the finest red and white roses.(1)


(1) Grimm.




THE GOOSE-GIRL


Once upon a time an old queen, whose husband had been dead for many
years, had a beautiful daughter. When she grew up she was betrothed to
a prince who lived a great way off. Now, when the time drew near for her
to be married and to depart into a foreign kingdom, her old mother gave
her much costly baggage, and many ornaments, gold and silver, trinkets
and knicknacks, and, in fact, everything that belonged to a royal
trousseau, for she loved her daughter very dearly. She gave her a
waiting-maid also, who was to ride with her and hand her over to the
bridegroom, and she provided each of them with a horse for the journey.
Now the Princess’s horse was called Falada, and could speak.

When the hour for departure drew near the old mother went to her
bedroom, and taking a small knife she cut her fingers till they bled;
then she held a white rag under them, and letting three drops of blood
fall into it, she gave it to her daughter, and said: “Dear child, take
great care of this rag: it may be of use to you on the journey.”

So they took a sad farewell of each other, and the Princess stuck the
rag in front of her dress, mounted her horse, and set forth on the
journey to her bridegroom’s kingdom. After they had ridden for about
an hour the Princess began to feel very thirsty, and said to her
waiting-maid: “Pray get down and fetch me some water in my golden cup
out of yonder stream: I would like a drink.” “If you’re thirsty,” said
the maid, “dismount yourself, and lie down by the water and drink; I
don’t mean to be your servant any longer.” The Princess was so thirsty
that she got down, bent over the stream, and drank, for she wasn’t
allowed to drink out of the golden goblet. As she drank she murmured:
“Oh! heaven, what am I to do?” and the three drops of blood replied:

  “If your mother only knew,
  Her heart would surely break in two.”

But the Princess was meek, and said nothing about her maid’s rude
behavior, and quietly mounted her horse again. They rode on their
way for several miles, but the day was hot, and the sun’s rays smote
fiercely on them, so that the Princess was soon overcome by thirst
again. And as they passed a brook she called once more to her
waiting-maid: “Pray get down and give me a drink from my golden
cup,” for she had long ago forgotten her maid’s rude words. But the
waiting-maid replied, more haughtily even than before: “If you want a
drink, you can dismount and get it; I don’t mean to be your servant.”
 Then the Princess was compelled by her thirst to get down, and bending
over the flowing water she cried and said: “Oh! heaven, what am I to
do?” and the three drops of blood replied:

  “If your mother only knew,
  Her heart would surely break in two.”

And as she drank thus, and leaned right over the water, the rag
containing the three drops of blood fell from her bosom and floated down
the stream, and she in her anxiety never even noticed her loss. But the
waiting-maid had observed it with delight, as she knew it gave her power
over the bride, for in losing the drops of blood the Princess had become
weak and powerless. When she wished to get on her horse Falada again,
the waiting-maid called out: “I mean to ride Falada: you must mount
my beast”; and this too she had to submit to. Then the waiting-maid
commanded her harshly to take off her royal robes, and to put on her
common ones, and finally she made her swear by heaven not to say a word
about the matter when they reached the palace; and if she hadn’t taken
this oath she would have been killed on the spot. But Falada observed
everything, and laid it all to heart.

The waiting-maid now mounted Falada, and the real bride the worse horse,
and so they continued their journey till at length they arrived at the
palace yard. There was great rejoicing over the arrival, and the Prince
sprang forward to meet them, and taking the waiting-maid for his bride,
he lifted her down from her horse and led her upstairs to the royal
chamber. In the meantime the real Princess was left standing below in
the courtyard. The old King, who was looking out of his window, beheld
her in this plight, and it struck him how sweet and gentle, even
beautiful, she looked. He went at once to the royal chamber, and asked
the bride who it was she had brought with her and had left thus standing
in the court below. “Oh!” replied the bride, “I brought her with me to
keep me company on the journey; give the girl something to do, that she
may not be idle.” But the old King had no work for her, and couldn’t
think of anything; so he said, “I’ve a small boy who looks after the
geese, she’d better help him.” The youth’s name was Curdken, and the
real bride was made to assist him in herding geese.

Soon after this the false bride said to the Prince: “Dearest husband,
I pray you grant me a favor.” He answered: “That I will.” “Then let the
slaughterer cut off the head of the horse I rode here upon, because it
behaved very badly on the journey.” But the truth was she was afraid
lest the horse should speak and tell how she had treated the Princess.
She carried her point, and the faithful Falada was doomed to die.
When the news came to the ears of the real Princess she went to the
slaughterer, and secretly promised him a piece of gold if he would do
something for her. There was in the town a large dark gate, through
which she had to pass night and morning with the geese; would he “kindly
hang up Falada’s head there, that she might see it once again?” The
slaughterer said he would do as she desired, chopped off the head, and
nailed it firmly over the gateway.

Early next morning, as she and Curdken were driving their flock through
the gate, she said as she passed under:


  “Oh! Falada, ‘tis you hang there”;

and the head replied:

  “‘Tis you; pass under, Princess fair:
  If your mother only knew,
  Her heart would surely break in two.”

Then she left the tower and drove the geese into a field. And when they
had reached the common where the geese fed she sat down and unloosed
her hair, which was of pure gold. Curdken loved to see it glitter in the
sun, and wanted much to pull some hair out. Then she spoke:

  “Wind, wind, gently sway,
  Blow Curdken’s hat away;
  Let him chase o’er field and wold
  Till my locks of ruddy gold,
  Now astray and hanging down,
  Be combed and plaited in a crown.”


Then a gust of wind blew Curdken’s hat away, and he had to chase it over
hill and dale. When he returned from the pursuit she had finished
her combing and curling, and his chance of getting any hair was gone.
Curdken was very angry, and wouldn’t speak to her. So they herded the
geese till evening and then went home.

The next morning, as they passed under the gate, the girl said:

  “Oh! Falada, ‘tis you hang there;”

and the head replied:

  “‘Tis you; pass under, Princess fair:
  If your mother only knew,
  Her heart would surely break in two.”

Then she went on her way till she came to the common, where she sat down
and began to comb out her hair; then Curdken ran up to her and wanted to
grasp some of the hair from her head, but she called out hastily:

  “Wind, wind, gently sway,
  Blow Curdken’s hat away;
  Let him chase o’er field and wold
  Till my locks of ruddy gold,
  Now astray and hanging down,
  Be combed and plaited in a crown.”


Then a puff of wind came and blew Curdken’s hat far away, so that he had
to run after it; and when he returned she had long finished putting
up her golden locks, and he couldn’t get any hair; so they watched the
geese till it was dark.

But that evening when they got home Curdken went to the old King, and
said: “I refuse to herd geese any longer with that girl.” “For what
reason?” asked the old King. “Because she does nothing but annoy me
all day long,” replied Curdken; and he proceeded to relate all her
iniquities, and said: “Every morning as we drive the flock through the
dark gate she says to a horse’s head that hangs on the wall:

     “‘Oh! Falada, ‘tis you hang there’;

and the head replies:

     “‘’Tis you; pass under, Princess fair:
     If your mother only knew,
     Her heart would surely break in two.’”


And Curdken went on to tell what passed on the common where the geese
fed, and how he had always to chase his hat.

The old King bade him go and drive forth his flock as usual next day;
and when morning came he himself took up his position behind the dark
gate, and heard how the goose-girl greeted Falada. Then he followed her
through the field, and hid himself behind a bush on the common. He soon
saw with his own eyes how the goose-boy and the goose-girl looked after
the geese, and how after a time the maiden sat down and loosed her hair,
that glittered like gold, and repeated:

  “Wind, wind, gently sway,
  Blow Curdken’s hat away;
  Let him chase o’er field and wold
  Till my locks of ruddy gold
  Now astray and hanging down,
  Be combed and plaited in a crown.”

Then a gust of wind came and blew Curdken’s hat away, so that he had to
fly over hill and dale after it, and the girl in the meantime quietly
combed and plaited her hair: all this the old King observed, and
returned to the palace without anyone having noticed him. In the evening
when the goose-girl came home he called her aside, and asked her why she
behaved as she did. “I may not tell you why; how dare I confide my woes
to anyone? for I swore not to by heaven, otherwise I should have lost my
life.” The old King begged her to tell him all, and left her no peace,
but he could get nothing out of her. At last he said: “Well, if you
won’t tell me, confide your trouble to the iron stove there,” and he
went away. Then she crept to the stove, and began to sob and cry and to
pour out her poor little heart, and said: “Here I sit, deserted by all
the world, I who am a king’s daughter, and a false waiting-maid has
forced me to take off my own clothes, and has taken my place with my
bridegroom, while I have to fulfill the lowly office of goose-girl.

  “If my mother only knew
  Her heart would surely break in two.”


But the old King stood outside at the stove chimney, and listened to her
words. Then he entered the room again, and bidding her leave the stove,
he ordered royal apparel to be put on her, in which she looked amazingly
lovely. Then he summoned his son, and revealed to him that he had got
the false bride, who was nothing but a waiting-maid, while the real one,
in the guise of the ex-goose-girl, was standing at his side. The young
King rejoiced from his heart when he saw her beauty and learned how good
she was, and a great banquet was prepared, to which everyone was bidden.
The bridegroom sat at the head of the table, the Princess on one side of
him and the waiting-maid on the other; but she was so dazzled that she
did not recognize the Princess in her glittering garments. Now when they
had eaten and drunk, and were merry, the old King asked the waiting-maid
to solve a knotty point for him. “What,” said he, “should be done to a
certain person who has deceived everyone?” and he proceeded to relate
the whole story, ending up with, “Now what sentence should be passed?”
 Then the false bride answered: “She deserves to be put stark naked into
a barrel lined with sharp nails, which should be dragged by two white
horses up and down the street till she is dead.”

“You are the person,” said the King, “and you have passed sentence on
yourself; and even so it shall be done to you.” And when the sentence
had been carried out the young King was married to his real bride, and
both reigned over the kingdom in peace and happiness.(1)


(1) Grimm.




TOADS AND DIAMONDS


THERE was once upon a time a widow who had two daughters. The eldest
was so much like her in the face and humor that whoever looked upon the
daughter saw the mother. They were both so disagreeable and so proud
that there was no living with them.

The youngest, who was the very picture of her father for courtesy and
sweetness of temper, was withal one of the most beautiful girls ever
seen. As people naturally love their own likeness, this mother even
doted on her eldest daughter and at the same time had a horrible
aversion for the youngest--she made her eat in the kitchen and work
continually.

Among other things, this poor child was forced twice a day to draw water
above a mile and a-half off the house, and bring home a pitcher full
of it. One day, as she was at this fountain, there came to her a poor
woman, who begged of her to let her drink.

“Oh! ay, with all my heart, Goody,” said this pretty little girl;
and rinsing immediately the pitcher, she took up some water from the
clearest place of the fountain, and gave it to her, holding up the
pitcher all the while, that she might drink the easier.

The good woman, having drunk, said to her:

“You are so very pretty, my dear, so good and so mannerly, that I cannot
help giving you a gift.” For this was a fairy, who had taken the form
of a poor country woman, to see how far the civility and good manners of
this pretty girl would go. “I will give you for a gift,” continued the
Fairy, “that, at every word you speak, there shall come out of your
mouth either a flower or a jewel.”

When this pretty girl came home her mother scolded her for staying so
long at the fountain.

“I beg your pardon, mamma,” said the poor girl, “for not making more
haste.”

And in speaking these words there came out of her mouth two roses, two
pearls, and two diamonds.

“What is it I see there?” said the mother, quite astonished. “I think I
see pearls and diamonds come out of the girl’s mouth! How happens this,
child?”

This was the first time she had ever called her child.

The poor creature told her frankly all the matter, not without dropping
out infinite numbers of diamonds.

“In good faith,” cried the mother, “I must send my child thither.
Come hither, Fanny; look what comes out of thy sister’s mouth when she
speaks. Wouldst not thou be glad, my dear, to have the same gift given
thee? Thou hast nothing else to do but go and draw water out of the
fountain, and when a certain poor woman asks you to let her drink, to
give it to her very civilly.”

“It would be a very fine sight indeed,” said this ill-bred minx, “to see
me go draw water.”

“You shall go, hussy!” said the mother; “and this minute.”

So away she went, but grumbling all the way, taking with her the best
silver tankard in the house.

She was no sooner at the fountain than she saw coming out of the wood
a lady most gloriously dressed, who came up to her, and asked to drink.
This was, you must know, the very fairy who appeared to her sister,
but now had taken the air and dress of a princess, to see how far this
girl’s rudeness would go.

“Am I come hither,” said the proud, saucy one, “to serve you with water,
pray? I suppose the silver tankard was brought purely for your ladyship,
was it? However, you may drink out of it, if you have a fancy.”

“You are not over and above mannerly,” answered the Fairy, without
putting herself in a passion. “Well, then, since you have so little
breeding, and are so disobliging, I give you for a gift that at every
word you speak there shall come out of your mouth a snake or a toad.”

So soon as her mother saw her coming she cried out:

“Well, daughter?”

“Well, mother?” answered the pert hussy, throwing out of her mouth two
vipers and two toads.

“Oh! mercy,” cried the mother; “what is it I see? Oh! it is that wretch
her sister who has occasioned all this; but she shall pay for it”; and
immediately she ran to beat her. The poor child fled away from her, and
went to hide herself in the forest, not far from thence.

The King’s son, then on his return from hunting, met her, and seeing her
so very pretty, asked her what she did there alone and why she cried.

“Alas! sir, my mamma has turned me out of doors.”

The King’s son, who saw five or six pearls and as many diamonds come out
of her mouth, desired her to tell him how that happened. She thereupon
told him the whole story; and so the King’s son fell in love with
her, and, considering himself that such a gift was worth more than any
marriage portion, conducted her to the palace of the King his father,
and there married her.

As for the sister, she made herself so much hated that her own mother
turned her off; and the miserable wretch, having wandered about a good
while without finding anybody to take her in, went to a corner of the
wood, and there died.(1)


(1) Charles Perrault.




PRINCE DARLING


ONCE upon a time there lived a king who was so just and kind that his
subjects called him “the Good King.” It happened one day, when he was
out hunting, that a little white rabbit, which his dogs were chasing,
sprang into his arms for shelter. The King stroked it gently, and said
to it:

“Well, bunny, as you have come to me for protection I will see that
nobody hurts you.”

And he took it home to his palace and had it put in a pretty little
house, with all sorts of nice things to eat.

That night, when he was alone in his room, a beautiful lady suddenly
appeared before him; her long dress was as white as snow, and she had
a crown of white roses upon her head. The good King was very much
surprised to see her, for he knew his door had been tightly shut, and he
could not think how she had got in. But she said to him:

“I am the Fairy Truth. I was passing through the wood when you were out
hunting, and I wished to find out if you were really good, as everybody
said you were, so I took the shape of a little rabbit and came to your
arms for shelter, for I know that those who are merciful to animals will
be still kinder to their fellow-men. If you had refused to help me
I should have been certain that you were wicked. I thank you for the
kindness you have shown me, which has made me your friend for ever. You
have only to ask me for anything you want and I promise that I will give
it to you.”

“Madam,” said the good King, “since you are a fairy you no doubt know
all my wishes. I have but one son whom I love very dearly, that is why
he is called Prince Darling. If you are really good enough to wish to do
me a favor, I beg that you will become his friend.”

“With all my heart,” answered the Fairy. “I can make your son the
handsomest prince in the world, or the richest, or the most powerful;
choose whichever you like for him.”

“I do not ask either of these things for my son,” replied the good
King; “but if you will make him the best of princes, I shall indeed be
grateful to you. What good would it do him to be rich, or handsome, or
to possess all the kingdoms of the world if he were wicked? You
know well he would still be unhappy. Only a good man can be really
contented.”

“You are quite right,” answered the Fairy; “but it is not in my power to
make Prince Darling a good man unless he will help me; he must himself
try hard to become good, I can only promise to give him good advice, to
scold him for his faults, and to punish him if he will not correct and
punish himself.”

The good King was quite satisfied with this promise; and very soon
afterward he died.

Prince Darling was very sorry, for he loved his father with all his
heart, and he would willingly have given all his kingdoms and all his
treasures of gold and silver if they could have kept the good King with
him.

Two days afterward, when the Prince had gone to bed, the Fairy suddenly
appeared to him and said:

“I promised your father that I would be your friend, and to keep my word
I have come to bring you a present.” At the same time she put a little
gold ring upon his finger.

“Take great care of this ring,” she said: “it is more precious than
diamonds; every time you do a bad deed it will prick your finger, but
if, in spite of its pricking, you go on in your own evil way, you will
lose my friendship, and I shall become your enemy.”

So saying, the Fairy disappeared, leaving Prince Darling very much
astonished.

For some time he behaved so well that the ring never pricked him, and
that made him so contented that his subjects called him Prince Darling
the Happy.

One day, however, he went out hunting, but could get no sport, which
put him in a very bad temper; it seemed to him as he rode along that his
ring was pressing into his finger, but as it did not prick him he did
not heed it. When he got home and went to his own room, his little dog
Bibi ran to meet him, jumping round him with pleasure. “Get away!” said
the Prince, quite gruffly. “I don’t want you, you are in the way.”

The poor little dog, who didn’t understand this at all, pulled at his
coat to make him at least look at her, and this made Prince Darling so
cross that he gave her quite a hard kick.

Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin. He was
very much surprised, and sat down in a corner of his room feeling quite
ashamed of himself.

“I believe the Fairy is laughing at me,” he thought. “Surely I can have
done no great wrong in just kicking a tiresome animal! What is the good
of my being ruler of a great kingdom if I am not even allowed to beat my
own dog?”

“I am not making fun of you,” said a voice, answering Prince Darling’s
thoughts. “You have committed three faults. First of all, you were out
of temper because you could not have what you wanted, and you thought
all men and animals were only made to do your pleasure; then you were
really angry, which is very naughty indeed; and lastly, you were
cruel to a poor little animal who did not in the least deserve to be
ill-treated.

“I know you are far above a little dog, but if it were right and
allowable that great people should ill-treat all who are beneath them, I
might at this moment beat you, or kill you, for a fairy is greater than
a man. The advantage of possessing a great empire is not to be able to
do the evil that one desires, but to do all the good that one possibly
can.”

The Prince saw how naughty he had been, and promised to try and do
better in future, but he did not keep his word. The fact was he had been
brought up by a foolish nurse, who had spoiled him when he was little.
If he wanted anything he only had to cry and fret and stamp his feet
and she would give him whatever he asked for, which had made him
self-willed; also she had told him from morning to night that he would
one day be a king, and that kings were very happy, because everyone was
bound to obey and respect them, and no one could prevent them from doing
just as they liked.

When the Prince grew old enough to understand, he soon learned that
there could be nothing worse than to be proud, obstinate, and conceited,
and he had really tried to cure himself of these defects, but by that
time all his faults had become habits; and a bad habit is very hard to
get rid of. Not that he was naturally of a bad disposition; he was truly
sorry when he had been naughty, and said:

“I am very unhappy to have to struggle against my anger and pride every
day; if I had been punished for them when I was little they would not be
such a trouble to me now.”

His ring pricked him very often, and sometimes he left off what he was
doing at once; but at other times he would not attend to it. Strangely
enough, it gave him only a slight prick for a trifling fault, but when
he was really naughty it made his finger actually bleed. At last he got
tired of being constantly reminded, and wanted to be able to do as he
liked, so he threw his ring aside, and thought himself the happiest of
men to have got rid of its teasing pricks. He gave himself up to doing
every foolish thing that occurred to him, until he became quite wicked
and nobody could like him any longer.

One day, when the Prince was walking about, he saw a young girl who was
so very pretty that he made up his mind at once that he would marry her.
Her name was Celia, and she was as good as she was beautiful.

Prince Darling fancied that Celia would think herself only too happy if
he offered to make her a great queen, but she said fearlessly:

“Sire, I am only a shepherdess, and a poor girl, but, nevertheless, I
will not marry you.”

“Do you dislike me?” asked the Prince, who was very much vexed at this
answer.

“No, my Prince,” replied Celia; “I cannot help thinking you very
handsome; but what good would riches be to me, and all the grand dresses
and splendid carriages that you would give me, if the bad deeds which I
should see you do every day made me hate and despise you?”

The Prince was very angry at this speech, and commanded his officers to
make Celia a prisoner and carry her off to his palace. All day long the
remembrance of what she had said annoyed him, but as he loved her he
could not make up his mind to have her punished.

One of the Prince’s favorite companions was his foster-brother, whom
he trusted entirely; but he was not at all a good man, and gave Prince
Darling very bad advice, and encouraged him in all his evil ways. When
he saw the Prince so downcast he asked what was the matter, and when
he explained that he could not bear Celia’s bad opinion of him, and was
resolved to be a better man in order to please her, this evil adviser
said to him:

“You are very kind to trouble yourself about this little girl; if I were
you I would soon make her obey me. Remember that you are a king, and
that it would be laughable to see you trying to please a shepherdess,
who ought to be only too glad to be one of your slaves. Keep her in
prison, and feed her on bread and water for a little while, and then, if
she still says she will not marry you, have her head cut off, to teach
other people that you mean to be obeyed. Why, if you cannot make a girl
like that do as you wish, your subjects will soon forget that they are
only put into this world for our pleasure.”

“But,” said Prince Darling, “would it not be a shame if I had an
innocent girl put to death? For Celia has done nothing to deserve
punishment.”

“If people will not do as you tell them they ought to suffer for it,”
 answered his foster-brother; “but even if it were unjust, you had better
be accused of that by your subjects than that they should find out that
they may insult and thwart you as often as they please.”

In saying this he was touching a weak point in his brother’s character;
for the Prince’s fear of losing any of his power made him at once
abandon his first idea of trying to be good, and resolve to try and
frighten the shepherdess into consenting to marry him.

His foster-brother, who wanted him to keep this resolution, invited
three young courtiers, as wicked as himself to sup with the Prince,
and they persuaded him to drink a great deal of wine, and continued to
excite his anger against Celia by telling him that she had laughed at
his love for her; until at last, in quite a furious rage, he rushed off
to find her, declaring that if she still refused to marry him she should
be sold as a slave the very next day.

But when he reached the room in which Celia had been locked up, he was
greatly surprised to find that she was not in it, though he had the key
in his own pocket all the time. His anger was terrible, and he vowed
vengeance against whoever had helped her to escape. His bad friends,
when they heard him, resolved to turn his wrath upon an old nobleman who
had formerly been his tutor; and who still dared sometimes to tell the
Prince of his faults, for he loved him as if he had been his own son. At
first Prince Darling had thanked him, but after a time he grew impatient
and thought it must be just mere love of fault-finding that made his old
tutor blame him when everyone else was praising and flattering him. So
he ordered him to retire from his Court, though he still, from time
to time, spoke of him as a worthy man whom he respected, even if he no
longer loved him. His unworthy friends feared that he might some day
take it into his head to recall his old tutor, so they thought they now
had a good opportunity of getting him banished for ever.

They reported to the Prince that Suliman, for that was the tutor’s name,
had boasted of having helped Celia to escape, and they bribed three men
to say that Suliman himself had told them about it. The Prince, in great
anger, sent his foster-brother with a number of soldiers to bring his
tutor before him, in chains, like a criminal. After giving this order he
went to his own room, but he had scarcely got into it when there was
a clap of thunder which made the ground shake, and the Fairy Truth
appeared suddenly before him.

“I promised your father,” said she sternly, “to give you good advice,
and to punish you if you refused to follow it. You have despised my
counsel, and have gone your own evil way until you are only outwardly a
man; really you are a monster--the horror of everyone who knows you. It
is time that I should fulfil my promise, and begin your punishment. I
condemn you to resemble the animals whose ways you have imitated. You
have made yourself like the lion by your anger, and like the wolf by
your greediness. Like a snake, you have ungratefully turned upon one who
was a second father to you; your churlishness has made you like a bull.
Therefore, in your new form, take the appearance of all these animals.”

The Fairy had scarcely finished speaking when Prince Darling saw to his
horror that her words were fulfilled. He had a lion’s head, a bull’s
horns, a wolf’s feet, and a snake’s body. At the same instant he found
himself in a great forest, beside a clear lake, in which he could see
plainly the horrible creature he had become, and a voice said to him:

“Look carefully at the state to which your wickedness has brought you;
believe me, your soul is a thousand times more hideous than your body.”

Prince Darling recognized the voice of the Fairy Truth and turned in
a fury to catch her and eat her up if he possibly could; but he saw no
one, and the same voice went on:

“I laugh at your powerlessness and anger, and I intend to punish your
pride by letting you fall into the hands of your own subjects.”

The Prince began to think that the best thing he could do would be to
get as far away from the lake as he could, then at least he would not
be continually reminded of his terrible ugliness. So he ran toward the
wood, but before he had gone many yards he fell into a deep pit which
had been made to trap bears, and the hunters, who were hiding in a tree,
leaped down, and secured him with several chains, and led him into the
chief city of his own kingdom.

On the way, instead of recognizing that his own faults had brought this
punishment upon him, he accused the Fairy of being the cause of all his
misfortunes, and bit and tore at his chains furiously.

As they approached the town he saw that some great rejoicing was being
held, and when the hunters asked what had happened they were told that
the Prince, whose only pleasure it was to torment his people, had been
found in his room, killed by a thunder-bolt (for that was what was
supposed to have become of him). Four of his courtiers, those who had
encouraged him in his wicked doings, had tried to seize the kingdom
and divide it between them, but the people, who knew it was their bad
counsels which had so changed the Prince, had cut off their heads, and
had offered the crown to Suliman, whom the Prince had left in prison.
This noble lord had just been crowned, and the deliverance of the
kingdom was the cause of the rejoicing “For,” they said, “he is a good
and just man, and we shall once more enjoy peace and prosperity.”

Prince Darling roared with anger when he heard this; but it was still
worse for him when he reached the great square before his own palace. He
saw Suliman seated upon a magnificent throne, and all the people crowded
round, wishing him a long life that he might undo all the mischief done
by his predecessor.

Presently Suliman made a sign with his hand that the people should be
silent, and said: “I have accepted the crown you have offered me, but
only that I may keep it for Prince Darling, who is not dead as you
suppose; the Fairy has assured me that there is still hope that you may
some day see him again, good and virtuous as he was when he first came
to the throne. Alas!” he continued, “he was led away by flatterers.
I knew his heart, and am certain that if it had not been for the bad
influence of those who surrounded him he would have been a good king and
a father to his people. We may hate his faults, but let us pity him and
hope for his restoration. As for me, I would die gladly if that could
bring back our Prince to reign justly and worthily once more.”

These words went to Prince Darling’s heart; he realized the true
affection and faithfulness of his old tutor, and for the first time
reproached himself for all his evil deeds; at the same instant he felt
all his anger melting away, and he began quickly to think over his
past life, and to admit that his punishment was not more than he had
deserved. He left off tearing at the iron bars of the cage in which he
was shut up, and became as gentle as a lamb.

The hunters who had caught him took him to a great menagerie, where he
was chained up among all the other wild beasts, and he determined to
show his sorrow for his past bad behavior by being gentle and obedient
to the man who had to take care of him. Unfortunately, this man was very
rough and unkind, and though the poor monster was quite quiet, he often
beat him without rhyme or reason when he happened to be in a bad temper.
One day when this keeper was asleep a tiger broke its chain, and flew at
him to eat him up. Prince Darling, who saw what was going on, at
first felt quite pleased to think that he should be delivered from his
persecutor, but soon thought better of it and wished that he were free.

“I would return good for evil,” he said to himself, “and save the
unhappy man’s life.” He had hardly wished this when his iron cage flew
open, and he rushed to the side of the keeper, who was awake and was
defending himself against the tiger. When he saw the monster had got out
he gave himself up for lost, but his fear was soon changed into joy, for
the kind monster threw itself upon the tiger and very soon killed it,
and then came and crouched at the feet of the man it had saved.

Overcome with gratitude, the keeper stooped to caress the strange
creature which had done him such a great service; but suddenly a voice
said in his ear:

“A good action should never go unrewarded,” and at the same instant the
monster disappeared, and he saw at his feet only a pretty little dog!

Prince Darling, delighted by the change, frisked about the keeper,
showing his joy in every way he could, and the man, taking him up in his
arms, carried him to the King, to whom he told the whole story.

The Queen said she would like to have this wonderful little dog, and
the Prince would have been very happy in his new home if he could have
forgotten that he was a man and a king. The Queen petted and took
care of him, but she was so afraid that he would get too fat that she
consulted the court physician, who said that he was to be fed only upon
bread, and was not to have much even of that. So poor Prince Darling was
terribly hungry all day long, but he was very patient about it.

One day, when they gave him his little loaf for breakfast, he thought
he would like to eat it out in the garden; so he took it up in his mouth
and trotted away toward a brook that he knew of a long way from the
palace. But he was surprised to find that the brook was gone, and where
it had been stood a great house that seemed to be built of gold and
precious stones. Numbers of people splendidly dressed were going into
it, and sounds of music and dancing and feasting could be heard from the
windows.

But what seemed very strange was that those people who came out of the
house were pale and thin, and their clothes were torn, and hanging in
rags about them. Some fell down dead as they came out before they had
time to get away; others crawled farther with great difficulty; while
others again lay on the ground, fainting with hunger, and begged a
morsel of bread from those who were going into the house, but they would
not so much as look at the poor creatures.

Prince Darling went up to a young girl who was trying to eat a few
blades of grass, she was so hungry. Touched with compassion, he said to
himself:

“I am very hungry, but I shall not die of starvation before I get my
dinner; if I give my breakfast to this poor creature perhaps I may save
her life.”

So he laid his piece of bread in the girl’s hand, and saw her eat it up
eagerly.

She soon seemed to be quite well again, and the Prince, delighted to
have been able to help her, was thinking of going home to the palace,
when he heard a great outcry, and, turning round, saw Celia, who was
being carried against her will into the great house.

For the first time the Prince regretted that he was no longer the
monster, then he would have been able to rescue Celia; now he could only
bark feebly at the people who were carrying her off, and try to follow
them, but they chased and kicked him away.

He determined not to quit the place till he knew what had become of
Celia, and blamed himself for what had befallen her.

“Alas!” he said to himself, “I am furious with the people who are
carrying Celia off, but isn’t that exactly what I did myself, and if I
had not been prevented did I not intend to be still more cruel to her?”

Here he was interrupted by a noise above his head--someone was opening
a window, and he saw with delight that it was Celia herself, who came
forward and threw out a plate of most delicious-looking food, then the
window was shut again, and Prince Darling, who had not had anything to
eat all day, thought he might as well take the opportunity of getting
something. He ran forward to begin, but the young girl to whom he
had given his bread gave a cry of terror and took him up in her arms,
saying:

“Don’t touch it, my poor little dog--that house is the palace of
pleasure, and everything that comes out of it is poisoned!”

At the same moment a voice said:

“You see a good action always brings its reward,” and the Prince found
himself changed into a beautiful white dove. He remembered that white
was the favorite color of the Fairy Truth, and began to hope that he
might at last win back her favor. But just now his first care was for
Celia, and rising into the air he flew round and round the house, until
he saw an open window; but he searched through every room in vain. No
trace of Celia was to be seen, and the Prince, in despair, determined
to search through the world till he found her. He flew on and on for
several days, till he came to a great desert, where he saw a cavern,
and, to his delight, there sat Celia, sharing the simple breakfast of an
old hermit.

Overjoyed to have found her, Prince Darling perched upon her shoulder,
trying to express by his caresses how glad he was to see her again,
and Celia, surprised and delighted by the tameness of this pretty white
dove, stroked it softly, and said, though she never thought of its
understanding her:

“I accept the gift that you make me of yourself, and I will love you
always.”

“Take care what you are saying, Celia,” said the old hermit; “are you
prepared to keep that promise?”

“Indeed, I hope so, my sweet shepherdess,” cried the Prince, who was
at that moment restored to his natural shape. “You promised to love me
always; tell me that you really mean what you said, or I shall have to
ask the Fairy to give me back the form of the dove which pleased you so
much.”

“You need not be afraid that she will change her mind,” said the Fairy,
throwing off the hermit’s robe in which she had been disguised and
appearing before them.

“Celia has loved you ever since she first saw you, only she would not
tell you while you were so obstinate and naughty. Now you have repented
and mean to be good you deserve to be happy, and so she may love you as
much as she likes.”

Celia and Prince Darling threw themselves at the Fairy’s feet, and
the Prince was never tired of thanking her for her kindness. Celia
was delighted to hear how sorry he was for all his past follies and
misdeeds, and promised to love him as long as she lived.

“Rise, my children,” said the Fairy, “and I will transport you to the
palace, and Prince Darling shall have back again the crown he forfeited
by his bad behavior.”

While she was speaking, they found themselves in Suliman’s hall, and his
delight was great at seeing his dear master once more. He gave up the
throne joyfully to the Prince, and remained always the most faithful of
his subjects.

Celia and Prince Darling reigned for many years, but he was so
determined to govern worthily and to do his duty that his ring, which he
took to wearing again, never once pricked him severely.(1)


(1) Cabinet des Fees.




BLUE BEARD


There was a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal
of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all
over with gold. But this man was so unlucky as to have a blue beard,
which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away
from him.

One of his neighbors, a lady of quality, had two daughters who were
perfect beauties. He desired of her one of them in marriage, leaving to
her choice which of the two she would bestow on him. They would neither
of them have him, and sent him backward and forward from one another,
not being able to bear the thoughts of marrying a man who had a blue
beard, and what besides gave them disgust and aversion was his having
already been married to several wives, and nobody ever knew what became
of them.

Blue Beard, to engage their affection, took them, with the lady their
mother and three or four ladies of their acquaintance, with other young
people of the neighborhood, to one of his country seats, where they
stayed a whole week.

There was nothing then to be seen but parties of pleasure, hunting,
fishing, dancing, mirth, and feasting. Nobody went to bed, but all
passed the night in rallying and joking with each other. In short,
everything succeeded so well that the youngest daughter began to think
the master of the house not to have a beard so very blue, and that he
was a mighty civil gentleman.

As soon as they returned home, the marriage was concluded. About a
month afterward, Blue Beard told his wife that he was obliged to take
a country journey for six weeks at least, about affairs of very great
consequence, desiring her to divert herself in his absence, to send for
her friends and acquaintances, to carry them into the country, if she
pleased, and to make good cheer wherever she was.

“Here,” said he, “are the keys of the two great wardrobes, wherein I
have my best furniture; these are of my silver and gold plate, which is
not every day in use; these open my strong boxes, which hold my money,
both gold and silver; these my caskets of jewels; and this is the
master-key to all my apartments. But for this little one here, it is the
key of the closet at the end of the great gallery on the ground floor.
Open them all; go into all and every one of them, except that little
closet, which I forbid you, and forbid it in such a manner that, if you
happen to open it, there’s nothing but what you may expect from my just
anger and resentment.”

She promised to observe, very exactly, whatever he had ordered; when
he, after having embraced her, got into his coach and proceeded on his
journey.

Her neighbors and good friends did not stay to be sent for by the
new married lady, so great was their impatience to see all the rich
furniture of her house, not daring to come while her husband was there,
because of his blue beard, which frightened them. They ran through all
the rooms, closets, and wardrobes, which were all so fine and rich that
they seemed to surpass one another.

After that they went up into the two great rooms, where was the best
and richest furniture; they could not sufficiently admire the number
and beauty of the tapestry, beds, couches, cabinets, stands, tables, and
looking-glasses, in which you might see yourself from head to foot; some
of them were framed with glass, others with silver, plain and gilded,
the finest and most magnificent ever were seen.

They ceased not to extol and envy the happiness of their friend, who in
the meantime in no way diverted herself in looking upon all these rich
things, because of the impatience she had to go and open the closet on
the ground floor. She was so much pressed by her curiosity that, without
considering that it was very uncivil to leave her company, she went
down a little back staircase, and with such excessive haste that she had
twice or thrice like to have broken her neck.

Coming to the closet-door, she made a stop for some time, thinking upon
her husband’s orders, and considering what unhappiness might attend her
if she was disobedient; but the temptation was so strong she could not
overcome it. She then took the little key, and opened it, trembling, but
could not at first see anything plainly, because the windows were shut.
After some moments she began to perceive that the floor was all covered
over with clotted blood, on which lay the bodies of several dead women,
ranged against the walls. (These were all the wives whom Blue Beard had
married and murdered, one after another.) She thought she should have
died for fear, and the key, which she pulled out of the lock, fell out
of her hand.

After having somewhat recovered her surprise, she took up the key,
locked the door, and went upstairs into her chamber to recover herself;
but she could not, she was so much frightened. Having observed that the
key of the closet was stained with blood, she tried two or three times
to wipe it off, but the blood would not come out; in vain did she wash
it, and even rub it with soap and sand; the blood still remained, for
the key was magical and she could never make it quite clean; when the
blood was gone off from one side, it came again on the other.

Blue Beard returned from his journey the same evening, and said he had
received letters upon the road, informing him that the affair he went
about was ended to his advantage. His wife did all she could to convince
him she was extremely glad of his speedy return.

Next morning he asked her for the keys, which she gave him, but with
such a trembling hand that he easily guessed what had happened.

“What!” said he, “is not the key of my closet among the rest?”

“I must certainly have left it above upon the table,” said she.

“Fail not to bring it to me presently,” said Blue Beard.

After several goings backward and forward she was forced to bring him
the key. Blue Beard, having very attentively considered it, said to his
wife,

“How comes this blood upon the key?”

“I do not know,” cried the poor woman, paler than death.

“You do not know!” replied Blue Beard. “I very well know. You were
resolved to go into the closet, were you not? Mighty well, madam; you
shall go in, and take your place among the ladies you saw there.”

Upon this she threw herself at her husband’s feet, and begged his pardon
with all the signs of true repentance, vowing that she would never more
be disobedient. She would have melted a rock, so beautiful and sorrowful
was she; but Blue Beard had a heart harder than any rock!

“You must die, madam,” said he, “and that presently.”

“Since I must die,” answered she (looking upon him with her eyes all
bathed in tears), “give me some little time to say my prayers.”

“I give you,” replied Blue Beard, “half a quarter of an hour, but not
one moment more.”

When she was alone she called out to her sister, and said to her:

“Sister Anne” (for that was her name), “go up, I beg you, upon the top
of the tower, and look if my brothers are not coming over; they promised
me that they would come to-day, and if you see them, give them a sign to
make haste.”

Her sister Anne went up upon the top of the tower, and the poor
afflicted wife cried out from time to time:

“Anne, sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?”

And sister Anne said:

“I see nothing but the sun, which makes a dust, and the grass, which
looks green.”

In the meanwhile Blue Beard, holding a great sabre in his hand, cried
out as loud as he could bawl to his wife:

“Come down instantly, or I shall come up to you.”

“One moment longer, if you please,” said his wife, and then she cried
out very softly, “Anne, sister Anne, dost thou see anybody coming?”

And sister Anne answered:

“I see nothing but the sun, which makes a dust, and the grass, which is
green.”

“Come down quickly,” cried Blue Beard, “or I will come up to you.”

“I am coming,” answered his wife; and then she cried, “Anne, sister
Anne, dost thou not see anyone coming?”

“I see,” replied sister Anne, “a great dust, which comes on this side
here.”

“Are they my brothers?”

“Alas! no, my dear sister, I see a flock of sheep.”

“Will you not come down?” cried Blue Beard

“One moment longer,” said his wife, and then she cried out: “Anne,
sister Anne, dost thou see nobody coming?”

“I see,” said she, “two horsemen, but they are yet a great way off.”

“God be praised,” replied the poor wife joyfully; “they are my brothers;
I will make them a sign, as well as I can, for them to make haste.”

Then Blue Beard bawled out so loud that he made the whole house tremble.
The distressed wife came down, and threw herself at his feet, all in
tears, with her hair about her shoulders.

“This signifies nothing,” says Blue Beard; “you must die”; then, taking
hold of her hair with one hand, and lifting up the sword with the other,
he was going to take off her head. The poor lady, turning about to him,
and looking at him with dying eyes, desired him to afford her one little
moment to recollect herself.

“No, no,” said he, “recommend thyself to God,” and was just ready to
strike...

At this very instant there was such a loud knocking at the gate that
Blue Beard made a sudden stop. The gate was opened, and presently
entered two horsemen, who, drawing their swords, ran directly to Blue
Beard. He knew them to be his wife’s brothers, one a dragoon, the other
a musketeer, so that he ran away immediately to save himself; but the
two brothers pursued so close that they overtook him before he could get
to the steps of the porch, when they ran their swords through his body
and left him dead. The poor wife was almost as dead as her husband, and
had not strength enough to rise and welcome her brothers.

Blue Beard had no heirs, and so his wife became mistress of all his
estate. She made use of one part of it to marry her sister Anne to a
young gentleman who had loved her a long while; another part to buy
captains commissions for her brothers, and the rest to marry herself to
a very worthy gentleman, who made her forget the ill time she had passed
with Blue Beard.(1)


(1) Charles Perrault.




TRUSTY JOHN


Once upon a time there was an old king who was so ill that he thought to
himself, “I am most likely on my death-bed.” Then he said, “Send Trusty
John to me.” Now Trusty John was his favorite servant, and was so called
because all his life he had served him so faithfully. When he approached
the bed the King spake to him: “Most trusty John, I feel my end is
drawing near, and I could face it without a care were it not for my son.
He is still too young to decide everything for himself, and unless you
promise me to instruct him in all he should know, and to be to him as a
father, I shall not close my eyes in peace.” Then Trusty John answered:
“I will never desert him, and will serve him faithfully, even though it
should cost me my life.” Then the old King said: “Now I die comforted
and in peace”; and then he went on: “After my death you must show him
the whole castle, all the rooms and apartments and vaults, and all the
treasures that lie in them; but you must not show him the last room in
the long passage, where the picture of the Princess of the Golden Roof
is hidden. When he beholds that picture he will fall violently in love
with it and go off into a dead faint, and for her sake he will encounter
many dangers; you must guard him from this.” And when Trusty John had
again given the King his hand upon it the old man became silent, laid
his head on the pillow, and died.

When the old King had been carried to his grave Trusty John told the
young King what he had promised his father on his death-bed, and added:
“And I shall assuredly keep my word, and shall be faithful to you as I
have been to him, even though it should cost me my life.”

Now when the time of mourning was over, Trusty John said to him: “It
is time you should see your inheritance. I will show you your ancestral
castle.” So he took him over everything, and let him see all the riches
and splendid apartments, only the one room where the picture was he
did not open. But the picture was placed so that if the door opened
you gazed straight upon it, and it was so beautifully painted that
you imagined it lived and moved, and that it was the most lovable and
beautiful thing in the whole world. But the young King noticed that
Trusty John always missed one door, and said: “Why do you never open
this one for me?” “There is something inside that would appall you,” he
answered. But the King replied: “I have seen the whole castle, and shall
find out what is in there”; and with these words he approached the door
and wanted to force it open. But Trusty John held him back, and said: “I
promised your father before his death that you shouldn’t see what that
room contains. It might bring both you and me to great grief.” “Ah!
no,” answered the young King; “if I don’t get in, it will be my certain
destruction; I should have no peace night or day till I had seen what
was in the room with my own eyes. Now I don’t budge from the spot till
you have opened the door.”

Then Trusty John saw there was no way out of it, so with a heavy heart
and many sighs he took the key from the big bunch. When he had opened
the door he stepped in first, and thought to cover the likeness so that
the King might not perceive it; but it was hopeless: the King stood on
tiptoe and looked over his shoulder. And when he saw the picture of the
maid, so beautiful and glittering with gold and precious stones, he fell
swooning to the ground. Trusty John lifted him up, carried him to bed,
and thought sorrowfully: “The curse has come upon us; gracious heaven!
what will be the end of it all?” Then he poured wine down his throat
till he came to himself again. The first words he spoke were: “Oh! who
is the original of the beautiful picture?” “She is the Princess of the
Golden Roof,” answered Trusty John. Then the King continued: “My love
for her is so great that if all the leaves on the trees had tongues they
could not express it; my very life depends on my winning her. You are my
most trusty John: you must stand by me.”

The faithful servant pondered long how they were to set about the
matter, for it was said to be difficult even to get into the presence of
the Princess. At length he hit upon a plan, and spoke to the King: “All
the things she has about her--tables, chairs, dishes, goblets, bowls,
and all her household furniture--are made of gold. You have in
your treasure five tons of gold; let the goldsmiths of your kingdom
manufacture them into all manner of vases and vessels, into all sorts of
birds and game and wonderful beasts; that will please her. We shall
go to her with them and try our luck.” The King summoned all his
goldsmiths, and they had to work hard day and night, till at length the
most magnificent things were completed. When a ship had been laden with
them the faithful John disguised himself as a merchant, and the King had
to do the same, so that they should be quite unrecognizable. And so
they crossed the seas and journeyed till they reached the town where the
Princess of the Golden Roof dwelt.

Trusty John made the King remain behind on the ship and await his
return. “Perhaps,” he said, “I may bring the Princess back with me, so
see that everything is in order; let the gold ornaments be arranged and
the whole ship decorated.” Then he took a few of the gold things in his
apron, went ashore, and proceeded straight to the palace. When he came
to the courtyard he found a beautiful maiden standing at the well,
drawing water with two golden pails. And as she was about to carry away
the glittering water she turned round and saw the stranger, and asked
him who he was. Then he replied: “I am a merchant,” and opening his
apron, he let her peep in. “Oh! my,” she cried; “what beautiful gold
wares!” she set down her pails, and examined one thing after the other.
Then she said: “The Princess must see this, she has such a fancy for
gold things that she will buy up all you have.” She took him by the hand
and let him into the palace, for she was the lady’s maid.

When the Princess had seen the wares she was quite enchanted, and said:
“They are all so beautifully made that I shall buy everything you have.”
 But Trusty John said: “I am only the servant of a rich merchant, what
I have here is nothing compared to what my master has on his ship; his
merchandise is more artistic and costly than anything that has ever been
made in gold before.” She desired to have everything brought up to her,
but he said: “There is such a quantity of things that it would take many
days to bring them up, and they would take up so many rooms that
you would have no space for them in your house.” Thus her desire and
curiosity were excited to such an extent that at last she said: “Take me
to your ship; I shall go there myself and view your master’s treasures.”

Then Trusty John was quite delighted, and brought her to the ship; and
the King, when he beheld her, saw that she was even more beautiful than
her picture, and thought every moment that his heart would burst. She
stepped on to the ship, and the King led her inside. But Trusty John
remained behind with the steersman, and ordered the ship to push off.
“Spread all sail, that we may fly on the ocean like a bird in the air.”
 Meanwhile the King showed the Princess inside all his gold wares, every
single bit of it--dishes, goblets, bowls, the birds and game, and all
the wonderful beasts. Many hours passed thus, and she was so happy that
she did not notice that the ship was sailing away. After she had seen
the last thing she thanked the merchant and prepared to go home; but
when she came to the ship’s side she saw that they were on the high
seas, far from land, and that the ship was speeding on its way under
full canvas. “Oh!” she cried in terror, “I am deceived, carried away and
betrayed into the power of a merchant; I would rather have died!” But
the King seized her hand and spake: “I am no merchant, but a king of as
high birth as yourself; and it was my great love for you that made me
carry you off by stratagem. The first time I saw your likeness I fell to
the ground in a swoon.” When the Princess of the Golden Roof heard this
she was comforted, and her heart went out to him, so that she willingly
consented to become his wife.

Now it happened one day, while they were sailing on the high seas,
that Trusty John, sitting on the forepart of the ship, fiddling away to
himself, observed three ravens in the air flying toward him. He ceased
playing, and listened to what they were saying, for he understood their
language. The one croaked: “Ah, ha! so he’s bringing the Princess of
the Golden Roof home.” “Yes,” answered the second, “but he’s not got her
yet.” “Yes, he has,” spake the third, “for she’s sitting beside him on
the ship.” Then number one began again and cried: “That’ll not help him!
When they reach the land a chestnut horse will dash forward to greet
them: the King will wish to mount it, and if he does it will gallop away
with him, and disappear into the air, and he will never see his bride
again.” “Is there no escape for him?” asked number two. “Oh! yes, if
someone else mounts quickly and shoots the horse dead with the pistol
that is sticking in the holster, then the young King is saved. But who’s
to do that? And anyone who knows it and tells him will be turned into
stone from his feet to his knees.” Then spake number two: “I know more
than that: even if the horse is slain, the young King will still not
keep his bride: when they enter the palace together they will find a
ready-made wedding shirt in a cupboard, which looks as though it were
woven of gold and silver, but is really made of nothing but sulphur and
tar: when the King puts it on it will burn him to his marrow and bones.”
 Number three asked: “Is there no way of escape, then?” “Oh! yes,”
 answered number two: “If someone seizes the shirt with gloved hands and
throws it into the fire, and lets it burn, then the young King is saved.
But what’s the good? Anyone knowing this and telling it will have half
his body turned into stone, from his knees to his heart.” Then number
three spake: “I know yet more: though the bridal shirt too be burnt, the
King hasn’t even then secured his bride: when the dance is held after
the wedding, and the young Queen is dancing, she will suddenly grow
deadly white, and drop down like one dead, and unless some one lifts her
up and draws three drops of blood from her right side, and spits them
out again, she will die. But if anyone who knows this betrays it, he
will be turned into stone from the crown of his head to the soles of his
feet.” When the ravens had thus conversed they fled onward, but Trusty
John had taken it all in, and was sad and depressed from that time
forward; for if he were silent to his master concerning what he had
heard, he would involve him in misfortune; but if he took him into his
confidence, then he himself would forfeit his life. At last he said: “I
will stand by my master, though it should be my ruin.”

Now when they drew near the land it came to pass just as the ravens had
predicted, and a splendid chestnut horse bounded forward. “Capital!”
 said the King; “this animal shall carry me to my palace,” and was about
to mount, but Trusty John was too sharp for him, and, springing up
quickly, seized the pistol out of the holster and shot the horse dead.
Then the other servants of the King, who at no time looked favorably on
Trusty John, cried out: “What a sin to kill the beautiful beast that was
to bear the King to his palace!” But the King spake: “Silence! let him
alone; he is ever my most trusty John. Who knows for what good end he
may have done this thing?” So they went on their way and entered
the palace, and there in the hall stood a cupboard in which lay the
ready-made bridal shirt, looking for all the world as though it were
made of gold and silver. The young King went toward it and was about to
take hold of it, but Trusty John, pushing him aside, seized it with his
gloved hands, threw it hastily into the fire, and let it burn The
other servants commenced grumbling again, and said: “See, he’s actually
burning the King’s bridal shirt.” But the young King spoke: “Who knows
for what good purpose he does it? Let him alone, he is my most trusty
John.” Then the wedding was celebrated, the dance began, and the bride
joined in, but Trusty John watched her countenance carefully. Of a
sudden she grew deadly white, and fell to the ground as if she were
dead. He at once sprang hastily toward her, lifted her up, and bore her
to a room, where he laid her down, and kneeling beside her he drew three
drops of blood from her right side, and spat them out. She soon
breathed again and came to herself; but the young King had watched the
proceeding, and not knowing why Trusty John had acted as he did, he flew
into a passion, and cried: “Throw him into prison.” On the following
morning sentence was passed on Trusty John, and he was condemned to be
hanged. As he stood on the gallows he said: “Every one doomed to
death has the right to speak once before he dies; and I too have that
privilege?” “Yes,” said the King, “it shall be granted to you.” So
Trusty John spoke: “I am unjustly condemned, for I have always been
faithful to you”; and he proceeded to relate how he had heard the
ravens’ conversation on the sea, and how he had to do all he did in
order to save his master. Then the King cried: “Oh! my most trusty John,
pardon! pardon! Take him down.” But as he uttered the last word Trusty
John had fallen lifeless to the ground, and was a stone.

The King and Queen were in despair, and the King spake: “Ah! how ill
have I rewarded such great fidelity!” and made them lift up the stone
image and place it in his bedroom near his bed. As often as he looked at
it he wept and said: “Oh! if I could only restore you to life, my most
trusty John!” After a time the Queen gave birth to twins, two small
sons, who throve and grew, and were a constant joy to her. One day when
the Queen was at church, and the two children sat and played with their
father, he gazed again full of grief on the stone statue, and sighing,
wailed: “Oh, if I could only restore you to life, my most trusty John!”
 Suddenly the stone began to speak, and said: “Yes, you can restore me
to life again if you are prepared to sacrifice what you hold most dear.”
 And the King cried out: “All I have in the world will I give up for your
sake.” The stone continued: “If you cut off with your own hand the heads
of your two children, and smear me with their blood, I shall come back
to life.” The King was aghast when he heard that he had himself to put
his children to death; but when he thought of Trusty John’s fidelity,
and how he had even died for him, he drew his sword, and with his own
hand cut the heads off his children. And when he had smeared the stone
with their blood, life came back, and Trusty John stood once more safe
and sound before him. He spake to the King: “Your loyalty shall be
rewarded,” and taking up the heads of the children, he placed them on
their bodies, smeared the wounds with their blood, and in a minute they
were all right again and jumping about as if nothing had happened.
Then the King was full of joy, and when he saw the Queen coming, he hid
Trusty John and the two children in a big cupboard. As she entered he
said to her: “Did you pray in church?” “Yes,” she answered, “but my
thoughts dwelt constantly on Trusty John, and of what he has suffered
for us.” Then he spake: “Dear wife, we can restore him to life, but the
price asked is our two little sons; we must sacrifice them.” The Queen
grew white and her heart sank, but she replied: “We owe it to him on
account of his great fidelity.” Then he rejoiced that she was of the
same mind as he had been, and going forward he opened the cupboard, and
fetched the two children and Trusty John out, saying: “God be praised!
Trusty John is free once more, and we have our two small sons again.”
 Then he related to her all that had passed, and they lived together
happily ever afterward.(1)


(1) Grimm.




THE BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR


One summer’s day a little tailor sat on his table by the window in
the best of spirits, and sewed for dear life. As he was sitting thus a
peasant woman came down the street, calling out: “Good jam to sell,
good jam to sell.” This sounded sweetly in the tailor’s ears; he put
his frail little head out of the window, and shouted: “up here, my good
woman, and you’ll find a willing customer.” The woman climbed up the
three flights of stairs with her heavy basket to the tailor’s room, and
he made her spread out all the pots in a row before him. He examined
them all, lifted them up and smelled them, and said at last: “This jam
seems good, weigh me four ounces of it, my good woman; and even if it’s
a quarter of a pound I won’t stick at it.” The woman, who had hoped to
find a good market, gave him what he wanted, but went away grumbling
wrathfully. “Now heaven shall bless this jam for my use,” cried the
little tailor, “and it shall sustain and strengthen me.” He fetched some
bread out of a cupboard, cut a round off the loaf, and spread the jam on
it. “That won’t taste amiss,” he said; “but I’ll finish that waistcoat
first before I take a bite.” He placed the bread beside him, went
on sewing, and out of the lightness of his heart kept on making his
stitches bigger and bigger. In the meantime the smell of the sweet jam
rose to the ceiling, where heaps of flies were sitting, and attracted
them to such an extent that they swarmed on to it in masses. “Ha! who
invited you?” said the tailor, and chased the unwelcome guests away. But
the flies, who didn’t understand English, refused to let themselves
be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers. At last the
little tailor, losing all patience, reached out of his chimney corner
for a duster, and exclaiming: “Wait, and I’ll give it to you,” he beat
them mercilessly with it. When he left off he counted the slain, and
no fewer than seven lay dead before him with outstretched legs. “What a
desperate fellow I am!” said he, and was filled with admiration at his
own courage. “The whole town must know about this”; and in great haste
the little tailor cut out a girdle, hemmed it, and embroidered on it in
big letters, “Seven at a blow.” “What did I say, the town? no, the whole
world shall hear of it,” he said; and his heart beat for joy as a lamb
wags his tail.

The tailor strapped the girdle round his waist and set out into the wide
world, for he considered his workroom too small a field for his prowess.
Before he set forth he looked round about him, to see if there was
anything in the house he could take with him on his journey; but he
found nothing except an old cheese, which he took possession of. In
front of the house he observed a bird that had been caught in some
bushes, and this he put into his wallet beside the cheese. Then he went
on his way merrily, and being light and agile he never felt tired. His
way led up a hill, on the top of which sat a powerful giant, who was
calmly surveying the landscape. The little tailor went up to him, and
greeting him cheerfully said: “Good-day, friend; there you sit at your
ease viewing the whole wide world. I’m just on my way there. What do you
say to accompanying me?” The giant looked contemptuously at the tailor,
and said: “What a poor wretched little creature you are!” “That’s a good
joke,” answered the little tailor, and unbuttoning his coat he showed
the giant the girdle. “There now, you can read what sort of a fellow
I am.” The giant read: “Seven at a blow”; and thinking they were human
beings the tailor had slain, he conceived a certain respect for the
little man. But first he thought he’d test him, so taking up a stone in
his hand, he squeezed it till some drops of water ran out. “Now you do
the same,” said the giant, “if you really wish to be thought strong.”
 “Is that all?” said the little tailor; “that’s child’s play to me,” so
he dived into his wallet, brought out the cheese, and pressed it till
the whey ran out. “My squeeze was in sooth better than yours,” said he.
The giant didn’t know what to say, for he couldn’t have believed it
of the little fellow. To prove him again, the giant lifted a stone and
threw it so high that the eye could hardly follow it. “Now, my little
pigmy, let me see you do that.” “Well thrown,” said the tailor; “but,
after all, your stone fell to the ground; I’ll throw one that won’t come
down at all.” He dived into his wallet again, and grasping the bird in
his hand, he threw it up into the air. The bird, enchanted to be free,
soared up into the sky, and flew away never to return. “Well, what do
you think of that little piece of business, friend?” asked the tailor.
“You can certainly throw,” said the giant; “but now let’s see if you can
carry a proper weight.” With these words he led the tailor to a huge oak
tree which had been felled to the ground, and said: “If you are strong
enough, help me to carry the tree out of the wood.” “Most certainly,”
 said the little tailor: “just you take the trunk on your shoulder; I’ll
bear the top and branches, which is certainly the heaviest part.” The
giant laid the trunk on his shoulder, but the tailor sat at his ease
among the branches; and the giant, who couldn’t see what was going on
behind him, had to carry the whole tree, and the little tailor into the
bargain. There he sat behind in the best of spirits, lustily whistling a
tune, as if carrying the tree were mere sport. The giant, after dragging
the heavy weight for some time, could get on no further, and shouted
out: “Hi! I must let the tree fall.” The tailor sprang nimbly down,
seized the tree with both hands as if he had carried it the whole way
and said to the giant: “Fancy a big lout like you not being able to
carry a tree!”

They continued to go on their way together, and as they passed by a
cherry tree the giant grasped the top of it, where the ripest fruit
hung, gave the branches into the tailor’s hand, and bade him eat. But
the little tailor was far too weak to hold the tree down, and when the
giant let go the tree swung back into the air, bearing the little tailor
with it. When he had fallen to the ground again without hurting himself,
the giant said: “What! do you mean to tell me you haven’t the strength
to hold down a feeble twig?” “It wasn’t strength that was wanting,”
 replied the tailor; “do you think that would have been anything for a
man who has killed seven at a blow? I jumped over the tree because the
huntsmen are shooting among the branches near us. Do you do the like if
you dare.” The giant made an attempt, but couldn’t get over the tree,
and stuck fast in the branches, so that here too the little tailor had
the better of him.

“Well, you’re a fine fellow, after all,” said the giant; “come and spend
the night with us in our cave.” The little tailor willingly consented to
do this, and following his friend they went on till they reached a cave
where several other giants were sitting round a fire, each holding
a roast sheep in his hand, of which he was eating. The little tailor
looked about him, and thought: “Yes, there’s certainly more room to turn
round in here than in my workshop.” The giant showed him a bed and bade
him lie down and have a good sleep. But the bed was too big for the
little tailor, so he didn’t get into it, but crept away into the corner.
At midnight, when the giant thought the little tailor was fast asleep,
he rose up, and taking his big iron walking-stick, he broke the bed
in two with a blow, and thought he had made an end of the little
grasshopper. At early dawn the giants went off to the wood, and quite
forgot about the little tailor, till all of a sudden they met him
trudging along in the most cheerful manner. The giants were terrified at
the apparition, and, fearful lest he should slay them, they all took to
their heels as fast as they could.

The little tailor continued to follow his nose, and after he had
wandered about for a long time he came to the courtyard of a royal
palace, and feeling tired he lay down on the grass and fell asleep.
While he lay there the people came, and looking him all over read on his
girdle: “Seven at a blow.” “Oh!” they said, “what can this great hero of
a hundred fights want in our peaceful land? He must indeed be a mighty
man of valor.” They went and told the King about him, and said what a
weighty and useful man he’d be in time of war, and that it would be well
to secure him at any price. This counsel pleased the King, and he sent
one of his courtiers down to the little tailor, to offer him, when he
awoke, a commission in their army. The messenger remained standing by
the sleeper, and waited till he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes,
when he tendered his proposal. “That’s the very thing I came here for,”
 he answered; “I am quite ready to enter the King’s service.” So he was
received with all honor, and given a special house of his own to live
in.

But the other officers resented the success of the little tailor, and
wished him a thousand miles away. “What’s to come of it all?” they asked
each other; “if we quarrel with him, he’ll let out at us, and at every
blow seven will fall. There’ll soon be an end of us.” So they resolved
to go in a body to the King, and all to send in their papers. “We are
not made,” they said, “to hold out against a man who kills seven at a
blow.” The King was grieved at the thought of losing all his faithful
servants for the sake of one man, and he wished heartily that he had
never set eyes on him, or that he could get rid of him. But he didn’t
dare to send him away, for he feared he might kill him along with his
people, and place himself on the throne. He pondered long and deeply
over the matter, and finally came to a conclusion. He sent to the tailor
and told him that, seeing what a great and warlike hero he was, he
was about to make him an offer. In a certain wood of his kingdom there
dwelled two giants who did much harm; by the way they robbed, murdered,
burned, and plundered everything about them; “no one could approach them
without endangering his life. But if he could overcome and kill these
two giants he should have his only daughter for a wife, and half his
kingdom into the bargain; he might have a hundred horsemen, too, to back
him up.” “That’s the very thing for a man like me,” thought the little
tailor; “one doesn’t get the offer of a beautiful princess and half a
kingdom every day.” “Done with you,” he answered; “I’ll soon put an end
to the giants. But I haven’t the smallest need of your hundred horsemen;
a fellow who can slay seven men at a blow need not be afraid of two.”

The little tailor set out, and the hundred horsemen followed him. When
he came to the outskirts of the wood he said to his followers: “You wait
here, I’ll manage the giants by myself”; and he went on into the wood,
casting his sharp little eyes right and left about him. After a while
he spied the two giants lying asleep under a tree, and snoring till
the very boughs bent with the breeze. The little tailor lost no time in
filling his wallet with stones, and then climbed up the tree under
which they lay. When he got to about the middle of it he slipped along a
branch till he sat just above the sleepers, when he threw down one stone
after the other on the nearest giant. The giant felt nothing for a long
time, but at last he woke up, and pinching his companion said: “What did
you strike me for?” “I didn’t strike you,” said the other, “you must be
dreaming.” They both lay down to sleep again, and the tailor threw down
a stone on the second giant, who sprang up and cried: “What’s that for?
Why did you throw something at me?” “I didn’t throw anything,” growled
the first one. They wrangled on for a time, till, as both were tired,
they made up the matter and fell asleep again. The little tailor began
his game once more, and flung the largest stone he could find in his
wallet with all his force, and hit the first giant on the chest. “This
is too much of a good thing!” he yelled, and springing up like a madman,
he knocked his companion against the tree till he trembled. He gave,
however, as good as he got, and they became so enraged that they tore up
trees and beat each other with them, till they both fell dead at once on
the ground. Then the little tailor jumped down. “It’s a mercy,” he said,
“that they didn’t root up the tree on which I was perched, or I should
have had to jump like a squirrel on to another, which, nimble though I
am, would have been no easy job.” He drew his sword and gave each of
the giants a very fine thrust or two on the breast, and then went to
the horsemen and said: “The deed is done, I’ve put an end to the two of
them; but I assure you it has been no easy matter, for they even tore up
trees in their struggle to defend themselves; but all that’s of no use
against one who slays seven men at a blow.” “Weren’t you wounded?” asked
the horsemen.

“No fear,” answered the tailor; “they haven’t touched a hair of my
head.” But the horsemen wouldn’t believe him till they rode into the
wood and found the giants weltering in their blood, and the trees lying
around, torn up by the roots.

The little tailor now demanded the promised reward from the King, but he
repented his promise, and pondered once more how he could rid himself
of the hero. “Before you obtain the hand of my daughter and half my
kingdom,” he said to him, “you must do another deed of valor. A unicorn
is running about loose in the wood, and doing much mischief; you must
first catch it.” “I’m even less afraid of one unicorn than of two
giants; seven at a blow, that’s my motto.” He took a piece of cord and
an axe with him, went out to the wood, and again told the men who had
been sent with him to remain outside. He hadn’t to search long, for the
unicorn soon passed by, and, on perceiving the tailor, dashed straight
at him as though it were going to spike him on the spot. “Gently,
gently,” said he, “not so fast, my friend”; and standing still he waited
till the beast was quite near, when he sprang lightly behind a tree; the
unicorn ran with all its force against the tree, and rammed its horn so
firmly into the trunk that it had no strength left to pull it out again,
and was thus successfully captured. “Now I’ve caught my bird,” said the
tailor, and he came out from behind the tree, placed the cord round its
neck first, then struck the horn out of the tree with his axe, and when
everything was in order led the beast before the King.

Still the King didn’t want to give him the promised reward and made a
third demand. The tailor was to catch a wild boar for him that did a
great deal of harm in the wood; and he might have the huntsmen to help
him. “Willingly,” said the tailor; “that’s mere child’s play.” But he
didn’t take the huntsmen into the wood with him, and they were well
enough pleased to remain behind, for the wild boar had often
received them in a manner which did not make them desire its further
acquaintance. As soon as the boar perceived the tailor it ran at him
with foaming mouth and gleaming teeth, and tried to knock him down; but
our alert little friend ran into a chapel that stood near, and got out
of the window again with a jump. The boar pursued him into the church,
but the tailor skipped round to the door, and closed it securely. So the
raging beast was caught, for it was far too heavy and unwieldy to spring
out of the window. The little tailor summoned the huntsmen together,
that they might see the prisoner with their own eyes. Then the hero
betook himself to the King, who was obliged now, whether he liked it or
not, to keep his promise, and hand him over his daughter and half his
kingdom. Had he known that no hero-warrior, but only a little tailor
stood before him, it would have gone even more to his heart. So the
wedding was celebrated with much splendor and little joy, and the tailor
became a king.

After a time the Queen heard her husband saying one night in his sleep:
“My lad, make that waistcoat and patch these trousers, or I’ll box your
ears.” Thus she learned in what rank the young gentleman had been born,
and next day she poured forth her woes to her father, and begged him to
help her to get rid of a husband who was nothing more nor less than a
tailor. The King comforted her, and said: “Leave your bedroom door open
to-night, my servants shall stand outside, and when your husband is
fast asleep they shall enter, bind him fast, and carry him on to a
ship, which shall sail away out into the wide ocean.” The Queen was
well satisfied with the idea, but the armor-bearer, who had overheard
everything, being much attached to his young master, went straight to
him and revealed the whole plot. “I’ll soon put a stop to the business,”
 said the tailor. That night he and his wife went to bed at the usual
time; and when she thought he had fallen asleep she got up, opened the
door, and then lay down again. The little tailor, who had only pretended
to be asleep, began to call out in a clear voice: “My lad, make that
waistcoat and patch those trousers, or I’ll box your ears. I have killed
seven at a blow, slain two giants, led a unicorn captive, and caught a
wild boar, then why should I be afraid of those men standing outside my
door?” The men, when they heard the tailor saying these words, were so
terrified that they fled as if pursued by a wild army, and didn’t dare
go near him again. So the little tailor was and remained a king all the
days of his life.




A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT


CHAPTER I


My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire, and I was the third
of four sons. He sent me to Cambridge at fourteen years old, and after
studying there three years I was bound apprentice to Mr. Bates, a famous
surgeon in London. There, as my father now and then sent me small sums
of money, I spent them in learning navigation, and other arts useful to
those who travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my
fortune to do.

Three years after my leaving him my good master, Mr. Bates, recommended
me as ship’s surgeon to the “Swallow,” on which I voyaged three years.
When I came back I settled in London, and, having taken part of a
small house, I married Miss Mary Burton, daughter of Mr. Edmund Burton,
hosier.

But my good master Bates died two years after; and as I had few friends
my business began to fail, and I determined to go again to sea. After
several voyages, I accepted an offer from Captain W. Pritchard, master
of the “Antelope,” who was making a voyage to the South Sea. We set sail
from Bristol, May 4, 1699; and our voyage at first was very prosperous.

But in our passage to the East Indies we were driven by a violent storm
to the north-west of Van Diemen’s Land. Twelve of our crew died from
hard labor and bad food, and the rest were in a very weak condition.
On the 5th of November, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied
a rock within 120 yards of the ship; but the wind was so strong that we
were driven straight upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew,
of whom I was one, letting down the boat, got clear of the ship, and we
rowed about three leagues, till we could work no longer. We therefore
trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves; and in about half an hour
the boat was upset by a sudden squall. What became of my companions in
the boat, or those who escaped on the rock or were left in the vessel,
I cannot tell; but I conclude they were all lost. For my part, I swam as
fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide; but when
I was able to struggle no longer I found myself within my depth. By this
time the storm was much abated. I reached the shore at last, about eight
o’clock in the evening, and advanced nearly half a mile inland, but
could not discover any sign of inhabitants. I was extremely tired, and
with the heat of the weather I found myself much inclined to sleep. I
lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, and slept sounder
than ever I did in my life for about nine hours. When I woke, it was
just daylight. I attempted to rise, but could not; for as I happened to
be lying on my back, I found my arms and legs were fastened on each side
to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the
same manner. I could only look upward. The sun began to grow hot, and
the light hurt my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but could
see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive
and moving on my left leg, which, advancing gently over my breast, came
almost up to my chin, when, bending my eyes downward, I perceived it to
be a human creature, not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his
hands, and a quiver at his back. In the meantime I felt at least forty
more following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared
so loud that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them were
hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground.
However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far as to
get a full sight of my face, lifted up his hands in admiration. I lay
all this while in great uneasiness; but at length, struggling to get
loose, I succeeded in breaking the strings that fastened my left arm
to the ground; and at the same time, with a violent pull that gave me
extreme pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair, so
that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures
ran off a second time before I could seize them, whereupon there was a
great shout, and in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged
on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles. Moreover, they
shot another flight into the air, of which some fell on my face, which
I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows
was over I groaned with grief and pain, and then, striving again to get
loose, they discharged another flight of arrows larger than the first,
and some of them tried to stab me with their spears; but by good luck
I had on a leather jacket, which they could not pierce. By this time
I thought it most prudent to lie still till night, when, my left
hand being already loose, I could easily free myself; and as for the
inhabitants, I thought I might be a match for the greatest army they
could bring against me if they were all of the same size as him I
saw. When the people observed that I was quiet they discharged no more
arrows, but by the noise I heard I knew that their number was increased;
and about four yards from me, for more than an hour, there was a
knocking, like people at work. Then, turning my head that way as well
as the pegs and strings would let me, I saw a stage set up, about a foot
and a half from the ground, with two or three ladders to mount it. From
this, one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long
speech, of which I could not understand a word, though I could tell from
his manner that he sometimes threatened me, and sometimes spoke with
pity and kindness. I answered in few words, but in the most submissive
manner; and, being almost famished with hunger, I could not help showing
my impatience by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify
that I wanted food. He understood me very well, and, descending from the
stage, commanded that several ladders should be set against my sides, on
which more than a hundred of the inhabitants mounted, and walked toward
my mouth with baskets full of food, which had been sent by the King’s
orders when he first received tidings of me. There were legs and
shoulders like mutton but smaller than the wings of a lark. I ate
them two or three at a mouthful, and took three loaves at a time. They
supplied me as fast as they could, with a thousand marks of wonder at
my appetite. I then made a sign that I wanted something to drink. They
guessed that a small quantity would not suffice me, and, being a most
ingenious people, they slung up one of their largest hogsheads, then
rolled it toward my hand, and beat out the top. I drank it off at a
draught, which I might well do, for it did not hold half a pint. They
brought me a second hogshead, which I drank, and made signs for more;
but they had none to give me. However, I could not wonder enough at the
daring of these tiny mortals, who ventured to mount and walk upon my
body, while one of my hands was free, without trembling at the very
sight of so huge a creature as I must have seemed to them. After some
time there appeared before me a person of high rank from his Imperial
Majesty. His Excellency, having mounted my right leg, advanced to my
face, with about a dozen of his retinue, and spoke about ten minutes,
often pointing forward, which, as I afterward found, was toward the
capital city, about half a mile distant, whither it was commanded by his
Majesty that I should be conveyed. I made a sign with my hand that was
loose, putting it to the other (but over his Excellency’s head, for
fear of hurting him or his train), to show that I desired my liberty.
He seemed to understand me well enough, for he shook his head, though
he made other signs to let me know that I should have meat and drink
enough, and very good treatment. Then I once more thought of attempting
to escape; but when I felt the smart of their arrows on my face and
hands, which were all in blisters and observed likewise that the number
of my enemies increased, I gave tokens to let them know that they might
do with me what they pleased. Then they daubed my face and hands with a
sweet-smelling ointment, which in a few minutes removed all the smarts
of the arrows. The relief from pain and hunger made me drowsy, and
presently I fell asleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was told
afterward; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the Emperor’s
orders, had mingled a sleeping draught in the hogsheads of wine.

It seems that, when I was discovered sleeping on the ground after my
landing, the Emperor had early notice of it, and determined that I
should be tied in the manner I have related (which was done in the
night, while I slept), that plenty of meat and drink should be sent me,
and a machine prepared to carry me to the capital city. Five hundred
carpenters and engineers were immediately set to work to prepare the
engine. It was a frame of wood, raised three inches from the ground,
about seven feet long and four wide, moving upon twenty-two wheels. But
the difficulty was to place me on it. Eighty poles were erected for this
purpose, and very strong cords fastened to bandages which the workmen
had tied round my neck, hands, body, and legs. Nine hundred of the
strongest men were employed to draw up these cords by pulleys fastened
on the poles, and in less than three hours I was raised and slung
into the engine, and there tied fast. Fifteen hundred of the Emperor’s
largest horses, each about four inches and a half high, were then
employed to draw me toward the capital. But while all this was done I
still lay in a deep sleep, and I did not wake till four hours after we
began our journey.

The Emperor and all his Court came out to meet us when we reached the
capital; but his great officials would not suffer his Majesty to risk
his person by mounting on my body. Where the carriage stopped there
stood an ancient temple, supposed to be the largest in the whole
kingdom, and here it was determined that I should lodge. Near the great
gate, through which I could easily creep, they fixed ninety-one chains,
like those which hang to a lady’s watch, which were locked to my
left leg with thirty-six padlocks; and when the workmen found it was
impossible for me to break loose, they cut all the strings that bound
me. Then I rose up, feeling as melancholy as ever I did in my life. But
the noise and astonishment of the people on seeing me rise and walk were
inexpressible. The chains that held my left leg were about two yards
long, and gave me not only freedom to walk backward and forward in a
semicircle, but to creep in and lie at full length inside the temple.
The Emperor, advancing toward me from among his courtiers, all most
magnificently clad, surveyed me with great admiration, but kept beyond
the length of my chain. He was taller by about the breadth of my nail
than any of his Court, which alone was enough to strike awe into the
beholders, and graceful and majestic. The better to behold him, I lay
down on my side, so that my face was level with his, and he stood three
yards off. However, I have had him since many times in my hand, and
therefore cannot be deceived. His dress was very simple; but he wore a
light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels and a plume. He held his sword
drawn in his hand, to defend himself if I should break loose; it was
almost three inches long, and the hilt was of gold, enriched with
diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear. His Imperial Majesty
spoke often to me, and I answered; but neither of us could understand a
word.


CHAPTER II


After about two hours the Court retired, and I was left with a strong
guard to keep away the crowd, some of whom had had the impudence to
shoot their arrows at me as I sat by the door of my house. But the
colonel ordered six of them to be seized and delivered bound into my
hands. I put five of them into my coat pocket; and as to the sixth, I
made a face as if I would eat him alive. The poor man screamed terribly,
and the colonel and his officers were much distressed, especially when
they saw me take out my penknife. But I soon set them at ease, for,
cutting the strings he was bound with, I put him gently on the ground,
and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one
by one out of my pocket; and I saw that both the soldiers and people
were delighted at this mark of my kindness.

Toward night I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on
the ground, as I had to do for a fortnight, till a bed was prepared for
me out of six hundred beds of the ordinary measure.

Six hundred servants were appointed me, and three hundred tailors made
me a suit of clothes. Moreover, six of his Majesty’s greatest scholars
were employed to teach me their language, so that soon I was able to
converse after a fashion with the Emperor, who often honored me with his
visits. The first words I learned were to desire that he would please
to give me my liberty, which I every day repeated on my knees; but he
answered that this must be a work of time, and that first I must swear a
peace with him and his kingdom. He told me also that by the laws of the
nation I must be searched by two of his officers, and that as this could
not be done without my help, he trusted them in my hands, and whatever
they took from me should be returned when I left the country. I took up
the two officers, and put them into my coat pockets. These gentlemen,
having pen, ink, and paper about them, made an exact list of everything
they saw, which I afterward translated into English, and which ran as
follows:

“In the right coat pocket of the great Man-Mountain we found only one
great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to cover the carpet of your
Majesty’s chief room of state. In the left pocket we saw a huge silver
chest, with a silver cover, which we could not lift. We desired that it
should be opened, and one of us stepping into it found himself up to the
mid-leg in a sort of dust, some of which flying into our faces sent us
both into a fit of sneezing. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a
number of white thin substances, folded one over another, about the size
of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures,
which we humbly conceive to be writings. In the left there was a sort of
engine, from the back of which extended twenty long poles, with which,
we conjecture, the Man-Mountain combs his head. In the smaller pocket on
the right side were several round flat pieces of white and red metal, of
different sizes. Some of the white, which appeared to be silver, were
so large and heavy that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. From
another pocket hung a huge silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine
fastened to it, a globe half silver and half of some transparent metal;
for on the transparent side we saw certain strange figures, and thought
we could touch them till we found our fingers stopped by the shining
substance. This engine made an incessant noise, like a water-mill, and
we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god he worships,
but probably the latter, for he told us that he seldom did anything
without consulting it.

“This is a list of what we found about the body of the Man-Mountain, who
treated us with great civility.”

I had one private pocket which escaped their search, containing a pair
of spectacles and a small spy-glass, which, being of no consequence to
the Emperor, I did not think myself bound in honor to discover.


CHAPTER III


My gentleness and good behavior gained so far on the Emperor and his
Court, and, indeed, on the people in general, that I began to have hopes
of getting my liberty in a short time. The natives came by degrees to be
less fearful of danger from me. I would sometimes lie down and let five
or six of them dance on my hand; and at last the boys and girls ventured
to come and play at hide-and-seek in my hair.

The horses of the army and of the royal stables were no longer shy,
having been daily led before me; and one of the Emperor’s huntsmen, on a
large courser, took my foot, shoe and all, which was indeed a prodigious
leap. I amused the Emperor one day in a very extraordinary manner. I
took nine sticks, and fixed them firmly in the ground in a square. Then
I took four other sticks, and tied them parallel at each corner, about
two feet from the ground. I fastened my handkerchief to the nine sticks
that stood erect, and extended it on all sides till it was as tight as
the top of a drum; and I desired the Emperor to let a troop of his best
horse, twenty-four in number, come and exercise upon this plain. His
majesty approved of the proposal, and I took them up one by one, with
the proper officers to exercise them. As soon as they got into order
they divided into two parties, discharged blunt arrows, drew their
swords, fled and pursued, and, in short, showed the best military
discipline I ever beheld. The parallel sticks secured them and their
horses from falling off the stage, and the Emperor was so much delighted
that he ordered this entertainment to be repeated several days, and
persuaded the Empress herself to let me hold her in her chair within
two yards of the stage, whence she could view the whole performance.
Fortunately no accident happened, only once a fiery horse, pawing with
his hoof, struck a hole in my handkerchief, and overthrew his rider and
himself. But I immediately relieved them both, and covering the hole
with one hand, I set down the troop with the other as I had taken them
up. The horse that fell was strained in the shoulder; but the rider was
not hurt, and I repaired my handkerchief as well as I could. However,
I would not trust to the strength of it any more in such dangerous
enterprises.

I had sent so many petitions for my liberty that his Majesty at length
mentioned the matter in a full council, where it was opposed by none
except Skyresh Bolgolam, admiral of the realm, who was pleased without
any provocation to be my mortal enemy. However, he agreed at length,
though he succeeded in himself drawing up the conditions on which I
should be set free. After they were read I was requested to swear to
perform them in the method prescribed by their laws, which was to hold
my right foot in my left hand, and to place the middle finger of my
right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the top of my right
ear. But I have made a translation of the conditions, which I here offer
to the public:

“Golbaste Mamarem Evlame Gurdile Shefin Mully Ully Gue, Most Mighty
Emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions
extend to the ends of the globe, monarch of all monarchs, taller than
the sons of men, whose feet press down to the center, and whose head
strikes against the sun, at whose nod the princes of the earth shake
their knees, pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful
as autumn, dreadful as winter: His Most Sublime Majesty proposeth to the
Man-Mountain, lately arrived at our celestial dominions, the following
articles, which by a solemn oath he shall be obliged to perform:

“First. The Man-Mountain shall not depart from our dominions without our
license under the great seal.

“Second. He shall not presume to come into our metropolis without our
express order, at which time the inhabitants shall have two hours’
warning to keep within doors.

“Third. The said Man-Mountain shall confine his walks to our principal
high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of
corn.

“Fourth. As he walks the said roads he shall take the utmost care not to
trample upon the bodies of any of our loving subjects, their horses or
carriages, nor take any of our subjects into his hands without their own
consent.

“Fifth. If an express requires extraordinary speed the Man-Mountain
shall be obliged to carry in his pocket the messenger and horse a six
days’ journey, and return the said messenger (if so required) safe to
our imperial presence.

“Sixth. He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of
Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now
preparing to invade us.

“Lastly. Upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles,
the said Man-Mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink
sufficient for the support of 1,724 of our subjects, with free access to
our royal person, and other marks of our favor. Given at our palace at
Belfaburac, the twelfth day of the ninety-first moon of our reign.”

I swore to these articles with great cheerfulness, whereupon my chains
were immediately unlocked, and I was at full liberty.

One morning, about a fortnight after I had obtained my freedom,
Reldresal, the Emperor’s secretary for private affairs, came to my
house, attended only by one servant. He ordered his coach to wait at
a distance, and desired that I would give him an hour’s audience. I
offered to lie down that he might the more conveniently reach my
ear; but he chose rather to let me hold him in my hand during our
conversation. He began with compliments on my liberty, but he added
that, save for the present state of things at Court, perhaps I might not
have obtained it so soon. “For,” he said, “however flourishing we may
seem to foreigners, we are in danger of an invasion from the island of
Blefuscu, which is the other great empire of the universe, almost as
large and as powerful as this of his Majesty. For as to what we have
heard you say, that there are other kingdoms in the world, inhabited
by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are very
doubtful, and rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon, or one
of the stars, because a hundred mortals of your size would soon destroy
all the fruit and cattle of his Majesty’s dominions. Besides, our
histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions
than the two mighty empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu, which, as I was
going to tell you, are engaged in a most obstinate war, which began in
the following manner: It is allowed on all hands that the primitive
way of breaking eggs was upon the larger end; but his present Majesty’s
grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it
according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers.
Whereupon the Emperor, his father, made a law commanding all his
subjects to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly
resented this law that there have been six rebellions raised on that
account, wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown. It is
calculated that eleven hundred persons have at different times suffered
rather than break their eggs at the smaller end. But these rebels,
the Bigendians, have found so much encouragement at the Emperor of
Blefuscu’s Court, to which they always fled for refuge, that a bloody
war, as I said, has been carried on between the two empires for
six-and-thirty moons; and now the Blefuscudians have equipped a large
fleet, and are preparing to descend upon us. Therefore his Imperial
Majesty, placing great confidence in your valor and strength, has
commanded me to set the case before you.”

I desired the secretary to present my humble duty to the Emperor, and
to let him know that I was ready, at the risk of my life, to defend him
against all invaders.


CHAPTER IV


It was not long before I communicated to his Majesty the plan I formed
for seizing the enemy’s whole fleet. The Empire of Blefuscu is an island
parted from Lilliput only by a channel eight hundred yards wide. I
consulted the most experienced seamen on the depth of the channel, and
they told me that in the middle, at high water, it was seventy glumguffs
(about six feet of European measure). I walked toward the coast, where,
lying down behind a hillock, I took out my spy-glass, and viewed the
enemy’s fleet at anchor--about fifty men-of-war, and other vessels. I
then came back to my house and gave orders for a great quantity of
the strongest cables and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as
packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle. I
trebled the cable to make it stronger, and for the same reason twisted
three of the iron bars together, bending the ends into a hook. Having
thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the coast,
and taking off my coat, shoes, and stockings, walked into the sea in my
leather jacket about half an hour before high water. I waded with what
haste I could, swimming in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt
ground, and thus arrived at the fleet in less than half an hour. The
enemy was so frightened when they saw me that they leaped out of their
ships and swam ashore, where there could not be fewer than thirty
thousand. Then, fastening a hook to the hole at the prow of each ship,
I tied all the cords together at the end. Meanwhile the enemy discharged
several thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face. My
greatest fear was for my eyes, which I should have lost if I had
not suddenly thought of the pair of spectacles which had escaped the
Emperor’s searchers. These I took out and fastened upon my nose, and
thus armed went on with my work in spite of the arrows, many of which
struck against the glasses of my spectacles, but without any other
effect than slightly disturbing them. Then, taking the knot in my hand,
I began to pull; but not a ship would stir, for they were too fast
held by their anchors. Thus the boldest part of my enterprise remained.
Letting go the cord, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that
fastened the anchors, receiving more than two hundred shots in my face
and hands. Then I took up again the knotted end of the cables to which
my hooks were tied, and with great ease drew fifty of the enemy’s
largest men-of-war after me.

When the Blefuscudians saw the fleet moving in order, and me pulling at
the end, they set up a scream of grief and despair that it is impossible
to describe. When I had got out of danger I stopped awhile to pick out
the arrows that stuck in my hands and face, and rubbed on some of
the same ointment that was given me at my arrival. I then took off my
spectacles, and after waiting about an hour, till the tide was a little
fallen, I waded on to the royal port of Lilliput.

The Emperor and his whole Court stood on the shore awaiting me. They saw
the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me,
who, in the middle of the channel, was under water up to my neck. The
Emperor concluded that I was drowned, and that the enemy’s fleet was
approaching in a hostile manner. But he was soon set at ease, for, the
channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time
within hearing, and holding up the end of the cable by which the fleet
was fastened, I cried in a loud voice: “Long live the most puissant
Emperor of Lilliput!” The Prince received me at my landing with all
possible joy, and made me a Nardal on the spot, which is the highest
title of honor among them.

His Majesty desired that I would take some opportunity to bring all the
rest of his enemy’s ships into his ports, and seemed to think of nothing
less than conquering the whole Empire of Blefuscu, and becoming the sole
monarch of the world. But I plainly protested that I would never be the
means of bringing a free and brave people into slavery; and though
the wisest of the Ministers were of my opinion, my open refusal was so
opposed to his Majesty’s ambition that he could never forgive me. And
from this time a plot began between himself and those of his Ministers
who were my enemies, that nearly ended in my utter destruction.

About three weeks after this exploit there arrived an embassy from
Blefuscu, with humble offers of peace, which was soon concluded, on
terms very advantageous to our Emperor. There were six ambassadors, with
a train of about five hundred persons, all very magnificent. Having been
privately told that I had befriended them, they made me a visit, and
paying me many compliments on my valor and generosity, invited me
to their kingdom in the Emperor their master’s name. I asked them to
present my most humble respects to the Emperor their master, whose
royal person I resolved to attend before I returned to my own country.
Accordingly, the next time I had the honor to see our Emperor I desired
his general permission to visit the Blefuscudian monarch. This he
granted me, but in a very cold manner, of which I afterward learned the
reason.

When I was just preparing to pay my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscu,
a distinguished person at Court, to whom I had once done a great
service, came to my house very privately at night, and without sending
his name desired admission. I put his lordship into my coat pocket, and,
giving orders to a trusty servant to admit no one, I fastened the door,
placed my visitor on the table, and sat down by it. His lordship’s face
was full of trouble; and he asked me to hear him with patience, in a
matter that highly concerned my honor and my life.

“You are aware,” he said, “that Skyresh Bolgolam has been your mortal
enemy ever since your arrival, and his hatred is increased since
your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory as admiral is
obscured. This lord and others have accused you of treason, and several
councils have been called in the most private manner on your account.
Out of gratitude for your favors I procured information of the whole
proceedings, venturing my head for your service, and this was the charge
against you:

“First, that you, having brought the imperial fleet of Blefuscu into the
royal port, were commanded by his Majesty to seize all the other ships,
and put to death all the Bigendian exiles, and also all the people of
the empire who would not immediately consent to break their eggs at the
smaller end. And that, like a false traitor to his Most Serene Majesty,
you excused yourself from the service on pretence of unwillingness to
force the consciences and destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent
people.

“Again, when ambassadors arrived from the Court of Blefuscu, like a
false traitor, you aided and entertained them, though you knew them to
be servants of a prince lately in open war against his Imperial Majesty.

“Moreover, you are now preparing, contrary to the duty of a faithful
subject, to voyage to the Court of Blefuscu.

“In the debate on this charge,” my friend continued, “his Majesty often
urged the services you had done him, while the admiral and treasurer
insisted that you should be put to a shameful death. But Reldresal,
secretary for private affairs, who has always proved himself your friend
suggested that if his Majesty would please to spare your life and only
give orders to put out both your eyes, justice might in some measure be
satisfied. At this Bolgolam rose up in fury, wondering how the secretary
dared desire to preserve the life of a traitor; and the treasurer,
pointing out the expense of keeping you, also urged your death. But his
Majesty was graciously pleased to say that since the council thought the
loss of your eyes too easy a punishment, some other might afterward be
inflicted. And the secretary, humbly desiring to be heard again, said
that as to expense your allowance might be gradually lessened, so that,
for want of sufficient food you should grow weak and faint, and die in
a few months, when his Majesty’s subjects might cut your flesh from your
bones and bury it, leaving the skeleton for the admiration of posterity.

“Thus, through the great friendship of the secretary the affair was
arranged. It was commanded that the plan of starving you by degrees
should be kept a secret; but the sentence of putting out your eyes was
entered on the books. In three days your friend the secretary will come
to your house and read the accusation before you, and point out the
great mercy of his Majesty, that only condemns you to the loss of
your eyes--which, he does not doubt, you will submit to humbly and
gratefully. Twenty of his Majesty’s surgeons will attend, to see the
operation well performed, by discharging very sharp-pointed arrows into
the balls of your eyes as you lie on the ground.

“I leave you,” said my friend, “to consider what measures you will take;
and, to escape suspicion, I must immediately return, as secretly as I
came.”

His lordship did so; and I remained alone, in great perplexity. At first
I was bent on resistance; for while I had liberty I could easily with
stones pelt the metropolis to pieces; but I soon rejected that idea with
horror, remembering the oath I had made to the Emperor, and the favors
I had received from him. At last, having his Majesty’s leave to pay
my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscu, I resolved to take this
opportunity. Before the three days had passed I wrote a letter to my
friend the secretary telling him of my resolution; and, without waiting
for an answer, went to the coast, and entering the channel, between
wading and swimming reached the port of Blefuscu, where the people, who
had long expected me, led me to the capital.

His Majesty, with the royal family and great officers of the Court, came
out to receive me, and they entertained me in a manner suited to the
generosity of so great a prince. I did not, however, mention my disgrace
with the Emperor of Lilliput, since I did not suppose that prince would
disclose the secret while I was out of his power. But in this, it soon
appeared, I was deceived.


CHAPTER V


Three days after my arrival, walking out of curiosity to the northeast
coast of the island, I observed at some distance in the sea something
that looked like a boat overturned. I pulled off my shoes and stockings,
and wading two or three hundred yards, I plainly saw it to be a real
boat, which I supposed might by some tempest have been driven from a
ship. I returned immediately to the city for help, and after a huge
amount of labor I managed to get my boat to the royal port of Blefuscu,
where a great crowd of people appeared, full of wonder at sight of so
prodigious a vessel. I told the Emperor that my good fortune had thrown
this boat in my way to carry me to some place whence I might return to
my native country, and begged his orders for materials to fit it up, and
leave to depart--which, after many kindly speeches, he was pleased to
grant.

Meanwhile the Emperor of Lilliput, uneasy at my long absence (but never
imagining that I had the least notice of his designs), sent a person of
rank to inform the Emperor of Blefuscu of my disgrace; this messenger
had orders to represent the great mercy of his master, who was content
to punish me with the loss of my eyes, and who expected that his brother
of Blefuscu would have me sent back to Lilliput, bound hand and foot,
to be punished as a traitor. The Emperor of Blefuscu answered with many
civil excuses. He said that as for sending me bound, his brother knew
it was impossible. Moreover, though I had taken away his fleet he was
grateful to me for many good offices I had done him in making the peace.
But that both their Majesties would soon be made easy; for I had found
a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which
he had given orders to fit up; and he hoped in a few weeks both empires
would be free from me.

With this answer the messenger returned to Lilliput; and I (though the
monarch of Blefuscu secretly offered me his gracious protection if I
would continue in his service) hastened my departure, resolving never
more to put confidence in princes.

In about a month I was ready to take leave. The Emperor of Blefuscu,
with the Empress and the royal family, came out of the palace; and I lay
down on my face to kiss their hands, which they graciously gave me. His
Majesty presented me with fifty purses of sprugs (their greatest gold
coin) and his picture at full length, which I put immediately into one
of my gloves, to keep it from being hurt. Many other ceremonies took
place at my departure.

I stored the boat with meat and drink, and took six cows and two bulls
alive, with as many ewes and rams, intending to carry them into my own
country; and to feed them on board, I had a good bundle of hay and a bag
of corn. I would gladly have taken a dozen of the natives; but this was
a thing the Emperor would by no means permit, and besides a diligent
search into my pockets, his Majesty pledged my honor not to carry away
any of his subjects, though with their own consent and desire.

Having thus prepared all things as well as I was able, I set sail. When
I had made twenty-four leagues, by my reckoning, from the island of
Blefuscu, I saw a sail steering to the northeast. I hailed her, but
could get no answer; yet I found I gained upon her, for the wind
slackened; and in half an hour she spied me, and discharged a gun. I
came up with her between five and six in the evening, Sept. 26, 1701;
but my heart leaped within me to see her English colors. I put my cows
and sheep into my coat pockets, and got on board with all my little
cargo. The captain received me with kindness, and asked me to tell him
what place I came from last; but at my answer he thought I was raving.
However, I took my black cattle and sheep out of my pocket, which, after
great astonishment, clearly convinced him.

We arrived in England on the 13th of April, 1702. I stayed two months
with my wife and family; but my eager desire to see foreign countries
would suffer me to remain no longer. However, while in England I made
great profit by showing my cattle to persons of quality and others; and
before I began my second voyage I sold them for 600_l_. I left 1500_l_.
with my wife, and fixed her in a good house; then taking leave of her
and my boy and girl, with tears on both sides, I sailed on board the
“Adventure.” (1)


(1) Swift.




THE PRINCESS ON THE GLASS HILL


Once upon a time there was a man who had a meadow which lay on the side
of a mountain, and in the meadow there was a barn in which he stored
hay. But there had not been much hay in the barn for the last two years,
for every St. John’s eve, when the grass was in the height of its vigor,
it was all eaten clean up, just as if a whole flock of sheep had gnawed
it down to the ground during the night. This happened once, and it
happened twice, but then the man got tired of losing his crop, and
said to his sons--he had three of them, and the third was called
Cinderlad--that one of them must go and sleep in the barn on St. John’s
night, for it was absurd to let the grass be eaten up again, blade and
stalk, as it had been the last two years, and the one who went to watch
must keep a sharp look-out, the man said.

The eldest was quite willing to go to the meadow; he would watch the
grass, he said, and he would do it so well that neither man, nor beast,
nor even the devil himself should have any of it. So when evening came
he went to the barn, and lay down to sleep, but when night was drawing
near there was such a rumbling and such an earthquake that the walls and
roof shook again, and the lad jumped up and took to his heels as fast as
he could, and never even looked back, and the barn remained empty that
year just as it had been for the last two.

Next St. John’s eve the man again said that he could not go on in this
way, losing all the grass in the outlying field year after year, and
that one of his sons must just go there and watch it, and watch well
too. So the next oldest son was willing to show what he could do. He
went to the barn and lay down to sleep, as his brother had done; but
when night was drawing near there was a great rumbling, and then an
earthquake, which was even worse than that on the former St. John’s
night, and when the youth heard it he was terrified, and went off,
running as if for a wager.

The year after, it was Cinderlad’s turn, but when he made ready to go
the others laughed at him, and mocked him. “Well, you are just the right
one to watch the hay, you who have never learned anything but how to sit
among the ashes and bake yourself!” said they. Cinderlad, however, did
not trouble himself about what they said, but when evening drew near
rambled away to the outlying field. When he got there he went into the
barn and lay down, but in about an hour’s time the rumbling and creaking
began, and it was frightful to hear it. “Well, if it gets no worse than
that, I can manage to stand it,” thought Cinderlad. In a little time
the creaking began again, and the earth quaked so that all the hay flew
about the boy. “Oh! if it gets no worse than that I can manage to stand
it,” thought Cinderlad. But then came a third rumbling, and a third
earthquake, so violent that the boy thought the walls and roof had
fallen down, but when that was over everything suddenly grew as still
as death around him. “I am pretty sure that it will come again,” thought
Cinderlad; but no, it did not. Everything was quiet, and everything
stayed quiet, and when he had lain still a short time he heard something
that sounded as if a horse were standing chewing just outside the barn
door. He stole away to the door, which was ajar, to see what was there,
and a horse was standing eating. It was so big, and fat, and fine a
horse that Cinderlad had never seen one like it before, and a saddle
and bridle lay upon it, and a complete suit of armor for a knight, and
everything was of copper, and so bright that it shone again. “Ha, ha! it
is thou who eatest up our hay then,” thought the boy; “but I will stop
that.” So he made haste, and took out his steel for striking fire, and
threw it over the horse, and then it had no power to stir from the spot,
and became so tame that the boy could do what he liked with it. So he
mounted it and rode away to a place which no one knew of but himself,
and there he tied it up. When he went home again his brothers laughed
and asked how he had got on.

“You didn’t lie long in the barn, if even you have been so far as the
field!” said they.

“I lay in the barn till the sun rose, but I saw nothing and heard
nothing, not I,” said the boy. “God knows what there was to make you two
so frightened.”

“Well, we shall soon see whether you have watched the meadow or not,”
 answered the brothers, but when they got there the grass was all
standing just as long and as thick as it had been the night before.

The next St. John’s eve it was the same thing, once again: neither of
the two brothers dared to go to the outlying field to watch the crop,
but Cinderlad went, and everything happened exactly the same as on the
previous St. John’s eve: first there was a rumbling and an earthquake,
and then there was another, and then a third: but all three earthquakes
were much, very much more violent than they had been the year before.
Then everything became still as death again, and the boy heard something
chewing outside the barn door, so he stole as softly as he could to
the door, which was slightly ajar, and again there was a horse standing
close by the wall of the house, eating and chewing, and it was far
larger and fatter than the first horse, and it had a saddle on its back,
and a bridle was on it too, and a full suit of armor for a knight, all
of bright silver, and as beautiful as anyone could wish to see. “Ho,
ho!” thought the boy, “is it thou who eatest up our hay in the night?
but I will put a stop to that.” So he took out his steel for striking
fire, and threw it over the horse’s mane, and the beast stood there as
quiet as a lamb. Then the boy rode this horse, too, away to the place
where he kept the other, and then went home again.

“I suppose you will tell us that you have watched well again this time,”
 said the brothers.

“Well, so I have,” said Cinderlad. So they went there again, and there
the grass was, standing as high and as thick as it had been before, but
that did not make them any kinder to Cinderlad.

When the third St. John’s night came neither of the two elder brothers
dared to lie in the outlying barn to watch the grass, for they had been
so heartily frightened the night that they had slept there that they
could not get over it, but Cinderlad dared to go, and everything
happened just the same as on the two former nights. There were three
earthquakes, each worse than the other, and the last flung the boy from
one wall of the barn to the other, but then everything suddenly
became still as death. When he had lain quietly a short time, he heard
something chewing outside the barn door; then he once more stole to the
door, which was slightly ajar, and behold, a horse was standing just
outside it, which was much larger and fatter than the two others he had
caught. “Ho, ho! it is thou, then, who art eating up our hay this time,”
 thought the boy; “but I will put a stop to that.” So he pulled out his
steel for striking fire, and threw it over the horse, and it stood as
still as if it had been nailed to the field, and the boy could do just
what he liked with it. Then he mounted it and rode away to the place
where he had the two others, and then he went home again. Then the two
brothers mocked him just as they had done before, and told him that they
could see that he must have watched the grass very carefully that night,
for he looked just as if he were walking in his sleep; but Cinderlad did
not trouble himself about that, but just bade them go to the field and
see. They did go, and this time too the grass was standing, looking as
fine and as thick as ever.

The King of the country in which Cinderlad’s father dwelt had a daughter
whom he would give to no one who could not ride up to the top of the
glass hill, for there was a high, high hill of glass, slippery as ice,
and it was close to the King’s palace. Upon the very top of this the
King’s daughter was to sit with three gold apples in her lap, and the
man who could ride up and take the three golden apples should marry her,
and have half the kingdom. The King had this proclaimed in every church
in the whole kingdom, and in many other kingdoms too. The Princess was
very beautiful, and all who saw her fell violently in love with her,
even in spite of themselves. So it is needless to say that all the
princes and knights were eager to win her, and half the kingdom besides,
and that for this cause they came riding thither from the very end of
the world, dressed so splendidly that their raiments gleamed in the
sunshine, and riding on horses which seemed to dance as they went, and
there was not one of these princes who did not think that he was sure to
win the Princess.

When the day appointed by the King had come, there was such a host of
knights and princes under the glass hill that they seemed to swarm, and
everyone who could walk or even creep was there too, to see who won the
King’s daughter. Cinderlad’s two brothers were there too, but they would
not hear of letting him go with them, for he was so dirty and black
with sleeping and grubbing among the ashes that they said everyone would
laugh at them if they were seen in the company of such an oaf.

“Well, then, I will go all alone by myself,” said Cinderlad.

When the two brothers got to the glass hill, all the princes and knights
were trying to ride up it, and their horses were in a foam; but it was
all in vain, for no sooner did the horses set foot upon the hill than
down they slipped, and there was not one which could get even so much as
a couple of yards up. Nor was that strange, for the hill was as smooth
as a glass window-pane, and as steep as the side of a house. But they
were all eager to win the King’s daughter and half the kingdom, so they
rode and they slipped, and thus it went on. At length all the horses
were so tired that they could do no more, and so hot that the foam
dropped from them and the riders were forced to give up the attempt. The
King was just thinking that he would cause it to be proclaimed that the
riding should begin afresh on the following day, when perhaps it might
go better, when suddenly a knight came riding up on so fine a horse that
no one had ever seen the like of it before, and the knight had armor of
copper, and his bridle was of copper too, and all his accoutrements were
so bright that they shone again. The other knights all called out to him
that he might just as well spare himself the trouble of trying to ride
up the glass hill, for it was of no use to try; but he did not heed
them, and rode straight off to it, and went up as if it were nothing at
all. Thus he rode for a long way--it may have been a third part of the
way up--but when he had got so far he turned his horse round and rode
down again. But the Princess thought that she had never yet seen so
handsome a knight, and while he was riding up she was sitting thinking,
“Oh! how I hope he may be able to come up to the top!” And when she saw
that he was turning his horse back she threw one of the golden apples
down after him, and it rolled into his shoe. But when he had come down
from off the hill he rode away, and that so fast that no one knew what
had become of him.

So all the princes and knights were bidden to present themselves before
the King that night, so that he who had ridden so far up the glass hill
might show the golden apple which the King’s daughter had thrown down.
But no one had anything to show. One knight presented himself after the
other, and none could show the apple.

At night, too, Cinderlad’s brothers came home again and had a long story
to tell about riding up the glass hill. At first, they said, there was
not one who was able to get even so much as one step up, but then came
a knight who had armor of copper, and a bridle of copper, and his armor
and trappings were so bright that they shone to a great distance, and it
was something like a sight to see him riding. He rode one-third of the
way up the glass hill, and he could easily have ridden the whole of it
if he had liked; but he had turned back, for he had made up his mind
that that was enough for once. “Oh! I should have liked to see him too,
that I should,” said Cinderlad, who was as usual sitting by the chimney
among the cinders. “You, indeed!” said the brothers, “you look as if you
were fit to be among such great lords, nasty beast that you are to sit
there!”

Next day the brothers were for setting out again, and this time too
Cinderlad begged them to let him go with them and see who rode; but no,
they said he was not fit to do that, for he was much too ugly and dirty.
“Well, well, then I will go all alone by myself,” said Cinderlad. So the
brothers went to the glass hill, and all the princes and knights began
to ride again, and this time they had taken care to roughen the shoes of
their horses; but that did not help them: they rode and they slipped as
they had done the day before, and not one of them could get even so far
as a yard up the hill. When they had tired out their horses, so that
they could do no more, they again had to stop altogether. But just as
the King was thinking that it would be well to proclaim that the riding
should take place next day for the last time, so that they might have
one more chance, he suddenly bethought himself that it would be well to
wait a little longer to see if the knight in copper armor would come on
this day too. But nothing was to be seen of him. Just as they were still
looking for him, however, came a knight riding on a steed that was much,
much finer than that which the knight in copper armor had ridden, and
this knight had silver armor and a silver saddle and bridle, and all
were so bright that they shone and glistened when he was a long way off.
Again the other knights called to him, and said that he might just as
well give up the attempt to ride up the glass hill, for it was useless
to try; but the knight paid no heed to that, but rode straight away
to the glass hill, and went still farther up than the knight in copper
armor had gone; but when he had ridden two-thirds of the way up he
turned his horse around, and rode down again. The Princess liked this
knight still better than she had liked the other, and sat longing that
he might be able to get up above, and when she saw him turning back she
threw the second apple after him, and it rolled into his shoe, and as
soon as he had got down the glass hill he rode away so fast that no one
could see what had become of him.

In the evening, when everyone was to appear before the King and
Princess, in order that he who had the golden apple might show it, one
knight went in after the other, but none of them had a golden apple to
show.

At night the two brothers went home as they had done the night before,
and told how things had gone, and how everyone had ridden, but no one
had been able to get up the hill. “But last of all,” they said, “came
one in silver armor, and he had a silver bridle on his horse, and a
silver saddle, and oh, but he could ride! He took his horse two-thirds
of the way up the hill, but then he turned back. He was a fine fellow,”
 said the brothers, “and the Princess threw the second golden apple to
him!”

“Oh, how I should have liked to see him too!” said Cinderlad.

“Oh, indeed! He was a little brighter than the ashes that you sit
grubbing among, you dirty black creature!” said the brothers.

On the third day everything went just as on the former days. Cinderlad
wanted to go with them to look at the riding, but the two brothers would
not have him in their company, and when they got to the glass hill there
was no one who could ride even so far as a yard up it, and everyone
waited for the knight in silver armor, but he was neither to be seen nor
heard of. At last, after a long time, came a knight riding upon a horse
that was such a fine one, its equal had never yet been seen. The knight
had golden armor, and the horse a golden saddle and bridle, and these
were all so bright that they shone and dazzled everyone, even while the
knight was still at a great distance. The other princes and knights were
not able even to call to tell him how useless it was to try to ascend
the hill, so amazed were they at sight of his magnificence. He rode
straight away to the glass hill, and galloped up it as if it were no
hill at all, so that the Princess had not even time to wish that he
might get up the whole way. As soon as he had ridden to the top, he took
the third golden apple from the lap of the Princess and then turned his
horse about and rode down again, and vanished from their sight before
anyone was able to say a word to him.

When the two brothers came home again at night they had much to tell of
how the riding had gone off that day, and at last they told about the
knight in the golden armor too. “He was a fine fellow, that was! Such
another splendid knight is not to be found on earth!” said the brothers.

“Oh, how I should have liked to see him too!” said Cinderlad.

“Well, he shone nearly as brightly as the coal-heaps that thou art
always lying raking among, dirty black creature that thou art!” said the
brothers.

Next day all the knights and princes were to appear before the King and
Princess--it had been too late for them to do it the night before--in
order that he who had the golden apple might produce it. They all went
in turn, first princes, and then knights, but none of them had a golden
apple.

“But somebody must have it,” said the King, “for with our own eyes we
all saw a man ride up and take it.” So he commanded that everyone in the
kingdom should come to the palace, and see if he could show the apple.
And one after the other they all came, but no one had the golden apple,
and after a long, long time Cinderlad’s two brothers came likewise. They
were the last of all, so the King inquired of them if there was no one
else in the kingdom left to come.

“Oh! yes, we have a brother,” said the two, “but he never got the golden
apple! He never left the cinder-heap on any of the three days.”

“Never mind that,” said the King; “as everyone else has come to the
palace, let him come too.”

So Cinderlad was forced to go to the King’s palace.

“Hast thou the golden apple?” asked the King.

“Yes, here is the first, and here is the second, and here is the third,
too,” said Cinderlad, and he took all three apples out of his pocket,
and with that drew off his sooty rags, and appeared there before them in
his bright golden armor, which gleamed as he stood.

“Thou shalt have my daughter, and the half of my kingdom, and thou hast
well earned both!” said the King. So there was a wedding, and Cinderlad
got the King’s daughter, and everyone made merry at the wedding, for all
of them could make merry, though they could not ride up the glass hill,
and if they have not left off their merry-making they must be at it
still.(1)


(1) Asbjornsen and Moe.




THE STORY OF PRINCE AHMED AND THE FAIRY PARIBANOU


There was a sultan, who had three sons and a niece. The eldest of the
Princes was called Houssain, the second Ali, the youngest Ahmed, and the
Princess, his niece, Nouronnihar.

The Princess Nouronnihar was the daughter of the younger brother of the
Sultan, who died, and left the Princess very young. The Sultan took upon
himself the care of his daughter’s education, and brought her up in his
palace with the three Princes, proposing to marry her when she arrived
at a proper age, and to contract an alliance with some neighboring
prince by that means. But when he perceived that the three Princes, his
sons, loved her passionately, he thought more seriously on that affair.
He was very much concerned; the difficulty he foresaw was to make them
agree, and that the two youngest should consent to yield her up to their
elder brother. As he found them positively obstinate, he sent for them
all together, and said to them: “Children, since for your good and
quiet I have not been able to persuade you no longer to aspire to
the Princess, your cousin, I think it would not be amiss if every one
traveled separately into different countries, so that you might not
meet each other. And, as you know I am very curious, and delight in
everything that’s singular, I promise my niece in marriage to him that
shall bring me the most extraordinary rarity; and for the purchase of
the rarity you shall go in search after, and the expense of traveling, I
will give you every one a sum of money.”

As the three Princes were always submissive and obedient to the Sultan’s
will, and each flattered himself fortune might prove favorable to him,
they all consented to it. The Sultan paid them the money he promised
them; and that very day they gave orders for the preparations for their
travels, and took their leave of the Sultan, that they might be the more
ready to go the next morning. Accordingly they all set out at the same
gate of the city, each dressed like a merchant, attended by an officer
of confidence dressed like a slave, and all well mounted and equipped.
They went the first day’s journey together, and lay all at an inn, where
the road was divided into three different tracts. At night, when they
were at supper together, they all agreed to travel for a year, and to
meet at that inn; and that the first that came should wait for the rest;
that, as they had all three taken their leave together of the Sultan,
they might all return together. The next morning by break of day, after
they had embraced and wished each other good success, they mounted their
horses and took each a different road.

Prince Houssain, the eldest brother, arrived at Bisnagar, the capital
of the kingdom of that name, and the residence of its king. He went and
lodged at a khan appointed for foreign merchants; and, having learned
that there were four principal divisions where merchants of all sorts
sold their commodities, and kept shops, and in the midst of which
stood the castle, or rather the King’s palace, he went to one of these
divisions the next day.

Prince Houssain could not view this division without admiration. It was
large, and divided into several streets, all vaulted and shaded from the
sun, and yet very light too. The shops were all of a size, and all
that dealt in the same sort of goods lived in one street; as also the
handicrafts-men, who kept their shops in the smaller streets.

The multitude of shops, stocked with all sorts of merchandise, as the
finest linens from several parts of India, some painted in the most
lively colors, and representing beasts, trees, and flowers; silks and
brocades from Persia, China, and other places, porcelain both from Japan
and China, and tapestries, surprised him so much that he knew not how to
believe his own eyes; but when he came to the goldsmiths and jewelers he
was in a kind of ecstacy to behold such prodigious quantities of wrought
gold and silver, and was dazzled by the lustre of the pearls, diamonds,
rubies, emeralds, and other jewels exposed to sale.

Another thing Prince Houssain particularly admired was the great number
of rose-sellers who crowded the streets; for the Indians are so great
lovers of that flower that no one will stir without a nosegay in his
hand or a garland on his head; and the merchants keep them in pots in
their shops, that the air is perfectly perfumed.

After Prince Houssain had run through that division, street by street,
his thoughts fully employed on the riches he had seen, he was very much
tired, which a merchant perceiving, civilly invited him to sit down in
his shop, and he accepted; but had not been sat down long before he
saw a crier pass by with a piece of tapestry on his arm, about six feet
square, and cried at thirty purses. The Prince called to the crier,
and asked to see the tapestry, which seemed to him to be valued at an
exorbitant price, not only for the size of it, but the meanness of the
stuff; when he had examined it well, he told the crier that he could
not comprehend how so small a piece of tapestry, and of so indifferent
appearance, could be set at so high a price.

The crier, who took him for a merchant, replied: “If this price seems
so extravagant to you, your amazement will be greater when I tell you I
have orders to raise it to forty purses, and not to part with it under.”
 “Certainly,” answered Prince Houssain, “it must have something very
extraordinary in it, which I know nothing of.” “You have guessed it,
sir,” replied the crier, “and will own it when you come to know that
whoever sits on this piece of tapestry may be transported in an instant
wherever he desires to be, without being stopped by any obstacle.”

At this discourse of the crier the Prince of the Indies, considering
that the principal motive of his travel was to carry the Sultan, his
father, home some singular rarity, thought that he could not meet with
any which could give him more satisfaction. “If the tapestry,” said he
to the crier, “has the virtue you assign it, I shall not think forty
purses too much, but shall make you a present besides.” “Sir,” replied
the crier, “I have told you the truth; and it is an easy matter to
convince you of it, as soon as you have made the bargain for forty
purses, on condition I show you the experiment. But, as I suppose you
have not so much about you, and to receive them I must go with you to
your khan, where you lodge, with the leave of the master of the shop, we
will go into the back shop, and I will spread the tapestry; and when we
have both sat down, and you have formed the wish to be transported into
your apartment of the khan, if we are not transported thither it shall
be no bargain, and you shall be at your liberty. As to your present,
though I am paid for my trouble by the seller, I shall receive it as a
favor, and be very much obliged to you, and thankful.”

On the credit of the crier, the Prince accepted the conditions, and
concluded the bargain; and, having got the master’s leave, they went
into his back shop; they both sat down on it, and as soon as the Prince
formed his wish to be transported into his apartment at the khan he
presently found himself and the crier there; and, as he wanted not a
more sufficient proof of the virtue of the tapestry, he counted the
crier out forty pieces of gold, and gave him twenty pieces for himself.

In this manner Prince Houssain became the possessor of the tapestry,
and was overjoyed that at his arrival at Bisnagar he had found so rare
a piece, which he never disputed would gain him the hand of Nouronnihar.
In short, he looked upon it as an impossible thing for the Princes his
younger brothers to meet with anything to be compared with it. It was
in his power, by sitting on his tapestry, to be at the place of meeting
that very day; but, as he was obliged to stay there for his brothers, as
they had agreed, and as he was curious to see the King of Bisnagar and
his Court, and to inform himself of the strength, laws, customs, and
religion of the kingdom, he chose to make a longer abode there, and to
spend some months in satisfying his curiosity.

Prince Houssain might have made a longer abode in the kingdom and
Court of Bisnagar, but he was so eager to be nearer the Princess that,
spreading the tapestry, he and the officer he had brought with him sat
down, and as soon as he had formed his wish were transported to the inn
at which he and his brothers were to meet, and where he passed for a
merchant till they came.

Prince Ali, Prince Houssain’s second brother, who designed to travel
into Persia, took the road, having three days after he parted with
his brothers joined a caravan, and after four days’ travel arrived at
Schiraz, which was the capital of the kingdom of Persia. Here he passed
for a jeweler.

The next morning Prince Ali, who traveled only for his pleasure, and
had brought nothing but just necessaries along with him, after he had
dressed himself, took a walk into that part of the town which they at
Schiraz called the bezestein.

Among all the criers who passed backward and forward with several sorts
of goods, offering to sell them, he was not a little surprised to see
one who held an ivory telescope in his hand of about a foot in length
and the thickness of a man’s thumb, and cried it at thirty purses. At
first he thought the crier mad, and to inform himself went to a shop,
and said to the merchant, who stood at the door: “Pray, sir, is not that
man” (pointing to the crier who cried the ivory perspective glass at
thirty purses) “mad? If he is not, I am very much deceived.”

“Indeed, sir,” answered the merchant, “he was in his right senses
yesterday; I can assure you he is one of the ablest criers we have, and
the most employed of any when anything valuable is to be sold. And if he
cries the ivory perspective glass at thirty purses it must be worth as
much or more, on some account or other. He will come by presently, and
we will call him, and you shall be satisfied; in the meantime sit down
on my sofa, and rest yourself.”

Prince Ali accepted the merchant’s obliging offer, and presently
afterward the crier passed by. The merchant called him by his name, and,
pointing to the Prince, said to him: “Tell that gentleman, who asked
me if you were in your right senses, what you mean by crying that ivory
perspective glass, which seems not to be worth much, at thirty purses.
I should be very much amazed myself if I did not know you.” The crier,
addressing himself to Prince Ali, said: “Sir, you are not the only
person that takes me for a madman on account of this perspective glass.
You shall judge yourself whether I am or no, when I have told you its
property and I hope you will value it at as high a price as those I have
showed it to already, who had as bad an opinion of me as you.

“First, sir,” pursued the crier, presenting the ivory pipe to the
Prince, “observe that this pipe is furnished with a glass at both ends;
and consider that by looking through one of them you see whatever object
you wish to behold.” “I am,” said the Prince, “ready to make you all
imaginable reparation for the scandal I have thrown on you if you will
make the truth of what you advance appear,” and as he had the ivory pipe
in his hand, after he had looked at the two glasses he said: “Show me
at which of these ends I must look that I may be satisfied.” The crier
presently showed him, and he looked through, wishing at the same time to
see the Sultan his father, whom he immediately beheld in perfect health,
set on his throne, in the midst of his council. Afterward, as there was
nothing in the world so dear to him, after the Sultan, as the Princess
Nouronnihar, he wished to see her; and saw her at her toilet laughing,
and in a pleasant humor, with her women about her.

Prince Ali wanted no other proof to be persuaded that this perspective
glass was the most valuable thing in the world, and believed that if
he should neglect to purchase it he should never meet again with such
another rarity. He therefore took the crier with him to the khan where
he lodged, and counted him out the money, and received the perspective
glass.

Prince Ali was overjoyed at his bargain, and persuaded himself that,
as his brothers would not be able to meet with anything so rare and
admirable, the Princess Nouronnihar would be the recompense of his
fatigue and trouble; that he thought of nothing but visiting the Court
of Persia incognito, and seeing whatever was curious in Schiraz and
thereabouts, till the caravan with which he came returned back to the
Indies. As soon as the caravan was ready to set out, the Prince joined
them, and arrived happily without any accident or trouble, otherwise
than the length of the journey and fatigue of traveling, at the place of
rendezvous, where he found Prince Houssain, and both waited for Prince
Ahmed.

Prince Ahmed, who took the road of Samarcand, the next day after his
arrival there went, as his brothers had done, into the bezestein, where
he had not walked long but heard a crier, who had an artificial apple
in his hand, cry it at five and thirty purses; upon which he stopped the
crier, and said to him: “Let me see that apple, and tell me what virtue
and extraordinary properties it has, to be valued at so high a rate.”
 “Sir,” said the crier, giving it into his hand, “if you look at the
outside of this apple, it is very worthless, but if you consider its
properties, virtues, and the great use and benefit it is to mankind, you
will say it is no price for it, and that he who possesses it is master
of a great treasure. In short, it cures all sick persons of the most
mortal diseases; and if the patient is dying it will recover him
immediately and restore him to perfect health; and this is done after
the easiest manner in the world, which is by the patient’s smelling the
apple.”

“If I may believe you,” replied Prince Ahmed, “the virtues of this apple
are wonderful, and it is invaluable; but what ground have I, for all you
tell me, to be persuaded of the truth of this matter?” “Sir,” replied
the crier, “the thing is known and averred by the whole city of
Samarcand; but, without going any further, ask all these merchants you
see here, and hear what they say. You will find several of them will
tell you they had not been alive this day if they had not made use of
this excellent remedy. And, that you may better comprehend what it is,
I must tell you it is the fruit of the study and experiments of a
celebrated philosopher of this city, who applied himself all his
lifetime to the study and knowledge of the virtues of plants and
minerals, and at last attained to this composition, by which he
performed such surprising cures in this town as will never be forgot,
but died suddenly himself, before he could apply his sovereign remedy,
and left his wife and a great many young children behind him, in very
indifferent circumstances, who, to support her family and provide for
her children, is resolved to sell it.”

While the crier informed Prince Ahmed of the virtues of the artificial
apple, a great many persons came about them and confirmed what he said;
and one among the rest said he had a friend dangerously ill, whose life
was despaired of; and that was a favorable opportunity to show Prince
Ahmed the experiment. Upon which Prince Ahmed told the crier he would
give him forty purses if he cured the sick person.

The crier, who had orders to sell it at that price, said to Prince
Ahmed: “Come, sir, let us go and make the experiment, and the apple
shall be yours; and I can assure you that it will always have the
desired effect.” In short, the experiment succeeded, and the Prince,
after he had counted out to the crier forty purses, and he had delivered
the apple to him, waited patiently for the first caravan that should
return to the Indies, and arrived in perfect health at the inn where the
Princes Houssain and Ali waited for him.

When the Princes met they showed each other their treasures, and
immediately saw through the glass that the Princess was dying. They then
sat down on the carpet, wished themselves with her, and were there in a
moment.

Prince Ahmed no sooner perceived himself in Nouronnihar’s chamber than
he rose off the tapestry, as did also the other two Princes, and went
to the bedside, and put the apple under her nose; some moments after the
Princess opened her eyes, and turned her head from one side to another,
looking at the persons who stood about her; and then rose up in the bed,
and asked to be dressed, just as if she had waked out of a sound sleep.
Her women having presently informed her, in a manner that showed their
joy, that she was obliged to the three Princes for the sudden recovery
of her health, and particularly to Prince Ahmed, she immediately
expressed her joy to see them, and thanked them all together, and
afterward Prince Ahmed in particular.

While the Princess was dressing the Princes went to throw themselves at
the Sultan their father’s feet, and pay their respects to him. But when
they came before him they found he had been informed of their arrival by
the chief of the Princess’s eunuchs, and by what means the Princess had
been perfectly cured. The Sultan received and embraced them with the
greatest joy, both for their return and the recovery of the Princess his
niece, whom he loved as well as if she had been his own daughter, and
who had been given over by the physicians. After the usual ceremonies
and compliments the Princes presented each his rarity: Prince Houssain
his tapestry, which he had taken care not to leave behind him in the
Princess’s chamber; Prince Ali his ivory perspective glass, and Prince
Ahmed his artificial apple; and after each had commended their present,
when they put it into the Sultan’s hands, they begged of him to
pronounce their fate, and declare to which of them he would give the
Princess Nouronnihar for a wife, according to his promise.

The Sultan of the Indies, having heard, without interrupting them, all
that the Princes could represent further about their rarities, and
being well informed of what had happened in relation to the Princess
Nouronnihar’s cure, remained some time silent, as if he were thinking
on what answer he should make. At last he broke the silence, and said
to them: “I would declare for one of you children with a great deal of
pleasure if I could do it with justice; but consider whether I can do it
or no. ‘Tis true, Prince Ahmed, the Princess my niece is obliged to
your artificial apple for her cure; but I must ask you whether or no
you could have been so serviceable to her if you had not known by Prince
Ali’s perspective glass the danger she was in, and if Prince Houssain’s
tapestry had not brought you so soon. Your perspective glass, Prince
Ali, informed you and your brothers that you were like to lose the
Princess your cousin, and there you must own a great obligation.

“You must also grant that that knowledge would have been of no service
without the artificial apple and the tapestry. And lastly, Prince
Houssain, the Princess would be very ungrateful if she should not
show her acknowledgment of the service of your tapestry, which was so
necessary a means toward her cure. But consider, it would have been of
little use if you had not been acquainted with the Princess’s illness
by Prince Ali’s glass, and Prince Ahmed had not applied his artificial
apple. Therefore, as neither tapestry, ivory perspective glass, nor
artificial apple have the least preference one before the other, but, on
the contrary, there’s a perfect equality, I cannot grant the Princess to
any one of you; and the only fruit you have reaped from your travels is
the glory of having equally contributed to restore her health.

“If all this be true,” added the Sultan, “you see that I must have
recourse to other means to determine certainly in the choice I ought
to make among you; and that, as there is time enough between this and
night, I’ll do it to-day. Go and get each of you a bow and arrow, and
repair to the great plain, where they exercise horses. I’ll soon come to
you, and declare I will give the Princess Nouronnihar to him that shoots
the farthest.”

The three Princes had nothing to say against the decision of the Sultan.
When they were out of his presence they each provided themselves with a
bow and arrow, which they delivered to one of their officers, and went
to the plain appointed, followed by a great concourse of people.

The Sultan did not make them wait long for him, and as soon as he
arrived Prince Houssain, as the eldest, took his bow and arrow and shot
first; Prince Ali shot next, and much beyond him; and Prince Ahmed last
of all, but it so happened that nobody could see where his arrow fell;
and, notwithstanding all the diligence that was used by himself and
everybody else, it was not to be found far or near. And though it was
believed that he shot the farthest, and that he therefore deserved the
Princess Nouronnihar, it was, however, necessary that his arrow
should be found to make the matter more evident and certain; and,
notwithstanding his remonstrance, the Sultan judged in favor of Prince
Ali, and gave orders for preparations to be made for the wedding, which
was celebrated a few days after with great magnificence.

Prince Houssain would not honor the feast with his presence. In short,
his grief was so violent and insupportable that he left the Court, and
renounced all right of succession to the crown, to turn hermit.

Prince Ahmed, too, did not come to Prince Ali’s and the Princess
Nouronnihar’s wedding any more than his brother Houssain, but did not
renounce the world as he had done. But, as he could not imagine what had
become of his arrow, he stole away from his attendants and resolved to
search after it, that he might not have anything to reproach himself
with. With this intent he went to the place where the Princes Houssain’s
and Ali’s were gathered up, and, going straight forward from there,
looking carefully on both sides of him, he went so far that at last
he began to think his labor was all in vain; but yet he could not help
going forward till he came to some steep craggy rocks, which were
bounds to his journey, and were situated in a barren country, about four
leagues distant from where he set out.


II


When Prince Ahmed came pretty nigh to these rocks he perceived an arrow,
which he gathered up, looked earnestly at it, and was in the greatest
astonishment to find it was the same he shot away. “Certainly,” said he
to himself, “neither I nor any man living could shoot an arrow so far,”
 and, finding it laid flat, not sticking into the ground, he judged that
it rebounded against the rock. “There must be some mystery in this,”
 said he to himself again, “and it may be advantageous to me. Perhaps
fortune, to make me amends for depriving me of what I thought the
greatest happiness, may have reserved a greater blessing for my
comfort.”

As these rocks were full of caves and some of those caves were deep, the
Prince entered into one, and, looking about, cast his eyes on an iron
door, which seemed to have no lock, but he feared it was fastened.
However, thrusting against it, it opened, and discovered an easy
descent, but no steps, which he walked down with his arrow in his
hand. At first he thought he was going into a dark, obscure place, but
presently a quite different light succeeded that which he came out of,
and, entering into a large, spacious place, at about fifty or sixty
paces distant, he perceived a magnificent palace, which he had not then
time enough to look at. At the same time a lady of majestic port and air
advanced as far as the porch, attended by a large troop of ladies, so
finely dressed and beautiful that it was difficult to distinguish which
was the mistress.

As soon as Prince Ahmed perceived the lady, he made all imaginable
haste to go and pay his respects; and the lady, on her part, seeing him
coming, prevented him from addressing his discourse to her first, but
said to him: “Come nearer, Prince Ahmed, you are welcome.”

It was no small surprise to the Prince to hear himself named in a place
he had never heard of, though so nigh to his father’s capital, and he
could not comprehend how he should be known to a lady who was a stranger
to him. At last he returned the lady’s compliment by throwing himself at
her feet, and, rising up again, said to her:

“Madam, I return you a thousand thanks for the assurance you give me of
a welcome to a place where I believed my imprudent curiosity had made
me penetrate too far. But, madam, may I, without being guilty of ill
manners, dare to ask you by what adventure you know me? and how you, who
live in the same neighborhood with me, should be so great a stranger to
me?”

“Prince,” said the lady, “let us go into the hall, there I will gratify
you in your request.”

After these words the lady led Prince Ahmed into the hall. Then she sat
down on a sofa, and when the Prince by her entreaty had done the same
she said: “You are surprised, you say, that I should know you and not be
known by you, but you will be no longer surprised when I inform you who
I am. You are undoubtedly sensible that your religion teaches you to
believe that the world is inhabited by genies as well as men. I am the
daughter of one of the most powerful and distinguished genies, and my
name is Paribanou. The only thing that I have to add is, that you seemed
to me worthy of a more happy fate than that of possessing the Princess
Nouronnihar; and, that you might attain to it, I was present when you
drew your arrow, and foresaw it would not go beyond Prince Houssain’s.
I took it in the air, and gave it the necessary motion to strike against
the rocks near which you found it, and I tell you that it lies in your
power to make use of the favorable opportunity which presents itself to
make you happy.”

As the Fairy Paribanou pronounced these last words with a different
tone, and looked, at the same time, tenderly upon Prince Ahmed, with
a modest blush on her cheeks, it was no hard matter for the Prince to
comprehend what happiness she meant. He presently considered that the
Princess Nouronnihar could never be his and that the Fairy Paribanou
excelled her infinitely in beauty, agreeableness, wit, and, as much
as he could conjecture by the magnificence of the palace, in immense
riches. He blessed the moment that he thought of seeking after his arrow
a second time, and, yielding to his love, “Madam,” replied he, “should
I all my life have the happiness of being your slave, and the admirer
of the many charms which ravish my soul, I should think myself the most
blessed of men. Pardon in me the boldness which inspires me to ask this
favor, and don’t refuse to admit me into your Court, a prince who is
entirely devoted to you.”

“Prince,” answered the Fairy, “will you not pledge your faith to me,
as well as I give mine to you?” “Yes, madam,” replied the Prince, in an
ecstacy of joy; “what can I do better, and with greater pleasure?
Yes, my sultaness, my queen, I’ll give you my heart without the least
reserve.” “Then,” answered the Fairy, “you are my husband, and I am
your wife. But, as I suppose,” pursued she, “that you have eaten nothing
to-day, a slight repast shall be served up for you, while preparations
are making for our wedding feast at night, and then I will show you the
apartments of my palace, and you shall judge if this hall is not the
meanest part of it.”

Some of the Fairy’s women, who came into the hall with them, and guessed
her intentions, went immediately out, and returned presently with some
excellent meats and wines.

When Prince Ahmed had ate and drunk as much as he cared for, the Fairy
Paribanou carried him through all the apartments, where he saw diamonds,
rubies, emeralds and all sorts of fine jewels, intermixed with pearls,
agate, jasper, porphyry, and all sorts of the most precious marbles.
But, not to mention the richness of the furniture, which was
inestimable, there was such a profuseness throughout that the Prince,
instead of ever having seen anything like it, owned that he could not
have imagined that there was anything in the world that could come up to
it. “Prince,” said the Fairy, “if you admire my palace so much, which,
indeed, is very beautiful, what would you say to the palaces of the
chief of our genies, which are much more beautiful, spacious, and
magnificent? I could also charm you with my gardens, but we will let
that alone till another time. Night draws near, and it will be time to
go to supper.”

The next hall which the Fairy led the Prince into, and where the cloth
was laid for the feast, was the last apartment the Prince had not seen,
and not in the least inferior to the others. At his entrance into it
he admired the infinite number of sconces of wax candles perfumed with
amber, the multitude of which, instead of being confused, were placed
with so just a symmetry as formed an agreeable and pleasant sight. A
large side table was set out with all sorts of gold plate, so finely
wrought that the workmanship was much more valuable than the weight of
the gold. Several choruses of beautiful women richly dressed, and whose
voices were ravishing, began a concert, accompanied with all sorts of
the most harmonious instruments; and when they were set down at table
the Fairy Paribanou took care to help Prince Ahmed to the most delicate
meats, which she named as she invited him to eat of them, and which
the Prince found to be so exquisitely nice that he commended them with
exaggeration, and said that the entertainment far surpassed those of
man. He found also the same excellence in the wines, which neither he
nor the Fairy tasted of till the dessert was served up, which consisted
of the choicest sweetmeats and fruits.

The wedding feast was continued the next day, or, rather, the days
following the celebration were a continual feast.

At the end of six months Prince Ahmed, who always loved and honored the
Sultan his father, conceived a great desire to know how he was, and
that desire could not be satisfied without his going to see; he told the
Fairy of it, and desired she would give him leave.

“Prince,” said she, “go when you please. But first, don’t take it amiss
that I give you some advice how you shall behave yourself where you are
going. First, I don’t think it proper for you to tell the Sultan your
father of our marriage, nor of my quality, nor the place where you have
been. Beg of him to be satisfied in knowing you are happy, and desire
no more; and let him know that the sole end of your visit is to make him
easy, and inform him of your fate.”

She appointed twenty gentlemen, well mounted and equipped, to attend
him. When all was ready Prince Ahmed took his leave of the Fairy,
embraced her, and renewed his promise to return soon. Then his horse,
which was most finely caparisoned, and was as beautiful a creature as
any in the Sultan of Indies’ stables, was led to him, and he mounted him
with an extraordinary grace; and, after he had bid her a last adieu, set
forward on his journey.

As it was not a great way to his father’s capital, Prince Ahmed soon
arrived there. The people, glad to see him again, received him with
acclamations of joy, and followed him in crowds to the Sultan’s
apartment. The Sultan received and embraced him with great joy,
complaining at the same time, with a fatherly tenderness, of the
affliction his long absence had been to him, which he said was the more
grievous for that, fortune having decided in favor of Prince Ali his
brother, he was afraid he might have committed some rash action.

The Prince told a story of his adventures without speaking of the Fairy,
whom he said that he must not mention, and ended: “The only favor I
ask of your Majesty is to give me leave to come often and pay you my
respects, and to know how you do.”

“Son,” answered the Sultan of the Indies, “I cannot refuse you the leave
you ask me; but I should much rather you would resolve to stay with me;
at least tell me where I may send to you if you should fail to come, or
when I may think your presence necessary.” “Sir,” replied Prince Ahmed,
“what your Majesty asks of me is part of the mystery I spoke to your
Majesty of. I beg of you to give me leave to remain silent on this head,
for I shall come so frequently that I am afraid that I shall sooner be
thought troublesome than be accused of negligence in my duty.”

The Sultan of the Indies pressed Prince Ahmed no more, but said to him:
“Son, I penetrate no farther into your secrets, but leave you at your
liberty; but can tell you that you could not do me a greater pleasure
than to come, and by your presence restore to me the joy I have not
felt this long time, and that you shall always be welcome when you come,
without interrupting your business or pleasure.”

Prince Ahmed stayed but three days at the Sultan his father’s Court, and
the fourth returned to the Fairy Paribanou, who did not expect him so
soon.

A month after Prince Ahmed’s return from paying a visit to his father,
as the Fairy Paribanou had observed that the Prince, since the time that
he gave her an account of his journey, his discourse with his father,
and the leave he asked to go and see him often, had never talked of the
Sultan, as if there had been no such person in the world, whereas before
he was always speaking of him, she thought he forebore on her account;
therefore she took an opportunity to say to him one day: “Prince, tell
me, have you forgot the Sultan your father? Don’t you remember the
promise you made to go and see him often? For my part I have not forgot
what you told me at your return, and so put you in mind of it, that you
may not be long before you acquit yourself of your promise.”

So Prince Ahmed went the next morning with the same attendance as
before, but much finer, and himself more magnificently mounted,
equipped, and dressed, and was received by the Sultan with the same
joy and satisfaction. For several months he constantly paid his visits,
always in a richer and finer equipage.

At last some viziers, the Sultan’s favorites, who judged of Prince
Ahmed’s grandeur and power by the figure he cut, made the Sultan jealous
of his son, saying it was to be feared he might inveigle himself into
the people’s favor and dethrone him.

The Sultan of the Indies was so far from thinking that Prince Ahmed
could be capable of so pernicious a design as his favorites would make
him believe that he said to them: “You are mistaken; my son loves me,
and I am certain of his tenderness and fidelity, as I have given him no
reason to be disgusted.”

But the favorites went on abusing Prince Ahmed till the Sultan said: “Be
it as it will, I don’t believe my son Ahmed is so wicked as you would
persuade me he is; how ever, I am obliged to you for your good advice,
and don’t dispute but that it proceeds from your good intentions.”

The Sultan of the Indies said this that his favorites might not know the
impressions their discourse had made on his mind; which had so alarmed
him that he resolved to have Prince Ahmed watched unknown to his grand
vizier. So he sent for a female magician, who was introduced by a back
door into his apartment. “Go immediately,” he said, “and follow my son,
and watch him so well as to find out where he retires, and bring me
word.”

The magician left the Sultan, and, knowing the place where Prince Ahmed
found his arrow, went immediately thither, and hid herself near the
rocks, so that nobody could see her.

The next morning Prince Ahmed set out by daybreak, without taking leave
either of the Sultan or any of his Court, according to custom. The
magician, seeing him coming, followed him with her eyes, till on a
sudden she lost sight of him and his attendants.

As the rocks were very steep and craggy, they were an insurmountable
barrier, so that the magician judged that there were but two things
for it: either that the Prince retired into some cavern, or an abode of
genies or fairies. Thereupon she came out of the place where she was hid
and went directly to the hollow way, which she traced till she came
to the farther end, looking carefully about on all sides; but,
notwithstanding all her diligence, could perceive no opening, not so
much as the iron gate which Prince Ahmed discovered, which was to be
seen and opened to none but men, and only to such whose presence was
agreeable to the Fairy Paribanou.

The magician, who saw it was in vain for her to search any farther, was
obliged to be satisfied with the discovery she had made, and returned to
give the Sultan an account.

The Sultan was very well pleased with the magician’s conduct, and said
to her: “Do you as you think fit; I’ll wait patiently the event of your
promises,” and to encourage her made her a present of a diamond of great
value.

As Prince Ahmed had obtained the Fairy Paribanou’s leave to go to the
Sultan of the Indies’ Court once a month, he never failed, and the
magician, knowing the time, went a day or two before to the foot of the
rock where she lost sight of the Prince and his attendants, and waited
there.

The next morning Prince Ahmed went out, as usual, at the iron gate, with
the same attendants as before, and passed by the magician, whom he knew
not to be such, and, seeing her lie with her head against the rock,
and complaining as if she were in great pain, he pitied her, turned his
horse about, went to her, and asked her what was the matter with her,
and what he could do to ease her.

The artful sorceress looked at the Prince in a pitiful manner, without
ever lifting up her head, and answered in broken words and sighs, as
if she could hardly fetch her breath, that she was going to the capital
city, but on the way thither she was taken with so violent a fever that
her strength failed her, and she was forced to lie down where he saw
her, far from any habitation, and without any hopes of assistance.

“Good woman,” replied Prince Ahmed, “you are not so far from help as you
imagine. I am ready to assist you, and convey you where you will meet
with a speedy cure; only get up, and let one of my people take you
behind him.”

At these words the magician, who pretended sickness only to know where
the Prince lived and what he did, refused not the charitable offer he
made her, and that her actions might correspond with her words she made
many pretended vain endeavors to get up. At the same time two of the
Prince’s attendants, alighting off their horses, helped her up, and set
her behind another, and mounted their horses again, and followed the
Prince, who turned back to the iron gate, which was opened by one of his
retinue who rode before. And when he came into the outward court of the
Fairy, without dismounting himself, he sent to tell her he wanted to
speak with her.

The Fairy Paribanou came with all imaginable haste, not knowing what
made Prince Ahmed return so soon, who, not giving her time to ask him
the reason, said: “Princess, I desire you would have compassion on this
good woman,” pointing to the magician, who was held up by two of his
retinue. “I found her in the condition you see her in, and promised her
the assistance she stands in need of, and am persuaded that you, out of
your own goodness, as well as upon my entreaty, will not abandon her.”

The Fairy Paribanou, who had her eyes fixed upon the pretended sick
woman all the time that the Prince was talking to her, ordered two of
her women who followed her to take her from the two men that held her,
and carry her into an apartment of the palace, and take as much care of
her as she would herself.

While the two women executed the Fairy’s commands, she went up to Prince
Ahmed, and, whispering in his ear, said: “Prince, this woman is not so
sick as she pretends to be; and I am very much mistaken if she is not an
impostor, who will be the cause of a great trouble to you. But don’t
be concerned, let what will be devised against you; be persuaded that
I will deliver you out of all the snares that shall be laid for you. Go
and pursue your journey.”

This discourse of the Fairy’s did not in the least frighten Prince
Ahmed. “My Princess,” said he, “as I do not remember I ever did or
designed anybody an injury, I cannot believe anybody can have a thought
of doing me one, but if they have I shall not, nevertheless, forbear
doing good whenever I have an opportunity.” Then he went back to his
father’s palace.

In the meantime the two women carried the magician into a very fine
apartment, richly furnished. First they sat her down upon a sofa, with
her back supported with a cushion of gold brocade, while they made a bed
on the same sofa before her, the quilt of which was finely embroidered
with silk, the sheets of the finest linen, and the coverlet
cloth-of-gold. When they had put her into bed (for the old sorceress
pretended that her fever was so violent she could not help herself in
the least) one of the women went out, and returned soon again with a
china dish in her hand, full of a certain liquor, which she presented to
the magician, while the other helped her to sit up. “Drink this liquor,”
 said she; “it is the Water of the Fountain of Lions, and a sovereign
remedy against all fevers whatsoever. You will find the effect of it in
less than an hour’s time.”

The magician, to dissemble the better, took it after a great deal of
entreaty; but at last she took the china dish, and, holding back her
head, swallowed down the liquor. When she was laid down again the two
women covered her up. “Lie quiet,” said she who brought her the china
cup, “and get a little sleep if you can. We’ll leave you, and hope to
find you perfectly cured when we come again an hour hence.”

The two women came again at the time they said they should, and found
the magician up and dressed, and sitting upon the sofa. “Oh, admirable
potion!” she said: “it has wrought its cure much sooner than you told me
it would, and I shall be able to prosecute my journey.”

The two women, who were fairies as well as their mistress, after they
had told the magician how glad they were that she was cured so soon,
walked before her, and conducted her through several apartments, all
more noble than that wherein she lay, into a large hall, the most richly
and magnificently furnished of all the palace.

Fairy Paribanou sat in this hall on a throne of massive gold, enriched
with diamonds, rubies, and pearls of an extraordinary size, and attended
on each hand by a great number of beautiful fairies, all richly clothed.
At the sight of so much majesty, the magician was not only dazzled, but
was so amazed that, after she had prostrated herself before the throne,
she could not open her lips to thank the Fairy as she proposed. However,
Paribanou saved her the trouble, and said to her: “Good woman, I am glad
I had an opportunity to oblige you, and to see you are able to pursue
your journey. I won’t detain you, but perhaps you may not be displeased
to see my palace; follow my women, and they will show it you.”

Then the magician went back and related to the Sultan of the Indies all
that had happened, and how very rich Prince Ahmed was since his marriage
with the Fairy, richer than all the kings in the world, and how there
was danger that he should come and take the throne from his father.

Though the Sultan of the Indies was very well persuaded that Prince
Ahmed’s natural disposition was good, yet he could not help being
concerned at the discourse of the old sorceress, to whom, when she was
taking her leave, he said: “I thank thee for the pains thou hast taken,
and thy wholesome advice. I am so sensible of the great importance it is
to me that I shall deliberate upon it in council.”

Now the favorites advised that the Prince should be killed, but the
magician advised differently: “Make him give you all kinds of wonderful
things, by the Fairy’s help, till she tires of him and sends him away.
As, for example, every time your Majesty goes into the field, you are
obliged to be at a great expense, not only in pavilions and tents for
your army, but likewise in mules and camels to carry their baggage. Now,
might not you engage him to use his interest with the Fairy to procure
you a tent which might be carried in a man’s hand, and which should be
so large as to shelter your whole army against bad weather?”

When the magician had finished her speech, the Sultan asked his
favorites if they had anything better to propose; and, finding them
all silent, determined to follow the magician’s advice, as the most
reasonable and most agreeable to his mild government.

Next day the Sultan did as the magician had advised him, and asked for
the pavilion.

Prince Ahmed never expected that the Sultan his father would have
asked such a thing, which at first appeared so difficult, not to say
impossible. Though he knew not absolutely how great the power of genies
and fairies was, he doubted whether it extended so far as to compass
such a tent as his father desired. At last he replied: “Though it is
with the greatest reluctance imaginable, I will not fail to ask the
favor of my wife your Majesty desires, but will not promise you to
obtain it; and if I should not have the honor to come again to pay you
my respects that shall be the sign that I have not had success. But
beforehand, I desire you to forgive me, and consider that you yourself
have reduced me to this extremity.”

“Son,” replied the Sultan of the Indies, “I should be very sorry if what
I ask of you should cause me the displeasure of never seeing you more. I
find you don’t know the power a husband has over a wife; and yours would
show that her love to you was very indifferent if she, with the power
she has of a fairy, should refuse you so trifling a request as this I
desire you to ask of her for my sake.” The Prince went back, and was
very sad for fear of offending the Fairy. She kept pressing him to
tell her what was the matter, and at last he said: “Madam, you may have
observed that hitherto I have been content with your love, and have
never asked you any other favor. Consider then, I conjure you, that
it is not I, but the Sultan my father, who indiscreetly, or at least I
think so, begs of you a pavilion large enough to shelter him, his Court,
and army from the violence of the weather, and which a man may carry in
his hand. But remember it is the Sultan my father asks this favor.”

“Prince,” replied the Fairy, smiling, “I am sorry that so small a matter
should disturb you, and make you so uneasy as you appeared to me.”

Then the Fairy sent for her treasurer, to whom, when she came, she said:
“Nourgihan”--which was her name--“bring me the largest pavilion in my
treasury.” Nourgiham returned presently with the pavilion, which she
could not only hold in her hand, but in the palm of her hand when she
shut her fingers, and presented it to her mistress, who gave it to
Prince Ahmed to look at.

When Prince Ahmed saw the pavilion which the Fairy called the largest in
her treasury, he fancied she had a mind to jest with him, and thereupon
the marks of his surprise appeared presently in his countenance; which
Paribanou perceiving burst out laughing. “What! Prince,” cried she, “do
you think I jest with you? You’ll see presently that I am in earnest.
Nourgihan,” said she to her treasurer, taking the tent out of Prince
Ahmed’s hands, “go and set it up, that the Prince may judge whether it
may be large enough for the Sultan his father.”

The treasurer went immediately with it out of the palace, and carried it
a great way off; and when she had set it up one end reached to the very
palace; at which time the Prince, thinking it small, found it large
enough to shelter two greater armies than that of the Sultan his
father’s, and then said to Paribanou: “I ask my Princess a thousand
pardons for my incredulity; after what I have seen I believe there
is nothing impossible to you.” “You see,” said the Fairy, “that the
pavilion is larger than what your father may have occasion for; for
you must know that it has one property--that it is larger or smaller
according to the army it is to cover.”

The treasurer took down the tent again, and brought it to the Prince,
who took it, and, without staying any longer than till the next day,
mounted his horse, and went with the same attendants to the Sultan his
father.

The Sultan, who was persuaded that there could not be any such thing
as such a tent as he asked for, was in a great surprise at the Prince’s
diligence. He took the tent and after he had admired its smallness his
amazement was so great that he could not recover himself. When the tent
was set up in the great plain, which we have before mentioned, he found
it large enough to shelter an army twice as large as he could bring into
the field.

But the Sultan was not yet satisfied. “Son,” said he, “I have already
expressed to you how much I am obliged to you for the present of the
tent you have procured me; that I look upon it as the most valuable
thing in all my treasury. But you must do one thing more for me, which
will be every whit as agreeable to me. I am informed that the Fairy,
your spouse, makes use of a certain water, called the Water of the
Fountain of Lions, which cures all sorts of fevers, even the most
dangerous, and, as I am perfectly well persuaded my health is dear to
you, I don’t doubt but you will ask her for a bottle of that water for
me, and bring it me as a sovereign medicine, which I may make use of
when I have occasion. Do me this other important piece of service, and
thereby complete the duty of a good son toward a tender father.”

The Prince returned and told the Fairy what his father had said;
“There’s a great deal of wickedness in this demand?” she answered, “as
you will understand by what I am going to tell you. The Fountain of
Lions is situated in the middle of a court of a great castle, the
entrance into which is guarded by four fierce lions, two of which sleep
alternately, while the other two are awake. But don’t let that frighten
you: I’ll give you means to pass by them without any danger.”

The Fairy Paribanou was at that time very hard at work, and, as she had
several clews of thread by her, she took up one, and, presenting it
to Prince Ahmed, said: “First take this clew of thread. I’ll tell you
presently the use of it. In the second place, you must have two horses;
one you must ride yourself, and the other you must lead, which must be
loaded with a sheep cut into four quarters, that must be killed to-day.
In the third place, you must be provided with a bottle, which I will
give you, to bring the water in. Set out early to-morrow morning, and
when you have passed the iron gate throw the clew of thread before you,
which will roll till it comes to the gates of the castle. Follow it, and
when it stops, as the gates will be open, you will see the four lions:
the two that are awake will, by their roaring, wake the other two, but
don’t be frightened, but throw each of them a quarter of mutton, and
then clap spurs to your horse and ride to the fountain; fill your bottle
without alighting, and then return with the same expedition. The lions
will be so busy eating they will let you pass by them.”

Prince Ahmed set out the next morning at the time appointed by the
Fairy, and followed her directions exactly. When he arrived at the
gates of the castle he distributed the quarters of mutton among the
four lions, and, passing through the midst of them bravely, got to the
fountain, filled his bottle, and returned back as safe and sound as he
went. When he had gone a little distance from the castle gates he turned
him about, and, perceiving two of the lions coming after him, he drew
his sabre and prepared himself for defense. But as he went forward he
saw one of them turned out of the road at some distance, and showed by
his head and tail that he did not come to do him any harm, but only to
go before him, and that the other stayed behind to follow, he put his
sword up again in its scabbard. Guarded in this manner, he arrived at
the capital of the Indies, but the lions never left him till they had
conducted him to the gates of the Sultan’s palace; after which they
returned the same way they came, though not without frightening all
that saw them, for all they went in a very gentle manner and showed no
fierceness.

A great many officers came to attend the Prince while he dismounted his
horse, and afterward conducted him into the Sultan’s apartment, who was
at that time surrounded with his favorites. He approached toward the
throne, laid the bottle at the Sultan’s feet, and kissed the rich
tapestry which covered his footstool, and then said:

“I have brought you, sir, the healthful water which your Majesty desired
so much to keep among your other rarities in your treasury, but at the
same time wish you such extraordinary health as never to have occasion
to make use of it.”

After the Prince had made an end of his compliment the Sultan placed him
on his right hand, and then said to him: “Son, I am very much obliged
to you for this valuable present, as also for the great danger you have
exposed yourself to upon my account (which I have been informed of by
a magician who knows the Fountain of Lions); but do me the pleasure,”
 continued he, “to inform me by what address, or, rather, by what
incredible power, you have been secured.”

“Sir,” replied Prince Ahmed, “I have no share in the compliment your
Majesty is pleased to make me; all the honor is due to the Fairy my
spouse, whose good advice I followed.” Then he informed the Sultan what
those directions were, and by the relation of this his expedition let
him know how well he had behaved himself. When he had done the Sultan,
who showed outwardly all the demonstrations of great joy, but secretly
became more jealous, retired into an inward apartment, where he sent for
the magician.

The magician, at her arrival, saved the Sultan the trouble to tell her
of the success of Prince Ahmed’s journey, which she had heard of before
she came, and therefore was prepared with an infallible means, as she
pretended. This means she communicated to the Sultan who declared it
the next day to the Prince, in the midst of all his courtiers, in these
words: “Son,” said he, “I have one thing more to ask of you, after which
I shall expect nothing more from your obedience, nor your interest with
your wife. This request is, to bring me a man not above a foot and a
half high, and whose beard is thirty feet long who carries a bar of
iron upon his shoulders of five hundredweight, which he uses as a
quarterstaff.”

Prince Ahmed, who did not believe that there was such a man in the world
as his father described, would gladly have excused himself; but the
Sultan persisted in his demand, and told him the Fairy could do more
incredible things.

The next day the Prince returned to his dear Paribanou, to whom he told
his father’s new demand, which, he said, he looked upon to be a thing
more impossible than the two first; “for,” added he, “I cannot imagine
there can be such a man in the world; without doubt, he has a mind to
try whether or no I am so silly as to go about it, or he has a design on
my ruin. In short, how can he suppose that I should lay hold of a man
so well armed, though he is but little? What arms can I make use of to
reduce him to my will? If there are any means, I beg you will tell them,
and let me come off with honor this time.”

“Don’t affright yourself, Prince,” replied the Fairy; “you ran a risk in
fetching the Water of the Fountain of Lions for your father, but there’s
no danger in finding out this man, who is my brother Schaibar, but is so
far from being like me, though we both had the same father, that he is
of so violent a nature that nothing can prevent his giving cruel marks
of his resentment for a slight offense; yet, on the other hand, is so
good as to oblige anyone in whatever they desire. He is made exactly as
the Sultan your father has described him, and has no other arms than a
bar of iron of five hundred pounds weight, without which he never stirs,
and which makes him respected. I’ll send for him, and you shall judge
of the truth of what I tell you; but be sure to prepare yourself against
being frightened at his extraordinary figure when you see him.” “What!
my Queen,” replied Prince Ahmed, “do you say Schaibar is your brother?
Let him be never so ugly or deformed I shall be so far from being
frightened at the sight of him that, as our brother, I shall honor and
love him.”

The Fairy ordered a gold chafing-dish to be set with a fire in it under
the porch of her palace, with a box of the same metal, which was a
present to her, out of which taking a perfume, and throwing it into the
fire, there arose a thick cloud of smoke.

Some moments after the Fairy said to Prince Ahmed: “See, there comes my
brother.” The Prince immediately perceived Schaibar coming gravely with
his heavy bar on his shoulder, his long beard, which he held up before
him, and a pair of thick mustachios, which he tucked behind his ears and
almost covered his face; his eyes were very small and deep-set in his
head, which was far from being of the smallest size, and on his head he
wore a grenadier’s cap; besides all this, he was very much hump-backed.

If Prince Ahmed had not known that Schaibar was Paribanou’s brother,
he would not have been able to have looked at him without fear, but,
knowing first who he was, he stood by the Fairy without the least
concern.

Schaibar, as he came forward, looked at the Prince earnestly enough to
have chilled his blood in his veins, and asked Paribanou, when he first
accosted her, who that man was. To which she replied: “He is my husband,
brother. His name is Ahmed; he is son to the Sultan of the Indies. The
reason why I did not invite you to my wedding was I was unwilling to
divert you from an expedition you were engaged in, and from which I
heard with pleasure you returned victorious, and so took the liberty now
to call for you.”

At these words, Schaibar, looking on Prince Ahmed favorably, said: “Is
there anything else, sister, wherein I can serve him? It is enough
for me that he is your husband to engage me to do for him whatever he
desires.” “The Sultan, his father,” replied Paribanou, “has a curiosity
to see you, and I desire he may be your guide to the Sultan’s Court.”
 “He needs but lead me the way I’ll follow him.” “Brother,” replied
Paribanou, “it is too late to go to-day, therefore stay till to-morrow
morning; and in the meantime I’ll inform you of all that has passed
between the Sultan of the Indies and Prince Ahmed since our marriage.”

The next morning, after Schaibar had been informed of the affair, he and
Prince Ahmed set out for the Sultan’s Court. When they arrived at the
gates of the capital the people no sooner saw Schaibar but they ran and
hid themselves; and some shut up their shops and locked themselves up in
their houses, while others, flying, communicated their fear to all they
met, who stayed not to look behind them, but ran too; insomuch that
Schaibar and Prince Ahmed, as they went along, found the streets all
desolate till they came to the palaces where the porters, instead
of keeping the gates, ran away too, so that the Prince and Schaibar
advanced without any obstacle to the council-hall, where the Sultan was
seated on his throne, and giving audience. Here likewise the ushers,
at the approach of Schaibar, abandoned their posts, and gave them free
admittance.

Schaibar went boldly and fiercely up to the throne, without waiting to
be presented by Prince Ahmed, and accosted the Sultan of the Indies in
these words: “Thou hast asked for me,” said he; “see, here I am; what
wouldst thou have with me?”

The Sultan, instead of answering him, clapped his hands before his eyes
to avoid the sight of so terrible an object; at which uncivil and rude
reception Schaibar was so much provoked, after he had given him the
trouble to come so far, that he instantly lifted up his iron bar and
killed him before Prince Ahmed could intercede in his behalf. All that
he could do was to prevent his killing the grand vizier, who sat not far
from him, representing to him that he had always given the Sultan his
father good advice. “These are they, then,” said Schaibar, “who gave him
bad,” and as he pronounced these words he killed all the other viziers
and flattering favorites of the Sultan who were Prince Ahmed’s enemies.
Every time he struck he killed some one or other, and none escaped but
they who were not so frightened as to stand staring and gaping, and who
saved themselves by flight.

When this terrible execution was over Schaibar came out of the
council-hall into the midst of the courtyard with the iron bar upon his
shoulder, and, looking hard at the grand vizier, who owed his life to
Prince Ahmed, he said: “I know here is a certain magician, who is a
greater enemy of my brother-in-law than all these base favorites I
have chastised. Let the magician be brought to me presently.” The grand
vizier immediately sent for her, and as soon as she was brought Schaibar
said, at the time he fetched a stroke at her with his iron bar: “Take
the reward of thy pernicious counsel, and learn to feign sickness
again.”

After this he said: “This is not yet enough; I will use the whole town
after the same manner if they do not immediately acknowledge Prince
Ahmed, my brother-in-law, for their Sultan and the Sultan of the
Indies.” Then all that were there present made the air echo again
with the repeated acclamations of: “Long life to Sultan Ahmed”; and
immediately after he was proclaimed through the whole town. Schaibar
made him be clothed in the royal vestments, installed him on the throne,
and after he had caused all to swear homage and fidelity to him went
and fetched his sister Paribanou, whom he brought with all the pomp and
grandeur imaginable, and made her to be owned Sultaness of the Indies.

As for Prince Ali and Princess Nouronnihar, as they had no hand in the
conspiracy against Prince Ahmed and knew nothing of any, Prince Ahmed
assigned them a considerable province, with its capital, where they
spent the rest of their lives. Afterwards he sent an officer to Prince
Houssain to acquaint him with the change and make him an offer of which
province he liked best; but that Prince thought himself so happy in his
solitude that he bade the officer return the Sultan his brother thanks
for the kindness he designed him, assuring him of his submission; and
that the only favor he desired of him was to give him leave to live
retired in the place he had made choice of for his retreat.(1)


(1) Arabian Nights.




THE HISTORY OF JACK THE GIANT-KILLER


In the reign of the famous King Arthur there lived in Cornwall a lad
named Jack, who was a boy of a bold temper, and took delight in hearing
or reading of conjurers, giants, and fairies; and used to listen eagerly
to the deeds of the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table.

In those days there lived on St. Michael’s Mount, off Cornwall, a huge
giant, eighteen feet high and nine feet round; his fierce and savage
looks were the terror of all who beheld him.

He dwelt in a gloomy cavern on the top of the mountain, and used to wade
over to the mainland in search of prey; when he would throw half a dozen
oxen upon his back, and tie three times as many sheep and hogs round his
waist, and march back to his own abode.

The giant had done this for many years when Jack resolved to destroy
him.

Jack took a horn, a shovel, a pickaxe, his armor, and a dark lantern,
and one winter’s evening he went to the mount. There he dug a pit
twenty-two feet deep and twenty broad. He covered the top over so as to
make it look like solid ground. He then blew his horn so loudly that the
giant awoke and came out of his den crying out: “You saucy villain! you
shall pay for this I’ll broil you for my breakfast!”

He had just finished, when, taking one step further, he tumbled headlong
into the pit, and Jack struck him a blow on the head with his pickaxe
which killed him. Jack then returned home to cheer his friends with the
news.

Another giant, called Blunderbore, vowed to be revenged on Jack if ever
he should have him in his power. This giant kept an enchanted castle in
the midst of a lonely wood; and some time after the death of Cormoran
Jack was passing through a wood, and being weary, sat down and went to
sleep.

The giant, passing by and seeing Jack, carried him to his castle, where
he locked him up in a large room, the floor of which was covered with
the bodies, skulls and bones of men and women.

Soon after the giant went to fetch his brother who was likewise a giant,
to take a meal off his flesh; and Jack saw with terror through the bars
of his prison the two giants approaching.

Jack, perceiving in one corner of the room a strong cord, took courage,
and making a slip-knot at each end, he threw them over their heads, and
tied it to the window-bars; he then pulled till he had choked them. When
they were black in the face he slid down the rope and stabbed them to
the heart.

Jack next took a great bunch of keys from the pocket of Blunderbore,
and went into the castle again. He made a strict search through all
the rooms, and in one of them found three ladies tied up by the hair
of their heads, and almost starved to death. They told him that their
husbands had been killed by the giants, who had then condemned them to
be starved to death because they would not eat the flesh of their own
dead husbands.

“Ladies,” said Jack, “I have put an end to the monster and his wicked
brother; and I give you this castle and all the riches it contains, to
make some amends for the dreadful pains you have felt.” He then very
politely gave them the keys of the castle, and went further on his
journey to Wales.

As Jack had but little money, he went on as fast as possible. At length
he came to a handsome house. Jack knocked at the door, when there came
forth a Welsh giant. Jack said he was a traveler who had lost his way,
on which the giant made him welcome, and let him into a room where there
was a good bed to sleep in.

Jack took off his clothes quickly, but though he was weary he could not
go to sleep. Soon after this he heard the giant walking backward and
forward in the next room, and saying to himself:

  “Though here you lodge with me this night,
  You shall not see the morning light;
  My club shall dash your brains out quite.”


“Say you so?” thought Jack. “Are these your tricks upon travelers? But
I hope to prove as cunning as you are.” Then, getting out of bed, he
groped about the room, and at last found a large thick billet of wood.
He laid it in his own place in the bed, and then hid himself in a dark
corner of the room.

The giant, about midnight, entered the apartment, and with his bludgeon
struck many blows on the bed, in the very place where Jack had laid the
log; and then he went back to his own room, thinking he had broken all
Jack’s bones.

Early in the morning Jack put a bold face upon the matter, and walked
into the giant’s room to thank him for his lodging. The giant started
when he saw him, and began to stammer out: “Oh! dear me; is it you? Pray
how did you sleep last night? Did you hear or see anything in the dead
of the night?”

“Nothing to speak of,” said Jack, carelessly; “a rat, I believe, gave me
three or four slaps with its tail, and disturbed me a little; but I soon
went to sleep again.”

The giant wondered more and more at this; yet he did not answer a word,
but went to bring two great bowls of hasty-pudding for their breakfast.
Jack wanted to make the giant believe that he could eat as much as
himself, so he contrived to button a leathern bag inside his coat, and
slip the hasty-pudding into this bag, while he seemed to put it into his
mouth.

When breakfast was over he said to the giant: “Now I will show you a
fine trick. I can cure all wounds with a touch; I could cut off my head
in one minute, and the next put it sound again on my shoulders. You
shall see an example.” He then took hold of the knife, ripped up the
leathern bag, and all the hasty-pudding tumbled out upon the floor.

“Ods splutter hur nails!” cried the Welsh giant, who was ashamed to be
outdone by such a little fellow as Jack, “hur can do that hurself”;
so he snatched up the knife, plunged it into his own stomach, and in a
moment dropped down dead.

Jack, having hitherto been successful in all his undertakings, resolved
not to be idle in future; he therefore furnished himself with a horse,
a cap of knowledge, a sword of sharpness, shoes of swiftness, and an
invisible coat, the better to perform the wonderful enterprises that lay
before him.

He traveled over high hills, and on the third day he came to a large and
spacious forest through which his road lay. Scarcely had he entered the
forest when he beheld a monstrous giant dragging along by the hair
of their heads a handsome knight and his lady. Jack alighted from his
horse, and tying him to an oak tree, put on his invisible coat, under
which he carried his sword of sharpness.

When he came up to the giant he made several strokes at him, but could
not reach his body, but wounded his thighs in several places; and at
length, putting both hands to his sword and aiming with all his might,
he cut off both his legs. Then Jack, setting his foot upon his neck,
plunged his sword into the giant’s body, when the monster gave a groan
and expired.

The knight and his lady thanked Jack for their deliverance, and invited
him to their house, to receive a proper reward for his services. “No,”
 said Jack, “I cannot be easy till I find out this monster’s habitation.”
 So, taking the knight’s directions, he mounted his horse and soon after
came in sight of another giant, who was sitting on a block of timber
waiting for his brother’s return.

Jack alighted from his horse, and, putting on his invisible coat,
approached and aimed a blow at the giant’s head, but, missing his aim,
he only cut off his nose. On this the giant seized his club and laid
about him most unmercifully.

“Nay,” said Jack, “if this be the case I’d better dispatch you!” so,
jumping upon the block, he stabbed him in the back, when he dropped down
dead.

Jack then proceeded on his journey, and traveled over hills and dales,
till arriving at the foot of a high mountain he knocked at the door of a
lonely house, when an old man let him in.

When Jack was seated the hermit thus addressed him: “My son, on the top
of this mountain is an enchanted castle, kept by the giant Galligantus
and a vile magician. I lament the fate of a duke’s daughter, whom they
seized as she was walking in her father’s garden, and brought hither
transformed into a deer.”

Jack promised that in the morning, at the risk of his life, he would
break the enchantment; and after a sound sleep he rose early, put on his
invisible coat, and got ready for the attempt.

When he had climbed to the top of the mountain he saw two fiery
griffins, but he passed between them without the least fear of danger,
for they could not see him because of his invisible coat. On the castle
gate he found a golden trumpet, under which were written these lines:

  “Whoever can this trumpet blow
  Shall cause the giant’s overthrow.”


As soon as Jack had read this he seized the trumpet and blew a shrill
blast, which made the gates fly open and the very castle itself tremble.

The giant and the conjurer now knew that their wicked course was at an
end, and they stood biting their thumbs and shaking with fear. Jack,
with his sword of sharpness, soon killed the giant, and the magician was
then carried away by a whirlwind; and every knight and beautiful lady
who had been changed into birds and beasts returned to their proper
shapes. The castle vanished away like smoke, and the head of the giant
Galligantus was then sent to King Arthur.

The knights and ladies rested that night at the old man’s hermitage, and
next day they set out for the Court. Jack then went up to the King, and
gave his Majesty an account of all his fierce battles.

Jack’s fame had now spread through the whole country, and at the King’s
desire the duke gave him his daughter in marriage, to the joy of all his
kingdom. After this the King gave him a large estate, on which he and
his lady lived the rest of their days in joy and contentment.(1)


(1) Old Chapbook.




THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY


     And many a hunting song they sung,
       And song of game and glee;
     Then tuned to plaintive strains their tongue,
       “Of Scotland’s luve and lee.”
      To wilder measures next they turn
       “The Black, Black Bull of Norroway!”
      Sudden the tapers cease to burn,
       The minstrels cease to play.

            “The Cout of Keeldar,” by J. Leyden.


In Norroway, langsyne, there lived a certain lady, and she had three
dochters. The auldest o’ them said to her mither: “Mither, bake me a
bannock, and roast me a collop, for I’m gaun awa’ to seek my fortune.”
 Her mither did sae; and the dochter gaed awa’ to an auld witch
washerwife and telled her purpose. The auld wife bade her stay that day,
and gang and look out o’ her back door, and see what she could see. She
saw nocht the first day. The second day she did the same, and saw nocht.
On the third day she looked again, and saw a coach-and-six coming along
the road. She ran in and telled the auld wife what she saw. “Aweel,”
 quo’ the auld wife, “yon’s for you.” Sae they took her into the coach,
and galloped aff.

The second dochter next says to her mither: “Mither, bake me a bannock,
and roast me a collop, fur I’m gaun awa’ to seek my fortune.” Her mither
did sae; and awa’ she gaed to the auld wife, as her sister had dune. On
the third day she looked out o’ the back door, and saw a coach-and-four
coming along the road. “Aweel,” quo’ the auld wife, “yon’s for you.” Sae
they took her in, and aff they set.

The third dochter says to her mither: “Mither, bake me a bannock, and
roast me a collop, for I’m gaun awa’ to seek my fortune.” Her mither did
sae; and awa’ she gaed to the auld witch-wife. She bade her look out
o’ her back door, and see what she could see. She did sae; and when she
came back said she saw nocht. The second day she did the same, and saw
nocht. The third day she looked again, and on coming back said to the
auld wife she saw nocht but a muckle Black Bull coming roaring alang the
road. “Aweel,” quo’ the auld wife, “yon’s for you.” On hearing this she
was next to distracted wi’ grief and terror; but she was lifted up and
set on his back, and awa’ they went.

Aye they traveled, and on they traveled, till the lady grew faint wi’
hunger. “Eat out o’ my right lug,” says the Black Bull, “and drink out
o’ my left lug, and set by your leavings.” Sae she did as he said, and
was wonderfully refreshed. And lang they gaed, and sair they rade, till
they came in sight o’ a very big and bonny castle. “Yonder we maun be
this night,” quo’ the bull; “for my auld brither lives yonder”; and
presently they were at the place. They lifted her aff his back, and took
her in, and sent him away to a park for the night. In the morning,
when they brought the bull hame, they took the lady into a fine shining
parlor, and gave her a beautiful apple, telling her no to break it till
she was in the greatest strait ever mortal was in in the world, and that
wad bring her o’t. Again she was lifted on the bull’s back, and after
she had ridden far, and farer than I can tell, they came in sight o’ a
far bonnier castle, and far farther awa’ than the last. Says the bull
till her: “Yonder we maun be the night, for my second brither lives
yonder”; and they were at the place directly. They lifted her down
and took her in, and sent the bull to the field for the night. In the
morning they took the lady into a fine and rich room, and gave her the
finest pear she had ever seen, bidding her no to break it till she was
in the greatest strait ever mortal could be in, and that wad get her out
o’t. Again she was lifted and set on his back, and awa’ they went. And
lang they gaed, and sair they rade, till they came in sight o’ the far
biggest castle, and far farthest aff, they had yet seen. “We maun be
yonder the night,” says the bull, “for my young brither lives yonder”;
and they were there directly. They lifted her down, took her in, and
sent the bull to the field for the night. In the morning they took her
into a room, the finest of a’, and gied her a plum, telling her no to
break it till she was in the greatest strait mortal could be in, and
that wad get her out o’t. Presently they brought hame the bull, set the
lady on his back, and awa’ they went.

And aye they gaed, and on they rade, till they came to a dark and ugsome
glen, where they stopped, and the lady lighted down. Says the bull to
her: “Here ye maun stay till I gang and fight the deil. Ye maun seat
yoursel’ on that stane, and move neither hand nor fit till I come back,
else I’ll never find ye again. And if everything round about ye turns
blue I hae beated the deil; but should a’ things turn red he’ll hae
conquered me.” She set hersel’ down on the stane, and by-and-by a’ round
her turned blue. O’ercome wi’ joy, she lifted the ae fit and crossed it
owre the ither, sae glad was she that her companion was victorious. The
bull returned and sought for but never could find her.

Lang she sat, and aye she grat, till she wearied. At last she rase and
gaed awa’, she kedna whaur till. On she wandered till she came to a
great hill o’ glass, that she tried a’ she could to climb, bat wasna
able. Round the bottom o’ the hill she gaed, sabbing and seeking a
passage owre, till at last she came to a smith’s house; and the smith
promised, if she wad serve him seven years, he wad make her iron shoon,
wherewi’ she could climb owre the glassy hill. At seven years’ end she
got her iron shoon, clamb the glassy hill, and chanced to come to the
auld washerwife’s habitation. There she was telled of a gallant young
knight that had given in some bluidy sarks to wash, and whaever washed
thae sarks was to be his wife. The auld wife had washed till she was
tired, and then she set to her dochter, and baith washed, and they
washed, and they better washed, in hopes of getting the young knight;
but a’ they could do they couldna bring out a stain. At length they set
the stranger damosel to wark; and whenever she began the stains came
out pure and clean, but the auld wife made the knight believe it was her
dochter had washed the sarks. So the knight and the eldest dochter were
to be married, and the stranger damosel was distracted at the thought
of it, for she was deeply in love wi’ him. So she bethought her of her
apple, and breaking it, found it filled with gold and precious jewelry,
the richest she had ever seen. “All these,” she said to the eldest
dochter, “I will give you, on condition that you put off your marriage
for ae day, and allow me to go into his room alone at night.” So
the lady consented; but meanwhile the auld wife had prepared a
sleeping-drink, and given it to the knight, wha drank it, and never
wakened till next morning. The lee-lang night ther damosel sabbed and
sang:

  “Seven lang years I served for thee,
  The glassy hill I clamb for thee,
  The bluidy shirt I wrang for thee;
  And wilt thou no wauken and turn to me?”


Next day she kentna what to do for grief. She then brak the pear, and
found it filled wi’ jewelry far richer than the contents o’ the apple.
Wi’ thae jewels she bargained for permission to be a second night in
the young knight’s chamber; but the auld wife gied him anither
sleeping-drink, and he again sleepit till morning. A’ night she kept
sighing and singing as before:

“Seven lang years I served for thee,” &c. Still he sleepit, and she
nearly lost hope a’thegither. But that day when he was out at the
hunting, somebody asked him what noise and moaning was yon they heard
all last night in his bedchamber. He said he heardna ony noise. But they
assured him there was sae; and he resolved to keep waking that night
to try what he could hear. That being the third night, and the damosel
being between hope and despair, she brak her plum, and it held far the
richest jewelry of the three. She bargained as before; and the auld
wife, as before, took in the sleeping-drink to the young knight’s
chamber; but he telled her he couldna drink it that night without
sweetening. And when she gaed awa’ for some honey to sweeten it wi’, he
poured out the drink, and sae made the auld wife think he had drunk it.
They a’ went to bed again, and the damosel began, as before, singing:

  “Seven lang years I served for thee,
  The glassy hill I clamb for thee,
  The bluidy shirt I wrang for thee;
  And wilt thou no wauken and turn to me?”

He heard, and turned to her. And she telled him a’ that had befa’en her,
and he telled her a’ that had happened to him. And he caused the auld
washerwife and her dochter to be burned. And they were married, and he
and she are living happy till this day, for aught I ken.(1)


(1) Chambers, Popular Traditions of Scotland.




THE RED ETIN


There were ance twa widows that lived on a small bit o’ ground, which
they rented from a farmer. Ane of them had twa sons, and the other had
ane; and by-and-by it was time for the wife that had twa sons to send
them away to seeke their fortune. So she told her eldest son ae day to
take a can and bring her water from the well, that she might bake a cake
for him; and however much or however little water he might bring, the
cake would be great or sma’ accordingly; and that cake was to be a’ that
she could gie him when he went on his travels.

The lad gaed away wi’ the can to the well, and filled it wi’ water, and
then came away hame again; but the can being broken the maist part of
the water had run out before he got back. So his cake was very sma’; yet
sma’ as it was, his mother asked if he was willing to take the half of
it with her blessing, telling him that, if he chose rather to have the
hale, he would only get it wi’ her curse. The young man, thinking he
might hae to travel a far way, and not knowing when or how he might get
other provisions, said he would like to hae the hale cake, com of his
mother’s malison what like; so she gave him the hale cake, and her
malison alang wi’t. Then he took his brither aside, and gave him a
knife to keep till he should come back, desiring him to look at it every
morning, and as lang as it continued to be clear, then he might be sure
that the owner of it was well; but if it grew dim and rusty, then for
certain some ill had befallen him.

So the young man set out to seek his fortune. And he gaed a’ that day,
and a’ the next day; and on the third day, in the afternoon, he came up
to where a shepherd was sitting with a flock o’ sheep. And he gaed up
to the shepherd and asked him wha the sheep belanged to; and the man
answered:


     “The Red Etin of Ireland
       Ance lived in Bellygan,
     And stole King Malcolm’s daughter,
       The King of fair Scotland.
     He beats her, he binds her,
       He lays her on a band;
     And every day he dings her
       With a bright silver wand
     Like Julian the Roman
     He’s one that fears no man.
     It’s said there’s ane predestinate
       To be his mortal foe;
     But that man is yet unborn
       And lang may it be so.”

The young man then went on his journey; and he had not gone far when he
espied an old man with white locks herding a flock of swine; and he gaed
up to him and asked whose swine these were, when the man answered:

     “The Red Etin of Ireland”--
            (Repeat the verses above.)

Then the young man gaed on a bit farther, and came to another very old
man herding goats; and when he asked whose goats they were, the answer
was:

     “The Red Etin of Ireland”--
            (Repeat the verses again.)

This old man also told him to beware of the next beasts that he should
meet, for they were of a very different kind from any he had yet seen.

So the young man went on, and by-and-by he saw a multitude of very
dreadfu’ beasts, ilk ane o’ them wi’ twa heads, and on every head four
horns. And he was sore frightened, and ran away from them as fast as he
could; and glad was he when he came to a castle that stood on a hillock,
wi’ the door standing wide to the wa’. And he gaed into the castle for
shelter, and there he saw an auld wife sitting beside the kitchen fire.
He asked the wife if he might stay there for the night, as he was tired
wi’ a lang journey; and the wife said he might, but it was not a good
place for him to be in, as it belanged to the Red Etin, who was a very
terrible beast, wi’ three heads, that spared no living man he could get
hold of. The young man would have gone away, but he was afraid of the
beasts on the outside of the castle; so he beseeched the old woman to
conceal him as well as she could, and not to tell the Etin that he was
there. He thought, if he could put over the night, he might get away in
the morning without meeting wi’ the beasts, and so escape. But he had
not been long in his hidy-hole before the awful Etin came in; and nae
sooner was he in than he was heard crying:

  “Snouk but and snouk ben,
  I find the smell of an earthly man;
  Be he living, or be he dead,
  His heart this night shall kitchen(1) my bread.”


(1) “Kitchen,” that is, “season.”


The monster soon found the poor young man, and pulled him from his hole.
And when he had got him out he told him that if he could answer him
three questions his life should be spared. The first was: Whether
Ireland or Scotland was first inhabited? The second was: Whether man was
made for woman, or woman for man? The third was: Whether men or
brutes were made first? The lad not being able to answer one of these
questions, the Red Etin took a mace and knocked him on the head, and
turned him into a pillar of stone.

On the morning after this happened the younger brither took out the
knife to look at it, and he was grieved to find it a’ brown wi’ rust. He
told his mother that the time was now come for him to go away upon
his travels also; so she requested him to take the can to the well for
water, that she might bake a cake for him. The can being broken, he
brought hame as little water as the other had done, and the cake was as
little. She asked whether he would have the hale cake wi’ her malison,
or the half wi’ her blessing; and, like his brither, he thought it best
to have the hale cake, come o’ the malison what might. So he gaed away;
and everything happened to him that had happened to his brother!

The other widow and her son heard of a’ that had happened frae a fairy,
and the young man determined that he would also go upon his travels, and
see if he could do anything to relieve his twa friends. So his mother
gave him a can to go to the well and bring home water, that she might
bake him a cake for his journey. And he gaed, and as he was bringing
hame the water, a raven owre abune his head cried to him to look, and
he would see that the water was running out. And he was a young man of
sense, and seeing the water running out, he took some clay and patched
up the holes, so that he brought home enough water to bake a large cake.
When his mother put it to him to take the half-cake wi’ her blessing,
he took it in preference to having the hale wi’ her malison; and yet the
half was bigger than what the other lads had got a’thegither.

So he gaed away on his journey; and after he had traveled a far way he
met wi’ an auld woman, that asked him if he would give her a bit of his
bannock. And he said he would gladly do that, and so he gave her a piece
of the bannock; and for that she gied him a magical wand, that she said
might yet be of service to him if he took care to use it rightly. Then
the auld woman, who was a fairy, told him a great deal that whould
happen to him, and what he ought to do in a’ circumstances; and after
that she vanished in an instant out o’ his sight. He gaed on a great way
farther, and then he came up to the old man herding the sheep; and when
he asked whose sheep these were, the answer was:

      “The Red Etin of Ireland
        Ance lived in Bellygan,
      And stole King Malcolm’s daughter,
        The King of fair Scotland.
      He beats her, he binds her,
        He lays her on a band;
      And every day he dings her
        With a bright silver wand.
      Like Julian the Roman,
      He’s one that fears no man,
      But now I fear his end is near,
        And destiny at hand;
      And you’re to be, I plainly see,
        The heir of all his land.”

(Repeat the same inquiries to the man attending the swine and the man
attending the goats, with the same answer in each case.)


When he came to the place where the monstrous beasts were standing, he
did not stop nor run away, but went boldly through among them. One came
up roaring with open mouth to devour him, when he struck it with his
wand, and laid it in an instant dead at his feet. He soon came to the
Etin’s castle, where he knocked, and was admitted. The auld woman that
sat by the fire warned him of the terrible Etin, and what had been the
fate of the twa brithers; but he was not to be daunted. The monster soon
came in, saying:

  “Snouk but and snouk ben,
  I find the smell of an earthly man;
  Be he living, or be he dead,
  His heart shall be kitchen to my bread.”

He quickly espied the young man, and bade him come forth on the floor.
And then he put the three questions to him, but the young man had been
told everything by the good fairy, so he was able to answer all the
questions. When the Etin found this he knew that his power was gone. The
young man then took up the axe and hewed off the monster’s three heads.
He next asked the old woman to show him where the King’s daughters lay;
and the old woman took him upstairs and opened a great many doors, and
out of every door came a beautiful lady who had been imprisoned there by
the Etin; and ane o’ the ladies was the King’s daughter. She also took
him down into a low room, and there stood two stone pillars that he had
only to touch wi’ his wand, when his two friends and neighbors started
into life. And the hale o’ the prisoners were overjoyed at their
deliverance, which they all acknowledged to be owing to the prudent
young man. Next day they a’ set out for the King’s Court, and a gallant
company they made. And the King married his daughter to the young man
that had delivered her, and gave a noble’s daughter to ilk ane o’ the
other young men; and so they a’ lived happily a’ the rest o’ their
days.(1)


(1) Chambers, Popular Traditions of Scotland.The Project Gutenberg eBook of Popular Tales from the Norse, by George Webbe Dasent

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
using this eBook.

Title: Popular Tales from the Norse

Author: George Webbe Dasent

Release Date: August 26, 2003 [eBook #8933]
[Most recently updated: January 15, 2021]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Distributed Proofreaders

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE ***




Popular Tales from the Norse



by Sir George Webbe Dasent



WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN AND DIFFUSION OF POPULAR
TALES


Contents

 Notice to the Second Edition
 Notice to the First Edition
 INTRODUCTION
 ORIGIN
 DIFFUSION
 NORSE MYTHOLOGY
 NORSE POPULAR TALES
 CONCLUSION

 TALES
 I. TRUE AND UNTRUE
 II. WHY THE SEA IS SALT
 III. THE OLD DAME AND HER HEN
 IV. EAST O’ THE SUN, AND WEST O’ THE MOON
 V. BOOTS WHO ATE A MATCH WITH THE TROLL
 VI. HACON GRIZZLEBEARD
 VII. BOOTS WHO MADE THE PRINCESS SAY, “THAT’S A STORY”
 VIII. THE TWELVE WILD DUCKS
 IX. THE GIANT WHO HAD NO HEART IN HIS BODY
 X. THE FOX AS HERDSMAN
 XI. THE MASTERMAID
 XII. THE CAT ON THE DOVREFELL
 XIII. PRINCESS ON THE GLASS HILL
 XIV. HOW ONE WENT OUT TO WOO
 XV. THE COCK AND HEN
 XVI. THE MASTER-SMITH
 XVII. THE TWO STEP-SISTERS
 XVIII. BUTTERCUP
 XIX. TAMING THE SHREW
 XX. SHORTSHANKS
 XXI. GUDBRAND ON THE HILL-SIDE
 XXII. THE BLUE BELT
 XXIII. WHY THE BEAR IS STUMPY-TAILED
 XXIV. NOT A PIN TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM
 XXV. ONE’S OWN CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS PRETTIEST
 XXVI. THE THREE PRINCESSES OF WHITELAND
 XXVII. THE LASSIE AND HER GODMOTHER
 XXVIII. THE THREE AUNTS
 XXIX. THE COCK, THE CUCKOO, AND THE BLACK-COCK
 XXX. RICH PETER THE PEDLAR
 XXXI. GERTRUDE’S BIRD
 XXXII. BOOTS AND THE TROLL
 XXXIII. GOOSEY GRIZZEL
 XXXIV. THE LAD WHO WENT TO THE NORTH WIND
 XXXV. THE MASTER THIEF
 XXXVI. THE BEST WISH
 XXXVII. THE THREE BILLY-GOATS GRUFF
 XXXVIII. WELL DONE AND ILL PAID
 XXXIX. THE HUSBAND WHO WAS TO MIND THE HOUSE
 XL. DAPPLEGRIM
 XLI. FARMER WEATHERSKY
 XLII. LORD PETER
 XLIII. THE SEVEN FOALS
 XLIV. THE WIDOW’S SON
 XLV. BUSHY BRIDE
 XLVI. BOOTS AND HIS BROTHERS
 XLVII. BIG PETER AND LITTLE PETER
 XLVIII. TATTERHOOD
 XLIX. THE COCK AND HEN THAT WENT TO THE DOVREFELL
 L. KATIE WOODENCLOAK
 LI. THUMBIKIN
 LII. DOLL I’ THE GRASS
 LIII. THE LAD AND THE DEIL
 LIV. THE COCK AND HEN A-NUTTING
 LV. THE BIG BIRD DAN
 LVI. SORIA MORIA CASTLE
 LVII. BRUIN AND REYNARD
 LVIII. TOM TOTHERHOUSE
 LIX. LITTLE ANNIE THE GOOSE GIRL

 INTRODUCTION TO APPENDIX
 APPENDIX
 1. WHY THE JACK SPANIARD’S WAIST IS SMALL
 2. ANANZI AND THE LION
 3. ANANZI AND QUANQUA
 4. THE EAR OF CORN AND THE TWELVE MEN
 5. THE KING AND THE ANT’S TREE
 6. THE LITTLE CHILD AND THE PUMPKIN TREE
 7. THE BROTHER AND HIS SISTERS
 8. THE GIRL AND THE FISH
 9. THE LION, THE GOAT, AND THE BABOON
 10. ANANZI AND BABOON
 11. THE MAN AND THE DOUKANA TREE
 12. NANCY FAIRY
 13. THE DANCING GANG
 FOOTNOTES TO INTRODUCTION




Notice to the Second Edition


The first edition of these Tales being exhausted, and a demand having
arisen for a second, the Translator has thought it right to add
thirteen tales, which complete the translation of Asbjörnsen and Moe’s
collection, and to strengthen the Introduction by working in some new
matter, and by working out some points which were only slightly
sketched in the first edition.

The favour with which the book was welcomed makes it almost a duty to
say a word here on the many kind and able notices which have been
written upon it. Duties are not always pleasant, but the fulfilment of
this at least gives no pain; because, without one exception, every
criticism which the Translator has seen has shown him that his prayer
for “gentle” readers has been fully heard. It will be forgiven him, he
hopes, when he says that he has not seen good ground to change or even
to modify any of the opinions as to the origin and diffusion of popular
tales put forth in the first edition. Much indeed has been said by
others _for_ those views; what has been urged _against_ them, with all
kindness and good humour, in one or two cases, has not availed at all
to weigh down mature convictions deliberately expressed after the
studies of years, backed as they are by the researches and support of
those who have given their lives to this branch of knowledge.

And now, before the Translator takes leave of his readers for the
second time, he will follow the lead of the good godmother in one of
these Tales, and forbid all good children to read the two which stand
last in the book. There is this difference between him and the
godmother. She found her foster-daughter out as soon as she came back.
He will never know it, if any bad child has broken his behest. Still he
hopes that all good children who read this book will bear in mind that
there is just as much sin in breaking a commandment even though it be
not found out, and so he bids them good-bye, and feels sure that no
good child will dare to look into those two rooms. If, after this
warning, they peep in, they may perhaps see something which will shock
them.

“Why then print them at all?” some grown reader asks. Because this
volume is meant for you as well as for children, and if you have gone
ever so little into the world with open eyes, you must have seen, yes,
every day, things much more shocking. Because there is nothing immoral
in their spirit. Because they are intrinsically valuable, as
illustrating manners and traditions, and so could not well be left out.
Because they complete the number of the Norse originals, and leave none
untranslated. And last, though not least, because the Translator hates
family versions of anything, “Family Bibles”, “Family Shakespeares”.
Those who, with so large a choice of beauty before them, would pick out
and gloat over this or that coarseness or freedom of expression, are
like those who, in reading the Bible, should always turn to Leviticus,
or those whose Shakespeare would open of itself at Pericles Prince of
Tyre. Such readers the Translator does not wish to have.




Notice to the First Edition


These translations from the _Norske Folkeeventyr_, collected with such
freshness and faithfulness by MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe, have been made at
various times and at long intervals during the last fifteen years; a
fact which is mentioned only to account for any variations in style or
tone—of which, however, the Translator is unconscious—that a critical
eye may detect in this volume. One of them, _The Master Thief_, has
already appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for November 1851; from the
columns of which periodical it is now reprinted, by the kind permission
of the Proprietors.

The Translator is sorry that he has not been able to comply with the
suggestion of some friends upon whose good-will he sets all store, who
wished him to change and soften some features in these tales, which
they thought likely to shock English feeling. He has, however, felt it
to be out of his power to meet their wishes, for the merit of an
undertaking of this kind rests entirely on its faithfulness and truth;
and the man who, in such a work, wilfully changes or softens, is as
guilty as he “who puts bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter”.

Of this guilt, at least, the Translator feels himself free; and,
perhaps, if any, who may be inclined to be offended at first, will take
the trouble to read the Introduction which precedes and explains the
Tales, they may find, not only that the softening process would have
spoilt these popular traditions for all except the most childish
readers, but that the things which shocked them at the first blush,
are, after all, not so very shocking.

For the rest, it ill becomes him to speak of the way in which his work
has been done: but if the reader will only bear in mind that this, too,
is an enchanted garden, in which whoever dares to pluck a flower, does
it at the peril of his head; and if he will then read the book in a
merciful and tender spirit, he will prove himself what the Translator
most longs to find, “a gentle reader”, and both will part on the best
terms.




INTRODUCTION




ORIGIN


The most careless reader can hardly fail to see that many of the Tales
in this volume have the same groundwork as those with which he has been
familiar from his earliest youth. They are Nursery Tales, in fact, of
the days when there were tales in nurseries—old wives’ fables, which
have faded away before the light of gas and the power of steam. It is
long, indeed, since English nurses told these tales to English children
by force of memory and word of mouth. In a written shape, we have long
had some of them, at least, in English versions of the _Contes de ma
Mère l’ Oye_ of Perrault, and the _Contes de Fées_ of Madame D’Aulnoy;
those tight-laced, high-heeled tales of the “teacup times” of Louis XIV
and his successors, in which the popular tale appears to as much
disadvantage as an artless country girl in the stifling atmosphere of a
London theatre. From these foreign sources, after the voice of the
English reciter was hushed—and it was hushed in England more than a
century ago—our great-grandmothers learnt to tell of Cinderella and
Beauty and the Beast, of Little Red Riding-hood and Blue Beard, mingled
together in the _Cabinet des Fées_ with Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin’s
wondrous lamp; for that was an uncritical age, and its spirit breathed
hot and cold, east and west, from all quarters of the globe at once,
confusing the traditions and tales of all times and countries into one
incongruous mass of fable, as much tangled and knotted as that famous
pound of flax which the lassie in one of these Tales is expected to
spin into an even wool within four-and-twenty hours. No poverty of
invention or want of power on the part of translators could entirely
destroy the innate beauty of those popular traditions; but here, in
England at least, they had almost dwindled out, or at any rate had been
lost sight of as home-growths. We had learnt to buy our own children
back, disguised in foreign garb; and as for their being anything more
than the mere pastime of an idle hour—as to their having any history or
science of their own—such an absurdity was never once thought of. It
had, indeed, been remarked, even in the eighteenth century—that dreary
time of indifference and doubt—that some of the popular traditions of
the nations north of the Alps contained striking resemblances and
parallels to stories in the classical mythology. But those were the
days when Greek and Latin lorded it over the other languages of the
earth; and when any such resemblance or analogy was observed, it was
commonly supposed that that base-born slave, the vulgar tongue, had
dared to make a clumsy copy of something peculiarly belonging to the
twin tyrants who ruled all the dialects of the world with a pedant’s
rod.

At last, just at the close of that great war which Western Europe waged
against the genius and fortune of the first Napoleon; just as the
eagle—Prometheus and the eagle in one shape—was fast fettered by sheer
force and strength to his rock in the Atlantic, there arose a man in
Central Germany, on the old Thuringian soil, to whom it was given to
assert the dignity of vernacular literature, to throw off the yoke of
classical tyranny, and to claim for all the dialects of Teutonic speech
a right of ancient inheritance and perfect freedom before unsuspected
and unknown. It is almost needless to mention this honoured name. For
the furtherance of the good work which he began nearly fifty years ago,
he still lives and still labours. There is no spot on which an accent
of Teutonic speech is uttered where the name of Jacob Grimm is not a
“household word”. His General Grammar of all the Teutonic Dialects from
Iceland to England has proved the equality of these tongues with their
ancient classical oppressors. His Antiquities of Teutonic Law have
shown that the codes of the Lombards, Franks, and Goths were not mere
savage, brutal customaries, based, as had been supposed, on the absence
of all law and right. His numerous treatises on early German authors
have shown that the German poets of the Middle Age, Godfrey of
Strasburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartman von der Aue, Walter von der
Vogelweide, and the rest, can hold their own against any contemporary
writers in other lands. And lastly, what rather concerns us here, his
Teutonic Mythology, his Reynard the Fox, and the collection of German
Popular Tales, which he and his brother William published, have thrown
a flood of light on the early history of all the branches of our race,
and have raised what had come to be looked on as mere nursery fictions
and old wives’ fables—to a study fit for the energies of grown men, and
to all the dignity of a science.

In these pages, where we have to run over a vast tract of space, the
reader who wishes to learn and not to cavil—and for such alone this
introduction is intended—must be content with results rather than
processes and steps. To use a homely likeness, he must be satisfied
with the soup that is set before him, and not desire to see the bones
of the ox out of which it has been boiled. When we say, therefore, that
in these latter days the philology and mythology of the East and West
have met and kissed each other; that they now go hand and hand; that
they lend one another mutual support; that one cannot be understood
without the other,—we look to be believed. We do not expect to be put
to the proof, how the labours of Grimm and his disciples on this side
were first rendered possible by the linguistic discoveries of Anquetil
du Perron and others in India and France, at the end of the last
century; then materially assisted and furthered by the researches of
Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, and others, in India and England during
the early part of this century, and finally have become identical with
those of Wilson, Bopp, Lassen, and Max Müller, at the present day. The
affinity which exists in a mythological and philological point of view
between the Aryan or Indo-European languages on the one hand, and the
Sanscrit on the other, is now the first article of a literary creed,
and the man who denies it puts himself as much beyond the pale of
argument as he who, in a religious discussion, should meet a grave
divine of the Church of England with the strict contradictory of her
first article, and loudly declare his conviction, that there was no
God. In a general way, then, we may be permitted to dogmatize, and to
lay it down as a law which is always in force, that the first authentic
history of a nation is the history of its tongue. We can form no notion
of the literature of a country apart from its language, and the
consideration of its language necessarily involves the consideration of
its history. Here is England, for instance, with a language, and
therefore a literature, composed of Celtic, Roman, Saxon, Norse, and
Romance elements. Is not this simple fact suggestive of, nay, does it
not challenge us to, an inquiry into the origin and history of the
races who have passed over our island, and left their mark not only on
the soil, but on our speech? Again, to take a wider view, and to rise
from archaeology to science, what problem has interested the world in a
greater degree than the origin of man, and what toil has not been spent
in tracing all races back to their common stock? The science of
comparative philology—the inquiry, not into one isolated language—for
nowadays it may fairly be said of a man who knows only one language
that he knows none—but into all the languages of one family, and thus
to reduce them to one common centre, from which they spread like the
rays of the sun—if it has not solved, is in a fair way of solving, this
problem. When we have done for the various members of each family what
has been done of late years for the Indo-European tongues, its solution
will be complete. In such an inquiry the history of a race is, in fact,
the history of its language, and can be nothing else; for we have to
deal with times antecedent to all history, properly so called, and the
stream which in later ages may be divided into many branches, now flows
in a single channel.

From the East, then, came our ancestors, in days of immemorial
antiquity, in that gray dawn of time of which all early songs and lays
can tell, but of which it is as impossible as it is useless to attempt
to fix the date. Impossible, because no means exist for ascertaining
it; useless, because it is in reality a matter of utter indifference,
when, as this tell-tale crust of earth informs us, we have an infinity
of ages and periods to fall back on whether this great movement, this
mighty lust to change their seats, seized on the Aryan race one hundred
or one thousand years sooner or later.[1] But from the East we came,
and from that central plain of Asia, now commonly called Iran. Iran,
the habitation of the tillers and _earers_[2] of the earth, as opposed
to Turan, the abode of restless horse-riding nomads; of Turks, in
short, for in their name the root survives, and still distinguishes the
great Turanian or Mongolian family, from the Aryan, Iranian, or
Indo-European race. It is scarce worth while to inquire—even if inquiry
could lead to any result—what cause set them in motion from their
ancient seats. Whether impelled by famine or internal strife, starved
out like other nationalities in recent times, or led on by adventurous
chiefs, whose spirit chafed at the narrowness of home, certain it is
that they left that home and began a wandering westwards, which only
ceased when it reached the Atlantic and the Northern Ocean. Nor was the
fate of those they left behind less strange. At some period almost as
remote as, but after, that at which the wanderers for Europe started,
the remaining portion of the stock, or a considerable offshoot from it,
turned their faces east, and passing the Indian Caucasus, poured
through the defiles of Affghanistan, crossed the plain of the Five
Rivers, and descended on the fruitful plains of India. The different
destiny of these stocks has been wonderful indeed. Of those who went
west, we have only to enumerate the names under which they appear in
history—Celts, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Slavonians—to see and to know
at once that the stream of this migration has borne on its waves all
that has become most precious to man. To use the words of Max Müller:
“They have been the prominent actors in the great drama of history, and
have carried to their fullest growth all the elements of active life
with which our nature is endowed. They have perfected society and
morals, and we learn from their literature and works of art the
elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy.
In continual struggle with each other and with Semitic and Mongolian
races, these Aryan nations have become the rulers of history, and it
seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by
the chains of civilization, commerce, and religion.” We may add, that
though by nature tough and enduring, they have not been obstinate and
self-willed; they have been distinguished from all other nations, and
particularly from their elder brothers whom they left behind, by their
common sense, by their power of adapting themselves to all
circumstances, and by making the best of their position; above all,
they have been teachable, ready to receive impressions from without,
and, when received, to develop them. To show the truth of this, we need
only observe, that they adopted Christianity from another race, the
most obstinate and stiff-necked the world has ever seen, who, trained
under the Old Dispensation to preserve the worship of the one true God,
were too proud to accept the further revelation of God under the New,
and, rejecting their birth-right, suffered their inheritance to pass
into other hands.

Such, then, has been the lot of the Western branch, of the younger
brother, who, like the younger brother whom we shall meet so often in
these Popular Tales, went out into the world, with nothing but his good
heart and God’s blessing to guide him; and now has come to all honour
and fortune, and to be a king, ruling over the world. He went out and
_did_. Let us see now what became of the elder brother, who stayed at
home some time after his brother went out, and then only made a short
journey. Having driven out the few aboriginal inhabitants of India with
little effort, and following the course of the great rivers, the
Eastern Aryans gradually established themselves all over the peninsula;
and then, in calm possession of a world of their own, undisturbed by
conquest from without, and accepting with apathy any change of dynasty
among their rulers, ignorant of the past and careless of the future,
they sat down once for all and _thought_ —thought not of what they had
to do here, that stern lesson of every-day life which neither men nor
nations can escape if they are to live with their fellows, but how they
could abstract themselves entirely from their present existence, and
immerse themselves wholly in dreamy speculations on the future.
Whatever they may have been during their short migration and subsequent
settlement, it is certain that they appear in the Vedas—perhaps the
earliest collection which the world possesses—as a nation of
philosophers. Well may Professor Müller compare the Indian mind to a
plant reared in a hot-house, gorgeous in colour, rich in perfume,
precocious and abundant in fruit; it may be all this, “but will never
be like the oak, growing in wind and weather, striking its roots into
real earth, and stretching its branches into real air, beneath the
stars and sun of Heaven”; and well does he also remark, that a people
of this peculiar stamp was never destined to act a prominent part in
the history of the world; nay, the exhausting atmosphere of
transcendental ideas could not but exercise a detrimental influence on
the active and moral character of the Hindoos.[3]

In this passive, abstract, unprogressive state, they have remained ever
since. Stiffened into castes, and tongue-tied and hand-tied by absurd
rites and ceremonies, they were heard of in dim legends by Herodotus;
they were seen by Alexander when that bold spirit pushed his phalanx
beyond the limits of the known world; they trafficked with imperial
Rome, and the later empire; they were again almost lost sight of, and
became fabulous in the Middle Age; they were rediscovered by the
Portuguese; they have been alternately peaceful subjects and desperate
rebels to us English; but they have been still the same immovable and
unprogressive philosophers, though akin to Europe all the while; and
though the Highlander, who drives his bayonet through the heart of a
high-caste Sepoy mutineer, little knows that his pale features and
sandy hair, and that dusk face with its raven locks, both come from a
common ancestor away in Central Asia, many, many centuries ago.

But here arises the question, what interest can we, the descendants of
the practical brother, heirs to so much historical renown, possibly
take in the records of a race so historically characterless, and so
sunk in reveries and mysticism? The answer is easy. Those records are
written in a language closely allied to the primaeval common tongue of
those two branches before they parted, and descending from a period
anterior to their separation. It may, or it may not, be the very tongue
itself, but it certainly is not further removed than a few steps. The
speech of the emigrants to the west rapidly changed with the changing
circumstances and various fortune of each of its waves, and in their
intercourse with the aboriginal population they often adopted foreign
elements into their language. One of these waves, it is probable,
passing by way of Persia and Asia Minor, crossed the Hellespont, and
following the coast, threw off a mighty rill, known in after times as
Greeks; while the main stream, striking through Macedonia, either
crossed the Adriatic, or, still hugging the coast, came down on Italy,
to be known as Latins. Another, passing between the Caspian and the
Black Sea, filled the steppes round the Crimea, and; passing on over
the Balkan and the Carpathians towards the west, became that great
Teutonic nationality which, under various names, but all closely akin,
filled, when we first hear of them in historical times, the space
between the Black Sea and the Baltic, and was then slowly but surely
driving before them the great wave of the Celts which had preceded them
in their wandering, and which had probably followed the same line of
march as the ancestors of the Greeks and Latins. A movement which
lasted until all that was left of Celtic nationality was either
absorbed by the intruders, or forced aside and driven to take refuge in
mountain fastnesses and outlying islands. Besides all these, there was
still another wave, which is supposed to have passed between the Sea of
Aral and the Caspian, and, keeping still further to the north and east,
to have passed between its kindred Teutons and the Mongolian tribes,
and so to have lain in the background until we find them appearing as
Slavonians on the scene of history. Into so many great stocks did the
Western Aryans pass, each possessing strongly-marked nationalities and
languages, and these seemingly so distinct that each often asserted
that the other spoke a barbarous tongue. But, for all that, each of
those tongues bears about with it still, and in earlier times no doubt
bore still more plainly about with it, infallible evidence of common
origin, so that each dialect can be traced up to that primaeval form of
speech still in the main preserved in the Sanscrit by the Southern
Aryan branch, who, careless of practical life, and immersed in
speculation, have clung to their ancient traditions and tongue with
wonderful tenacity. It is this which has given such value to Sanscrit,
a tongue of which it may be said, that if it had perished the sun would
never have risen on the science of comparative philology. Before the
discoveries in Sanscrit of Sir William Jones, Wilkins, Wilson, and
others, the world had striven to find the common ancestor of European
languages, sometimes in the classical, and sometimes in the Semitic
tongues. In the one case the result was a tyranny of Greek and Latin
over the non-classical tongues, and in the other the most uncritical
and unphilosophical waste of learning. No doubt some striking analogies
exist between the Indo-European family and the Semitic stock, just as
there are remarkable analogies between the Mongolian and Indo-European
families; but the ravings of Vallancy, in his effort to connect the
Erse with Phoenician, are an awful warning of what unscientific
inquiry, based upon casual analogy, may bring itself to believe, and
even to fancy it has proved.

These general observations, then, and this rapid bird’s eye view, may
suffice to show the common affinity which exists between the Eastern
and Western Aryans; between the Hindoo on the one hand, and the nations
of Western Europe on the other. That is the fact to keep steadily
before our eyes. We all came, Greek, Latin, Celt, Teuton, Slavonian,
from the East, as kith and kin, leaving kith and kin behind us; and
after thousands of years the language and traditions of those who went
East, and those who went West, bear such an affinity to each other, as
to have established, beyond discussion or dispute, the fact of their
descent from a common stock.




DIFFUSION


This general affinity established, we proceed to narrow our subject to
its proper limits, and to confine it to the consideration, _first_, of
Popular Tales in general, and _secondly_, of those Norse Tales in
particular, which form the bulk of this volume.

In the first place, then, the fact which we remarked on setting out,
that the groundwork or plot of many of these tales is common to all the
nations of Europe, is more important, and of greater scientific
interest, than might at first appear. They form, in fact, another link
in the chain of evidence of a common origin between the East and West,
and even the obstinate adherents of the old classical theory, according
to which all resemblances were set down to sheer copying from Greek or
Latin patterns, are now forced to confess, not only that there was no
such wholesale copying at all, but that, in many cases, the despised
vernacular tongues have preserved the common traditions far more
faithfully than the writers of Greece and Rome. The sooner, in short,
that this theory of copying, which some, even besides the classicists,
have maintained, is abandoned, the better, not only for the truth, but
for the literary reputation of those who put it forth. No one can, of
course, imagine that during that long succession of ages when this
mighty wedge of Aryan migration was driving its way through that
prehistoric race, that nameless nationality, the traces of which we
everywhere find underlying the intruders in their monuments and
implements of bone and stone—a race akin, in all probability, to the
Mongolian family, and whose miserable remnants we see pushed aside, and
huddled up in the holes and corners of Europe, as Lapps, and Finns, and
Basques—No one, we say, can suppose for a moment, that in that long
process of contact and absorption, some traditions of either race
should not have been caught up and adopted by the other. We know it to
be a fact with regard to their language, from the evidence of
philology, which cannot lie; and the witness borne by such a word as
the Gothic Atta for _father_, where a Mongolian has been adopted in
preference to an Aryan word, is irresistible on this point; but that,
apart from such natural assimilation, all the thousand shades of
resemblance and affinity which gleam and flicker through the whole body
of popular tradition in the Aryan race, as the Aurora plays and flashes
in countless rays athwart the Northern heaven, should be the result of
mere servile copying of one tribe’s traditions by another, is a
supposition as absurd as that of those good country-folk, who, when
they see an Aurora, fancy it must be a great fire, the work of some
incendiary, and send off the parish engine to put it out. No! when we
find in such a story as the Master-thief traits, which are to be found
in the Sanscrit _Hitopadesa_,[4] and which reminds us at once of the
story of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus; which are also to be found in
German, Italian, and Flemish popular tales, but told in all with such
variations of character and detail, and such adaptations to time and
place, as evidently show the original working of the national
consciousness upon a stock of tradition common to all the race, but
belonging to no tribe of that race in particular; and when we find this
occurring not in one tale but in twenty, we are forced to abandon the
theory of such universal copying, for fear lest we should fall into a
greater difficulty than that for which we were striving to account.

To set this question in a plainer light, let us take a well-known
instance; let us take the story of William Tell and his daring shot,
which is said to have been made in the year 1307. It is just possible
that the feat might be historical, and, no doubt, thousands believe it
for the sake of the Swiss patriot, as firmly as they believe in
anything; but, unfortunately, this story of the bold archer who saves
his life by shooting an apple from the head of his child at the command
of a tyrant, is common to the whole Aryan race. It appears in Saxo
Grammaticus, who flourished in the twelfth century, where it is told of
Palnatoki, King Harold Gormson’s thane and assassin. In the thirteenth
century the _Wilkina Saga_ relates it of Egill, Völundr’s—our Wayland
Smith’s—younger brother. So also in the Norse Saga of _Saint Olof_,
king and martyr; the king, who died in 1030, eager for the conversion
of one of his heathen chiefs Eindridi, competes with him in various
athletic exercises, first in swimming and then in archery. After
several famous shots on either side, the king challenges Eindridi to
shoot a tablet off his son’s head without hurting the child. Eindridi
is ready, but declares he will revenge himself if the child is hurt.
The king has the first shot, and his arrow strikes close to the tablet.
Then Eindridi is to shoot, but at the prayers of his mother and sister,
refuses the shot, and has to yield and be converted.[5] So, also, King
Harold Sigurdarson, who died 1066, backed himself against a famous
marksman, Hemingr, and ordered him to shoot a hazel nut off the head of
his brother Björn, and Hemingr performed the feat.[6] In the middle of
the fourteenth century, the _Malleus Maleficarum_ refers it to Puncher,
a magician of the Upper Rhine. Here in England, we have it in the old
English ballad of _Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough_, and _William of
Cloudesly_, where William performs the feat.[7] It is not at all of
Tell in Switzerland before the year 1499, and the earlier Swiss
chronicles omit it altogether. It is common to the Turks and
Mongolians; and a legend of the wild Samoyeds, who never heard of Tell
or saw a book in their lives, relates it, chapter and verse, of one of
their famous marksmen. What shall we say then, but that the story of
this bold master-shot was primaeval amongst many tribes and races, and
that it only crystallized itself round the great name of Tell by that
process of attraction which invariably leads a grateful people to throw
such mythic wreaths, such garlands of bold deeds of precious memory,
round the brow of its darling champion.[8]

Nor let any pious Welshman be shocked if we venture to assert that
Gellert, that famous hound upon whose last resting-place the traveller
comes as he passes down the lovely vale of Gwynant, is a mythical dog,
and never snuffed the fresh breeze in the forest of Snowdon, nor saved
his master’s child from ravening wolf. This, too, is a primaeval story,
told with many variations. Sometimes the foe is a wolf, sometimes a
bear, sometimes a snake. Sometimes the faithful guardian of the child
is an otter, a weasel, or a dog. It, too, came from the East. It is
found in the _Pantcha-Tantra_, in the _Hitopadesa_, in Bidpai’s
_Fables_, in the Arabic original of _The Seven Wise Masters_, that
famous collection of stories which illustrate a stepdame’s calumny and
hate, and in many mediaeval versions of those originals.[9] Thence it
passed into the Latin _Gesta Romanorum_, where, as well as in the Old
English version published by Sir Frederick Madden, it may be read as a
service rendered by a faithful hound against a snake. This, too, like
Tell’s master-shot, is as the lightning which shineth over the whole
heaven at once, and can be claimed by no one tribe of the Aryan race,
to the exclusion of the rest. “The Dog of Montargis” is in like manner
mythic, though perhaps not so widely spread. It first occurs in France,
as told of Sybilla, a fabulous wife of Charlemagne; but it is at any
rate as old as the time of Plutarch, who relates it as an anecdote of
brute sagacity in the days of Pyrrhus.

There can be no doubt, with regard to the question of the origin of
these tales, that they were common in germ at least to the Aryan tribes
before their migration. We find those germs developed in the popular
traditions of the Eastern Aryans, and we find them developed in a
hundred forms and shapes in every one of the nations into which the
Western Aryans have shaped themselves in the course of ages. We are
led, therefore, irresistibly to the conclusion, that these traditions
are as much a portion of the common inheritance of our ancestors, as
their language unquestionably is; and that they form, along with that
language, a double chain of evidence, which proves their Eastern
origin. If we are to seek for a simile, or an analogy, as to the
relative positions of these tales and traditions, and to the mutual
resemblances which exist between them as the several branches of our
race have developed them from the common stock, we may find it in one
which will come home to every reader as he looks round the domestic
hearth, if he should be so happy as to have one. They are like as
sisters of one house are like. They have what would be called a strong
family likeness; but besides this likeness, which they owe to father or
mother, as the case may be, they have each their peculiarities of form,
and eye, and face, and still more, their differences of intellect and
mind. This may be dark, that fair; this may have gray eyes, that black;
this may be open and graceful, that reserved and close; this you may
love, that you can take no interest in. One may be bashful, another
winning, a third worth knowing and yet hard to know. They are so like
and so unlike. At first it may be, as an old English writer beautifully
expresses it, “their father hath writ them as his own little story”,
but as they grow up they throw off the copy, educate themselves for
good or ill, and finally assume new forms of feeling and feature under
an original development of their own.

Or shall we take another likeness, and say they are national dreams;
that they are like the sleeping thoughts of many men upon one and the
same thing. Suppose a hundred men to have been eye-witnesses of some
event on the same day, and then to have slept and dreamt of it; we
should have as many distinct representations of that event, all turning
upon it and bound up with it in some way, but each preserving the
personality of the sleeper, and working up the common stuff in a higher
or lower degree, just as the fancy and the intellect of the sleeper was
at a higher or lower level of perfection. There is, indeed, greater
truth in this likeness than may at first sight appear. In the popular
tale, properly so called, the national mind dreams all its history over
again; in its half conscious state it takes this trait and that trait,
this feature and that feature, of times and ages long past. It snatches
up bits of its old beliefs, and fears, and griefs, and glory, and
pieces them together with something that happened yesterday, and then
holds up the distorted reflection in all its inconsequence, just as it
has passed before that magic glass, as though it were genuine history,
and matter for pure belief. And here it may be as well to say, that
besides that old classical foe of vernacular tradition, there is
another hardly less dangerous, which returns to the charge of copying,
but changes what lawyers call the _venue_ of the trial from classical
to Eastern lands. According to this theory, which came up when its
classical predecessor was no longer tenable, the traditions and tales
of Western Europe came from the East, but they were still all copies.
They were supposed to have proceeded entirely from two sources; one the
_Directorium Humanae Vitae_ of John of Capua, translated between
1262-78 from a Hebrew version, which again came from an Arabic version
of the 8th century, which came from a Pehlvi version made by one
Barzouyeh, at the command of Chosrou Noushirvan, King of Persia, in the
6th century, which again came from the _Pantcha Tantra_, a Sanscrit
original of unknown antiquity. This is that famous book of _Calila and
Dimna_, as the Persian version is called, attributed to Bidpai, and
which was thus run to earth in India. The second source of Western
tradition was held to be that still more famous collection of stories
commonly known by the name of the “Story of the Seven Sages,” but
which, under many names—Kaiser Octavianus, Diocletianus, Dolopathos,
Erastus, etc.—plays a most important part in mediaeval romance. This,
too, by a similar process, has been traced to India, appearing first in
Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the Latin
_Historia Septem Sapientum Romae_, by Dame Jehans, monk in the Abbey of
Haute Selve. Here, too, we have a Hebrew, an Arabic, and a Persian
version; which last came avowedly from a Sanscrit original, though that
original has not yet been discovered. From these two sources of fable
and tradition, according to the new copying theory, our Western fables
and tales had come by direct translation from the East. Now it will be
at once evident that this theory hangs on what may be called a single
thread. Let us say, then, that all that can be found in _Calila and
Dimna_, or the later Persian version, made A.D. 1494, of Hossein Vaez,
called the _Anvari Sohaïli_, “the Canopic Lights”—from which, when
published in Paris by David Sahid of Ispahan, in the year 1644, La
Fontaine drew the substance of many of his best fables.—Let us say,
too, that all can be found in the _Life of the Seven Sages_, or the
Book of Sendabad as it was called in Persia, after an apocryphal Indian
sage—came by translation—that is to say, through the cells of Brahmins,
Magians, and monks, and the labours of the learned—into the popular
literature of the West. Let us give up all that, and then see where we
stand. What are we to say of the many tales and fables which are to be
found in neither of those famous collections, and not tales alone, but
traits and features of old tradition, broken bits of fable, roots and
germs of mighty growths of song and story, nay, even the very words,
which exist in Western popular literature, and which modern philology
has found obstinately sticking in Sanscrit, and of which fresh proofs
and instances are discovered every day? What are we to say of such a
remarkable resemblance as this?

The noble King Putraka fled into the Vindhya mountains in order to live
apart from his unkind kinsfolk; and as he wandered about there he met
two men who wrestled and fought with one another. “Who are you?” he
asked. “We are the sons of Mayâsara, and here lie our riches; this
bowl, this staff, and these shoes; these are what we are fighting for,
and whichever is stronger is to have them for his own.”

So when Putraka had heard that, he asked them with a laugh: “Why,
what’s the good of owning these things?” Then they answered “Whoever
puts on these shoes gets the power to fly; whatever is pointed at with
this staff rises up at once; and whatever food one wishes for in this
bowl, it comes at once.” So when Putraka had heard that he said “Why
fight about it? Let this be the prize; whoever beats the other in a
race, let him have them all”.

“So be it”, said the two fools, and set off running, but Putraka put on
the shoes at once, and flew away with the staff and bowl up into the
clouds”.

Well, this is a story neither in the _Pantcha Tantra_ nor the
_Hitopadesa_, the Sanscrit originals of _Calila and Dimna_. It is not
in the _Directorium Humanae Vitae_, and has not passed west by that
way. Nor is it in the _Book of Sendabad_, and thence come west in the
_History of the Seven Sages_. Both these paths are stopped. It comes
from the _Katha Sarit Sagara_, the “Sea of Streams of Story” of
Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmere, who, in the middle of the twelfth century
of our era, worked up the tales found in an earlier collection, called
the _Vrihat Katha_, “the lengthened story”, in order to amuse his
mistress, the Queen of Cashmere. Somadeva’s collection has only been
recently known and translated. But west the story certainly came long
before, and in the extreme north-west we still find it in these Norse
Tales in “The Three Princesses of Whiteland”, No. xxvi.

“Well!” said the man, “as this is so, I’ll give you a bit of advice.
Hereabouts, on a moor, stand three brothers, and there they have stood
these hundred years, fighting about a hat, a cloak, and a pair of
boots. If any one has these three things, he can make himself
invisible, and wish himself anywhere he pleases. You can tell them you
wish to try the things, and after that, you’ll pass judgment between
them, whose they shall be”.

Yes! the king thanked the man, and went and did as he told him.

“What’s all this?” he said to the brothers. “Why do you stand here
fighting for ever and a day? Just let me try these things, and I’ll
give judgment whose they shall be.”

They were very willing to do this; but as soon as he had got the hat;
cloak, and boots, he said: “When we meet next time I’ll tell you my
judgment”; and with these words he wished himself away.[10]

Nor in the Norse tales alone. Other collections shew how thoroughly at
home this story was in the East. In the Relations of _Ssidi Kur_, a
Tartar tale, a Chan’s son first gets possession of a cloak which two
children stand and fight for, which has the gift of making the wearer
invisible, and afterwards of a pair of boots, with which one can wish
one’s self to whatever place one chooses. Again, in a Wallachian tale,
we read of three devils who fight for their inheritance—a club which
turns everything to stone, a hat which makes the wearer invisible, and
a cloak by help of which one can wish one’s self whithersoever one
pleases. Again, in a Mongolian tale, the Chan’s son comes upon a group
of children who fight for a hood which makes the wearer invisible; he
is to be judge between them, makes them run a race for it, but
meanwhile puts it on and vanishes from their sight. A little further on
he meets another group, who are quarrelling for a pair of boots, the
wearer of which can wish himself whithersoever he pleases, and gains
possession of them in the same way.

Nor in one Norse tale alone, but in many, we find traces of these three
wonderful things, or of things like them. They are very like the cloth,
the ram, and the stick, which the lad got from the North Wind instead
of his meal. Very like, too, the cloth, the scissors, and the tap,
which will be found in No. xxxvi, “The Best Wish”. If we drop the
number three, we find the Boots again in “Soria Moria Castle”, No. lvi.
[Moe, Introd., xxxii-iii] Leaving the Norse Tales, we see at once that
they are the seven-leagued boots of Jack the Giant Killer. In the
_Nibelungen Lied_, when Siegfried finds Schilbung and Niblung, the
wierd heirs of the famous “Hoard”, striving for the possession of that
heap of red gold and gleaming stones; when they beg him to share it for
them, promising him, as his meed, Balmung, best of swords; when he
shares it, when they are discontent, and when in the struggle which
ensues he gets possession of the “Tarnhut”, the “cloak of darkness”,
which gave its wearer the strength of twelve men, and enabled him to go
where he would be unseen, and which was the great prize among the
treasures of the dwarfs;[11] who is there that does not see the broken
fragments of that old Eastern story of the heirs struggling for their
inheritance, and calling in the aid of some one of better wit or
strength who ends by making the very prize for which they fight his
own?

And now to return for a moment to _Calila and Dimna_ and _The Seven
Sages_. Since we have seen that there are other stories, and many of
them, for this is by no means the only resemblance to be found in
_Somadeva’s_ book[12] which are common to the Eastern and Western
Aryans, but which did not travel to Europe by translation; let us go on
to say that it is by no means certain, even when some Western story or
fable is found in these Sanscrit originals and their translations, that
that was the only way by which they came to Europe. A single question
will prove this. How did the fables and apologues which are found in
Æsop, and which are also found in the _Pantcha Tantya_ and the
_Hitopadesa_ come West? That they came from the East is certain; but by
what way, certainly not by translations or copying, for they had
travelled west long before translations were thought of. How was it
that Themistius, a Greek orator of the fourth century[13] had heard of
that fable of the lion, fox, and bull, which is in substance the same
as that of the lion, the bull, and the two jackals in the _Pantcha
Tantya_ and the _Hitopadesa_? How, but along the path of that primaeval
Aryan migration, and by that deep-ground tone of tradition by which man
speaks to man, nation to nation, and age to age; along which
comparative philology has, in these last days, travelled back thither,
listened to the accents spoken, and so found in the East the cradle of
a common language and common belief.

And now, having, as we hope, finally established this Indian affinity,
and disposed of mere Indian copying, let us lift our eyes and see if
something more is not to be discerned on the wide horizon now open on
our view. The most interesting problem for man to solve is the origin
of his race. Of late years comparative philology, having accomplished
her task in proving the affinity of language between Europe and the
East, and so taken a mighty step towards fixing the first seat of the
greatest—greatest in wit and wisdom, if not in actual numbers—portion
of the human race, has pursued her inquiries into the languages of the
Turanian, the Semitic, and the Chamitic or African races, with more or
less successful results. In a few more years, when the African
languages are better known, and the roots of Egyptian and Chinese words
are more accurately detected, Science will be better able to speak as
to the common affinity of all the tribes that throng the earth. In the
meantime, let the testimony of tradition and popular tales be heard,
which in this case have outstripped comparative philology, and lead
instead of following her. It is beyond the scope of this essay, which
aims at being popular and readable rather than learned and lengthy, to
go over a prolonged scientific investigation step by step. We repeat
it. The reader must have faith in the writer, and believe the words now
written are the results of an inquiry, and not ask for the inquiry
itself. In all mythologies and traditions, then, there are what may be
called natural resemblances, parallelisms suggested to the senses of
each race by natural objects and every-day events, and these might
spring up spontaneously all over the earth as home growths, neither
derived by imitation from other tribes, nor from seeds of common
tradition shed from a common stock. Such resemblances have been well
compared by William Grimm,[14] to those words which are found in all
languages derived from the imitation of natural sounds, or, we may add,
from the first lisping accents of infancy. But the case is very
different when this or that object which strikes the senses is
accounted for in a way so extraordinary and peculiar, as to stamp the
tradition with a character of its own. Then arises a like impression on
the mind, if we find the same tradition in two tribes at the opposite
ends of the earth, as is produced by meeting twin brothers, one in
Africa and the other in Asia; we say at once “I know you are so and
so’s brother, you are so like him”. Take an instance: In these Norse
Tales, No. xxiii, we are told how it was the bear came to have a stumpy
tail, and in an African tale,[15] we find how it was the hyaena became
tailless and earless. Now, the tailless condition both of the bear and
the hyaena could scarcely fail to attract attention in a race of
hunters, and we might expect that popular tradition would attempt to
account for both, but how are we to explain the fact, that both
Norseman and African account for it in the same way—that both owe their
loss to the superior cunning of another animal. In Europe the fox bears
away the palm for wit from all other animals, so he it is that
persuades the bear in the Norse Tales to sit with his tail in a hole in
the ice till it is fast frozen in, and snaps short off when he tries to
tug it out. In Bornou, in the heart of Africa, it is the weasel who is
the wisest of beasts, and who, having got some meat in common with the
hyaena, put it into a hole, and said:

“Behold two men came out of the forest, took the meat, and put it into
a hole: stop, I will go into the hole, and then thou mayst stretch out
thy tail to me, and I will tie the meat to thy tail for thee to draw it
out”. So the weasel went into the hole, the hyaena stretched its tail
out to it, but the weasel took the hyaena’s tail, fastened a stick, and
tied the hyaena’s tail to the stick, and then said to the hyaena “I
have tied the meat to thy tail; draw, and pull it out”. The hyaena was
a fool, it did not know the weasel surpassed it in subtlety; it thought
the meat was tied; but when it tried to draw out its tail, it was fast.
When the weasel said again to it “Pull”, it pulled, but could not draw
it out; so it became vexed, and on pulling with force, its tail broke.
The tail being torn out, the weasel was no more seen by the hyaena: the
weasel was hidden in the hole with its meat, and the hyaena saw it
not.[16]

Here we have a fact in natural history accounted for, but accounted for
in such a peculiar way as shows that the races among which they are
current must have derived them from some common tradition. The mode by
which the tail is lost is different indeed; but the manner in which the
common ground-work is suited in one case to the cold of the North, and
the way in which fish are commonly caught at holes in the ice as they
rise to breathe; and in the other to Africa and her pitfalls for wild
beasts, is only another proof of the oldness of the tradition, and that
it is not merely a copy.

Take another instance. Every one knows the story in the Arabian Nights,
where the man who knows the speech of beasts laughs at something said
by an ox to an ass. His wife wants to know why he laughs, and persists,
though he tells her it will cost him his life if he tells her. As he
doubts what to do, he hears the cock say to the house-dog “Our master
is not wise; I have fifty hens who obey me; if he followed my advice,
he’d just take a good stick, shut up his wife in a room with him, and
give her a good cudgelling.” The same story is told in Straparola[17]
with so many variations as to show it is no copy; it is also told in a
Servian popular tale, with variations of its own; and now here we find
it in Bornou, as told by Kölle.

There was a servant of God who had one wife and one horse; but his wife
was one-eyed, and they lived in their house. Now this servant of God
understood the language of the beasts of the forest when they spoke,
and of the birds of the air when they talked as they flew by. This
servant of God also understood the cry of the hyaena when it arose at
night in the forest, and came to the houses and cried near them; so,
likewise, when his horse was hungry and neighed, he understood why it
neighed, rose up, brought the horse grass, and then returned and sat
down. It happened one day that birds had their talk as they were flying
by above and the servant of God understood what they talked. This
caused him to laugh, whereupon his wife said to him “What dost thou
hear that thou laughest?” He replied to his wife “I shall not tell thee
what I hear, and why I laugh”. The woman said to her husband “I know
why thou laughest; thou laughest at me because I am one-eyed”. The man
then said to his wife “I saw that thou wast one-eyed before I loved
thee, and before we married and sat down in our house”. When the woman
heard her husband’s word she was quiet.

But once at night, as they were lying on their bed, and it was past
midnight, it happened that a rat played with his wife on the top of the
house and that both fell to the ground. Then the wife of the rat said
to her husband “Thy sport is bad; thou saidst to me that thou wouldst
play, but when we came together we fell to the ground, so that I broke
my back”.

When the servant of God heard the talk of the rat’s wife, as he was
lying on his bed, he laughed. Now, as soon as he laughed his wife
arose, seized him, and said to him as she held him fast: “Now this time
I will not let thee go out of this house except thou tell me what thou
hearest and why thou laughest”. The man begged the woman, saying “Let
me go”; but the woman would not listen to her husband’s entreaty.

The husband then tells his wife that he knows the language of beasts
and birds, and she is content; but when he wakes in the morning he
finds he has lost his wonderful gift; and the moral of the tale is
added most ungallantly: “If a man shews and tells his thoughts to a
woman, God will punish him for it”. Though, perhaps, it is better, for
the sake of the gentler sex, that the tale should be pointed with this
unfair moral, than that the African story should proceed like all the
other variations, and save the husband’s gift at the cost of the wife’s
skin.

Take other African instances. How is it that the wandering Bechuanas
got their story of “The Two Brothers”, the ground-work of which is the
same as “The Machandelboom” and the “Milk-white Doo”, and where the
incidents and even the words are almost the same? How is it that in
some of its traits that Bechuana story embodies those of that earliest
of all popular tales, recently published from an Egyptian Papyrus,
coeval with the abode of the Israelites in Egypt? and how is it that
that same Egyptian tale has other traits which reminds us of the Dun
Bull in “Katie Woodencloak”, as well as incidents which are the germ of
stories long since reduced to writing in Norse Sagas of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries?[18] How is it that we still find among the
Negroes in the West Indies[19] a rich store of popular tales, and the
Beast Epic in full bloom, brought with them from Africa to the islands
of the West; and among those tales and traditions, how is it that we
find a “Wishing Tree”, the counter-part of that in a German popular
tale, and “a little dirty scrub of a child”, whom his sisters despise,
but who is own brother to Boots in the Norse Tales, and like him
outwits the Troll, spoils his substance, and saves his sisters? How is
it that we find the good woman who washes the loathsome head rewarded,
while the bad man who refuses to do that dirty work is punished for his
pride; the very groundwork, nay the very words, that we meet in
Bushy-bride, another Norse Tale? How is it that we find a Mongolian
tale, which came confessedly from India, made up of two of our Norse
tales, “Rich Peter the Pedlar” and “The Giant that had no heart in his
body”?[20] How should all these things be, and how could they possibly
be, except on that theory which day by day becomes more and more a
matter of fact; this, that the whole human race sprung from one stock,
planted in the East, which has stretched out its boughs and branches
laden with the fruit of language, and bright with the bloom of song and
story, by successive offshoots to the utmost parts of the earth.




NORSE MYTHOLOGY


And now, in the second place, for that particular branch of the Aryan
race, in which this peculiar development of the common tradition has
arisen, which we are to consider as “Norse Popular Tales”.

Whatever disputes may have existed as to the mythology of other
branches of the Teutonic subdivision of the Aryan race—whatever
discussions may have arisen as to the position of this or that divinity
among the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, or the Goths—about the Norsemen
there can be no dispute or doubt. From a variety of circumstances, but
two before all the rest—the one their settlement in Iceland, which
preserved their language and its literary treasures incorrupt; the
other their late conversion to Christianity—their cosmogony and
mythology stands before us in full flower, and we have not, as
elsewhere, to pick up and piece together the wretched fragments of a
faith, the articles of which its own priests had forgotten to commit to
writing, and which those of another creed had dashed to pieces and
destroyed, wherever their zealous hands could reach. In the two Eddas,
therefore, in the early Sagas, in Saxo’s stilted Latin, which barely
conceals the popular songs and legends from which the historian drew
his materials, we are enabled to form a perfect conception of the creed
of the heathen Norsemen. We are enabled to trace, as has been traced by
the same hand in another place,[21] the natural and rational
development of that creed from a simple worship of nature and her
powers, first to monotheism, and then to a polytheistic system. The
tertiary system of Polytheism is the soil out of which the mythology of
the Eddas sprang, though through it each of the older formations crops
out in huge masses which admit of no mistake as to its origin. In the
Eddas the natural powers have been partly subdued, partly thrust on one
side, for a time, by Odin and the Aesir, by the Great Father and his
children, by One Supreme and twelve subordinate gods, who rule for an
appointed time, and over whom hangs an impending fate, which imparts a
charm of melancholy to this creed, which has clung to the race who once
believed in it long after the creed itself has vanished before the
light of Christianity. According to this creed, the Aesir and Odin had
their abode in Asgard, a lofty hill in the centre of the habitable
earth, in the midst of Midgard, that _middle earth_ which we hear of in
early English poetry, the abode of gods and men. Round that earth,
which was fenced in against the attacks of ancient and inveterate foes
by a natural fortification of hills, flowed the great sea in a ring,
and beyond that sea was Utgard, the outlying world, the abode of Frost
Giants, and Monsters, those old-natural powers who had been
dispossessed by Odin and the Aesir when the new order of the universe
arose, and between whom and the new gods a feud as inveterate as that
cherished by the Titans against Jupiter was necessarily kept alive. It
is true indeed that this feud was broken by intervals of truce during
which the Aesir and the Giants visit each other, and appear on more or
less friendly terms, but the true relation between them was war; pretty
much as the Norseman was at war with all the rest of the world. Nor was
this struggle between two rival races or powers confined to the gods in
Asgard alone. Just as their ancient foes were the Giants of Frost and
Snow, so between the race of men and the race of Trolls was there a
perpetual feud. As the gods were men magnified and exaggerated, so were
the Trolls diminished Frost Giants; far superior to man in strength and
stature, but inferior to man in wit and invention. Like the Frost
Giants, they inhabit the rough and rugged places of the earth, and,
historically speaking, in all probability represent the old aboriginal
races who retired into the mountainous fastnesses of the land, and
whose strength was exaggerated, because the intercourse between the
races was small. In almost every respect they stand in the same
relations to men as the Frost Giants stand to the Gods.

There is nothing, perhaps, more characteristic of a true, as compared
with a false religion, than the restlessness of the one when brought
face to face with the quiet dignity and majesty of the other. Under the
Christian dispensation, our blessed Lord, his awful sacrifice once
performed, “ascended up on high”, having “led captivity captive”, and
expects the hour that shall make his foes “his footstool”; but false
gods, Jupiter, Vishnu, Odin, Thor, must constantly keep themselves, as
it were, before the eyes of men, lest they should lose respect. Such
gods being invariably what the philosophers call _subjective_, that is
to say, having no existence except in the minds of those who believe in
them; having been created by man in his own image, with his own desires
and passions, stand in constant need of being recreated. They change as
the habits and temper of the race which adores them alter; they are
ever bound to do something fresh, lest man should forget them, and new
divinities usurp their place. Hence came endless avatars in Hindoo
mythology, reproducing all the dreamy monstrosities of that passive
Indian mind. Hence came Jove’s adventures, tinged with all the lust and
guile which the wickedness of the natural man planted on a hot-bed of
iniquity is capable of conceiving. Hence bloody Moloch, and the foul
abominations of Chemosh and Milcom. Hence, too, Odin’s countless
adventures, his journeys into all parts of the world, his constant
trials of wit and strength, with his ancient foes the Frost Giants, his
hair-breadth escapes. Hence Thor’s labours and toils, his passages
beyond the sea, girt with his strength-belt, wearing his iron gloves,
and grasping his hammer which split the skulls of so many of the
Giant’s kith and kin. In the Norse gods, then, we see the Norseman
himself, sublimed and elevated beyond man’s nature, but bearing about
with him all his bravery and endurance, all his dash and spirit of
adventure, all his fortitude and resolution to struggle against a
certainty of doom which, sooner or later, must overtake him on that
dread day, the “twilight of the gods”, when the wolf was to break
loose, when the great snake that lay coiled round the world should lash
himself into wrath, and the whole race of the Aesirs and their
antagonists were to perish in internecine strife.

Such were the gods in whom the Norseman believed—exaggerations of
himself, of all his good and all his bad qualities. Their might and
their adventures, their domestic quarrels and certain doom, were sung
in venerable lays, now collected in what we call the Elder, or Poetic
Edda; simple majestic songs, whose mellow accents go straight to the
heart through the ear, and whose simple severity never suffers us to
mistake their meaning. But, besides these gods, there were heroes of
the race whose fame and glory were in every man’s memory, and whose
mighty deeds were in every minstrel’s mouth. Helgi, Sigmund, Sinfjötli,
Sigurd, Signy, Brynhildr, Gudrun; champions and shield-maidens,
henchmen and corse-choosers, now dead and gone, who sat round Odin’s
board in Valhalla. Women whose beauty, woes, and sufferings were beyond
those of all women; men whose prowess had never found an equal. Between
these, love and hate; all that can foster passion or beget revenge. Ill
assorted marriages; the right man to the wrong woman, and the wrong man
to the right woman; envyings, jealousies, hatred, murders, all the
works of the natural man, combine together to form that marvellous
story which begins with a curse—the curse of ill-gotten gold—and ends
with a curse, a widow’s curse, which drags down all on whom it falls,
and even her own flesh and blood, to certain doom. Such was the theme
of the wondrous Volsung Tale, the far older, simpler and grander
original of that Nibelungen Need of the thirteenth century, a tale
which begins with the slaughter of Fafnir by Sigurd, and ends with
Hermanaric, “that fierce faith-breaker”, as the Anglo-Saxon minstrel
calls him, when he is describing, in rapid touches, the mythic glories
of the Teutonic race.

This was the story of the Volsungs. They traced themselves back, like
all heroes, to Odin, the great father of gods and men. From him sprung
Sigi, from him Rerir, from him Volsung, ripped from his mother’s womb
after a six years’ bearing, to become the Eponymus of that famous race.
In the centre of his hall grew an oak, the tall trunk of which passed
through the roof, and its boughs spread far and wide in upper air. Into
that hall, on a high feast day, when Signy, Volsung’s daughter, was to
be given away to Siggeir, King of Gothland, strode an old one-eyed
guest. His feet were bare, his hose were of knitted linen, he wore a
great striped cloak, and a broad flapping hat. In his hand he bore a
sword, which, at one stroke, he drove up to the hilt in the oak trunk.
“There”, said he, “let him of all this company bear this sword who is
man enough to pull it out. I give it him, and none shall say he ever
bore a better blade.” With these words he passed out of the hall, and
was seen no more. Many tried, for that sword was plainly a thing of
price, but none could stir it, till Sigmund, the best and bravest of
Volsung’s sons, tried his hand, and, lo! the weapon yielded itself at
once. This was that famous blade _Gram_, of which we shall hear again.
Sigmund bore it in battle against his brother-in-law, who quarrelled
with him about this very sword, when Volsung fell, and Sigmund and his
ten brothers were taken and bound. All perished but Sigmund, who was
saved by his sister Signy, and hidden in a wood till he could revenge
his father and brethren. Here with Sinfjötli, who was at once his son
and nephew, he ran as a werewolf through the forest, and wrought many
wild deeds. When Sinfjötli was of age to help him, they proceed to
vengeance, and burn the treacherous brother-in-law alive, with all his
followers. Sigmund then regains his father’s kingdom, and in extreme
old age dies in battle against the sons of King Hunding. Just as he was
about to turn the fight, a warrior of more than mortal might, a
one-eyed man in a blue cloak, with a flapping hat, rose up against him
spear in hand. At that outstretched spear Sigmund smites with his
trusty sword. It snaps in twain. Then he knows that his luck is gone;
he sees in his foe Odin the giver of the sword, sinks down on the gory
battle-field, and dies in the arms of Hjordis, his young wife, refusing
all leechcraft, and bowing his head to Odin’s will. By the fortune of
war, Hjordis, bearing a babe under her girdle, came into the hands of
King Hialprek of Denmark, there she bore a son to Sigmund, Sigurd, the
darling of Teutonic song and story. Regin, the king’s smith, was his
foster-father, and as the boy grew up the fairest and stoutest of all
the Volsungs, Regin, who was of the dwarf race, urged him day by day to
do a doughty deed, and slay Fafnir the Dragon. For Fafnir, Regin, and
Otter had been brothers, sons of Reidmar. In one of their many
wanderings, Odin, Loki, and Haenir came to a river and a forge. There,
on the bank under the forge, they saw an otter with a salmon in its
mouth, which it ate greedily with its eyes shut. Loki took a stone,
threw it, and killed the beast, and boasted how he had got both fish
and flesh at one throw. Then the Aesir passed on and came at night to
Reidmar’s house, asked a lodging, got it, and showed their spoil.
“Seize and bind them lads”, cried Reidmar; “for they have slain your
brother Otter”. So they were seized and bound by Regin and Fafnir, and
offered an atonement to buy off the feud, and Reidmar was to name the
sum. Then Otter was flayed, and the Aesir were to fill the skin with
red gold, and cover it without, that not a hair could be seen. To fetch
the gold Odin sent Loki down to the abodes of the Black Elves; there in
a stream he caught Andvari the Dwarf, and made him give up all the gold
which he had hoarded up in the stony rock. In vain the Dwarf begged and
prayed that he might keep one ring, for it was the source of all his
wealth, and ring after ring dropped from it. “No; not a penny should he
have” said Loki. Then the dwarf laid a curse on the ring, and said it
should be every man’s bane who owned it. “So much the better” said
Loki; and when he got back, Odin saw the ring how fair it was, and kept
it to himself, but gave the gold to Reidmar. So Reidmar filled the skin
with gold as full as he could, and set it up on end, and Odin poured
gold over it, and covered it up. But when Reidmar looked at it he saw
still one grey hair, and bade them cover that too, else the atonement
was at an end. Then Odin drew forth the ring and laid it over the grey
hair. So the Aesir was set free, but before they went, Loki repeated
the curse which Andvari had laid upon the ring and gold. It soon began
to work. First, Regin asked for some of the gold, but not a penny would
Reidmar give. So the two brothers laid their heads together and slew
their sire. Then Regin begged Fafnir to share the gold with him. But
“no”, Fafnir was stronger, and said he should keep it all himself, and
Regin had best be off, unless he wished to fare the same way as
Reidmar. So Regin had to fly, but Fafnir took a dragon’s shape; “and
there”, said Regin, “he lies on the ‘Glistening Heath’, coiled round
his store of gold and precious things, and that’s why I wish you to
kill him.” Sigurd, told Regin who was the best of smiths, to forge him
a sword. Two are made, but both snap asunder at the first stroke.
“Untrue are they like you and all your race” cries Sigurd. Then he went
to his mother and begged the broken bits of _Gram_, and out of them
Regin forged a new blade, that clove the anvil in the smithy, and cut a
lock of wool borne down upon it by a running stream. “Now, slay me
Fafnir”, said Regin; but Sigurd must first find out King Hunding’s
sons, and avenge his father Sigmund’s death. King Hialprek lends him
force; by Odin’s guidance he finds them out, routs their army, and
slays all those brothers. On his return, his foster-father still eggs
him on to slay the Dragon, and thus to shew that there was still a
Volsung left. So, armed with Gram, and mounted on Gran, his good steed,
whom Odin had taught him how to choose, Sigurd rode to the “Glistening
Heath”, dug a pit in the Dragon’s path, and slew him as he passed over
him down to drink at the river. Then Regin came up, and the old feeling
of vengeance for a brother’s blood grew strong, and as an atonement,
Sigurd was to roast Fafnir’s heart, and carry it to Regin, who swilled
his fill of the Dragon’s blood, and lay down to sleep. But as Sigurd
roasted the heart, and wondered if it would soon be done, he tried it
with his finger to see if it were soft. The hot roast burned his
finger, and he put it into his mouth, and tasted the life-blood of the
Dragon. Then in a moment he understood the song of birds, and heard how
the swallows over his head said one to the other, “There thou sittest,
Sigurd, roasting Fafnir’s heart. Eat it thyself and become the wisest
of men.” Then another said “There lies Regin, and means to cheat him
who trusts him.” Then a third said “Let Sigurd cut off his head then,
and so own all the gold himself.” Then Sigurd went to Regin and slew
him, and ate the heart, and rode on Gran to Fafnir’s lair, and took the
spoil and loaded his good steed with it, and rode away.

And now Sigurd was the most famous of men. All the songs and stories of
the North made him the darling of that age. They dwell on his soft
hair, which fell in great locks of golden brown, on his bushy beard of
auburn hue, his straight features, his ruddy cheeks, his broad brow,
his bright and piercing eye, of which few dared to meet the gaze, his
taper limbs and well knit joints, his broad shoulders, and towering
height. “So tall he was, that as he strode through the full-grown rye,
girt with Gram, the tip of the scabbard just touched the ears of corn.”
Ready of tongue too, and full of forethought. His great pleasure was to
help other men, and to do daring deeds; to spoil his foes, and give
largely to his friends. The bravest man alive, and one that never knew
fear. On and on he rode, till on a lone fell he saw a flickering flame,
and when he reached it, there it flamed and blazed all round a house.
No horse but Gran could ride that flame; no man alive but Sigurd sit
him while he leaped through it. Inside the house lay a fair maiden,
armed from head to foot, in a deep sleep. Brynhildr, Atli’s sister, was
her name, a Valkyrie, a corse-chooser; but out of wilfulness she had
given the victory to the wrong side, and Odin in his wrath had thrust
the horn of sleep into her cloak, and laid her under a curse to slumber
there till a man bold enough to ride through that flame came to set her
free, and win her for his bride. So then she woke up, and taught him
all runes and wisdom, and they swore to love each other with a mighty
oath, and then Sigurd left her and rode on.

So on he rode to King Giuki’s hall, Giuki the Niflung, King of
Frankland, whose wife was Grimhildr, whose sons were Gunnar and Hogni,
whose stepson was Guttorm, and whose daughter was the fair Gudrun. Here
at first he was full of Brynhildr, and all for going back to fetch his
lovely bride from the lone fell. But Grimhildr was given to dark arts;
she longed for the brave Volsung for her own daughter, she brewed him
the philtre of forgetfulness, he drained it off, forgot Brynhildr,
swore a brother’s friendship with Gunnar and Hogni, and wedded the fair
Gudrun. But now Giuki wanted a wife for Gunnar, and so off set the
brothers and their bosom friend to woo, but whom should they choose but
Brynhildr, Atli’s sister, who sat there still upon the fell, waiting
for the man who was bold enough to ride through the flickering flame.
She knew but one could do it, and waited for that one to come back. So
she had given out whoever could ride that flame should have her to
wife. So when Gunnar and Hogni reached it, Gunnar rode at it, but his
horse, good though it was, swerved from the fierce flame. Then by
Grimhild’s magic arts, Sigurd and Gunnar changed shapes and arms, and
Sigurd leapt up on Gran’s back, and the good steed bore him bravely
through the flame. So Brynhildr the proud maiden was won and forced to
yield. That evening was their wedding; but when they lay down to rest,
Sigurd unsheathed his keen sword _Gram_, and laid it naked between
them. Next morning when he arose, he took the ring which Andvari had
laid under the curse, and which was among Fafnir’s treasures, and gave
it to Brynhildr as a “morning gift”, and she gave him another ring as a
pledge. Then Sigurd rode back to his companions and took his own shape
again, and then Gunnar went and claimed Brynhildr, and carried her home
as his bride. But no sooner was Gunnar wedded, than Sigurd’s eyes were
opened, and the power of the philtre passed away, he remembered all
that had passed, and the oath he had sworn to Brynhildr. All this came
back upon him when it was too late, but he was wise and said nothing
about it. Well, so things went on, till one day Brynhildr and Gudrun
went down to the river to wash their hair. Then Brynhildr waded out
into the stream as far as she could, and said she wouldn’t have on her
head the water that streamed from Gudrun’s; for hers was the braver
husband. So Gudrun waded out after her, and said the water ought to
come on her hair first, because her husband bore away the palm from
Gunnar, and every other man alive, for he slew Fafnir and Regin and
took their inheritance. “Aye”, said Brynhildr, “but it was a worthier
deed when Gunnar rode through the flame, but Sigurd dared not try!”
Then Gudrun laughed, and said “Thinkst thou that Gunnar really rode the
flame? I trow _he_ went to bed with thee that night, who gave me this
gold ring. And as for that ring yonder which you have on your finger,
and which you got as your ‘morning-gift’; its name is Andvari’s-spoil,
and _that_ I don’t think Gunnar sought on the ‘Glistening Heath’”. Then
Brynhildr held her peace and went home, and her love for Sigurd came
back, but it was turned to hate, for she felt herself betrayed. Then
she egged on Gunnar to revenge her wrong. At last the brothers yielded
to her entreaties, but they were sworn brothers to Sigurd, and to break
that oath by deed was a thing unheard of. Still they broke it in
spirit; by charms and prayers they set on Guttorm their half-brother,
and so at dead of night, while Gudrun held the bravest man alive fast
locked in her white arms, the murderer stole to the bedside and drove a
sword through the hero. Then Sigurd turned and writhed, and as Guttorm
fled he hurled Gram after him, and the keen blade took him asunder at
the waist, and his head fell out of the room and his heels in, and that
was the end of Guttorm. But with revenge Brynhildr’s love returned, and
when Sigurd was laid upon the pile her heart broke; she burst forth
into a prophetic song of the woes that were still to come, made them
lay her by his side with Gram between them, and so went to Valhalla
with her old lover. Thus Andvari’s curse was fulfilled.

Gudrun, the weary widow, wandered away. After a while, she accepts
atonement from her brothers for her husband’s loss, and marries Atli,
the Hun King, Brynhildr’s brother. He cherished a grudge against
Giuki’s sons for the guile they had practised against their
brother-in-law, which had broken his sister’s heart, and besides he
claimed, in right of Gudrun, all the gold which Sigurd won from the
Dragon, but which the Niflung Princes had seized when he was slain. It
was in vain to attack them in fair fight, so he sent them a friendly
message, and invited them to a banquet; they go, and are overpowered.
Hogni’s heart is cut out of him alive, but he still smiles; Gunnar is
cast into a pit full of snakes, but even then charms them to sleep with
his harp, all but one, that flies at his heart and stings him to death.
With them perished the secret of the Dragon’s hoard, which they had
thrown into the Rhine as they crossed it on the way to Hunland. Now
comes horror on horror. Revenge for her brothers now belongs to Gudrun;
she slays with her own hand her two sons by Atli, makes him eat their
flesh, and drink their blood out of their skulls, and, while the king
slept sound, slew him in his bed by the help of her brother Hogni’s
son. Then she set the hall a-blaze, and burnt all that were in it.
After that she went to the sea-shore, and threw herself in to drown.
But the deep will not have her, the billows bear her over to King
Jonakr’s land. He marries her, and has three sons by her, Saurli,
Hamdir, and Erp, black-haired as ravens, like all the Niflungs.
Svanhild, her daughter by Sigurd, who had her father’s bright and
terrible eyes, she has still with her, now grown up to be the fairest
of women. So when Hermanaric the mighty, the great Gothic king, heard
of Svanhild’s beauty, he sent his son Randver to woo her for him, but
Bikki the False said to the youth: “Better far were this maiden for
thee than for thy old father”; and the maiden and the prince thought it
good advice. Then Bikki went and told the king, and Hermanaric bade
them take and hang Randver at once. So on his way to the gallows, the
prince took his hawk and plucked off all its feathers, and sent it to
his father. But when his sire saw it, he knew at once that, as the hawk
was featherless and unable to fly, so was his realm defenceless under
an old and sonless king. Too late he sent to stop the hanging; his son
was already dead. So one day as he rode back from hunting, he saw fair
Svanhild washing her golden locks, and it came into his heart how there
she sat, the cause of all his woe; and he and his men rode at her and
over her, and their steeds trampled her to death. But when Gudrun heard
this, she set on her three Niflung sons to avenge their sister. Byrnies
and helms she gave them so true that no sword would bite on them. They
were to steal on Hermanaric as he slept; Saurli was to cut off his
hands, Hamdir his feet, and Erp his head. So as the three went along,
the two asked Erp what help he would give them when they got to
Hermanaric. “Such as hand lends to foot” he said. “No help at all” they
cried; and passing from words to blows, and because their mother loved
Erp best, they slew him. A little further on Saurli stumbled and fell
forward, but saved himself with one hand, and said “Here hand helps
foot: better were it that Erp lived.” So they came on Hermanaric as he
slept, and Saurli hewed off his hands, and Hamdir his feet, but he
awoke and called for his men. Then said Hamdir: “Were Erp alive, the
head would be off, and he couldn’t call out.” Then Hermanaric’s men
arose and took the twain, and when they found that no steel would touch
them, an old one-eyed man gave them advice to stone them to death. Thus
fell Saurli and Hamdir, and soon after Gudrun died too, and with her
ends the Volsung and the Niflung tale.

And here it is worth while to say, since some minds are so narrowly
moulded as to be incapable of containing more than one idea, that
because it has seemed a duty to describe in its true light the old
faith of our forefathers, it by no means follows that the same eyes are
blind to the glorious beauty of Greek Mythology. That had the rare
advantage of running its course free and unfettered until it fell
rather by natural decay than before the weapon of a new belief. The
Greeks were Atheists before they became Christian. Their faith had
passed through every stage. We can contemplate it as it springs out of
the dim misshapen symbol, during that phase when men’s eyes are fixed
more on meaning and reality than on beauty and form, we can mark how it
gradually looks more to symmetry and shape, how it is transfigured in
the Arts, until, under that pure air and bright sky, the glowing
radiant figures of Apollo and Aphrodite, of Zeus and Athene—of perfect
man-worship and woman-worship, stand out clear and round in the
foreground against the misty distance of ancient times. Out of that
misty distance the Norseman’s faith never emerged. What that early
phase of faith might have become, had it been once wedded to the Muses,
and learnt to cultivate the Arts, it is impossible to say. As it is,
its career was cut short in mid-course. It carried about with it that
melancholy presentiment of dissolution which has come to be so
characteristic of modern life, but of which scarce a trace exists in
ancient times, and this feeling would always have made it different
from that cheerful carelessness which so attracts us in the Greeks; but
even that downcast brooding heart was capable of conceiving great and
heroic thoughts, which it might have clothed in noble shapes and forms,
had not the axe of Providence cut down the stately sapling in the North
before it grew to be a tree, while it spared the pines of Delphi and
Dodona’s sacred oaks, until they had attained a green old age. And so
this faith remained rude and rough; but even rudeness has a simplicity
of its own, and it is better to be rough and true-hearted than polished
and false. In all the feelings of natural affection, that faith need
fear no comparison with any other upon earth. In these respects it is
firm and steadfast as a rock, and pure and bright as a living spring.
The highest God is a father, who protects his children; who gives them
glory and victory while they live, and when they die, takes them to
himself; to those fatherly abodes Death was a happy return, a glorious
going home. By the side of this great father stands a venerable
goddess, dazzling with beauty, the great mother of gods and men. Hand
in hand this divine pair traverse the land; he teaching the men the use
of arms and all the arts of war,—for war was then as now a noble
calling, and to handle arms an honourable, nay necessary, profession.
To the women she teaches domestic duties and the arts of peace; from
her they learn to weave, and sew, and spin; from her, too, the
husbandman learns to till his fields. From him springs poetry and song;
from her legend and tradition. Nor should it ever be forgotten that the
footsteps of Providence are always onward, even when they seem taken in
the dark, and that their rude faith was the first in which that
veneration for woman arose, which the Western nations may well claim as
the brightest jewel in their crown of civilization; that while she was
a slave in the East, a toy to the Greeks, and a housewife to the
Romans, she was a helpmeet to the Teuton, and that those stern warriors
recognized something divine in her nature, and bowed before her clearer
insight into heavenly mysteries. The worship of the Virgin Mary was
gradually developed out of this conception of woman’s character, and
would have been a thing absurd and impossible, had Christianity clung
for ever to Eastern soil. And now to proceed, after thus turning aside
to compare the mythology of the Greek with the faith of the Norseman.
The mistake is to favour one or the other exclusively instead of
respecting and admiring both; but it is a mistake which those only can
fall into, whose souls are narrow and confined, who would say this
thing and this person you shall love, and none other; this form and
feature you shall worship and adore, and this alone; when in fact the
whole promised land of thought and life lies before us at our feet, our
nature encourages us to go in and possess it, and every step we make in
this new world of knowledge brings us to fresh prospects of beauty, and
to new pastures of delight.

Such were the gods, and such the heroes of the Norseman; who, like his
own gods, went smiling to death under the weight of an inevitable
destiny. But that fate never fell on their gods. Before this subjective
mythological dream of the Norsemen could be fulfilled, the religious
mist in which they walked was scattered by the sunbeams of
Christianity. A new state and condition of society arose, and the creed
which had satisfied a race of heathen warriors, who externally were at
war with all the world, became in time an object of horror and aversion
to the converted Christian. This is not the place to describe the long
struggle between the new and the old faith in the North; how kings and
queens became the foster-fathers and nursing-mothers of the Church; how
the great chiefs, each a little king in himself, scorned and derided
the whole scheme as altogether weak and effeminate; how the bulk of the
people were sullen and suspicious, and often broke out into heathen
mutiny; how kings rose and kings fell, just as they took one or the
other side; and how, finally, after a contest which had lasted
altogether more than three centuries, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and
Sweden—we run them over in the order of conversion—became faithful to
Christianity, as preached by the missionaries of the Church of Rome.
One fact, however, we must insist on, which might be inferred, indeed,
both from the nature of the struggle itself, and the character of Rome;
and that is, that throughout there was something in the process of
conversion of the nature of a compromise—of what we may call the great
principle of “give and take”. In all Christian churches, indeed, and in
none so much as the Church of Rome, nothing is so austere, so
elevating, and so grand, as the uncompromising tone in which the great
dogmas of the Faith are enunciated and proclaimed. Nothing is more
magnificent, in short, than the theory of Christianity; but nothing is
more mean and miserable than the time-serving way in which those dogmas
are dragged down to the dull level of daily life, and that sublime
theory reduced to ordinary practice. At Rome, it was true that the Pope
could congratulate the faithful that whole nations in the barbarous and
frozen North had been added to the true fold, and that Odin’s grim
champions now universally believed in the gospel of peace and love. It
is so easy to dispose of a doubtful struggle in a single sentence, and
so tempting to believe it when once written. But in the North, the
state of things, and the manner of proceeding, were entirely different.
There the dogma was proclaimed, indeed; but the manner of preaching it
was not in that mild spirit with which the Saviour rebuked the disciple
when he said “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that
take the sword shall perish with the sword.” There the sword was used
to bring converts to the font, and the baptism was often one rather of
blood than of water. There the new converts perpetually relapsed,
chased away the missionaries and the kings who sheltered them, and only
yielded at last to the overwhelming weight of Christian opinion in the
Western world. St Olof, king and martyr, martyred in pitched battle by
his mutinous allodial freemen, because he tried to drive rather than to
lead them to the cross; and another Olof, greater than he, Olof
Tryggvason, who fell in battle against the heathen Swedes, were men of
blood rather than peace; but to them the introduction of the new faith
into Norway is mainly owing. So also Charlemagne, at an earlier period,
had dealt with the Saxons at the Main Bridge, when his ultimatum was
“Christianity or death”. So also the first missionary to Iceland—who
met, indeed, with a sorry reception—was followed about by a stout
champion named Thangbrand, who, whenever there was what we should now
call a missionary meeting, challenged any impugner of the new doctrines
to mortal combat on the spot. No wonder that, after having killed
several opponents in the little tour which he made with his missionary
friend through the island, it became too hot to hold him, and he, and
the missionary, and the new creed, were forced to take ship and sail
back to Norway.

“Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a
little”, was the motto of Rome in her dealings with the heathen
Norsemen, and if she suited herself at first rather to their habits and
temper than to those of more enlightened nations, she had an excuse in
St Paul’s maxim of making herself “all things to all men.” Thus, when a
second attempt to Christianize Iceland proved more successful—for in
the meantime, King Olof Tryggvason, a zealous Christian, had seized as
hostages all the Icelanders of family and fame who happened to be in
Norway, and thus worked on the feelings of the chiefs of those families
at home, who in their turn bribed the lawman who presided over the
Great Assembly to pronounce in favour of the new Faith—even then the
adherents of the old religion were allowed to perform its rites in
secret, and two old heathen practices only were expressly prohibited,
the exposure of infants and the eating of horseflesh, for horses were
sacred animals, and the heathen ate their flesh after they had been
solemnly sacrificed to the gods. As a matter of fact, it is far easier
to change a form of religion than to extirpate a faith. The first
indeed is no easy matter, as those students of history well know who
are acquainted with the tenacity with which a large proportion of the
English nation clung to the Church of Rome, long after the State had
declared for the Reformation. But to change the faith of a whole nation
in block and bulk on the instant, was a thing contrary to the ordinary
working of Providence and unknown even in the days of miracles, though
the days of miracles had long ceased when Rome advanced against the
North. There it was more politic to raise a cross in the grove where
the Sacred Tree had once stood, and to point to the sacred emblem which
had supplanted the old object of national adoration, when the populace
came at certain seasons with songs and dances to perform their heathen
rites. Near the cross soon rose a church; and both were girt by a
cemetery, the soil of which was doubly sacred as a heathen fane and a
Christian sanctuary, and where alone the bodies of the faithful could
repose in peace. But the songs and dances, and processions in the
church-yard round the cross, continued long after Christianity had
become dominant. So also the worship of wells and springs was
christianized when it was found impossible to prevent it. Great
churches arose over or near them, as at Walsingham, where an abbey, the
holiest place in England, after the shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury,
threw its majestic shade over the heathen wishing-well, and the
worshippers of Odin and the Nornir were gradually converted into
votaries of the Virgin Mary. Such practices form a subject of constant
remonstrance and reproof in the treatises and penitential epistles of
medieval divines, and in some few places and churches, even in England,
such rites are still yearly celebrated.[22]

So, too, again with the ancient gods. They were cast down from honour,
but not from power. They lost their genial kindly influence as the
protectors of men and the origin of all things good; but their
existence was tolerated; they became powerful for ill, and degenerated
into malignant demons. Thus the worshippers of Odin had supposed that
at certain times and rare intervals the good powers shewed themselves
in bodily shape to mortal eye, passing through the land in divine
progress, bringing blessings in their train, and receiving in return
the offerings and homage of their grateful votaries. But these were
naturally only exceptional instances; on ordinary occasions the pious
heathen recognized his gods sweeping through the air in cloud and
storm, riding on the wings of the wind, and speaking in awful accents,
as the tempest howled and roared, and the sea shook his white mane and
crest. Nor did he fail to see them in the dust and din of battle, when
Odin appeared with his terrible helm, succouring his own, striking fear
into their foes, and turning the day in many a doubtful fight; or in
the hurry and uproar of the chase, where the mighty huntsman on his
swift steed, seen in glimpses among the trees, took up the hunt where
weary mortals laid it down, outstripped them all, and brought the noble
quarry to the ground. Looking up to the stars and heaven, they saw the
footsteps of the gods marked out in the bright path of the Milky Way;
and in the Bear they hailed the war-chariot of the warrior’s god. The
great goddesses, too, Frigga and Freyja, were thoroughly old-fashioned
domestic divinities. They help women in their greatest need, they spin
themselves, they teach the maids to spin, and punish them if the wool
remains upon their spindle. They are kind, and good, and bright, for
_Holda_, _Bertha_, are the epithets given to them. And so, too, this
mythology which, in its aspect to the stranger and the external world,
was so ruthless and terrible, when looked at from within and at home,
was genial, and kindly, and hearty, and affords another proof that men,
in all ages and climes, are not so bad as they seem; that after all,
peace and not war is the proper state for man, and that a nation may
make war on others and exist; but that unless it has peace within, and
industry at home, it must perish from the face of the earth. But when
Christianity came, the whole character of this goodly array of
divinities was soured and spoilt. Instead of the stately procession of
the God, which the intensely sensuous eye of man in that early time
connected with all the phenomena of nature, the people were led to
believe in a ghastly grisly band of ghosts, who followed an infernal
warrior or huntsman in hideous tumult through the midnight air. No
doubt, as Grimm rightly remarks,[23] the heathen had fondly fancied
that the spirits of those who had gone to Odin followed him in his
triumphant progress either visibly or invisibly; that they rode with
him in the whirlwind, just as they followed him to battle, and feasted
with him in Valhalla; but now the Christian belief, when it had
degraded the mighty god into a demon huntsman, who pursued his nightly
round in chase of human souls, saw in the train of the infernal master
of the hunt only the spectres of suicides, drunkards, and ruffians;
and, with all the uncharitableness of a dogmatic faith, the spirits of
children who died unbaptized, whose hard fate had thrown them into such
evil company. This was the way in which that wide-spread superstition
arose, which sees in the phantoms of the clouds the shapes of the Wild
Huntsman and his accursed crew, and hears, in spring and autumn nights,
when sea-fowl take the wing to fly either south or north, the strange
accents and uncouth yells with which the chase is pressed on in upper
air. Thus, in Sweden it is still Odin who passes by; in Denmark it is
King Waldemar’s Hunt; in Norway it is _Aaskereida_, that is _Asgard’s
Car_ ; in Germany, it is Wode, Woden, or Hackelberend, or Dieterich of
Bern; in France it is Hellequin, or King Hugo, or Charles the Fifth,
or, dropping a name altogether, it is _Le Grand Veneur_ who ranges at
night through the Forest of Fontainebleau. Nor was England without her
Wild Huntsman and his ghastly following. Gervase of Tilbury, in the
twelfth century, could tell it of King Arthur, round whose mighty name
the superstition settled itself, for he had heard from the foresters
how, “on alternate days, about the full of the moon, one day at noon,
the next at midnight when the moon shone bright, a mighty train of
hunters on horses was seen, with baying hounds and blast of horns; and
when those hunters were asked of whose company and household they were,
they replied ‘of Arthur’s’.” We hear of him again in _The Complaynt of
Scotland_, that curious composition attributed by some to Sir David
Lyndsay of the Mount in Fife, and of Gilmerton in East Lothian, pp. 97,
98, where he says:

Arthur knycht, he raid on nycht,
With gyldin spur and candil lycht.


Nor should we forget, when considering this legend, that story of Herne
the Hunter, who

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns;
And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.


_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act. iv, sc. 4.


And even yet, in various parts of England, the story of some great man,
generally a member of one of the county families, who drives about the
country at night, is common. Thus, in Warwickshire, it is the
“One-handed Boughton”, who drives about in his coach and six, and makes
the benighted traveller hold gates open for him; or it is “Lady
Skipwith”, who passes through the country at night in the same manner.
This subject might be pursued to much greater length, for popular
tradition is full of such stories; but enough has been said to show how
the awful presence of a glorious God can be converted into a gloomy
superstition; and, at the same time, how the majesty of the old belief
strives to rescue itself by clinging, in the popular consciousness, to
some king or hero, as Arthur or Waldemar, or, failing that, to some
squire’s family, as Hackelberend, or the “one-handed Boughton”, or even
to the Keeper Herne.

Odin and the Aesir then were dispossessed and degraded by our Saviour
and his Apostles, just as they had of old thrown out the Frost Giants,
and the two are mingled together, in medieval Norse tradition, as
Trolls and Giants, hostile alike to Christianity and man. Christianity
had taken possession indeed, but it was beyond her power to kill. To
this half-result the swift corruption of the Church of Rome lent no
small aid. Her doctrines, as taught by Augustine and Boniface, by
Anschar and Sigfrid, were comparatively mild and pure; but she had
scarce swallowed the heathendom of the North, much in the same way as
the Wolf was to swallow Odin at the “Twilight of the Gods”, than she
fell into a deadly lethargy of faith, which put it out of her power to
digest her meal. Gregory the Seventh, elected pope in 1073, tore the
clergy from the ties of domestic life with a grasp that wounded every
fibre of natural affection, and made it bleed to the very root. With
the celibacy of the clergy he established the hierarchy of the church,
but her labours as a missionary church were over. Henceforth she worked
not by missionaries and apostles, but by crusades and bulls. Now she
raised mighty armaments to recover the barren soil of the Holy
Sepulchre, or to annihilate heretic Albigenses. Now she established
great orders, Templars and Hospitallers, whose pride and luxury, and
pomp, brought swift destruction on one at least of those fraternities.
Now she became feudal,—she owned land instead of hearts, and forgot
that the true patrimony of St Peter was the souls of men. No wonder
that, with the barbarism of the times, she soon fulfilled the Apostle’s
words, “She that liveth in luxury is dead while she liveth”, and became
filled with idle superstitions and vain beliefs. No wonder, then, that
instead of completing her conquest over the heathen, and carrying out
their conversion, she became half heathen herself; that she adopted the
tales and traditions of the old mythology, which she had never been
able to extirpate, and related them of our Lord and his Apostles. No
wonder, then, that having abandoned her mission of being the first
power of intelligence on earth, she fell like Lucifer when the mist of
medieval feudalism rolled away, and the light of learning and education
returned—fell before the indignation of enlightened men, working upon
popular opinion. Since which day, though she has changed her plans, and
remodelled her superstitions to suit the times, she has never regained
the supremacy which, if she had been wise in a true sense, she seemed
destined to hold for ever.




NORSE POPULAR TALES


The preceding observations will have given a sufficient account of the
mythology of the Norsemen, and of the way in which it fell. They came
from the East, and brought that common stock of tradition with them.
Settled in the Scandinavian peninsula, they developed themselves
through Heathenism, Romanism, and Lutheranism, in a locality little
exposed to foreign influence, so that even now the Daleman in Norway or
Sweden may be reckoned among the most primitive examples left of
peasant life. We should expect, then, that these Popular Tales, which,
for the sake of those ignorant in such matters, it may be remarked, had
never been collected or reduced to writing till within the last few
years, would present a faithful picture of the national consciousness,
or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, of that half consciousness out of
which the heart of any people speaks in its abundance. Besides those
world-old affinities and primaeval parallelisms, besides those dreamy
recollections of its old home in the East, which we have already
pointed out, we should expect to find its later history, after the
great migration, still more distinctly reflected; to discover heathen
gods masked in the garb of Christian saints; and thus to see a proof of
our assertion above, that a nation more easily changes the form than
the essence of its faith, and clings with a toughness which endures for
centuries to what it has once learned to believe.

In all mythologies, the trait of all others which most commonly occurs,
is that of the descent of the Gods to earth, where, in human form, they
mix among mortals, and occupy themselves with their affairs, either out
of a spirit of adventure, or to try the hearts of men. Such a
conception is shocking to the Christian notion of the omnipotence and
omnipresence of God, but we question if there be not times when the
most pious and perfect Christian may not find comfort and relief from a
fallacy which was a matter of faith in less enlightened creeds, and
over which the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, throws the sanction of
his authority, so far as angels are concerned.[24] Nor could he have
forgotten those words of the men of Lystra, “The Gods are come down to
us in the likeness of men”; and how they called “Barnabas Jupiter”, and
himself Mercury, “because he was the chief speaker.” Classical
mythology is full of such stories. These wanderings of the Gods are
mentioned in the Odyssey, and the sanctity of the rites of hospitality,
and the dread of turning a stranger from the door, took its origin from
a fear lest the wayfaring man should be a Divinity in disguise.
According to the Greek story, Orion owed his birth to the fact that the
childless Hyrieus, his reputed father, had once received unawares Zeus,
Poseidon, and Hermes, or, to call them by their Latin names, Jupiter,
Neptune, and Mercury. In the beautiful story of Philemon and Baucis,
Jupiter and Mercury reward the aged couple who had so hospitably
received them by warning them of the approaching deluge. The fables of
Phaedrus and Aesop represent Mercury and Demeter as wandering and
enjoying the hospitality of men. In India it is Brahma and Vishnu who
generally wander. In the Edda, Odin, Loki, and Hoenir thus roam about,
or Thor, Thialfi, and Loki. Sometimes Odin appears alone as a horseman,
who turns in at night to the smith’s house, and gets him to shoe his
horse, a legend which reminds us at once of the Master-smith.[25]
Sometimes it is Thor with his great hammer who wanders thus alone.

Now, let us turn from heathen to Christian times, and look at some of
these old legends of wandering gods in a new dress. Throughout the
Middle Age, it is our blessed Lord and St Peter that thus wander, and
here we see that half-digested heathendom to which we have alluded.
Those who may be shocked at such tales in this collection as “the
Master-Smith” and “Gertrude’s Bird”, must just remember that these are
almost purely heathen traditions, in which the names alone are
Christian; and if it be any consolation to any to know the fact, we may
as well state at once that this adaptation of new names to old beliefs
is not peculiar to the Norsemen, but is found in all the popular tales
of Europe. Germany was full of them, and there St Peter often appears
in a snappish ludicrous guise, which reminds the reader versed in Norse
mythology of the tricks and pranks of the shifty Loki. In the Norse
tales he thoroughly preserves his saintly character.

Nor was it only gods that walked among men. In the Norse mythology,
Frigga, Odin’s wife, who knew beforehand all that was to happen, and
Freyja, the goddess of love and plenty, were prominent figures, and
often trod the earth; the three Norns or Fates, who sway the wierds of
men, and spin their destinies at Mimirs’ well of knowledge, were awful
venerable powers, to whom the heathen world looked up with love and
adoration and awe. To that love and adoration and awe, throughout the
middle age, one woman, transfigured into a divine shape, succeeded by a
sort of natural right, and round the Virgin Mary’s blessed head a halo
of lovely tales of divine help, beams with soft radiance as a crown
bequeathed to her by the ancient goddesses. She appears as divine
mother, spinner, and helpful virgin (vierge sécourable). Flowers and
plants bear her name. In England one of our commonest and prettiest
insects is still called after her, but which belonged to Freyja, the
heathen “Lady”, long before the western nations had learned to adore
the name of the mother of Jesus.[26]

The reader of these Tales will meet, in that of “the Lassie and her
Godmother”, No. xxvii, with the Virgin Mary in a truly mythic
character, as the majestic guardian of sun, moon and stars, combined
with that of a helpful, kindly woman, who, while she knows how to
punish a fault, knows also how to reconcile and forgive.

The Norseman’s god was a god of battles, and victory his greatest gift
to men; but this was not the only aspect under which the Great Father
was revered. Not victory in the fight alone, but every other good gift
came down from him and the Aesir. Odin’s supreme will was that
treasure-house of bounty towards which, in one shape or the other, all
mortal desires turned, and out of its abundance showers of mercy and
streams of divine favour constantly poured down to refresh the weary
race of men. All these blessings and mercies, nay, their very source
itself, the ancient language bound up in a single word, which, however
expressive it may still be, has lost much of the fulness of its meaning
in its descent to these later times. This word was “Wish”, which
originally meant the perfect ideal, the actual fruition of all joy and
desire, and not, as now, the empty longing for the object of our
desires. From this original abstract meaning, it was but a step to pass
to the concrete, to personify the idea, to make it an immortal essence,
an attribute of the divinity, another name for the greatest of all Gods
himself. And so we find a host of passages in early writers,[27] in
every one of which “God” or “Odin” might be substituted for “Wish” with
perfect propriety. Here we read how “The Wish” has hands, feet, power,
sight, toil, and art. How he works and labours, shapes and masters,
inclines his ear, thinks, swears, curses, and rejoices, adopts
children, and takes men into his house; behaves, in short, as a being
of boundless power and infinite free-will. Still more, he rejoices in
his own works as in a child, and thus appears in a thoroughly
patriarchal point of view, as the Lord of creation, glorying in his
handiwork, as the father of a family in early times was glad at heart
when he reckoned his children as arrows in his quiver, and beheld his
house full of a long line of retainers and dependants. For this
attribute of the Great Father, for Odin as the God of Wish, the Edda
uses the word “Oski” which literally expresses the masculine
personification of “Wish”, and it passed on and added the _works_ wish,
as a prefix to a number of others, to signify that they stood in a
peculiar relation to the great giver of all good. Thus we have
_oska-steinn_, wishing-stone, i.e. a stone which plays the part of a
divining rod, and reveals secrets and hidden treasure; _oska-byrr_, a
fair wind, a wind as fair as man’s heart could wish it; _osk-barn_ and
_oska-barn_, a child after one’s own heart, an adopted child, as when
the younger Edda tells us that all those who die in battle are Odin’s
_choice-bairns_, his adopted children, those on whom he has set his
heart, an expression which, in their turn, was taken by the Icelandic
Christian writers to express the relation existing between God and the
baptized; and, though last, not least, _oska-maer_, wish-maidens,
another name for the Valkyries—Odin’s corse-choosers—who picked out the
dead for him on the field of battle, and waited on the heroes in
Valhalla. Again, the Edda is filled with “choice things”, possessing
some mysterious power of their own, some “virtue”, as our older English
would express it, which belong to this or that god, and are
occasionally lent or lost. Thus, Odin himself had a spear which gave
victory to those on whose side it was hurled; Thor, a hammer which
destroyed the Giants, hallowed vows, and returned of itself to his
hand. He had a strength-belt, too, which, when he girded it on, his
god-strength waxed one-half; Freyr had a sword which wielded itself;
Freyja a necklace which, like the cestus of Venus, inspired all hearts
with love; Freyr, again, had a ship called _Skithblathnir_.

She is so great, that all the Aesir, with their weapons and war gear,
may find room on board her; and as soon as the sail is set, she has a
fair wind whither she shall go; and when there is no need of faring on
the sea in her, she is made of so many things, and with so much craft,
that Freyr may fold her together like a cloth, and keep her in his
bag.[28]

Of this kind, too, was the ring “Dropper” which Odin had, and from
which twelve other rings dropped every night; the apples which Idun,
one of the goddesses, had, and of which, so soon as the Aesir ate, they
became young again; the helm which Oegir, the sea giant had, which
struck terror into all antagonists like the Aegis of Athene; and that
wonderful mill which the mythical Frodi owned, of which we shall
shortly speak.

Now, let us see what traces of this great god “Wish” and his
choice-bairns and wishing-things we can find in these Tales, faint
echoes of a mighty heathen voice, which once proclaimed the goodness of
the great Father in the blessings which he bestowed on his chosen sons.
We shall not have long to seek. In tale No. xx, when Shortshanks meets
those three old crookbacked hags who have only one eye, which he snaps
up, and gets first a sword “that puts a whole army to flight, be it
ever so great”, we have the “one-eyed Odin”, degenerated into an old
hag, or rather—by no uncommon process—we have an old witch fused by
popular tradition into a mixture of Odin and the three Nornir. Again,
when he gets that wondrous ship “which can sail over fresh water and
salt water, and over high hills and deep dales,” and which is so small
that he can put it into his pocket, and yet, when he came to use it,
could hold five hundred men, we have plainly the Skith-blathnir of the
Edda to the very life. So also in the Best Wish, No. xxxvi, the whole
groundwork of this story rests on this old belief; and when we meet
that pair of old scissors which cuts all manner of fine clothes out of
the air, that tablecloth which covers itself with the best dishes you
could think of, as soon as it was spread out, and that tap which, as
soon as it was turned, poured out the best of mead and wine, we have
plainly another form of Frodi’s wishing-quern—another recollection of
those things of choice about which the old mythology has so much to
tell. Of the same kind are the tablecloth, the ram, and the stick in
“the Lad who went to the North Wind”, No. xxxiv, and the rings in “the
Three Princesses of Whiteland”, No. xxvi, and in “Soria Moria Castle”,
No. lvi. In the first of those stories, too, we find those “three
brothers” who have stood on a moor “these hundred years fighting about
a hat, a cloak, and a pair of boots”, which had the virtue of making
him who wore them invisible; choice things which will again remind the
reader of the _Nibelungen Lied_, of the way in which Siegfried became
possessed of the famous hoard of gold, and how he got that “cap of
darkness” which was so useful to him in his remaining exploits. So
again in “the Blue Belt”, No. xxii, what is that belt which, when the
boy girded it on, “he felt as strong as if he could lift the whole
hill”, but Thor’s “choice-belt”; and what is the daring boy himself,
who overcomes the Troll, but Thor himself, as engaged in one of his
adventures with the Giants? So, too, in “Little Annie the Goose-girl”,
No. lix, the stone which tells the Prince all the secrets of his brides
is plainly the old Oskastein, or “wishing-stone”. These instances will
suffice to show the prolonged faith in “Wish”, and his choice things; a
belief which, though so deeply rooted in the North, we have already
traced to its home in the East, whence it stretches itself from pole to
pole, and reappears in every race. We recognize it in the wishing-cap
of Fortunatus, which is a Celtic legend; in the cornucopia of the
Romans; in the goat Amalthea among the Greeks; in the wishing-cow and
wishing-tree of the Hindoos; in the pumpkin-tree of the West Indian
Ananzi stories; in the cow of the Servian legends, who spins yarn out
of her ear; in the Sampo of the Finns; and in all those stories of
cups, and glasses, and horns, and rings, and swords, seized by some
bold spirit in the midst of a fairy revel, or earned by some kind deed
rendered by mortal hand to one of the “good folk” in her hour of need,
and with which the “_luck_”[29] of that mortal’s house was ever
afterwards bound up; stories with which the local traditions of all
lands are full, but which all pay unconscious homage to the worship of
that great God, to whom so many heathen hearts so often turned as the
divine realizer of their prayers, and the giver of all good things,
until they come at last to make an idol out of their hopes and prayers,
and to immortalize the very “Wish” itself.

Again, of all beliefs, that in which man has, at all times of his
history, been most prone to set faith, is that of a golden age of peace
and plenty, which had passed away, but which might be expected to
return. Such a period was looked for when Augustus closed the temple of
Janus, and peace, though perhaps not plenty, reigned over what the
proud Roman called the habitable world. Such a period the early
Christian expected when the Saviour was born, in the reign of that very
Augustus; and such a period some, whose thoughts are more set on earth
than heaven, have hoped for ever since, with a hope which, though
deferred for eighteen centuries, has not made their hearts sick. Such a
period of peace and plenty, such a golden time, the Norseman could tell
of in his mythic Frodi’s reign, when gold or _Frodi’s meal_, as it was
called, was so plentiful that golden armlets lay untouched from year’s
end to year’s end on the king’s highway, and the fields bore crops
unsown. Here, in England, the Anglo-Saxon Bede[30] knew how to tell the
same story of Edwin, the Northumbrian King, and when Alfred came to be
mythic, the same legend was passed on from Edwin to the West Saxon
monarch. The remembrance of “the bountiful Frodi” echoed in the songs
of German poets long after the story which made him so bountiful had
been forgotten; but the Norse Skalds could tell not only the story of
Frodi’s wealth and bounty, but also of his downfall and ruin. In
Frodi’s house were two maidens of that old giant race, Fenja and Menja.
These daughters of the giant he had bought as slaves, and he made them
grind his quern or hand-mill, Grotti, out of which he used to grind
peace and gold. Even in that golden age one sees there were slaves, and
Frodi, however bountiful to his thanes and people, was a hard
task-master to his giant hand-maidens. He kept them to the mill, nor
gave them longer rest than the cuckoo’s note lasted, or they could sing
a song. But that quern was such that it ground anything that the
grinder chose, though until then it had ground nothing but gold and
peace. So the maidens ground and ground, and one sang their piteous
tale in a strain worthy of Aeschylus as the other worked—they prayed
for rest and pity, but Frodi was deaf. Then they turned in giant mood,
and ground no longer peace and plenty, but fire and war. Then the quern
went fast and furious, and that very night came Mysing the Sea-rover,
and slew Frodi and all his men, and carried off the quern; and so
Frodi’s peace ended. The maidens the sea-rover took with him, and when
he got on the high seas he bade them grind salt. So they ground; and at
midnight they asked if he had not salt enough, but he bade them still
grind on. So they ground till the ship was full and sank, Mysing,
maids, and mill, and all, and that’s why the sea is salt.[31] Perhaps
of all the tales in this volume, none could be selected as better
proving the toughness of a traditional belief than No. ii, which tells
“Why the Sea is Salt”.

The notion of the Arch-enemy of God and man, of a fallen angel, to whom
power was permitted at certain times for an all-wise purpose by the
Great Ruler of the universe, was as foreign to the heathendom of our
ancestors as his name was outlandish and strange to their tongue. This
notion Christianity brought with it from the East; and though it is a
plant which has struck deep roots, grown distorted and awry, and borne
a bitter crop of superstition, it required all the authority of the
Church to prepare the soil at first for its reception. To the notion of
good necessarily follows that of evil. The Eastern mind, with its
Ormuzd and Ahriman, is full of such dualism, and from that hour, when a
more than mortal eye saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven,[32]
the kingdom of darkness, the abode of Satan and his bad spirits, was
established in direct opposition to the kingdom of the Saviour and his
angels. The North had its own notion on this point. Its mythology was
not without its own dark powers; but though they too were ejected and
dispossessed, they, according to that mythology, had rights of their
own. To them belonged all the universe that had not been seized and
reclaimed by the younger race of Odin and Aesir; and though this
upstart dynasty, as the Frost Giants in Promethean phrase would have
called it, well knew that Hel, one of this giant progeny, was fated to
do them all mischief, and to outlive them, they took her and made her
queen of Niflheim, and mistress over nine worlds. There, in a bitterly
cold place, she received the souls of all who died of sickness or old
age; care was her bed, hunger her dish, starvation her knife. Her walls
were high and strong, and her bolts and bars huge; “Half blue was her
skin, and half the colour of human flesh. A goddess easy to know, and
in all things very stern and grim.”[33] But though severe, she was not
an evil spirit. She only received those who died as no Norseman wished
to die. For those who fell on the gory battle-field, or sank beneath
the waves, Valhalla was prepared, and endless mirth and bliss with
Odin. Those went to Hel, who were rather unfortunate than wicked, who
died before they could be killed. But when Christianity came in and
ejected Odin and his crew of false divinities, declaring them to be
lying gods and demons, then Hel fell with the rest; but fulfilling her
fate, outlived them. From a person she became a place, and all the
Northern nations, from the Goth to the Norseman, agreed in believing
Hell to be the abode of the devil and his wicked spirits, the place
prepared from the beginning for the everlasting torments of the damned.
One curious fact connected with this explanation of Hell’s origin will
not escape the reader’s attention. The Christian notion of Hell is that
of a place of heat, for in the East, whence Christianity came, heat is
often an intolerable torment, and cold, on the other hand, everything
that is pleasant and delightful. But to the dweller in the North, heat
brings with it sensations of joy and comfort, and life without fire has
a dreary outlook; so their Hel ruled in a cold region over those who
were cowards by implication, while the mead-cup went round, and huge
logs blazed and crackled in Valhalla, for the brave and beautiful who
had dared to die on the field of battle. But under Christianity the
extremes of heat and cold have met, and Hel, the cold uncomfortable
goddess, is now our Hell, where flames and fire abound, and where the
devils abide in everlasting flame.

Still, popular tradition is tough, and even after centuries of
Christian teaching, the Norse peasant, in his popular tales, can still
tell of Hell as a place where fire-wood is wanted at Christmas, and
over which a certain air of comfort breathes, though, as in the goddess
Hel’s halls, meat is scarce. The following passage from “Why the Sea is
Salt”, No. ii, will sufficiently prove this:

“Well, here is the flitch”, said the rich brother, “and now go straight
to Hell.”

“What I have given my word to do, I must stick to” said the other; so
he took the flitch and set off. He walked the whole day, and at dusk he
came to a place where he saw a very bright light.

“Maybe this is the place” said the man to himself. So he turned aside,
and the first thing he saw was an old, old man, with a long white
beard, who stood in an outhouse, hewing wood for the Christmas fire.

“Good even,” said the man with the flitch.

“The same to you; whither are you going so late?” said the man.

“Oh! I’m going to Hell, if I only knew the right way,” answered the
poor man.

“Well, you’re not far wrong, for this is Hell,” said the old man; “When
you get inside they will be all for buying your flitch, for meat is
scarce in Hell; but mind you don’t sell it unless you get the
hand-quern which stands behind the door for it. When you come out, I’ll
teach you how to handle the quern, for it’s good to grind almost
anything.”

This, too, is the proper place to explain the conclusion of that
intensely heathen tale, “the Master-Smith”, No. xvi. We have already
seen how the Saviour and St Peter supply, in its beginning, the place
of Odin and some other heathen god. But when the Smith sets out with
the feeling that he has done a silly thing in quarrelling with the
Devil, having already lost his hope of heaven, this tale assumes a
still more heathen shape. According to the old notion, those who were
not Odin’s guests went either to Thor’s house, who had all the thralls,
or to Freyja, who even claimed a third part of the slain on every
battle-field with Odin, or to Hel, the cold comfortless goddess already
mentioned, who was still no tormentor, though she ruled over nine
worlds, and though her walls were high, and her bolts and bars huge;
traits which come out in “the Master-Smith”, No. xvi, when the Devil,
who here assumes Hel’s place, orders the watch to go back and lock up
_all the nine locks on the gates of Hell_ —a lock for each of the
goddesses _nine_ worlds—and to put a padlock on besides. In the
twilight between heathendom and Christianity, in that half Christian
half heathen consciousness, which this tale reveals, heaven is the
preferable abode, as Valhalla was of yore, but rather than be without a
house to one’s head after death, Hell was not to be despised; though,
having behaved ill to the ruler of one, and actually quarrelled with
the master of the other, the Smith was naturally anxious on the matter.
This notion of different abodes in another world, not necessarily
places of torment, comes out too in “Not a Pin to choose between them”,
No. xxiv, where Peter, the second husband of the silly Goody, goes
about begging from house to house in Paradise.

For the rest, whenever the Devil appears in these tales, it is not at
all as the Arch-enemy, as the subtle spirit of the Christian’s faith,
but rather as one of the old Giants, supernatural and hostile indeed to
man, but simple and easily deceived by a cunning reprobate, whose
superior intelligence he learns to dread, for whom he feels himself no
match, and whom, finally, he will receive in Hell at no price. We shall
have to notice some other characteristics of this race of giants a
little further on, but certainly no greater proof can be given of the
small hold which the Christian Devil has taken of the Norse mind, than
the heathen aspect under which he constantly appears, and the ludicrous
way in which he is always outwitted.

We have seen how our Lord and the saints succeeded to Odin and his
children in the stories which told of their wanderings on earth, to
warn the wicked, or to help the good; we have seen how the kindliness
and helpfulness of the ancient goddesses fell like a royal mantle round
the form of the Virgin Mary. We have seen, too, on the other hand, how
the procession of the Almighty God degenerated into the infernal
midnight hunt. We have now to see what became of the rest of the power
of the goddesses, of all that might which was not absorbed into the
glory of the blessed Virgin. We shall not have far to seek. No reader
of early medieval chronicles and sermons, can fail to have been struck
with many passages which ascribe majesty and power to beings of woman’s
sex. Now it is a heathen goddess as _Diana_ ; now some half-historical
character as _Bertha_ ; now a mythical being as _Holda_ ; now
_Herodias_ ; now _Satia_ ; now _Domina Abundia_, or _Dame Habonde_.[34]

A very short investigation will serve to identify the two ancient
goddesses Frigga and Freyja with all these leaders of a midnight host.
Just as Odin was banished from day to darkness, so the two great
heathen goddesses, fused into one “uncanny” shape, were supposed to
ride the air at night. Medieval chroniclers, writing in bastard Latin,
and following the example of classical authors, when they had to find a
name for this demon-goddess, chose, of course, _Diana_ the heathen
huntress, the moon-goddess, and the ruler of the night. In the same
way, when they threw Odin’s name into a Latin shape, he, the god of wit
and will, as well as power and victory, became Mercury. As for
Herodias—not the mother, but the daughter who danced—she must have made
a deep impression on the mind of the early Middle Age, for she was
supposed to have been cursed after the beheading of John the Baptist,
and to have gone on dancing for ever. When heathendom fell, she became
confounded with the ancient Goddesses, and thus we find her, sometimes
among the crew of the Wild Huntsman, sometimes, as we see in the
passages below, in company with, or in the place of _Diana, Holda,
Satia_, and _Abundia_, at the head of a bevy of women, who met at
certain places to celebrate unholy rites and mysteries. As for _Holda,
Satia_, and _Abundia_, “the kind”, “the satisfying”, and “the
abundant”, they are plainly names of good rather than evil powers; they
are ancient epithets drawn from the bounty of the “Good Lady”, and
attest the feeling of respect which still clung to them in the popular
mind. As was the case whenever Christianity was brought in, the country
folk, always averse to change, as compared with the more lively and
intelligent dwellers in towns, still remained more or less heathen,[35]
and to this day they preserve unconsciously many superstitions which
can be traced up in lineal descent to their old belief. In many ways
does the old divinity peep out under the new superstition—the long
train, the midnight feast, “the good lady” who presides, the bounty and
abundance which her votaries fancied would follow in her footsteps, all
belong to the ancient Goddess. Most curious of all is the way in which
all these traditions from different countries insist on the third part
of the earth, the third child born, the third soul as belonging to the
“good lady”, who leads the revel; for this right of a third, or even of
a half, was one which Freyja possessed. “But Freyja is most famous of
the Asynjor. She has that bower in heaven hight Fólkvángr, and
“whithersoever she rideth to the battle, there hath she one half of the
slain; but Odin the other half.” Again “when she fares abroad, she
drives two cats and sits in a car, and she lends an easy ear to the
prayers of men.”[36]

We have got then the ancient goddesses identified as evil influences,
and as the leader of a midnight band of women, who practised secret and
unholy rites. This leads us at once to witchcraft. In all ages and in
all races this belief in sorcery has existed. Men and women practised
it alike, but in all times female sorcerers have predominated.[37] This
was natural enough. In those days women were priestesses; they
collected drugs and simples; women alone knew the virtues of plants.
Those soft hands spun linen, made lint, and bound wounds. Women in the
earliest times with which we are acquainted with our forefathers, alone
knew how to read and write, they only could carve the mystic runes,
they only could chant the charms so potent to allay the wounded
warrior’s smart and pain. The men were busy out of doors with
ploughing, hunting, barter, and war. In such an age the sex which
possessed by natural right book-learning, physic, soothsaying, and
incantation, even when they used these mysteries for good purposes,
were but a step from sin. The same soft white hand that bound the wound
and scraped the lint; the same gentle voice that sung the mystic rune,
that helped the child-bearing woman, or drew the arrow-head from the
dying champion’s breast; the same bright eye that gazed up to heaven in
ecstacy through the sacred grove and read the will of the Gods when the
mystic tablets and rune-carved lots were cast—all these, if the will
were bad, if the soothsayer passed into the false prophetess, the leech
into a poisoner, and the priestess into a witch, were as potent and
terrible for ill as they had once been powerful for good. In all the
Indo-European tribes, therefore, women, and especially old women, have
practised witchcraft from the earliest times, and Christianity found
them wherever it advanced. But Christianity, as it placed mankind upon
a higher platform of civilization, increased the evil which it found,
and when it expelled the ancient goddesses, and confounded them as
demons with Diana and Herodias, it added them and their votaries to the
old class of malevolent sorcerers. There was but one step, but a simple
act of the will, between the Norn and the hag, even before Christianity
came in. As soon as it came, down went Goddess, Valkyrie, Norn,
priestess, and soothsayer, into that unholy deep where the heathen hags
and witches had their being; and, as Christianity gathered strength,
developed its dogmas, and worked out its faith; fancy, tradition,
leechcraft, poverty, and idleness, produced that unhappy class, the
medieval witch, the persecution of which is one of the darkest pages in
religious history.

It is curious indeed to trace the belief in witches through the Middle
Age, and to mark how it increases in intensity and absurdity. At first,
as we have seen in the passages quoted, the superstition seemed
comparatively harmless, and though the witches themselves may have
believed in their unholy power, there were not wanting divines who took
a common-sense view of the matter, and put the absurdity of their
pretensions to a practical proof. Such was that good parish priest who
asked, when an old woman of his flock insisted that she had been in his
house with the company of “the Good Lady”, and had seen him naked and
covered him up, “How, then, did you get in when all the doors were
locked?” “We can get in,” she said, “even if the doors are locked.”
Then the priest took her into the chancel of the church, locked the
door, and gave her a sound thrashing with the pastoral staff, calling
out “Out with you, lady witch.” But as she could not, he sent her home,
saying “See now how foolish you are to believe in such empty
dreams”.[38] But as the Church increased in strength, as heresies
arose, and consequent persecution, then the secret meetings of these
sectarians, as we should now call them, were identified by the
hierarchy with the rites of sorcery and magic, and with the relics of
the worship of the old gods. By the time, too, that the hierarchy was
established, that belief in the fallen angel, the Arch-Fiend, the
Devil, originally so foreign to the nations of the West, had become
thoroughly ingrafted on the popular mind, and a new element of
wickedness and superstition was introduced at those unholy festivals.
About the middle of the thirteenth century, we find the mania for
persecuting heretics invading the tribes of Teutonic race from France
and Italy, backed by all the power of the Pope. Like jealousy,
persecution too often makes the meat it feeds on, and many silly, if
not harmless, superstitions were rapidly put under the ban of the
Church. Now the “Good Lady” and her train begin to recede, they only
fill up the background while the Prince of Darkness steps, dark and
terrible, in front, and soon draws after him the following of the
ancient goddess. Now we hear stories of demoniac possession; now the
witches adore a demon of the other sex. With the male element, and its
harsher, sterner nature, the sinfulness of these unholy assemblies is
infinitely increased; folly becomes guilt, and guilt crime.[39]

From the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the seventeenth
century the history of Europe teems with processes against witches and
sorcerers. Before the Reformation it reached its height, in the
Catholic world, with the famous bull of Innocent the Eighth in 1484,
the infamous _Malleus Maleficarum_, the first of the long list of
witch-finding books, and the zeal with which the State lent all the
terrors of the law to assist the ecclesiastical inquisitors. Before the
tribunals of those inquisitors, in the fifteenth century, innumerable
victims were arraigned on the double charge of heresy and sorcery—for
the crimes ran in couples, both being children and sworn servants of
the Devil. Would that the historian could say that with the era of the
Reformation these abominations ceased. The Roman Hierarchy, with her
bulls and inquisitors, had sown a bitter crop, which both she and the
Protestant Churches were destined to reap; but in no part of the world
were the labourers more eager and willing, when the fields were “black”
to harvest, than in those very reformed communities which had just
shaken off the yoke of Rome, and which had sprung in many cases from
the very heretics whom she had persecuted and burnt, accusing them at
the same time, of the most malignant sorceries.[40] Their excuse is,
that no one is before his age. The intense personality given to the
Devil in the Middle Age had possessed the whole mind of Europe. We must
take them as we find them, with their bright fancy, their earnest
faith, their stern fanaticism, their revolting superstition, just as
when we look upon a picture we know that those brilliant hues and
tones, that spirit which informs the whole, could never be, were it not
for the vulgar earths and oil out of which the glorious work of art is
mixed and made. Strangely monotonous are all the witch trials of which
Europe has so many to show. At first the accused denies, then under
torture she confesses, then relapses and denies; tortured again she
confesses again, amplifies her story, and accuses others. When given to
the stake, she not seldom asserts all her confessions to be false,
which is ascribed to the power which the fiend still has over her. Then
she is burnt and her ashes given to the winds. Those who wish to read
one unexampled, perhaps for barbarity and superstition, and more
curious than the rest from the prominence given in it to a man, may
find it in the trial of Dr. Fian, the Scotch wizard, “which doctor was
register to the Devil, that sundry times preached at North Baricke
(North Berwick, in East Lothian) Kirke, to a number of notorious
witches.”[41] But we advise no one to venture on a perusal of this
tract who is not prepared to meet with the most unutterable accusations
and crimes, the most cruel tortures, and the most absurd confessions,
followed as usual by the stoutest denial of all that had been
confessed; when torture had done her worst on poor human nature, and
the soul re-asserted at the last her supremacy over the body.[42] One
characteristic of all these witch trials, is the fact, that in spite of
their unholy connection and intrigues with the Evil One, no witch ever
attained to wealth and station by the aid of the Prince of Darkness.
The pleasure to do ill, is all the pleasure they feel. This fact alone
might have opened the eyes of their persecutors, for if the Devil had
the worldly power which they represented him to have, he might at least
have raised some of his votaries to temporal rank, and to the pomps and
the vanities of this world. An old German proverb expresses this
notorious fact, by saying, that “every seven years, a witch is three
halfpence richer”; and so with all the unholy means of Hell at their
command, they dragged out their lives, along with their black cats, in
poverty and wretchedness. To this fate at last, came the worshippers of
the great goddess Freyja, whom our forefathers adored as the goddess of
love and plenty; and whose car was drawn by those animals which popular
superstition has ever since assigned to the “old witch” of our English
villages.

The North was not free, any more than the rest of the Protestant world,
from this direful superstition, which ran over Europe like a pestilence
in the sixteenth century. In Sweden especially, the witches and their
midnight ridings to _Blokulla_, the black hill, gave occasion to
processes as absurd and abominable as the trial of Dr. Fian and the
witch-findings of Hopkins. In Denmark, the sorceresses were supposed to
meet at Tromsoe high up in Finmark, or even on Heckla in Iceland. The
Norse witches met at a Blokolle of their own, or on the Dovrefell, or
at other places in Norway or Finmark. As might be expected, we find
many traces of witchcraft in these Tales, but it may be doubted whether
these may not be referred rather to the old heathen belief in such arts
still lingering in the popular mind than to the processes of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which were far more a craze and
mania of the educated classes acting under a mistaken religious
fanaticism against popular superstitions than a movement arising from
the mass of the community. Still, in “the Mastermaid”, No. xi, the
witch of a sister-in-law, who had rolled the apple over to the Prince,
and so charmed him, was torn to pieces between twenty-four horses. The
old queen in “The Lassie and her Godmother”, No. xxvii, tries to
persuade her son to have the young queen burnt alive for a wicked
witch, who was dumb, and had eaten her own babes. In “East o’ the Sun
and West o’ the Moon”, No. iv, it is a wicked stepmother who has
bewitched the prince. In “Bushy Bride”, No. xlv, the ugly bride charms
the king to sleep, and is at last thrown, with her wicked mother, into
a pit full of snakes. In the “Twelve Wild Ducks”, No. viii, the wicked
stepmother persuades the king that Snow-white and Rosy-red is a witch,
and almost persuades him to burn her alive. In “Tatterhood”, No. xlvii,
a whole troop of witches come to keep their revels on Christmas eve in
the Queen’s Palace, and snap off the young Princess’s head. It is hard,
indeed, in tales where Trolls play so great a part, to keep witch and
Troll separate; but the above instances will show that the belief in
the one, as distinct from the other, exists in the popular
superstitions of the North.

The frequent transformation of men into beasts, in these tales, is
another striking feature. This power the gods of the Norseman possessed
in common with those of all other mythologies. Europa and her Bull,
Leda and her Swan, will occur at once to the reader’s mind; and to come
to closer resemblances, just as Athene appears in the Odyssey as an
eagle or a swallow perched on the roof of the hall,[43] so Odin flies
off as a falcon, and Loki takes the form of a horse or bird. This was
only part of that omnipotence which all gods enjoy. But the belief that
men, under certain conditions, could also take the shape of animals, is
primaeval, and the traditions of every race can tell of such
transformations. Herodotus had heard how the Neurians, a Slavonic race,
passed for wizards amongst the Scythians and the Greeks settled round
the Black Sea, because each of them, once in the year, became a wolf
for a few days, and then returned to his natural shape. Pliny,
Pomponius Mela, and St. Augustin, in his great treatise, _De Civitate
Dei_, tell the same story, and Virgil, in his Eclogues, has sung the
same belief.[44] The Latins called such a man, a
_turnskin—versipellis_, an expression which exactly agrees with the
Icelandic expression for the same thing, and which is probably the true
original of our _turncoat_. In Petronius the superstition appears in
its full shape, and is worth repeating. At the banquet of Trimalchion,
Nicoros gives the following account of the turn-skins of Nero’s time:

“It happened that my master was gone to Capua to dispose of some
second-hand goods. I took the opportunity and persuaded our guest to
walk with me to the fifth milestone. He was a valiant soldier, and a
sort of grim water-drinking Pluto. About cock-crow, when the moon was
shining as bright as mid-day, we came among the monuments. My friend
began addressing himself to the stars, but I was rather in a mood to
sing or to count them; and when I turned to look at him, lo! he had
already stripped himself and laid down his clothes near him. My heart
was in my nostrils, and I stood like a dead man; but he “_circumminxit
vestimenta_”, and on a sudden became a wolf. Do not think I jest; I
would not lie for any man’s estate. But to return to what I was saying.
When he became a wolf, he began howling, and fled into the woods. At
first I hardly knew where I was, and afterwards, when I went to take up
his clothes, they were turned into stone. Who then died with fear but
I? Yet I drew my sword, and went cutting the air right and left, till I
reached the villa of my sweetheart. I entered the court-yard. I almost
breathed my last, the sweat ran down my neck, my eyes were dim, and I
thought I should never recover myself. My Melissa wondered why I was
out so late, and said to me: “Had you come sooner you might at least
have helped us, for a wolf has entered the farm, and worried all our
cattle; but he had not the best of the joke, for all he escaped, for
our slave ran a lance through his neck.” When I heard this, I could not
doubt how it was, and, as it was clear daylight, ran home as fast as a
robbed innkeeper. When I came to the spot where the clothes had been
turned into stone, I could find nothing except blood. But when I got
home, I found my friend the soldier in bed, bleeding at the neck like
an ox, and a doctor dressing his wound. I then knew he was a turn-skin,
nor would I ever have broke bread with him again; No, not if you had
killed me.”[45]

A man who had such a gift or greed was also called lycanthropus, a
man-wolf or wolf-man, which term the Anglo-Saxons translated literally
in Canute’s Laws _verevulf_, and the early English _werewolf_. In old
French he was _loupgarou_, which means the same thing; except that
_garou_ means man-wolf in itself without the antecedent _loup_, so
that, as Madden observes, the whole word is one of those reduplications
of which we have an example in _lukewarm_. In Brittany he was
_bleizgarou_ and _denvleiz_, formed respectively from _bleiz_, wolf,
and _den_, man; _garou_ is merely a distorted form of _wer_ or _vere_,
man and _loup_. In later French the word became _waroul_, whence the
Scotch _wrout_, _wurl_, and _worlin_.[46]

It was not likely that a belief so widely spread should not have
extended itself to the North; and the grave assertions of Olaus Magnus
in the sixteenth century, in his Treatise _De Gentibus
Septentrionalibus_, show how common the belief in were-wolves was in
Sweden so late as the time of Gustavus Vasa. In mythical times the
_Volsunga Saga_[47] expressly states of Sigmund and Sinfjötli that they
became were-wolves—which, we may remark, were Odin’s sacred beasts—just
in the same way as Brynhildr and the Valkyries, or corse-choosers, who
followed the god of battles to the field, and chose the dead for
Valhalla when the fight was done, became swan-maidens, and took the
shape of swans. In either case, the wolf’s skin or the swan’s feathery
covering was assumed and laid aside at pleasure, though the _Völundr
Quidr_, in the _Edda_, and the stories of “The Fair Melusina”, and
other medieval swan-maidens, show that any one who seized that shape
while thus laid aside, had power over its wearer. In later times, when
this old heroic belief degenerated into the notion of sorcery, it was
supposed that a girdle of wolfskin thrown over the body, or even a slap
on the face with a wolfskin glove, would transform the person upon whom
the sorcerer practised into the shape of a ravening wolf, which fled at
once to the woods, where he remained in that shape for a period which
varied in popular belief for nine days, three, seven, or nine years.
While in this state he was especially ravenous after young children,
whom he carried off as the were-wolf carried off William in the old
romance, though all were-wolves did not treat their prey with the same
tenderness as that were-wolf treated William.

But the favourite beast for Norse transformations in historic times, if
we may judge from the evidence afforded by the Sagas, was the bear, the
king of all their beasts, whose strength and sagacity made him an
object of great respect.[48]

This old belief, then, might be expected to be found in these Norse
Tales, and accordingly we find men transformed in them into various
beasts. Of old these transformations, as we have already stated, were
active, if we may use the expression, as well as passive. A man who
possessed the gift, frequently assumed the shape of a beast at his own
will and pleasure, like the soldier in Petronius. Even now in Norway,
it is matter of popular belief that Finns and Lapps, who from time
immemorial have passed for the most skilful witches and wizards in the
world, can at will assume the shape of bears; and it is a common thing
to say of one of those beasts, when he gets unusually savage and
daring, “that can be no Christian bear”. On such a bear, in the parish
of Oföden, after he had worried to death more than sixty horses and six
men, it is said that a girdle of bearskin, the infallible mark of a man
thus transformed, was found when he was at last tracked and slain. The
tale called “Farmer Weathersky”, No. xli in this collection, shows that
the belief of these spontaneous transformations still exists in popular
tradition, where it is easy to see that Farmer Weathersky is only one
of the ancient gods degraded into a demon’s shape. His sudden departure
through the air, horse, sledge, and lad, and all, and his answer “I’m
at home, alike north, and south, and east, and west”; his name itself,
and his distant abode, surrounded with the corpses of the slain,
sufficiently betray the divinity in disguise. His transformation, too,
into a hawk answers exactly to that of Odin when he flew away from the
Frost Giant in the shape of that bird. But in these tales such
transformations are for the most part passive; they occur not at the
will of the person transformed, but through sorcery practised on them
by some one else. Thus the White Bear in the beautiful story of “East
o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon”, No. iv, is a Prince transformed by
his stepmother, just as it is the stepmother who plays the same part in
the romance of William and the Were-wolf. So the horse in “the Widow’s
Son”, No. xliv, is a Prince over whom a king has cast that shape.[49]
So also in “Lord Peter”, No. xlii, which is the full story of what we
have only hitherto known in part as “Puss in Boots”, the cat is a
princess bewitched by the Troll who had robbed her of her lands; so
also in “The Seven Foals”, No. xliii, and “The Twelve Wild Ducks”, No.
viii, the Foals and the Ducks are Princes over whom that fate has come
by the power of a witch or a Troll, to whom an unwary promise had been
given. Thoroughly mythic is the trait in “The Twelve Wild Ducks”, where
the youngest brother reappears with a wild duck’s wing instead of his
left arm, because his sister had no time to finish that portion of the
shirt, upon the completion of which his retransformation depended.

But we should ill understand the spirit of the Norsemen, if we supposed
that these transformations into beasts were all that the national heart
has to tell of beasts and their doings, or that, when they appear, they
do so merely as men-beasts, without any power or virtue of their own.
From the earliest times, side by side with those productions of the
human mind which speak of the dealings of men with men, there has grown
up a stock of traditions about animals and their relations with one
another, which forms a true Beast Epic, and is full of the liveliest
traits of nature. Here, too, it was reserved for Grimm to restore these
traditions to their true place in the history of the human mind, and
show that the poetry which treats of them is neither satirical nor
didactic, though it may contain touches of both these artificial kinds
of composition, but, on the contrary, purely and intensely natural. It
is Epic, in short, springing out of that deep love of nature and close
observation of the habits of animals which is only possible in an early
and simple stage of society. It used to be the fashion, when these
Beast traditions were noticed, to point to Aesop as their original, but
Grimm has sufficiently proved[50] that what we see in Aesop is only the
remains of a great world-old cycle of such traditions which had
already, in Aesop’s day, been subjected by the Greek mind to that
critical process which a late state of society brings to bear on
popular traditions; that they were then already worn and washed out and
moralized. He had also shown how the same process went on till in
Phaedrus nothing but the dry bones of the traditions, with a drier
moral, are served up to the reader; and he has done justice on La
Fontaine, who wrote with all the wanton licentiousness of his day, and
frittered away the whole nature of his fables by the frivolity of his
allusions to the artificial society of his time. Nor has he spared
Lessing, who, though he saw through the poverty of Phaedrus as compared
with Aesop, and was alive to the weakness of La Fontaine, still
wandered about in the classical mist which hung heavy over the learning
of the eighteenth century, and saw in the Greek form the perfection of
all fable, when in Aesop it really appears in a state of degeneracy and
decay. Here too, as in so many other things, we have a proof that the
world is older than we think it. The Beast-Fables in the _Pantcha
Tantra_ and the _Hitopadesa_, the Indian parallels to Aesop, reveal, in
the connection in which they occur, and in the moral use to which they
are put, a state of society long past that simple early time in which
such fictions arise. They must have sprung up in the East in the very
dawn of time; and thence travelling in all directions, we find them
after many centuries in various shapes, which admit of no mistake as to
their first origin, at the very ends of the earth, in countries as
opposite as the Poles to each other; in New Zealand and Norway, in
Central Africa and Servia, in the West Indies and in Mongolia; all
separated by immense tracts of land or sea from their common centre. To
the earnest inquirer, to one who believes that many dark things may yet
be solved, it is very satisfactory to see that even Grimm, in his
_Reynard the Fox_, is at a loss to understand why the North, properly
so called, had none of the traditions which the Middle Age moulded into
that famous Beast-Epic. But since then the North, as the Great Master
himself confesses in his later works, has amply avenged herself for the
slight thus cast upon her by mistake. In the year 1834, when Grimm thus
expressed his surprise on this point, the North had no such traditions
to show in books indeed, but she kept them stored up in her heart in an
abundance with which no other land perhaps can vie. This book at least
shows how natural it seems to the Norse mind now, and how much more
natural of course it seemed in earlier times, when sense went for as
much and reflection for so little, that beasts should talk; and how
truly and faithfully it has listened and looked for the accents and
character of each. The Bear is still the King of Beasts, in which
character he appears in “True and Untrue”, No. i, but here, as in
Germany, he is no match for the Fox in wit. Thus Reynard plays him a
trick which condemns him for ever to a stumpy tail in No. xxiii. He
cheats him out of his share of a firkin of butter in No. lvii. He is
preferred as Herdsman, in No. x, before either Bear or Wolf, by the old
wife who wants some one to tend her flock. Yet all the while he
professes immense respect for the Bear, and calls him “Lord”, even when
in the very act of outwitting him. In the tale called “Well Done and
Ill Paid”, No. xxxviii, the crafty fox puts a finish to his
misbehaviour to his “Lord Bruin”, by handing him over, bound hand and
foot, to the peasant, and by causing his death outright. Here, too, we
have an example, which we shall see repeated in the case of the giants,
that strength and stature are not always wise, and that wit and wisdom
never fail to carry the day against mere brute force. Another tale,
however, restores the bear to his true place as the king of beasts,
endowed not only with strength, but with something divine and terrible
about him which the Trolls cannot withstand. This is “The Cat on the
Dovrefell”, No. xii. In connection with which, it should be remembered
that the same tradition existed in the thirteenth century in
Germany,[51] that the bear is called familiarly grandfather in the
North, and that the Lapps reckon him rather as akin to men than beasts;
that they say he has the strength of ten and the wit of twelve men. If
they slay him, they formally beg his pardon, as do also the Ostjaks, a
tribe akin to the Lapps, and bring him to their huts with great
formalities and mystic songs. To the Wolf, whose nickname is
“Graylegs”,[52] these tales are more complimentary. He is not the
spiteful, stupid, greedy Isengrim of Germany and France. Not that
Isengrim, of whom old English fables of the thirteenth century tell us
that he became a monk, but when the brethren wished to teach him his
letters that he might learn the paternoster, all they could get out of
him was _lamb, lamb_ ; nor could they ever get him to look to the
cross, for his eyes, with his thoughts, “were ever to the
woodward”.[53] He appears, on the contrary, in “The Giant who had no
Heart in his body”, No. ix, as a kindly grateful beast, who repays
tenfold out of the hidden store of his supernatural sagacity the gift
of the old jade, which Boots had made over to him.

The horse was a sacred animal among the Teutonic tribes from the first
moment of their appearance in history, and Tacitus[54] has related, how
in the shade of those woods and groves which served them for temples,
white horses were fed at the public cost, whose backs no mortal man
crossed, whose neighings and snortings were carefully watched as
auguries and omens, and who were thought to be conscious of divine
mysteries. In Persia, too, the classical reader will remember how the
neighing of a horse decided the choice for the crown. Here, in England,
at any rate, we have only to think of Hengist and Horsa, the
twin-heroes of the Anglo-Saxon migration, as the legend ran—heroes
whose name meant “horse”—and of the vale of the White Horse in Berks.,
where the sacred form still gleams along the down, to be reminded of
the sacredness of the horse to our forefathers. The Eddas are filled
with the names of famous horses, and the Sagas contain many stories of
good steeds, in whom their owners trusted and believed as sacred to
this or that particular god. Such a horse is Dapplegrim in No. xl, of
these tales, who saves his master out of all his perils, and brings him
to all fortune, and is another example of that mysterious connection
with the higher powers which animals in all ages have been supposed to
possess.

Such a friend, too, to the helpless lassie is the Dun Bull in “Katie
Woodencloak”, No. 1, out of whose ear comes the “Wishing Cloth”, which
serves up the choicest dishes. The story is probably imperfect, as we
should expect to see him again in human shape after his head was cut
off, and his skin flayed; but, after being the chief character up to
that point, he remains from that time forth in the background, and we
only see him darkly in the man who comes out of the face of the rock
and supplies the lassie’s wants when she knocks on it. Dun, or blue, or
mouse-colour, is the favourite colour for fairy kine. Thus the cow
which Guy of Warwick killed was _dun_. The _Huldror_ in Norway have
large flocks of blue kine. In Scotland runs the story of the
mouse-coloured Elfin Bull. In Iceland the colour of such kine is
_apalgrár_, dapple grey. This animal has been an object of adoration
and respect from the earliest times, and we need only remind our
readers of the sanctity of cows and bulls among the Indians and
Egyptians, of “the Golden Calf” in the Bible; of Io and her wanderings
from land to land; and, though last, not least, of Audhumla, the Mythic
Cow in the Edda, who had so large a part in the creation of the first
Giant in human form.[55]

The dog, to which, with all his sagacity and faithfulness something
unclean and impure clings, as Grimm well observes, plays no very
prominent part in these Tales.[56] We find him, however, in “Not a Pin
to choose between them”, No. xxiv, where his sagacity fails to detect
his mistress; and, as “the foe of his own house”, the half-bred foxy
hound, who chases away the cunning Fox in “Well Done and Ill Paid”, No.
xxxviii. Still he, too, in popular superstition, is gifted with a sense
of the supernatural; he howls when death impends, and in “Buttercup”,
No. xviii, it is Goldtooth, their dog, who warns Buttercup and his
mother of the approach of the old hag. In “Bushy Bride”, No. xlv, he
appears only as the lassie’s lap-dog, is thrown away as one of her
sacrifices, and at last goes to the wedding in her coach; yet in that
tale he has something weird about him, and he is sent out by his
mistress three times to see if the dawn is coming.

In one Tale, No. xxxvii, the Goat appears in full force, and dashes out
the brains of the Troll, who lived under the bridge over the burn. In
another, “Tatterhood”, No. xlviii, he helps the lassie in her onslaught
on the witches. He, too, was sacred to Thor in the old mythology, and
drew his thundering car. Here something of the divine nature of his
former lord, who was the great foe of all Trolls, seems to have been
passed on in popular tradition to the animal who had seen so many
adventures with the great God who swayed the thunder. This feud between
the Goat and the Trolls comes out curiously in “The Old Dame and her
Hen”, No. iii, where a goat falls down the trapdoor to the Troll’s
house, “Who sent for you, I should like to know, you long-bearded
beast” said the Man o’ the Hill, who was in an awful rage; and with
that he whipped up the Goat, wrung his head off, and threw him down
into the cellar. Still he belonged to one of the heathen gods, and so
in later Middle-Age superstition he is assigned to the Devil, who even
takes his shape when he presides at the Witches’ Sabbath.

Nor in this list must the little birds be forgotten which taught the
man’s daughter, in the tale of “The Two Stepsisters”, No. xvii, how to
act in her trials. So, too, in “Katie Woodencloak”, No. l, the little
bird tells the Prince, “who understood the song of birds very well,”
that blood is gushing out of the golden shoe. The belief that some
persons had the gift of understanding what the birds said, is
primaeval. We pay homage to it in our proverbial expression, “a little
bird told me”. Popular traditions and rhymes protect their nests, as in
the case of the wren, the robin, and the swallow. Occasionally this
gift seems to have been acquired by eating or tasting the flesh of a
snake or dragon, as Sigurd, in the Volsung tale, first became aware of
Regin’s designs against his life, when he accidentally tasted the
heart-blood of Fafnir, whom he had slain in dragon shape, and then all
at once the swallow’s song, perched above him, became as intelligible
as human speech.

We now come to a class of beings which plays a large part, and always
for ill, in these Tales. These are the Giants or Trolls. In modern
Norse tradition there is little difference between the names, but
originally Troll was a more general expression for a supernatural being
than Giant,[57] which was rather confined to a race more dull than
wicked. In the Giants we have the wantonness of boundless bodily
strength and size, which, trusting entirely to these qualities, falls
at last by its own weight. At first, it is true that proverbial wisdom,
all the stores of traditional lore, all that could be learnt by what
may be called rule of thumb, was ascribed to them. One sympathises too
with them, and almost pities them as the representatives of a simple
primitive race, whose day is past and gone, but who still possessed
something of the innocence and virtue of ancient times, together with a
stock of old experience, which, however useful it might be as an
example to others, was quite useless to help themselves. They are the
old Tories of mythology, as opposed to the Aesir, the advanced
liberals. They can look back and say what has been, but to look forward
to say what will be and shall be, and to mould the future, is beyond
their ken. True as gold to the traditional and received, and worthless
as dross for the new and progressive. Such a nature, when unprovoked,
is easy and simple; but rouse it, and its exuberant strength rises in a
paroxysm of rage, though its clumsy awkward blows, guided by mere
cunning, fail to strike the slight and lissom foe who waits for and
eludes the stroke, until his reason gives him the mastery over sheer
brute force which has wearied itself out by its own exertions.[58]

This race, and that of the upstart Aesir, though almost always at feud,
still had their intervals of common intercourse, and even social
enjoyment. Marriages take place between them, visits are paid, feasts
are given, ale is breached, and mirth is fast and furious. Thor was the
worst foe the giants ever had, and yet he met them sometimes on good
terms. They were destined to meet once for all on that awful day, “the
twilight of the gods”, but till then, they entertained for each other
some sense of mutual respect.

The Trolls, on the other hand, with whom mankind had more to do, were
supposed to be less easy tempered, and more systematically malignant,
than the Giants, and with the term were bound up notions of sorcery and
unholy power. But mythology is a woof of many colours, in which the
hues are shot and blended, so that the various races of supernatural
beings are shaded off, and fade away almost imperceptibly into each
other; and thus, even in heathen times, it must have been hard to say
exactly where the Giant ended and the Troll began. But when
Christianity came in, and heathendom fell; when the godlike race of the
Aesir became evil demons instead of good genial powers, then all the
objects of the old popular belief, whether Aesir, Giants, or Trolls,
were mingled together in one superstition, as “no canny”. They were all
Trolls, all malignant; and thus it is that, in these tales, the
traditions about Odin and his underlings, about the Frost Giants, and
about sorcerers and wizards, are confused and garbled; and all
supernatural agency that plots man’s ill is the work of Trolls, whether
the agent be the arch enemy himself, or giant, or witch, or wizard.

In tales such as “The Old Dame and her Hen”, No. iii, “The Giant who
had no Heart in his Body”, No. ix, “Shortshanks”, No. xx, “Boots and
the Troll”, No. xxxii, “Boots who ate a match with the Troll”, No. v,
the easy temper of the old Frost Giants predominates, and we almost
pity them as we read. In another, “The Big Bird Dan”, No. lv, we have a
Troll Prince, who appears as a generous benefactor to the young Prince,
and lends him a sword by help of which he slays the King of the Trolls,
just as we sometimes find in the Edda friendly meetings between the
Aesir and this or the Frost Giant. In “Tatterhood”, No. xlviii, the
Trolls are very near akin to the witches of the Middle Age. In other
tales, as “The Mastermaid”, No. xi, “The Blue Belt”, No. xxii, “Farmer
Weathersky”, No. xli, a sort of settled malignity against man appears
as the direct working and result of a bad and evil spirit. In
“Buttercup”, No. xviii, and “The Cat on the Dovrefell”, we have the
Troll proper,—the supernatural dwellers of the woods and hills, who go
to church, and eat men, and porridge, and sausages indifferently, not
from malignity, but because they know no better, because it is their
nature, and because they have always done so. In one point they all
agree—in their place of abode. The wild pine forest that clothes the
spurs of the fells, but more than all, the interior recesses of the
rocky fell itself, is where the Trolls live. Thither they carry off the
children of men, and to them belongs all the untold riches of the
mineral world. There, in caves and clefts in the steep face of the
rock, sits the Troll, as the representative of the old giants, among
heaps of gold and silver and precious things. They stride off into the
dark forest by day, whither no rays of the sun can pierce; they return
home at nightfall, feast themselves full, and snore out the night. One
thing was fatal to them—the sight of the sun. If they looked him full
in the face, his glory was too great for them, and they burst, as in
“Lord Peter”, No. xlii, and in “The Old Dame and her Hen”, No. iii.
This, too, is a deeply mythic trait. The old religion of the North was
a bright and lively faith; it lived in the light of joy and gladness;
its gods were the “blithe powers”; opposed to them were the dark powers
of mist and gloom, who could not bear the glorious face of the Sun, of
Baldr’s beaming visage, or the bright flash of Thor’s levin bolt.

In one aspect, the whole race of Giants and Trolls stands out in strong
historical light. There can be little doubt that, in their continued
existence amongst the woods, and rocks, and hills, we have a memory of
the gradual suppression and extinction of some hostile race, who
gradually retired into the natural fastnesses of the land, and speedily
became mythic. Nor, if we bear in mind their natural position, and
remember how constantly the infamy of sorcery has clung to the Finns
and Lapps, shall we have far to go to seek this ancient race, even at
the present day. Between this outcast nomad race, which wandered from
forest to forest, and from fell to fell, without a fixed place of
abode, and the old natural powers and Frost Giants, the minds of the
race which adored Odin and the Aesir soon engendered a monstrous
man-eating cross-breed of supernatural beings, who fled from contact
with the intruders as soon as the first great struggle was over,
abhorred the light of day, and looked upon agriculture and tillage as a
dangerous innovation which destroyed their hunting fields, and was
destined finally to root them out from off the face of the earth. This
fact appears in countless stories all over the globe, for man is true
to himself in all climes, and the savage in Africa or across the Rocky
Mountains, dreads tillage and detests the plough as much as any Lapp or
Samoyed. “See what pretty playthings, mother!” cries the Giants’
daughter as she unties her apron, and shows her a plough, and horses,
and peasants. “Back with them this instant”, cries the mother in wrath,
“and put them down as carefully as you can, for these playthings can do
our race great harm, and when these come we must budge.” “What sort of
an earthworm is this?” said one Giant to another, when they met a man
as they walked. “These are the earthworms that will one day eat us up,
brother,” answered the other; and soon both Giants left that part of
Germany. Nor does this trait appear less strongly in these Norse Tales.
The Giants or Trolls can neither brew nor wash properly, as we see in
Shortshanks, No. xx, where the Ogre has to get Shortshanks to brew his
ale for him; and in “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon”, No. iv,
where none of the Trolls are able to wash out the spot of tallow. So
also in the “Two Step-sisters”, No. xvii, the old witch is forced to
get human maids to do her household-work; and, lastly, the best example
of all, in “Lord Peter”, No. xlii, where agriculture is plainly a
secret of mankind, which the Giants were eager to learn, but which was
a branch of knowledge beyond their power to attain.

“Stop a bit”, said the Cat, “and I’ll tell you how the farmer sets to
work to get in his winter rye.”

And so she told him such a long story about the winter rye.

“First of all, you see, he ploughs the field, and then he dungs it, and
then he ploughs it again, and then he harrows it,” and so she went on
till the sun rose.

Before we leave these gigantic natural powers, let us linger a moment
to point out how heartily the Winds are sketched in these Tales as four
brothers; of whom, of course, the North wind is the oldest, and
strongest, and roughest. But though rough in form and tongue, he is a
genial, kind-hearted fellow after all. He carries the lassie to the
castle, “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon”, whither none of his
brothers had strength to blow. All he asks is that she won’t be afraid,
and then he takes a good rest, and puffs himself up with as much breath
as ever he can hold, begins to blow a storm, and off they go. So, too,
in “The Lad who went to the North Wind”, No. xxxiv, though he can’t
restore the meal he carried off, he gives the lad three things which
make his fortune, and amply repay him. He, too, like the Grecian
Boreas, is divine, and lineally descended from Hraesvelgr, that great
giant in the Edda, who sits “at the end of the world in eagle’s shape,
and when he flaps his wings, all the winds come that blow upon men.”

Enough surely has now been said to shew that the old religion and
mythology of the Norseman still lives disguised in these popular tales.
Besides this internal evidence, we find here and there, in the written
literature of earlier days, hints that the same stories were even then
current, and current then as now, among the lower classes. Thus, in
_King Sverri’s Saga_ we read: “And so it was just like what is said to
have happened in old stories of what the king’s children suffered from
their stepmother’s ill-will.” And again, in _Olof Tryggvason’s Saga_ by
the monk Odd: “And better is it to hear such things with mirth than
stepmother’s stories which shepherds tell, where no one can tell
whether anything is true, and where the king is always made the least
in their narrative.” But, in truth, no such positive evidence is
needed. Any one who has read the Volsung tale as we have given it, will
be at no loss to see where the “little birds” who speak to the Prince
and the lassie, in these tales, come from; nor when they read in the
“Big Bird Dan”, No. lv, about “the naked sword” which the Princess lays
by her side every night, will they fail to recognize Sigurd’s sword
_Gram_, which he laid between himself and Brynhildr when he rode
through the flame and won her for Gunnar. These mythical deep-rooted
groves, throwing out fresh shoots from age to age in the popular
literature of the race, are far more convincing proofs of the early
existence of these traditions than any mere external evidence”.[59]




CONCLUSION


We have now only to consider the men and women of these Tales, and then
our task is done. It will be sooner done, because they may be left to
speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own words and
actions. The tales of all races have a character and manner of their
own. Among the Hindoos the straight stem of the story is overhung with
a network of imagery which reminds one of the parasitic growth of a
tropical forest. Among the Arabs the tale is more elegant, pointed with
a moral, and adorned with tropes and episodes. Among the Italians it is
bright, light, dazzling, and swift. Among the French we have passed
from the woods, and fields, and hills, to my lady’s _boudoir_—rose-pink
is the prevailing colour, and the air is loaded with patchouli and
_mille fleurs_. We miss the song of birds, the modest odour of
wild-flowers, and the balmy fragrance of the pine forest. The Swedes
are more stiff, and their style is more like that of a chronicle than a
tale. The Germans are simple, hearty, and rather comic than humorous;
and M. Moe[60] has well said, that as we read them it is as if we sat
and listened to some elderly woman of the middle class, who recites
them with a clear, full, deep voice. In Scotland the few that have been
collected by Mr Robert Chambers[61] are as good in tone and keeping as
anything of the kind in the whole range of such popular
collections.[62] The wonderful likeness which is shown between such
tales as the “Red Bull of Norway” in Mr Chambers’ collection, and Katie
Woodencloak in these Norse Tales, is to be accounted for by no theory
of the importation of this or that particular tale in later times from
Norway, but by the fact that the Lowland Scots, among whom these tales
were told, were lineal descendants of Norsemen, who had either seized
the country in the Viking times, or had been driven into it across the
Border after the Norman Conquest.

These Norse Tales we may characterize as bold, out-spoken, and
humorous, in the true sense of humour. In the midst of every difficulty
and danger arises that old Norse feeling of making the best of
everything, and keeping a good face to the foe. The language and tone
are perhaps rather lower than in some other collections, but it must be
remembered that these are the tales of “hempen homespuns”, of Norse
yeomen, of _Norske Bonder_, who call a spade a spade, and who burn
tallow, not wax; and yet in no collection of tales is the general tone
so chaste, are the great principles of morality better worked out, and
right and wrong kept so steadily in sight. The general view of human
nature is good and kindly. The happiness of married life was never more
prettily told than in “Gudbrand on the Hillside”, No. xxi, where the
tenderness of the wife for her husband weighs down all other
considerations; and we all agree with M. Moe that it would be well if
there were many wives like Gudbrand’s. The balance too, is very evenly
kept between the sexes; for if any wife should point with indignation
at such a tale as “Not a Pin to choose between them”, No. xxiv, where
wives suffer; she will be amply avenged when she reads “The Husband who
was to mind the House”, No. xxxix, where the husband has decidedly the
worst of the bargain, and is punished as he deserves.

Of particular characters, one occurs repeatedly. This is that which we
have ventured, for want of a better word, to call “Boots”, from that
widely-spread tradition in English families, that the youngest brother
is bound to do all the hard work his brothers set him, and which has
also dignified him with the term here used. In Norse he is called
“_Askefis_”, or “_Espen Askefjis_”. By M. Moe he is called
“_Askepot_”,[63] a word which the Danes got from Germany, and which the
readers of Grimm’s Tales will see at once is own brother to
_Aschenpüttel_. The meaning of the word is “one who pokes about the
ashes and blows up the fire”; one who does dirty work in short; and in
Norway, according to M. Moe, the term is almost universally applied to
the youngest son of the family. He is Cinderella’s brother in fact; and
just as she had all the dirty work put upon her by her sisters, he
meets with the same fate from his brothers. He is generally the
youngest of three, whose names are often Peter and Paul, as in No.
xlii, and who despise, cry down, and mock him. But he has in him that
deep strength of character and natural power upon which the good powers
always smile. He is the man whom Heaven helps, because he can help
himself; and so, after his brothers try and fail, he alone can watch in
the barn, and tame the steed, and ride up the glass hill, and gain the
Princess and half the kingdom. The Norse “Boots” shares these qualities
in common with the “Pinkel” of the Swedes, and the _Dummling_ of the
Germans, as well as with our “Jack the Giant Killer”, but he starts
lower than these—he starts from the dust-bin and the coal-hole. There
he sits idle whilst all work; there he lies with that deep irony of
conscious power, which knows its time must one day come, and meantime
can afford to wait. When that time comes, he girds himself to the feat,
amidst the scoffs and scorn of his flesh and blood; but even then,
after he has done some great deed, he conceals it, returns to his
ashes, and again sits idly by the kitchen-fire, dirty, lazy, and
despised, until the time for final recognition comes, and then his dirt
and rags fall off—he stands out in all the majesty of his royal robes,
and is acknowledged once for all, a king. In this way does the
consciousness of a nation, and the mirror of its thought, reflect the
image and personification of a great moral truth, that modesty,
endurance, and ability will sooner or later reap their reward, however
much they maybe degraded, scoffed at, and despised by the proud, the
worthless, and the overbearing.[64]

As a general rule, the women are less strongly marked than the men; for
these tales, as is well said, are uttered “with a manly mouth”;[65] and
none of the female characters, except perhaps “The Mastermaid”, and
“Tatterhood”, can compare in strength with “The Master-Smith”, “The
Master-Thief,” “Shortshanks” or “Boots”. Still the true womanly type
comes out in full play in such tales as “The Two Step-Sisters”, No.
xvii; “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon”, No. iv; “Bushy Bride”,
No. xlv, and “The Twelve Wild Ducks”, No. viii. In all these the lassie
is bright, and good, and helpful; she forgets herself in her eagerness
to help others. When she goes down the well after the unequal match
against her step-sister in spinning bristles against flax; she steps
tenderly over the hedge, milks the cow, shears the sheep, relieves the
boughs of the apple-tree—all out of the natural goodness of her heart.
When she is sent to fetch water from the well, she washes and brushes,
and even kisses, the loathsome head; she believes what her enemies say,
even to her own wrong and injury; she sacrifices all that she holds
most dear, and at last even herself, because she is made to believe
that it is her brother’s wish. And so on her, too, the good powers
smile. She can understand and profit by what the little birds say; she
knows how to choose the right casket. And at last, after many trials,
all at once the scene changes, and she receives a glorious reward,
while the wicked stepmother and her ugly daughter meet with a just
fate. Nor is another female character less tenderly drawn in Hacon
Grizzlebeard, No. vi, where we see the proud, haughty princess subdued
and tamed by natural affection into a faithful, loving wife. We
sympathise with her more than with the “Patient Grizzel” of the poets,
who is in reality too good, for her story has no relief; while in Hacon
Grizzlebeard we begin by being angry at the princess’s pride; we are
glad at the retribution which overtakes her, but we are gradually
melted at her sufferings and hardships when she gives up all for the
Beggar and follows him; we burst into tears with her when she exclaims
“Oh! the Beggar, and the babe, and the cabin!”—and we rejoice with her
when the Prince says “Here is the Beggar, and there is the babe, and so
let the cabin burn away.”

Nor is it unprofitable here to remark how the professions fare when
they appear in these tales. The Church cannot be said to be treated
with respect, for “Father Lawrence” is ludicrously deceived and
scurvily treated by the Master-Thief, No. xxxv; nor does the priest
come off any better in Goosey Grizzel, No. xxxiii, where he is thrown
by the Farmer into the wet moss. Indeed, it seems as if the popular
mind were determined to revenge itself when left to itself, for the
superstition of Rome on the one hand, and the severity of strict
Lutheranism on the other. It has little to say of either of them, but
when it does speak, its accents are not those of reverence and love.
The Law, too, as represented by those awful personages the Constable,
the Attorney, and the Sheriff in “The Mastermaid”, No. xi, is held up
to ridicule, and treated with anything but tenderness. But there is one
profession for which a good word is said, a single word, but enough to
show the feeling of the people. In the “Twelve Wild Ducks” No. viii,
the king is “as soft and kind” to Snow-white and Rosy-red “as a
doctor”—a doctor, alas! not of laws, but of medicine; and thus this
profession, so often despised, but in reality the noblest, has homage
paid to it in that single sentence, which neither the Church with all
its dignity, nor the Law with all its cunning, have been able to extort
from the popular mind. Yet even this profession has a hard word uttered
against it in “Katie Woodencloak”, No. l, where the doctor takes a
great fee from the wicked queen to say she will never be well unless
she has some of the Dun Bull’s flesh to eat.

And now it is time to bring this introduction to an end, lest it should
play the Wolf’s part to Odin, and swallow up the Tales themselves.
Enough has been said, at least, to prove that even nursery tales may
have a science of their own, and to show how the old Nornir and divine
spinners can revenge themselves if their old wives’ tales are insulted
and attacked. The inquiry itself might be almost indefinitely
prolonged, for this is a journey where each turn of the road brings out
a new point of view, and the longer we linger on our path, the longer
we find something fresh to see. Popular mythology is a virgin mine, and
its ore, so far from being exhausted or worked out, has here, in
England at least, been scarcely touched. It may, indeed, be dreaded
lest the time for collecting such English traditions is not past and
gone; whether the steam-engine and printing-press have not played their
great work of enlightenment too well; and whether the popular tales, of
which, no doubt, the land was once full, have not faded away before
those great inventions, as the race of Giants waned before the might of
Odin and the Aesir. Still the example of this very Norway, which at one
time was thought, even by her own sons, to have few tales of her own,
and now has been found to have them so fresh and full, may serve as a
warning not to abandon a search, which, indeed, can scarcely be said to
have been ever begun; and to suggest a doubt whether the ill success
which may have attended this or that particular attempt, may not have
been from the fault rather of the seekers after traditions, than from
the want of the traditions themselves. In point of fact, it is a matter
of the utmost difficulty to gather such tales in any country, as those
who have collected them most successfully will be the first to confess.
It is hard to make old and feeble women, who generally are the
depositaries of these national treasures, believe that the inquirer can
have any real interest in the matter. They fear that the question is
only put to turn them into ridicule; for the popular mind is a
sensitive plant; it becomes coy, and closes its leaves at the first
rude touch; and when once shut, it is hard to make these aged lips
reveal the secrets of the memory. There they remain, however, forming
part of an under-current of tradition, of which the educated classes,
through whose minds flows the bright upper-current of faith, are apt to
forget the very existence. Things out of sight, and therefore out of
mind. Now and then a wave of chance tosses them to the surface from
those hidden depths, and all Her Majesty’s inspectors of schools are
shocked at the wild shapes which still haunt the minds of the great
mass of the community. It cannot be said that the English are not a
superstitious people. Here we have gone on for more than a hundred
years proclaiming our opinion that the belief in witches, and wizards,
and ghosts, and fetches, was extinct throughout the land. Ministers of
all denominations have preached them down, and philosophers convinced
all the world of the absurdity of such vain superstitions; and yet it
has been reserved for another learned profession, the Law, to produce
in one trial at the Staffordshire assizes, a year or two ago, such a
host of witnesses, who firmly believed in witchcraft, and swore to
their belief in spectre dogs and wizards, as to show that, in the
Midland counties at least, such traditions are anything but extinct. If
so much of the bad has been spared by steam, by natural philosophy, and
by the Church, let us hope that some of the good may still linger along
with it, and that an English Grimm may yet arise who may carry out what
Mr. Chambers has so well begun in Scotland, and discover in the mouth
of an Anglo-Saxon Gammer Grethel, some, at least, of those popular
tales which England once had in common with all the Aryan race.

For these Norse Tales one may say that nothing can equal the tenderness
and skill with which MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe have collected them. Some
of that tenderness and beauty may, it is hoped, be found in this
English translation; but to those who have never been in the country
where they are current, and who are not familiar with that hearty
simple people, no words can tell the freshness and truth of the
originals. It is not that the idioms of the two languages are
different, for they are more nearly allied, both in vocabulary and
construction, than any other two tongues, but it is the face of nature
herself, and the character of the race that looks up to her, that fail
to the mind’s eye. The West Coast of Scotland is something like that
nature in a general way, except that it is infinitely smaller and less
grand; but that constant, bright blue sky, those deeply-indented,
sinuous, gleaming friths, those headstrong rivers and headlong falls,
those steep hillsides, those long ridges of fells, those peaks and
needles rising sharp above them, those hanging glaciers and wreaths of
everlasting snow, those towering endless pine forests, relieved by
slender stems of silver birch, those green spots in the midst of the
forest, those winding dales and upland lakes, those various shapes of
birds and beasts, the mighty crashing elk, the fleet reindeer, the
fearless bear, the nimble lynx, the shy wolf, those eagles and swans,
and seabirds, those many tones and notes of Nature’s voice making
distant music through the twilight summer night, those brilliant,
flashing, northern lights when days grow short, those dazzling,
blinding storms of autumn snow, that cheerful winter frost and cold,
that joy of sledging over the smooth ice, when the sharp-shod horse
careers at full speed with the light sledge, or rushes down the steep
pitches over the crackling snow through the green spruce wood—all these
form a Nature of their own. These particular features belong in their
fulness and combination to no other land. When in the midst of all this
natural scenery, we find an honest manly race, not the race of the
towns and cities, but of the dales and fells, free and unsubdued,
holding its own in a country where there are neither lords nor ladies,
but simple men and women. Brave men and fair women, who cling to the
traditions of their forefathers, and whose memory reflects as from the
faithful mirror of their native steel the whole history and progress of
their race—when all these natural features, and such a manly race meet;
then we have the stuff out of which these tales are made, the living
rocks out of which these sharp-cut national forms are hewn. Then, too,
our task of introducing them is over, we may lay aside our pen, and
leave the reader and the tales to themselves.




TALES FROM THE NORSE




TRUE AND UNTRUE


Once on a time there were two brothers; one was called True, and the
other Untrue. True was always upright and good towards all, but Untrue
was bad and full of lies, so that no one could believe what he said.
Their mother was a widow, and hadn’t much to live on; so when her sons
had grown up, she was forced to send them away, that they might earn
their bread in the world. Each got a little scrip with some food in it,
and then they went their way.

Now, when they had walked till evening, they sat down on a windfall in
the wood, and took out their scraps, for they were hungry after walking
the whole day, and thought a morsel of food would be sweet enough.

“If you’re of my mind”, said Untrue, “I think we had better eat out of
your scrip, so long as there is anything in it, and after that we can
take to mine.”

Yes! True was well pleased with this, so they fell to eating, but
Untrue got all the best bits, and stuffed himself with them, while True
got only the burnt crusts and scraps.

Next morning they broke their fast off True’s food, and they dined off
it too, and then there was nothing left in his scrip. So when they had
walked till late at night, and were ready to eats again, True wanted to
eat out of his brother’s scrip, but Untrue said “No”, the food was his,
and he had only enough for himself.

“Nay! but you know you ate out of my scrip so long as there was
anything in it”, said True.

“All very fine, I daresay”, answered Untrue; “but if you are such a
fool as to let others eat up your food before your face, you must make
the best of it; for now all you have to do is to sit here and starve.”

“Very well!” said True, “you’re Untrue by name and untrue by nature; so
you have been, and so you will be all your life long.”

Now when Untrue heard this, he flew into a rage, and rushed at his
brother, and plucked out both his eyes. “Now, try if you can see
whether folk are untrue or not, you blind buzzard!” and so saying, he
ran away and left him.

Poor True! there he went walking along and feeling his way through the
thick wood. Blind and alone, he scarce knew which way to turn, when all
at once he caught hold of the trunk of a great bushy lime-tree, so he
thought he would climb up into it, and sit there till the night was
over for fear of the wild beasts.

“When the birds begin to sing”, he said to himself, “then I shall know
it is day, and I can try to grope my way farther on.” So he climbed up
into the lime-tree. After he had sat there a little time, he heard how
some one came and began to make a stir and clatter under the tree, and
soon after others came; and when they began to greet one another, he
found out it was Bruin the bear, and Greylegs the wolf, and Slyboots
the fox, and Longears the hare who had come to keep St. John’s eve
under the tree. So they began to eat and drink, and be merry; and when
they had done eating, they fell to gossipping together. At last the Fox
said:

“Shan’t we, each of us, tell a little story while we sit here?” Well!
the others had nothing against that. It would be good fun, they said,
and the Bear began; for you may fancy he was king of the company.

“The king of England”, said Bruin, “has such bad eyesight, he can
scarce see a yard before him; but if he only came to this lime-tree in
the morning, while the dew is still on the leaves, and took and rubbed
his eyes with the dew, he would get back his sight as good as ever.”

“Very true!” said Greylegs. “The king of England has a deaf and dumb
daughter too; but if he only knew what I know, he would soon cure her.
Last year she went to the communion. She let a crumb of the bread fall
out of her mouth, and a great toad came and swallowed it down; but if
they only dug up the chancel floor, they would find the toad sitting
right under the altar rails, with the bread still sticking in his
throat. If they were to cut the toad open and take and give the bread
to the princess, she would be like other folk again as to her speech
and hearing.”

“That’s all very well”, said the Fox; “but if the king of England knew
what I know, he would not be so badly off for water in his palace; for
under the great stone, in his palace-yard, is a spring of the clearest
water one could wish for, if he only knew to dig for it there.”

“Ah!” said the Hare in a small voice; “the king of England has the
finest orchard in the whole land, but it does not bear so much as a
crab, for there lies a heavy gold chain in three turns round the
orchard. If he got that dug up, there would not be a garden like it for
bearing in all his kingdom.”

“Very true, I dare say”, said the Fox; “but now it’s getting very late,
and we may as well go home.”

So they all went away together.

After they were gone, True fell asleep as he sat up in the tree; but
when the birds began to sing at dawn, he woke up, and took the dew from
the leaves, and rubbed his eyes with it, and so got his sight back as
good as it was before Untrue plucked his eyes out.

Then he went straight to the king of England’s palace, and begged for
work, and got it on the spot. So one day the king came out into the
palace-yard, and when he had walked about a bit, he wanted to drink out
of his pump; for you must know the day was hot, and the king very
thirsty; but when they poured him out a glass, it was so muddy, and
nasty, and foul, that the king got quite vexed.

“I don’t think there’s ever a man in my whole kingdom who has such bad
water in his yard as I, and yet I bring it in pipes from far, over hill
and dale”, cried out the king. “Like enough, your Majesty”, said True;
“but if you would let me have some men to help me to dig up this great
stone which lies here in the middle of your yard, you would soon see
good water, and plenty of it.”

Well! the king was willing enough; and they had scarcely got the stone
well out, and dug under it a while, before a jet of water sprang out
high up into the air, as clear and full as if it came out of a conduit,
and clearer water was not to be found in all England.

A little while after the king was out in his palace-yard again, and
there came a great hawk flying after his chicken, and all the king’s
men began to clap their hands and bawl out, “There he flies!” “There he
flies!” The king caught up his gun and tried to shoot the hawk, but he
couldn’t see so far, so he fell into great grief.

“Would to Heaven”, he said, “there was any one who could tell me a cure
for my eyes; for I think I shall soon go quite blind!”

“I can tell you one soon enough”, said True; and then he told the king
what he had done to cure his own eyes, and the king set off that very
afternoon to the lime-tree, as you may fancy, and his eyes were quite
cured as soon as he rubbed them with the dew which was on the leaves in
the morning. From that time forth there was no one whom the king held
so dear as True, and he had to be with him wherever he went, both at
home and abroad.

So one day, as they were walking together in the orchard, the king
said, “I can’t tell how it is _that_ I can’t! there isn’t a, man in
England who spends so much on his orchard as I, and yet I can’t get one
of the trees to bear so much as a crab.”

“Well! well!” said True; “if I may have what lies three times twisted
round your orchard, and men to dig it up, your orchard will bear well
enough.”

Yes! the king was quite willing, so True got men and began to dig, and
at last he dug up the whole gold chain. Now True was a rich man; far
richer indeed than the king himself, but still the king was well
pleased, for his orchard bore so that the boughs of the trees hung down
to the ground, and such sweet apples and pears nobody had ever tasted.

Another day too the king and True were walking about, and talking
together, when the princess passed them, and the king was quite
downcast when he saw her.

“Isn’t it a pity, now, that so lovely a princess as mine should want
speech and hearing”, he said to True.

“Ay, but there is a cure for that”, said True.

When the king heard that, he was so glad that he promised him the
princess to wife, and half his kingdom into the bargain, if he could
get her right again. So True took a few men, and went into the church,
and dug up the toad which sat under the altar-rails. Then he cut open
the toad, and took out the bread and gave it to the king’s daughter;
and from that hour she got back her speech, and could talk like other
people.

Now True was to have the princess, and they got ready for the bridal
feast, and such a feast had never been seen before; it was the talk of
the whole land. Just as they were in the midst of dancing the
bridal-dance in came a beggar lad, and begged for a morsel of food, and
he was so ragged and wretched that every one crossed themselves when
they looked at him; but True knew him at once, and saw that it was
Untrue, his brother.

“Do you know me again?” said True.

“Oh! where should such a one as I ever have seen so great a lord”, said
Untrue.

“Still you _have_ seen me before”, said True. “It was I whose eyes you
plucked out a year ago this very day. Untrue by name, and untrue by
nature; so I said before, and so I say now; but you are still my
brother, and so you shall have some food. After that, you may go to the
lime-tree where I sat last year; if you hear anything that can do you
good, you will be lucky.”

So Untrue did not wait to be told twice. “If True has got so much good
by sitting in the lime-tree, that in one year he has come to be king
over half England, what good may not I get”, he thought. So he set off
and climbed up into the lime-tree. He had not sat there long, before
all the beasts came as before, and ate and drank, and kept St. John’s
eve under the tree. When they had left off eating, the Fox wished that
they should begin to tell stories, and Untrue got ready to listen with
all his might, till his ears were almost fit to fall off. But Bruin the
bear was surly, and growled and said:

“Some one has been chattering about what we said last year, and so now
we will hold our tongues about what we know”; and with that the beasts
bade one another “Good-night”, and parted, and Untrue was just as wise
as he was before, and the reason was, that his name was Untrue, and his
nature untrue too.




WHY THE SEA IS SALT


Once on a time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two
brothers, one rich and one poor. Now, one Christmas eve, the poor one
hadn’t so much as a crumb in the house, either of meat or bread, so he
went to his brother to ask him for something to keep Christmas with, in
God’s name. It was not the first time his brother had been forced to
help him, and you may fancy he wasn’t very glad to see his face, but he
said:

“If you will do what I ask you to do, I’ll give you a whole flitch of
bacon.”

So the poor brother said he would do anything, and was full of thanks.

“Well, here is the flitch”, said the rich brother, “and now go straight
to Hell.”

“What I have given my word to do, I must stick to”, said the other; so
he took the flitch and set off. He walked the whole day, and at dusk he
came to a place where he saw a very bright light.

“Maybe this is the place”, said the man to himself. So he turned aside,
and the first thing he saw was an old, old man, with a long white
beard, who stood in an outhouse, hewing wood for the Christmas fire.

“Good even”, said the man with the flitch.

“The same to you; whither are you going so late?” said the man.

“Oh! I’m going to Hell, if I only knew the right way”, answered the
poor man.

“Well, you’re not far wrong, for this is Hell”, said the old man; “when
you get inside they will be all for buying your flitch, for meat is
scarce in Hell; but mind, you don’t sell it unless you get the
hand-quern which stands behind the door for it. When you come out, I’ll
teach you how to handle the quern, for it’s good to grind almost
anything.”

So the man with the flitch thanked the other for his good advice, and
gave a great knock at the Devil’s door.

When he got in, everything went just as the old man had said. All the
devils, great and small, came swarming up to him like ants round an
anthill, and each tried to outbid the other for the flitch.

“Well!” said the man, “by rights my old dame and I ought to have this
flitch for our Christmas dinner; but since you have all set your hearts
on it, I suppose I must give it up to you; but if I sell it at all,
I’ll have for it that quern behind the door yonder.”

At first the Devil wouldn’t hear of such a bargain, and chaffered and
haggled with the man; but he stuck to what he said, and at last the
Devil had to part with his quern. When the man got out into the yard,
he asked the old woodcutter how he was to handle the quern; and after
he had learned how to use it, he thanked the old man and went off home
as fast as he could, but still the clock had struck twelve on Christmas
eve before he reached his own door.

“Wherever in the world have you been?” said his old dame, “here have I
sat hour after hour waiting and watching, without so much as two sticks
to lay together under the Christmas brose.”

“Oh!” said the man, “I couldn’t get back before, for I had to go a long
way first for one thing, and then for another; but now you shall see
what you shall see.”

So he put the quern on the table, and bade it first of all grind
lights, then a table-cloth, then meat, then ale, and so on till they
had got everything that was nice for Christmas fare. He had only to
speak the word, and the quern ground out what he wanted. The old dame
stood by blessing her stars, and kept on asking where he had got this
wonderful quern, but he wouldn’t tell her.

“It’s all one where I got it from; you see the quern is a good one, and
the mill-stream never freezes, that’s enough.”

So he ground meat and drink and dainties enough to last out till
Twelfth Day, and on the third day he asked all his friends and kin to
his house, and gave a great feast. Now, when his rich brother saw all
that was on the table, and all that was behind in the larder, he grew
quite spiteful and wild, for he couldn’t bear that his brother should
have anything.

“’Twas only on Christmas eve”, he said to the rest, “he was in such
straits, that he came and asked for a morsel of food in God’s name, and
now he gives a feast as if he were count or king”; and he turned to his
brother and said:

“But whence, in Hell’s name, have you got all this wealth?”

“From behind the door”, answered the owner of the quern, for he didn’t
care to let the cat out of the bag. But later on the evening, when he
had got a drop too much, he could keep his secret no longer, and
brought out the quern and said:

“There, you see what has gotten me all this wealth”; and so he made the
quern grind all kind of things. When his brother saw it, he set his
heart on having the quern, and, after a deal of coaxing, he got it; but
he had to pay three hundred dollars for it, and his brother bargained
to keep it till hay-harvest, for he thought, if I keep it till then, I
can make it grind meat and drink that will last for years. So you may
fancy the quern didn’t grow rusty for want of work, and when
hay-harvest came, the rich brother got it, but the other took care not
to teach him how to handle it.

It was evening when the rich brother got the quern home, and next
morning he told his wife to go out into the hay-field and toss, while
the mowers cut the grass, and he would stay at home and get the dinner
ready. So, when dinner-time drew near, he put the quern on the kitchen
table and said:

“Grind herrings and broth, and grind them good and fast.”

So the quern began to grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the
dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor
was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to get
it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went on
grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the man was
like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the
parlour, but it wasn’t long before the quern had ground the parlour
full too, and it was only at the risk of his life that the man could
get hold of the latch of the house door through the stream of broth.
When he got the door open, he ran out and set off down the road, with
the stream of herrings and broth at his heels, roaring like a waterfall
over the whole farm. Now, his old dame, who was in the field tossing
hay, thought it a long time to dinner, and at last she said:

“Well! though the master doesn’t call us home, we may as well go. Maybe
he finds it hard work to boil the broth, and will be glad of my help.”

The men were willing enough, so they sauntered homewards; but just as
they had got a little way up the hill, what should they meet but
herrings, and broth, and bread, all running and dashing, and splashing
together in a stream, and the master himself running before them for
his life, and as he passed them he bawled out:

“Would to heaven each of you had a hundred throats! but take care
you’re not drowned in the broth.”

Away he went, as though the Evil One were at his heels, to his
brother’s house, and begged him for God’s sake to take back the quern
that instant; for, said he:

“If it grinds only one hour more, the whole parish will be swallowed up
by herrings and broth.”

But his brother wouldn’t hear of taking it back till the other paid him
down three hundred dollars more.

So the poor brother got both the money and the quern, and it wasn’t
long before he set up a farm-house far finer than the one in which his
brother lived, and with the quern he ground so much gold that he
covered it with plates of gold; and as the farm lay by the sea-side,
the golden house gleamed and glistened far away over the sea. All who
sailed by put ashore to see the rich man in the golden house, and to
see the wonderful quern, the fame of which spread far and wide, till
there was nobody who hadn’t heard tell of it.

So one day there came a skipper who wanted to see the quern; and the
first thing he asked was if it could grind salt.

“Grind salt!” said the owner; “I should just think it could. It can
grind anything.”

When the skipper heard that, he said he must have the quern, cost what
it would; for if he only had it, he thought he should be rid of his
long voyages across stormy seas for a lading of salt. Well, at first
the man wouldn’t hear of parting with the quern; but the skipper begged
and prayed so hard, that at last he let him have it, but he had to pay
many, many thousand dollars for it. Now, when the skipper had got the
quern on his back, he soon made off with it, for he was afraid lest the
man should change his mind; so he had no time to ask how to handle the
quern, but got on board his ship as fast as he could, and set sail.
When he had sailed a good way off, he brought the quern on deck and
said:

“Grind salt, and grind both good and fast.”

Well, the quern began to grind salt so that it poured out like water;
and when the skipper had got the ship full, he wished to stop the
quern, but whichever way he turned it, and however much he tried, it
was no good; the quern kept grinding on, and the heap of salt grew
higher and higher, and at last down sank the ship.

There lies the quern at the bottom of the sea, and grinds away at this
very day, and that’s why the sea is salt.




THE OLD DAME AND HER HEN


Once on a time there was an old widow who lived far away from the rest
of the world, up under a hillside, with her three daughters. She was so
poor that she had no stock but one single hen, which she prized as the
apple of her eye; in short, it was always cackling at her heels, and
she was always running to look after it. Well! one day, all at once,
the hen was missing. The old wife went out, and round and round the
cottage, looking and calling for her hen, but it was gone, and there
was no getting it back.

So the woman said to her eldest daughter, “You must just go out and see
if you can find our hen, for have it back we must, even if we have to
fetch it out of the hill.”

Well! the daughter was ready enough to go, so she set off and walked up
and down, and looked and called, but no hen could she find. But all at
once, just as she was about to give up the hunt, she heard some one
calling out in a cleft in the rock:

Your hen trips inside the hill!
Your hen trips inside the hill!


So she went into the cleft to see what it was, but she had scarce set
her foot inside the cleft, before she fell through a trap-door, deep,
deep down, into a vault under ground. When she got to the bottom she
went through many rooms, each finer than the other; but in the
innermost room of all, a great ugly man of the hill-folk came up to her
and asked, “Will you be my sweetheart?”

“No! I will not”, she said. She wouldn’t have him at any price! not
she; all she wanted was to get above ground again as fast as ever she
could, and to look after her hen which was lost. Then the Man o’ the
Hill got so angry that he took her up and wrung her head off, and threw
both head and trunk down into the cellar.

While this was going on, her mother sat at home waiting and waiting,
but no daughter came. So after she had waited a bit longer, and neither
heard nor saw anything of her daughter, she said to her midmost
daughter, that she must go out and see after her sister, and she added:

“You can just give our hen a call at the same time.”

Well! the second sister had to get off, and the very same thing befell
her; she went about looking and calling, and all at once she too heard
a voice away in the cleft of the rock saying:

Your hen trips inside the hill!
Your hen trips inside the hill!


She thought this strange, and went to see what it could be; and so she
too fell through the trap-door, deep, deep down, into the vault. There
she went from room to room, and in the innermost one the Man o’ the
Hill came to her and asked if she would be his sweetheart? No! that she
wouldn’t; all she wanted was to get above ground again, and hunt for
her hen which was lost. So the Man o’ the Hill got angry, and took her
up and wrung her head off, and threw both head and trunk down into the
cellar.

Now, when the old dame had sat and waited seven lengths and seven
breadths for her second daughter, and could neither see nor hear
anything of her, she said to the youngest:

“Now, you really must set off and see after your sisters. ’Twas silly
to lose the hen, but ’twill be sillier still if we lose both your
sisters; and you can give the hen a call at the same time”—for the old
dame’s heart was still set on her hen.

Yes! the youngest was ready enough to go; so she walked up and down,
Wanting for her sisters and calling the hen, but she could neither see
nor hear anything of them. So at last she too came up to the cleft in
the rock, and heard how something said:

Your hen trips inside the hill!
Your hen trips inside the hill!


She thought this strange, so she too went to see what it was, and fell
through the trap-door too, deep, deep down, into a vault. When she
reached the bottom she went from one room to another, each grander than
the other; but she wasn’t at all afraid, and took good time to look
about her. So, as she was peeping into this and that, she cast her eye
on the trap-door into the cellar, and looked down it, and what should
she see there but her sisters, who lay dead. She had scarce time to
slam to the trap-door before the Man o’ the Hill came to her and asked:

“Will you be my sweetheart?”

“With all my heart”, answered the girl, for she saw very well how it
had gone with her sisters. So, when the Man o’ the Hill heard that, he
got her the finest clothes in the world; she had only to ask for them,
or for anything else she had a mind to, and she got what she wanted, so
glad was the Man o’ the Hill that any one would be his sweetheart.

But when she had been there a little while, she was one day even more
doleful and downcast than was her wont. So the Man o’ the Hill asked
her what was the matter, and why she was in such dumps.

“Ah!” said the girl, “it’s because I can’t get home to my mother. She’s
hard pinched, I know, for meat and drink, and has no one with her.”

“Well!” said the Man o’ the Hill, “I can’t let you go to see her; but
just stuff some meat and drink into a sack, and I’ll carry it to her.”

Yes! she would do so, she said, with many thanks; but at the bottom of
the sack she stuffed a lot of gold and silver, and afterwards she laid
a little food on the top of the gold and silver. Then she told the ogre
the sack was ready, but he must be sure not to look into it. So he gave
his word he wouldn’t, and set off. Now, as the Man o’ the Hill walked
off, she peeped out after him through a chink in the trap-door; but
when he had gone a bit on the way, he said:

“This sack is so heavy, I’ll just see what there is inside it.”

And so he was about to untie the mouth of the sack, but the girl called
out to him:

I see what you’re at!
I see what you’re at!


“The deuce you do!” said the Man o’ the Hill; “then you must have
plaguy sharp eyes in your head, that’s all!”

So he threw the sack over his shoulder, and dared not try to look into
it again. When he reached the widow’s cottage, he threw the sack in
through the cottage door, and said:

“Here you have meat and drink from your daughter; she doesn’t want for
anything.”

So, when the girl had been in the hill a good bit longer, one day a
billy-goat fell down the trap-door.

“Who sent for you, I should like to know? you long-bearded beast!” said
the Man o’ the Hill, who was in an awful rage, and with that he whipped
up the goat, and wrung his head off, and threw him down into the
cellar.

“Oh!” said the girl, “why did you do that? I might have had the goat to
play with down here.”

“Well!” said the Man o’ the Hill, “you needn’t be so down in the mouth
about it, I should think, for I can soon put life into the billy-goat
again.”

So saying, he took a flask which hung up against the wall, put the
billy-goat’s head on his body again, and smeared it with some ointment
out of the flask, and he was as well and as lively as ever again.

“Ho! ho!” said the girl to herself; “that flask is worth something—that
it is.”

So when she had been some time longer in the hill, she watched for a
day when the Man o’ the Hill was away, took her eldest sister, and
putting her head on her shoulders, smeared her with some of the
ointment out of the flask, just as she had seen the Man o’ the Hill do
with the billy-goat, and in a trice her sister came to life again. Then
the girl stuffed her into a sack, laid a little food over her, and as
soon as the Man o’ the Hill came home, she said to him:

“Dear friend! Now do go home to my mother with a morsel of food again;
poor thing! she’s both hungry and thirsty, I’ll be bound; and besides
that, she’s all alone in the world. But you must mind and not look into
the sack.”

Well! he said he would carry the sack; and he said, too, that he would
not look into it; but when he had gone a little way, he thought the
sack got awfully heavy; and when he had gone a bit farther he said to
himself:

“Come what will, I must see what’s inside this sack, for however sharp
her eyes may be, she can’t see me all this way off”

But just as he was about to untie the sack, the girl who sat inside the
sack called out:

I see what you’re at!
I see what you’re at!


“The deuce you do!” said the ogre; “then you must have plaguey sharp
eyes”; for he thought all the while it was the girl inside the hill who
was speaking. So he didn’t care so much as to peep into the sack again,
but carried it straight to her mother as fast as he could, and when he
got to the cottage door he threw it in through the door, and bawled
out:

“Here you have meat and drink from your daughter; she wants for
nothing.”

Now, when the girl had been in the hill a while longer, she did the
very same thing with her other sister. She put her head on her
shoulders, smeared her with ointment out of the flask, brought her to
life, and stuffed her into the sack; but this time she crammed in also
as much gold and silver as the sack would hold, and over all laid a
very little food.

“Dear friend”, she said to the Man o’ the Hill, “you really must run
home to my mother with a little food again; and mind you don’t look
into the sack.”

Yes! the Man o’ the Hill was ready enough to do as she wished, and he
gave his word too that he wouldn’t look into the sack; but when he had
gone a bit of the way he began to think the sack got awfully heavy, and
when he had gone a bit further, he could scarce stagger along under it,
so he set it down, and was just about to untie the string and look into
it, when the girl inside the sack bawled out:

I see what you’re at!
I see what you’re at!


“The deuce you do”, said the Man o’ the Hill, “then you must have
plaguey sharp eyes of your own.”

Well, he dared not try to look into the sack, but made all the haste he
could, and carried the sack straight to the girl’s mother. When he got
to the cottage door he threw the sack in through the door, and roared
out:

“Here you have food from your daughter; she wants for nothing.”

So when the girl had been there a good while longer, the Man o’ the
Hill made up his mind to go out for the day; then the girl shammed to
be sick and sorry, and pouted and fretted.

“It’s no use your coming home before twelve o’clock at night”, she
said, “for I shan’t be able to have supper ready before—I’m so sick and
poorly.”

But when the Man o’ the Hill was well out of the house, she stuffed
some of her clothes with straw, and stuck up this lass of straw in the
corner by the chimney, with a besom in her hand, so that it looked just
as if she herself were standing there. After that she stole off home,
and got a sharp-shooter to stay in the cottage with her mother.

So when the clock struck twelve, or just about it, home came the Man o’
the Hill, and the first thing he said to the straw-girl was, “Give me
something to eat.”

But she answered him never a word.

“Give me something to eat, I say!” called out the Man o’ the Hill, “for
I am almost starved.”

No! she hadn’t a word to throw at him.

“Give me something to eat!” roared out the ogre the third time.” I
think you’d better open your ears and hear what I say, or else I’ll
wake you up, that I will!”

No! the girl stood just as still as ever; so he flew into a rage, and
gave her such a slap in the face, that the straw flew all about the
room; but when he saw that, he knew he had been tricked, and began to
hunt everywhere; and at last, when he came to the cellar, and found
both the girl’s sisters missing, he soon saw how the cat jumped, and
ran off to the cottage, saying, “I’ll soon pay her off!”

But when he reached the cottage, the sharp-shooter fired off his piece,
and then the Man o’ the Hill dared not go into the house, for he
thought it was thunder. So he set off home again as fast as he could
lay legs to the ground; but what do you think, just as he got to the
trap-door, the sun rose and the Man o’ the Hill burst.

Oh! if one only knew where the trap-door was, I’ll be bound there’s a
whole heap of gold and silver down there still!




EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON


Once on a time there was a poor husbandman who had so many children
that he hadn’t much of either food or clothing to give them. Pretty
children they all were, but the prettiest was the youngest daughter,
who was so lovely there was no end to her loveliness.

So one day, ’twas on a Thursday evening late at the fall of the year,
the weather was so wild and rough outside, and it was so cruelly dark,
and rain fell and wind blew, till the walls of the cottage shook again.
There they all sat round the fire busy with this thing and that. But
just then, all at once something gave three taps on the window-pane.
Then the father went out to see what was the matter; and, when he got
out of doors, what should he see but a great big White Bear.

“Good evening to you!” said the White Bear.

“The same to you”, said the man.

“Will you give me your youngest daughter? If you will, I’ll make you as
rich as you are now poor”, said the Bear.

Well, the man would not be at all sorry to be so rich; but still he
thought he must have a bit of a talk with his daughter first; so he
went in and told them how there was a great White Bear waiting outside,
who had given his word to make them so rich if he could only have the
youngest daughter.

The lassie said “No!” outright. Nothing could get her to say anything
else; so the man went out and settled it with the White Bear, that he
should come again the next Thursday evening and get an answer. Meantime
he talked his daughter over, and kept on telling her of all the riches
they would get, and how well off she would be herself; and so at last
she thought better of it, and washed and mended her rags, made herself
as smart as she could, and was ready to start. I can’t say her packing
gave her much trouble.

Next Thursday evening came the White Bear to fetch her, and she got
upon his back with her bundle, and off they went. So, when they had
gone a bit of the way, the White Bear said:

“Are you afraid?”

“No! she wasn’t.”

“Well! mind and hold tight by my shaggy coat, and then there’s nothing
to fear”, said the Bear.

So she rode a long, long way, till they came to a great steep hill.
There, on the face of it, the White Bear gave a knock, and a door
opened, and they came into a castle, where there were many rooms all
lit up; rooms gleaming with silver and gold; and there too was a table
ready laid, and it was all as grand as grand could be. Then the White
Bear gave her a silver bell; and when she wanted anything, she was only
to ring it, and she would get it at once.

Well, after she had eaten and drunk, and evening wore on, she got
sleepy after her journey, and thought she would like to go to bed, so
she rang the bell; and she had scarce taken hold of it before she came
into a chamber, where there was a bed made, as fair and white as any
one would wish to sleep in, with silken pillows and curtains, and gold
fringe. All that was in the room was gold or silver; but when she had
gone to bed, and put out the light, a man came and laid himself
alongside her. That was the White Bear, who threw off his beast shape
at night; but she never saw him, for he always came after she had put
out the light, and before the day dawned he was up and off again. So
things went on happily for a while, but at last she began to get silent
and sorrowful; for there she went about all day alone, and she longed
to go home to see her father and mother and brothers and sisters. So
one day, when the White Bear asked what it was that she lacked, she
said it was so dull and lonely there, and how she longed to go home to
see her father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and that was why
she was so sad and sorrowful, because she couldn’t get to them.

“Well, well!” said the Bear, “perhaps there’s a cure for all this; but
you must promise me one thing, not to talk alone with your mother, but
only when the rest are by to hear; for she’ll take you by the hand and
try to lead you into a room alone to talk; but you must mind and not do
that, else you’ll bring bad luck on both of us.”

So one Sunday the White Bear came and said now they could set off to
see her father and mother. Well, off they started, she sitting on his
back; and they went far and long. At last they came to a grand house,
and there her brothers and sisters were running about out of doors at
play, and everything was so pretty, ’twas a joy to see.

“This is where your father and mother live now”, said the White Bear;
“but don’t forget what I told you, else you’ll make us both unlucky.”

“No! bless her, she’d not forget”; and when she had reached the house,
the White Bear turned right about and left her.

Then when she went in to see her father and mother, there was such joy,
there was no end to it. None of them thought they could thank her
enough for all she had done for them. Now, they had everything they
wished, as good as good could be, and they all wanted to know how she
got on where she lived.

Well, she said, it was very good to live where she did; she had all she
wished. What she said beside I don’t know; but I don’t think any of
them had the right end of the stick, or that they got much out of her.
But so in the afternoon, after they had done dinner, all happened as
the White Bear had said. Her mother wanted to talk with her alone in
her bed-room; but she minded what the White Bear had said, and wouldn’t
go upstairs.

“Oh! what we have to talk about, will keep”, she said, and put her
mother off. But some how or other, her mother got round her at last,
and she had to tell her the whole story. So she said, how every night,
when she had gone to bed, a man came and lay down beside her as soon as
she had put out the light, and how she never saw him, because he was
always up and away before the morning dawned; and how she went about
woeful and sorrowing, for she thought she should so like to see him,
and how all day long she walked about there alone, and how dull, and
dreary, and lonesome it was.

“My!” said her mother; “it may well be a Troll you slept with! But now
I’ll teach you a lesson how to set eyes on him. I’ll give you a bit of
candle, which you can carry home in your bosom; just light that while
he is asleep, but take care not to drop the tallow on him.”

Yes! she took the candle, and hid it in her bosom, and as night drew
on, the White Bear came and fetched her away.

But when they had gone a bit of the way, the White Bear asked if all
hadn’t happened as he had said?

“Well, she couldn’t say it hadn’t.”

“Now, mind”, said he, “if you have listened to your mother’s advice,
you have brought bad luck on us both, and then, all that has passed
between us will be as nothing.”

“No”, she said, “she hadn’t listened to her mother’s advice.”

So when she reached home, and had gone to bed, it was the old story
over again. There came a man and lay down beside her; but at dead of
night, when she heard he slept, she got up and struck a light, lit the
candle, and let the light shine on him, and so she saw that he was the
loveliest Prince one ever set eyes on, and she fell so deep in love
with him on the spot, that she thought she couldn’t live if she didn’t
give him a kiss there and then. And so she did, but as she kissed him,
she dropped three hot drops of tallow on his shirt, and he woke up.

“What have you done?” he cried; “now you have made us both unlucky, for
had you held out only this one year, I had been freed. For I have a
stepmother who has bewitched me, so that I am a White Bear by day, and
a Man by night. But now all ties are snapt between us; now I must set
off from you to her. She lives in a Castle which stands EAST O’ THE SUN
AND WEST O’ THE MOON, and there, too, is a Princess, with a nose three
ells long, and she’s the wife I must have now.”

She wept and took it ill, but there was no help for it; go he must.

Then she asked if she mightn’t go with him?

No, she mightn’t.

“Tell me the way, then”, she said, “and I’ll search you out; _that_
surely I may get leave to do.”

“Yes, she might do that”, he said; “but there was no way to that place.
It lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON, and thither she’d never
find her way.”

So next morning, when she woke up, both Prince and castle were gone,
and then she lay on a little green patch, in the midst of the gloomy
thick wood, and by her side lay the same bundle of rags she had brought
with her from her old home.

So when she had rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and wept till she was
tired, she set out on her way, and walked many, many days, till she
came to a lofty crag. Under it sat an old hag, and played with a gold
apple which she tossed about. Her the lassie asked if she knew the way
to the Prince, who lived with his step-mother in the Castle, that lay
EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON, and who was to marry the Princess
with a nose three ells long.

“How did you come to know about him?” asked the old hag; “but maybe you
are the lassie who ought to have had him?”

Yes, she was.

“So, so; it’s you, is it?” said the old hag. “Well, all I know about
him is, that he lives in the castle that lies EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST
O’ THE MOON, and thither you’ll come, late or never; but still you may
have the loan of my horse, and on him you can ride to my next
neighbour. Maybe she’ll be able to tell you; and when you get there,
just give the horse a switch under the left ear, and beg him to be off
home; and, stay, this gold apple you may take with you.”

So she got upon the horse, and rode a long long time, till she came to
another crag, under which sat another old hag, with a gold
carding-comb. Her the lassie asked if she knew the way to the castle
that lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON, and she answered, like
the first old hag, that she knew nothing about it, except it was east
o’ the sun and west o’ the moon.

“And thither you’ll come, late or never, but you shall have the loan of
my horse to my next neighbour; maybe she’ll tell you all about it; and
when you get there, just switch the horse under the left ear, and beg
him to be off home.”

And this old hag gave her the golden carding-comb; it might be she’d
find some use for it, she said. So the lassie got up on the horse, and
rode a far far way, and a weary time; and so at last she came to
another great crag, under which sat another old hag, spinning with a
golden spinning-wheel. Her, too, she asked if she knew the way to the
Prince, and where the castle was that lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’
THE MOON. So it was the same thing over again.

“Maybe it’s you who ought to have had the Prince?” said the old hag.

Yes, it was.

But she, too, didn’t know the way a bit better than the other two.
“East o’ the sun and west o’ the moon it was”, she knew—that was all.

“And thither you’ll come, late or never; but I’ll lend you my horse,
and then I think you’d best ride to the East Wind and ask him; maybe,
he knows those parts, and can blow you thither. But when you get to
him, you need only give the horse a switch under the left ear, and
he’ll trot home of himself.”

And so, too, she gave her the gold spinning-wheel. “Maybe you’ll find a
use for it”, said the old hag.

Then on she rode many many days, a weary time, before she got to the
East Wind’s house, but at last she did reach it, and then she asked the
East Wind if he could tell her the way to the Prince who dwelt east o’
the sun and west o’ the moon. Yes, the East Wind had often heard tell
of it, the Prince and the castle, but he couldn’t tell the way, for he
had never blown so far.

“But, if you will, I’ll go with you to my brother the West Wind, maybe
he knows, for he’s much stronger. So, if you will just get on my back,
I’ll carry you thither.”

Yes, she got on his back, and I should just think they went briskly
along.

So when they got there, they went into the West Wind’s house, and the
East Wind said the lassie he had brought was the one who ought to have
had the Prince who lived in the castle EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE
MOON; and so she had set out to seek him, and how he had come with her,
and would be glad to know if the West Wind knew how to get to the
castle.

“Nay”, said the West Wind, “so far I’ve never blown; but if you will,
I’ll go with you to our brother the South Wind, for he’s much stronger
than either of us, and he has flapped his wings far and wide. Maybe
he’ll tell you. You can get on my back, and I’ll carry you to him.”

Yes! she got on his back, and so they travelled to the South Wind, and
weren’t so very long on the way, I should think.

When they got there, the West Wind asked him if he could tell her the
way to the castle that lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON, for it
was she who ought to have had the prince who lived there.

“You don’t say so! That’s she, is it?” said the South Wind.

“Well, I have blustered about in most places in my time, but so far
have I never blown; but if you will, I’ll take you to my brother the
North Wind; he is the oldest and strongest of the whole lot of us, and
if he don’t know where it is, you’ll never find any one in the world to
tell you. You can get on my back, and I’ll carry you thither.”

Yes! she got on his back, and away he went from his house at a fine
rate. And this time, too, she wasn’t long on her way.

So when they got to the North Wind’s house, he was so wild and cross,
cold puffs came from him a long way off.

“BLAST YOU BOTH, WHAT DO YOU WANT?” he roared out to them ever so far
off, so that it struck them with an icy shiver.

“Well”, said the South Wind, “you needn’t be so foul-mouthed, for here
I am, your brother, the South Wind, and here is the lassie who ought to
have had the Prince who dwells in the castle that lies EAST O’ THE SUN
AND WEST O’ THE MOON, and now she wants to ask you if you ever were
there, and can tell her the way, for she would be so glad to find him
again.”

“YES, I KNOW WELL ENOUGH WHERE IT IS”, said the North Wind; “once in my
life I blew an aspen-leaf thither, but I was so tired I couldn’t blow a
puff for ever so many days after. But if you really wish to go thither,
and aren’t afraid to come along with me, I’ll take you on my back and
see if I can blow you thither.”

Yes! with all her heart; she must and would get thither if it were
possible in any way; and as for fear, however madly he went, she
wouldn’t be at all afraid.

“Very well, then”, said the North Wind, “but you must sleep here
to-night, for we must have the whole day before us, if we’re to get
thither at all.”

Early next morning the North Wind woke her, and puffed himself up, and
blew himself out, and made himself so stout and big, ’twas gruesome to
look at him; and so off they went high up through the air, as if they
would never stop till they got to the world’s end.

Down here below there was such a storm; it threw down long tracts of
wood and many houses, and when it swept over the great sea, ships
foundered by hundreds.

So they tore on and on—no one can believe how far they went—and all the
while they still went over the sea, and the North Wind got more and
more weary, and so out of breath he could scarce bring out a puff, and
his wings drooped and drooped, till at last he sunk so low that the
crests of the waves dashed over his heels.

“Are you afraid?” said the North Wind.

“No!” she wasn’t.

But they weren’t very far from land; and the North Wind had still so
much strength left in him that he managed to throw her up on the shore
under the windows of the castle which lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’
THE MOON; but then he was so weak and worn out, he had to stay there
and rest many days before he could get home again.

Next morning the lassie sat down under the castle window, and began to
play with the gold apple; and the first person she saw was the
Long-nose who was to have the Prince.

“What do you want for your gold apple, you lassie?” said the Long-nose,
and threw up the window.

“It’s not for sale, for gold or money”, said the lassie.

“If it’s not for sale for gold or money, what is it that you will sell
it for? You may name your own price”, said the Princess.

“Well! if I may get to the Prince, who lives here, and be with him
to-night, you shall have it”, said the lassie whom the North Wind had
brought.

Yes! she might; that could be done. So the Princess got the gold apple;
but when the lassie came up to the Prince’s bed-room at night he was
fast asleep; she called him and shook him, and between whiles she wept
sore; but all she could do she couldn’t wake him up. Next morning as
soon as day broke, came the Princess with the long nose, and drove her
out again.

So in the daytime she sat down under the castle windows and began to
card with her carding-comb, and the same thing happened. The Princess
asked what she wanted for it; and she said it wasn’t for sale for gold
or money, but if she might get leave to go up to the Prince and be with
him that night, the Princess should have it. But when she went up she
found him fast asleep again, and all she called, and all she shook, and
wept, and prayed, she couldn’t get life into him; and as soon as the
first gray peep of day came, then came the Princess with the long nose,
and chased her out again.

So, in the day time, the lassie sat down outside under the castle
window, and began to spin with her golden spinning-wheel, and that,
too, the Princess with the long nose wanted to have. So she threw up
the window and asked what she wanted for it. The lassie said, as she
had said twice before, it wasn’t for sale for gold or money; but if she
might go up to the Prince who was there, and be with him alone that
night, she might have it.

Yes! she might do that and welcome. But now you must know there were
some Christian folk who had been carried off thither, and as they sat
in their room, which was next the Prince, they had heard how a woman
had been in there, and wept and prayed, and called to him two nights
running, and they told that to the Prince.

That evening, when the Princess came with her sleepy drink, the Prince
made as if he drank, but threw it over his shoulder, for he could guess
it was a sleepy drink. So, when the lassie came in, she found the
Prince wide awake; and then she told him the whole story how she had
come thither.

“Ah”, said the Prince, “you’ve just come in the very nick of time, for
to-morrow is to be our wedding-day; but now I won’t have the Long-nose,
and you are the only woman in the world who can set me free. I’ll say I
want to see what my wife is fit for, and beg her to wash the shirt
which has the three spots of tallow on it; she’ll say yes, for she
doesn’t know ’tis you who put them there; but that’s a work only for
Christian folk, and not for such a pack of Trolls, and so I’ll say that
I won’t have any other for my bride than the woman who can wash them
out, and ask you to do it.”

So there was great joy and love between them all that night. But next
day, when the wedding was to be, the Prince said:

“First of all, I’d like to see what my bride is fit for.”

“Yes!” said the step-mother, with all her heart.

“Well”, said the Prince, “I’ve got a fine shirt which I’d like for my
wedding shirt, but some how or other it has got three spots of tallow
on it, which I must have washed out; and I have sworn never to take any
other bride than the woman who’s able to do that. If she can’t, she’s
not worth having.”

Well, that was no great thing they said, so they agreed, and she with
the long-nose began to wash away as hard as she could, but the more she
rubbed and scrubbed, the bigger the spots grew.

“Ah!” said the old hag, her mother, “you can’t wash; let me try.”

But she hadn’t long taken the shirt in hand, before it got far worse
than ever, and with all her rubbing, and wringing, and scrubbing, the
spots grew bigger and blacker, and the darker and uglier was the shirt.

Then all the other Trolls began to wash, but the longer it lasted, the
blacker and uglier the shirt grew, till at last it was as black all
over as if it had been up the chimney.

“Ah!” said the Prince, “you’re none of you worth a straw you can’t
wash. Why there, outside, sits a beggar lassie, I’ll be bound she knows
how to wash better than the whole lot of you. COME IN LASSIE!” he
shouted.

Well, in she came.

“Can you wash this shirt clean, lassie, you?” said he.

“I don’t know”, she said, “but I think I can.”

And almost before she had taken it and dipped it in the water, it was
as white as driven snow, and whiter still.

“Yes; you are the lassie for me”, said the Prince.

At that the old hag flew into such a rage, she burst on the spot, and
the Princess with the long nose after her, and the whole pack of Trolls
after her—at least I’ve never heard a word about them since.

As for the Prince and Princess, they set free all the poor Christian
folk who had been carried off and shut up there; and they took with
them all the silver and gold, and flitted away as far as they could
from the Castle that lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON.




BOOTS WHO ATE A MATCH WITH THE TROLL


Once on a time there was a farmer who had three sons; his means were
small, and he was old and weak, and his sons would take to nothing. A
fine large wood belonged to the farm, and one day the father told his
sons to go and hew wood, and try to pay off some of his debts.

Well, after a long talk he got them to set off, and the eldest was to
go first. But when he had got well into the wood, and began to hew at a
mossy old fir, what should he see coming up to him but a great sturdy
Troll.

“If you hew in this wood of mine”, said the Troll, “I’ll kill you!”

When the lad heard that, he threw the axe down, and ran off home as
fast as he could lay legs to the ground; so he came in quite out of
breath, and told them what had happened, but his father called him
“hare-heart”—no Troll would ever have scared him from hewing when he
was young, he said.

Next day the second son’s turn came, and he fared just the same. He had
scarce hewn three strokes at the fir, before the Troll came to him too,
and said:

“If you hew in this wood of mine, I’ll kill you.”

The lad dared not so much as look at him, but threw down the axe, took
to his heels, and came scampering home just like his brother. So when
he got home, his father was angry again, and said no Troll had ever
scared him when he was young.

The third day Boots wanted to set off.

“You, indeed!” said the two elder brothers; “you’ll do it bravely, no
doubt! you, who have scarce ever set your foot out of the door.”

Boots said nothing to this, but only begged them to give him a good
store of food. His mother had no cheese, so she set the pot on the fire
to make him a little, and he put it into a scrip and set off. So when
he had hewn a bit, the Troll came to him too, and said:

“If you hew in this wood of mine, I’ll kill you.”

But the lad was not slow; he pulled his cheese out of the scrip in a
trice, and squeezed it till the whey spurted out.

“Hold your tongue!” he cried to the Troll, “or I’ll squeeze you as I
squeeze the water out of this white stone.”

“Nay, dear friend!” said the Troll, “only spare me, and I’ll help you
to hew.”

Well, on those terms the lad was willing to spare him, and the Troll
hewed so bravely, that they felled and cut up many, many fathoms in the
day.

But when even drew near, the Troll said:

“Now you’d better come home with me, for my house is nearer than
yours.”

So the lad was willing enough; and when they reached the Troll’s house,
the Troll was to make up the fire, while the lad went to fetch water
for their porridge, and there stood two iron pails so big and heavy,
that he couldn’t so much as lift them from the ground.

“Pooh!” said the lad, “it isn’t worth while to touch these
finer-basins: I’ll just go and fetch the spring itself.”

“Nay, nay, dear friend!” said the Troll; “I can’t afford to lose my
spring; just you make up the fire, and I’ll go and fetch the water.”

So when he came back with the water, they set to and boiled up a great
pot of porridge.

“It’s all the same to me”, said the lad; “but if you’re of my mind,
we’ll eat a match!”

“With all my heart”, said the Troll, for he thought he could surely
hold his own in eating. So they sat down; but the lad took his scrip
unawares to the Troll, and hung it before him, and so he spooned more
into the scrip than he ate himself; and when the scrip was full, he
took up his knife and made a slit in the scrip. The Troll looked on all
the while, but said never a word. So when they had eaten a good bit
longer, the Troll laid down his spoon, saying, “Nay! but I can’t eat a
morsel more.”

“But you shall eat”, said the youth; “I’m only half done; why don’t you
do as I did, and cut a hole in your paunch? You’ll be able to eat then
as much as you please.”

“But doesn’t it hurt one cruelly?” asked the Troll.

“Oh”, said the youth, “nothing to speak of.”

So the Troll did as the lad said, and then you must know very well that
he lost his life; but the lad took all the silver and gold that he
found in the hill-side, and went home with it, and you may fancy it
went a great way to pay off the debt.




HACON GRIZZLEBEARD


Once on a time there was a princess who was so proud and pert that no
suitor was good enough for her. She made game of them all, and sent
them about their business, one after the other; but though she was so
proud, still new suitors kept on coming to the palace, for she was a
beauty, the wicked hussey!

So one day there came a prince to woo her, and his name was Hacon
Grizzlebeard; but the first night he was there, the Princess bade the
king’s fool cut off the ears of one of the prince’s horses, and slit
the jaws of the other up to the ears. When the prince went out to drive
next day, the Princess stood in the porch and looked at him.

“Well!” she cried, “I never saw the like of this in all my life; the
keen north wind that blows here has taken the ears off one of your
horses, and the other has stood by and gaped at what was going on till
his jaws have split right up to his ears.”

And with that she burst out into a roar of laughter, ran in, slammed to
the door, and let him drive off.

So he drove home; but as he went, he thought to himself that he would
pay her off one day. After a bit, he put on a great beard of moss,
threw a great fur cloak over his clothes, and dressed himself up just
like any beggar. He went to a goldsmith and bought a golden spinning
wheel, and sat down with it under the Princess’ window, and began to
file away at his spinning wheel, and to turn it this way and that, for
it wasn’t quite in order, and, besides, it wanted a stand.

So when the Princess rose up in the morning, she came to the window and
threw it up, and called out to the beggar if he would sell his golden
spinning-wheel?

“No; it isn’t for sale”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard; “but if I may have
leave to sleep outside your bedroom door to-night, I’ll give it you.”

Well, the Princess thought it a good bargain; there could be no danger
in letting him sleep outside her door.

So she got the wheel, and at night Hacon Grizzlebeard lay down outside
her bedroom. But as the night wore on he began to freeze.

“Hutetutetutetu! it is _so_ cold; do let me in”, he cried.

“You’ve lost your wits outright, I think”, said the Princess.

“Oh, hutetutetutetu! it is so bitter cold, pray do let me in”, said
Hacon Grizzlebeard again.

“Hush! hush! hold your tongue!” said the Princess; “if my father were
to know that there was a man in the house, I should be in a fine
scrape.”

“Oh, hutetutetutetu! I’m almost frozen to death; only let me come
inside and lie on the floor”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard.

Yes! there was no help for it. She had to let him in, and when he was,
he lay on the ground and slept like a top.

Some time after, Hacon came again with the stand to the spinning-wheel,
and sat down under the Princess’ window, and began to file at it, for
it was not quite fit for use. When she heard him filing, she threw up
the window and began to talk to him, and to ask what he had there.

“Oh! only the stand to that spinning-wheel which your royal highness
bought; for I thought, as you had the wheel, you might like to have the
stand too.”

“What do you want for it?” asked the Princess; but it was not for sale
any more than the wheel, but she might have them if she would give him
leave to sleep on the floor of her bedroom next night.

Well! she gave him leave, only he was to be sure to lie still, and not
to shiver and call out “hutetu”, or any such stuff. Hacon Grizzlebeard
promised fair enough, but as the night wore on he began to shiver and
shake, and to ask whether he might not come nearer, and lie on the
floor alongside the Princess’ bed.

There was no help for it; she had to give him leave, lest the king
should hear the noise he made. So Hacon Grizzlebeard lay alongside the
Princess’ bed, and slept like a top.

It was a long while before Hacon Grizzlebeard came again; but when he
came he had with him a golden wool-winder, and he sat down and began to
file away at it under the Princess’ window. Then came the old story
over again. When the Princess heard what was going on, she came to the
window, and asked him how he did, and whether he would sell the golden
wool-winder?

“It is not to be had for money; but if you’ll give me leave to sleep
to-night in your bedroom, with my head on your bedstead, you shall have
it for nothing”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard.

Well! she would give him leave, if he only gave his word to be quiet,
and make no noise. So he said he would do his best to be still; but as
the night wore on, he began to shiver and shake so, that his teeth
chattered again.

“Hutetutetutetu! it is so bitter cold! Oh, do let me get into bed and
warm myself a little”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard.

“Get into bed!” said the Princess; “why, you must have lost your wits.”

“Hutetutetutetu!” said Hacon; “do let me get into bed. Hutetutetutetu.”

“Hush! hush! be still for God’s sake”, said the Princess; “if father
knows there is a man in here, I shall be in a sad plight. I’m sure
he’ll kill me on the spot.”

“Hutetutetutetu! let me get into bed”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard, who
kept on shivering so that the whole room shook.

Well! there was no help for it; she had to let him get into bed, where
he slept both sound and soft; but a little while after the Princess had
a child, at which the king grew so wild with rage, that he was near
making an end of both mother and babe. Just after this happened, came
Hacon Grizzlebeard tramping that way once more, as if by chance, and
took his seat down in the kitchen, like any other beggar.

So when the Princess came out and saw him, she cried, “Ah, God have
mercy on me, for the ill-luck you have brought on me; father is ready
to burst with rage; do let me follow you to your home.”

“Oh! I’ll be bound you’re too well bred to follow me”, said Hacon, “for
I have nothing but a log but to live in; and how I shall ever get food
for you I can’t tell, for it’s just as much as I can do to get food for
myself.”

“Oh yes! it’s all the same to me how you get it, or whether you get it
at all”, she said; “only let me be with you, for if I stay here any
longer, my father will be sure to take my life.”

So she got leave to be with the beggar, as she called him, and they
walked a long, long way, though she was but a poor hand at tramping.
When she passed out of her father’s land into another, she asked whose
it was?

“Oh! this is Hacon Grizzlebeard’s, if you must know”, said he.

“Indeed!” said the Princess; “I might have married him if I chose, and
then I should not have had to walk about like a beggar’s wife.”

So, whenever they came to grand castles, and woods, and parks, and she
asked whose they were? the beggar’s answer was still the same: “Oh:
they are Hacon Grizzlebeard’s.” And the Princess was in a sad way that
she had not chosen the man who had such broad lands. Last of all, they
came to a palace, where he said he was known, and where he thought he
could get her work, so that they might have something to live on; so he
built up a cabin by the woodside for them to dwell in; and every day he
went to the king’s palace, as he said, to hew wood and draw water for
the cook, and when he came back he brought a few scraps of meat; but
they did not go very far. One day, when he came home from the palace,
he said: “To-morrow I will stay at home and look after the baby, but
you must get ready to go to the palace, do you hear! for the Prince
said you were to come and try your hand at baking.”

“I bake!” said the Princess; “I can’t bake, for I never did such a
thing in my life.”

“Well, you must go”, said Hacon, “since the Prince has said it. If you
can’t bake, you can learn; you have only got to look how the rest bake;
and mind, when you leave, you must steal me some bread.”

“I can’t steal”, said the Princess.

“You can learn that too”, said Hacon; “you know we live on short
commons. But take care that the Prince doesn’t see you, for he has eyes
at the back of his head.”

So when she was well on her way, Hacon ran by a short cut and reached
the palace long before her, and threw off his rags and beard, and put
on his princely robes.

The Princess took her turn in the bakehouse, and did as Hacon bade her,
for she stole bread till her pockets were crammed full. So when she was
about to go home at even, the Prince said:

“We don’t know much of this old wife of Hacon Grizzlebeard’s, I think
we’d best see if she has taken anything away with her.”

So he thrust his hand into all her pockets, and felt her all over, and
when he found the bread, he was in a great rage, and led them all a sad
life. She began to weep and bewail, and said:

“The beggar made me do it, and I couldn’t help it.” “Well”, said the
Prince at last, “it ought to have gone hard with you; but all the same,
for the sake of the beggar you shall be forgiven this once.”

When she was well on her way, he threw off his robes, put on his skin
cloak, and his false beard, and reached the cabin before her. When she
came home, he was busy nursing the baby.

“Well, you have made me do what it went against my heart to do. This is
the first time I ever stole, and this shall be the last”; and with that
she told him how it had gone with her, and what the Prince had said.

A few days after Hacon Grizzlebeard came home at even and said:

“To-morrow I must stay at home and mind the babe, for they are going to
kill a pig at the palace, and you must help to make the sausages.”

“I make sausages!” said the Princess; “I can’t do any such thing. I
have eaten sausages often enough; but as to making them, I never made
one in my life.”

Well, there was no help for it; the Prince had said it, and go she
must. As for not knowing how, she was only to do what the others did,
and at the same time Hacon bade her steal some sausages for him.

“Nay, but I can’t steal them”, she said; “you know how it went last
time.”

“Well, you can learn to steal; who knows but you may have better luck
next time”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard.

When she was well on her way, Hacon ran by a short cut, reached the
palace long before her, threw off his skin cloak and false beard, and
stood in the kitchen with his royal robes before she came in. So the
Princess stood by when the pig was killed, and made sausages with the
rest, and did as Hacon bade her, and stuffed her pockets full of
sausages. But when she was about to go home at even, the Prince said:

“This beggar’s wife was long-fingered last time; we may as well just
see if she hasn’t carried anything off.”

So he began to thrust his hands into her pockets, and when he found the
sausages he was in a great rage again, and made a great to do,
threatening to send for the constable and put her into the cage.

“Oh, God bless your royal highness; do let me off! The beggar made me
do it”, she said, and wept bitterly.

“Well”, said Hacon, “you ought to smart for it; but for the beggar’s
sake you shall be forgiven.”

When she was gone, he changed his clothes again, ran by the short cut,
and when she reached the cabin, there he was before her. Then she told
him the whole story, and swore, through thick and thin, it should be
the last time he got her to do such a thing.

Now, it fell out a little time after, when the man came back from the
palace, he said:

“Our Prince is going to be married, but the bride is sick, so the
tailor can’t measure her for her wedding gown. And the Prince’s will
is, that you should go up to the palace and be measured instead of the
bride; for he says you are just the same height and shape. But after
you have been measured, mind you don’t go away; you can stand about,
you know, and when the tailor cuts out the gown, you can snap up the
largest pieces, and bring them home for a waistcoat for me.”

“Nay, but I can’t steal”, she said; “besides, you know how it went last
time.”

“You can learn then”, said Hacon, “and you may have better luck,
perhaps.”

She thought it bad, but still she went and did as she was told. She
stood by while the tailor was cutting out the gown, and she swept down
all the biggest scraps, and stuffed them into her pockets; and when she
was going away, the Prince said:

“We may as well see if this old girl has not been long-fingered this
time too.”

So he began to feel and search her pockets, and when he found the
pieces he was in a rage, and began to stamp and scold at a great rate,
while she wept and said:

“Ah, pray forgive me; the beggar bade me do it, and I couldn’t help
it.”

“Well, you ought to smart for it”, said Hacon; “but for the beggar’s
sake it shall be forgiven you.”

So it went now just as it had gone before, and when she got back to the
cabin, the beggar was there before her.

“Oh, Heaven help me”, she said; “you will be the death of me at last,
by making me nothing but what is wicked. The Prince was in such a
towering rage that he threatened me both with the constable and cage.”

Sometime after, Hacon came home to the cabin at even and said:

“Now, the Prince’s will is, that you should go up to the palace and
stand for the bride, old lass! for the bride is still sick, and keeps
her bed; but he won’t put off the wedding; and he says, you are so like
her, that no one could tell one from the other; so to-morrow you must
get ready to go to the palace.”

“I think you’ve lost your wits, both the Prince and you”, said she. “Do
you think I look fit to stand in the bride’s place? look at me! Can any
beggar’s trull look worse than I?”

“Well, the Prince said you were to go, and so go you must”, said Hacon
Grizzlebeard.

There was no help for it, go she must; and when she reached the palace,
they dressed her out so finely that no princess ever looked so smart.

The bridal train went to church, where she stood for the bride, and
when they came back, there was dancing and merriment in the palace. But
just as she was in the midst of dancing with the Prince, she saw a
gleam of light through the window, and lo! the cabin by the wood-side
was all one bright flame.

“Oh! the beggar, and the babe, and the cabin”, she screamed out, and
was just going to swoon away.

“Here is the beggar, and there is the babe, and so let the cabin burn
away”, said Hacon Grizzlebeard.

Then she knew him again, and after that the mirth and merriment began
in right earnest; but since that I have never heard tell anything more
about them.




BOOTS, WHO MADE THE PRINCESS SAY, “THAT’S A STORY”


Once on a time there was a king who had a daughter, and she was such a
dreadful story-teller that the like of her was not to be found far or
near. So the king gave out, that if any one could tell such a string of
lies, as would get her to say, “That’s a story”, he should have her to
wife, and half the kingdom besides. Well, many came, as you may fancy,
to try their luck, for every one would have been very glad to have the
Princess, to say nothing of the kingdom; but they all cut a sorry
figure, for the Princess was so given to story-telling, that all their
lies went in at one ear and out of the other. Among the rest came three
brothers to try their luck, and the two elder went first, but they
fared no better than those who had gone before them. Last of all the
third, Boots, set off and found the Princess in the farm-yard.

“Good-morning”, he said, “and thank you for nothing.”

“Good-morning”, said she, “and the same to you.”

Then she went on:

“You haven’t such a fine farm-yard as ours, I’ll be bound; for when two
shepherds stand, one at each end of it, and blow their ram’s horns, the
one can’t hear the other.”

“Haven’t we though!” answered Boots; “ours is far bigger; for when a
cow begins to go with calf at one end of it, she doesn’t get to the
other end before the time to drop her calf is come.”

“I dare say!” said the Princess. “Well, but you haven’t such a big ox,
after all, as ours yonder; for when two men sit one on each horn, they
can’t touch each other with a twenty-foot rule.”

“Stuff!” said Boots; “is that all? why, we have an ox who is so big,
that when two men sit, one on each horn, and each blows his great
mountain-trumpet, they can’t hear one another.”

“I dare say!” said the Princess; “but you haven’t so much milk as we,
I’ll be bound; for we milk our kine into great pails, and carry them
in-doors, and empty them into great tubs, and so we make great, great
cheeses.”

“Oh! you do, do you?” said Boots. “Well, we milk ours into great tubs,
and then we put them in carts and drive them in-doors, and then we turn
them out into great brewing vats, and so we make cheeses as big as a
great house. We had, too a dun mare to tread the cheese well together
when it was making; but once she tumbled down into the cheese, and we
lost her; and after we had eaten at this cheese seven years, we came
upon a great dun mare, alive and kicking. Well, once after that I was
going to drive this mare to the mill, and her back-bone snapped in two;
but I wasn’t put out, not I, for I took a spruce sapling, and put it
into her for a back-bone, and she had no other back-bone all the while
we had her. But the sapling grew up into such a tall tree, that I
climbed right up to heaven by it, and when I got there, I saw the
Virgin Mary sitting and spinning the foam of the sea into pig’s-bristle
ropes; but just then the spruce-fir broke short off, and I couldn’t get
down again; so the Virgin Mary let me down by one of the ropes, and
down I slipped straight into a fox’s hole, and who should sit there but
my mother and your father cobbling shoes; and just as I stepped in, my
mother gave your father such a box on the ear, that it made his
whiskers curl.”

“That’s a story!” said the Princess; “my father never did any such
thing in all his born days!”

So Boots got the Princess to wife, and half the kingdom besides.




THE TWELVE WILD DUCKS


Once on a time there was a Queen who was out driving, when there had
been a new fall of snow in the winter; but when she had gone a little
way, she began to bleed at the nose, and had to get out of her sledge.
And so, as she stood there, leaning against the fence, and saw the red
blood on the white snow, she fell a-thinking how she had twelve sons
and no daughter, and she said to herself:

“If I only had a daughter as white as snow and as red as blood, I
shouldn’t care what became of all my sons.”

But the words were scarce out of her mouth before an old witch of the
Trolls came up to her.

“A daughter you shall have”, she said, “and she shall be as white as
snow, and as red as blood; and your sons shall be mine, but you may
keep them till the babe is christened.”

So when the time came the Queen had a daughter, and she was as white as
snow, and as red as blood, just as the Troll had promised, and so they
called her “Snow-white and Rosy-red.” Well, there was great joy at the
King’s court, and the Queen was as glad as glad could be; but when what
she had promised to the old witch came into her mind, she sent for a
silversmith, and bade him make twelve silver spoons, one for each
prince, and after that she bade him make one more, and that she gave to
Snow-white and Rosy-red. But as soon as ever the Princess was
christened, the Princes were turned into twelve wild ducks, and flew
away. They never saw them again—away they went, and away they stayed.

So the Princess grew up, and she was both tall and fair, but she was
often so strange and sorrowful, and no one could understand what it was
that failed her. But one evening the Queen was also sorrowful, for she
had many strange thoughts when she thought of her sons. She said to
Snow-white and Rosy-red,

“Why are you so sorrowful, my daughter? Is there anything you want? if
so, only say the word, and you shall have it.”

“Oh, it seems so dull and lonely here”, said Snow-white and Rosy-red;
“every one else has brothers and sisters, but I am all alone; I have
none; and that’s why I’m so sorrowful.”

“But you _had_ brothers, my daughter”, said the Queen; “I had twelve
sons who were your brothers, but I gave them all away to get you”; and
so she told her the whole story.

So when the Princess heard that, she had no rest; for, in spite of all
the Queen could say or do, and all she wept and prayed, the lassie
would set off to seek her brothers, for she thought it was all her
fault; and at last she got leave to go away from the palace. On and on
she walked into the wide world, so far, you would never have thought a
young lady could have strength to walk so far.

So, once, when she was walking through a great, great wood, one day she
felt tired, and sat down on a mossy tuft and fell asleep. Then she
dreamt that she went deeper and deeper into the wood, till she came to
a little wooden hut, and there she found her brothers; just then she
woke, and straight before her she saw a worn path in the green moss,
and this path went deeper into the wood; so she followed it, and after
a long time she came to just such a little wooden house as that she had
seen in her dream.

Now, when she went into the room there was no one at home, but there
stood twelve beds, and twelve chairs, and twelve spoons—a dozen of
everything, in short. So when she saw that she was so glad, she hadn’t
been so glad for many a long year, for she could guess at once that her
brothers lived here, and that they owned the beds, and chairs, and
spoons. So she began to make up the fire, and sweep the room, and make
the beds, and cook the dinner, and to make the house as tidy as she
could; and when she had done all the cooking and work, she ate her own
dinner, and crept under her youngest brother’s bed, and lay down there,
but she forgot her spoon upon the table.

So she had scarcely laid herself down before she heard something
flapping and whirring in the air, and so all the twelve wild ducks came
sweeping in; but as soon as ever they crossed the threshold they became
Princes.

“Oh, how nice and warm it is in here”, they said. “Heaven bless him who
made up the fire, and cooked such a good dinner for us.”

And so each took up his silver spoon and was going to eat. But when
each had taken his own, there was one still left lying on the table,
and it was so like the rest that they couldn’t tell it from them.

“This is our sister’s spoon”, they said; “and if her spoon be here, she
can’t be very far off herself.”

“If this be our sister’s spoon, and she be here”, said the eldest, “she
shall be killed, for she is to blame for all the ill we suffer.”

And this she lay under the bed and listened to.

“No”, said the youngest, “’twere a shame to kill her for that. She has
nothing to do with our suffering ill; for if any one’s to blame, it’s
our own mother.”

So they set to work hunting for her both high and low, and at last they
looked under all the beds, and so when they came to the youngest
Prince’s bed, they found her, and dragged her out. Then the eldest
Prince wished again to have her killed, but she begged and prayed so
prettily for herself.

“Oh! gracious goodness! don’t kill me, for I’ve gone about seeking you
these three years, and if I could only set you free, I’d willingly lose
my life.”

“Well!” said they, “if you will set us free, you may keep your life;
for you can if you choose.”

“Yes; only tell me”, said the Princess, “how it can be done, and I’ll
do it, whatever it be.”

“You must pick thistle-down”, said the Princes, “and you must card it,
and spin it, and weave it; and after you have done that, you must cut
out and make twelve coats, and twelve shirts, and twelve neckerchiefs,
one for each of us, and while you do that, you must neither talk, nor
laugh, nor weep. If you can do that, we are free.”

“But where shall I ever get thistle-down enough for so many
neckerchiefs, and shirts, and coats?” asked Snow-white and Rosy-red.

“We’ll soon show you”, said the Princes; and so they took her with them
to a great wide moor, where there stood such a crop of thistles, all
nodding and nodding in the breeze, and the down all floating and
glistening like gossamers through the air in the sunbeams. The Princess
had never seen such a quantity of thistledown in her life, and she
began to pluck and gather it as fast and as well as she could; and when
she got home at night she set to work carding and spinning yarn from
the down. So she went on a long long time, picking, and carding, and
spinning, and all the while keeping the Princes’ house, cooking, and
making their beds. At evening home they came, flapping and whirring
like wild ducks, and all night they were Princes, but in the morning
off they flew again, and were wild ducks the whole day.

But now it happened once, when she was out on the moor to pick
thistle-down—and if I don’t mistake, it was the very last time she was
to go thither—it happened that the young King who ruled that land was
out hunting, and came riding across the moor, and saw her. So he
stopped there and wondered who the lovely lady could be that walked
along the moor picking thistle-down, and he asked her her name, and
when he could get no answer, he was still more astonished; and at last
he liked her so much, that nothing would do but he must take her home
to his castle and marry her. So he ordered his servants to take her and
put her up on his horse. Snow-white and Rosy-red, she wrung her hands,
and made signs to them, and pointed to the bags in which her work was,
and when the King saw she wished to have them with her, he told his men
to take up the bags behind them. When they had done that the Princess
came to herself, little by little, for the King was both a wise man and
a handsome man too, and he was as soft and kind to her as a doctor. But
when they got home to the palace, and the old Queen, who was his
stepmother, set eyes on Snow-white and Rosy-red, she got so cross and
jealous of her because she was so lovely, that she said to the king:

“Can’t you see now, that this thing whom you have picked up, and whom
you are going to marry, is a witch. Why? she can’t either talk, or
laugh, or weep!”

But the King didn’t care a pin for what she said, but held on with the
wedding, and married Snow-white and Rosy-red and they lived in great
joy and glory; but she didn’t forget to go on sewing at her shirts.

So when the year was almost out, Snow-white and Rosy-red brought a
Prince into the world; and then the old Queen was more spiteful and
jealous than ever, and at dead of night, she stole in to Snow-white and
Rosy-red, while she slept, and took away her babe, and threw it into a
pitful of snakes. After that she cut Snow-white and Rosy-red in her
finger, and smeared the blood over her mouth, and went straight to the
King.

“Now come and see”, she said, “what sort of a thing you have taken for
your Queen; here she has eaten up her own babe.”

Then the King was so downcast, he almost burst into tears, and said:

“Yes, it must be true, since I see it with my own eyes; but she’ll not
do it again, I’m sure, and so this time I’ll spare her life.”

So before the next year was out she had another son, and the same thing
happened. The King’s stepmother got more and more jealous and spiteful.
She stole into the young Queen at night while she slept, took away the
babe, and threw it into a pit full of snakes, cut the young Queen’s
finger, and smeared the blood over her mouth, and then went and told
the King she had eaten up her own child. Then the King was so
sorrowful, you can’t think how sorry he was, and he said:

“Yes, it must be true, since I see it with my own eyes; but she’ll not
do it again, I’m sure, and so this time too I’ll spare her life.”

Well, before the next year was out, Snow-white and Rosy-red brought a
daughter into the world, and her, too, the old Queen took and threw
into the pit full of snakes, while the young Queen slept. Then she cut
her finger, smeared the blood over her mouth, and went again to the
King and said,

“Now you may come and see if it isn’t as I say; she’s a wicked, wicked
witch, for here she has gone and eaten up her third babe, too.”

Then the King was so sad, there was no end to it, for now he couldn’t
spare her any longer, but had to order her to be burnt alive on a pile
of wood. But just when the pile was all a-blaze, and they were going to
put her on it, she made signs to them to take twelve boards and lay
them round the pile, and on these she laid the neckerchiefs, and the
shirts, and the coats for her brothers, but the youngest brother’s
shirt wanted its left arm, for she hadn’t had time to finish it. And as
soon as ever she had done that, they heard such a flapping and whirring
in the air, and down came twelve wild ducks flying over the forest, and
each of them snapped up his clothes in his bill and flew off with them.

“See now!” said the old Queen to the King, “wasn’t I right when I told
you she was a witch, but make haste and burn her before the pile burns
low.”

“Oh!” said the King, “we’ve wood enough and to spare, and so I’ll wait
a bit, for I have a mind to see what the end of all this will be.”

As he spoke, up came the twelve princes riding along, as handsome
well-grown lads as you’d wish to see; but the youngest prince had a
wild duck’s wing instead of his left arm.

“What’s all this about?” asked the Princes.

“My Queen is to be burnt,” said the King, “because she’s a witch, and
because she has eaten up her own babes.”

“She hasn’t eaten them at all”, said the Princes. “Speak now, sister;
you have set us free and saved us, now save yourself.”

Then Snow-white and Rosy-red spoke, and told the whole story; how every
time she was brought to bed, the old Queen, the King’s stepmother, had
stolen into her at night, had taken her babes away, and cut her little
finger, and smeared the blood over her mouth; and then the Princes took
the King, and shewed him the snake-pit where three babes lay playing
with adders and toads, and lovelier children you never saw.

So the King had them taken out at once, and went to his stepmother, and
asked her what punishment she thought that woman deserved who could
find it in her heart to betray a guiltless Queen and three such blessed
little babes.

“She deserves to be fast bound between twelve unbroken steeds, so that
each may take his share of her”, said the old Queen.

“You have spoken your own doom”, said the King, “and you shall suffer
it at once.”

So the wicked old Queen was fast bound between twelve unbroken steeds,
and each got his share of her. But the King took Snow-white and
Rosy-red, and their three children, and the twelve Princes; and so they
all went home to their father and mother, and told all that had
befallen them, and there was joy and gladness over the whole kingdom,
because the Princess was saved and set free, and because she had set
free her twelve brothers.




THE GIANT WHO HAD NO HEART IN HIS BODY


Once on a time there was a king who had seven sons, and he loved them
so much that he could never bear to be without them all at once, but
one must always be with him. Now, when they were grown up, six were to
set off to woo, but as for the youngest, his father kept him at home,
and the others were to bring back a princess for him to the palace. So
the king gave the six the finest clothes you ever set eyes on, so fine
that the light gleamed from them a long way off, and each had his
horse, which cost many, many hundred dollars, and so they set off. Now,
when they had been to many palaces, and seen many princesses, at last
they came to a king who had six daughters; such lovely king’s daughters
they had never seen, and so they fell to wooing them, each one, and
when they had got them for sweethearts, they set off home again, but
they quite forgot that they were to bring back with them a sweetheart
for Boots, their brother, who stayed at home, for they were over head
and ears in love with their own sweethearts.

But when they had gone a good bit on their way, they passed close by a
steep hill-side, like a wall, where the giant’s house was, and there
the giant came out, and set his eyes upon them, and turned them all
into stone, princes and princesses and all. Now the king waited and
waited for his six sons, but the more he waited, the longer they stayed
away; so he fell into great trouble, and said he should never know what
it was to be glad again.

“And if I had not you left”, he said to Boots, “I would live no longer,
so full of sorrow am I for the loss of your brothers.”

“Well, but now I’ve been thinking to ask your leave to set out and find
them again; that’s what I’m thinking of”, said Boots.

“Nay, nay!” said his father; “that leave you shall never get, for then
you would stay away too.”

But Boots had set his heart upon it; go he would; and he begged and
prayed so long that the king was forced to let him go. Now, you must
know the king had no other horse to give Boots but an old broken-down
jade, for his six other sons and their train had carried off all his
horses; but Boots did not care a pin for that, he sprang up on his
sorry-old-steed.

“Farewell, father”, said he; “I’ll come back, never fear, and like
enough I shall bring my six brothers back with me”; and with that he
rode off.

So, when he had ridden a while, he came to a Raven, which lay in the
road and flapped its wings, and was not able to get out of the way, it
was so starved.

“Oh, dear friend”, said the Raven, “give me a little food, and I’ll
help you again at your utmost need.”

“I haven’t much food”, said the Prince, “and I don’t see how you’ll
ever be able to help me much; but still I can spare you a little. I see
you want it.”

So he gave the raven some of the food he had brought with him.

Now, when he had gone a bit further, he came to a brook, and in the
brook lay a great Salmon, which had got upon a dry place and dashed
itself about, and could not get into the water again.

“Oh, dear friend”, said the Salmon to the Prince; “shove me out into
the water again, and I’ll help you again at your utmost need.”

“Well!” said the Prince, “the help you’ll give me will not be great, I
daresay, but it’s a pity you should lie there and choke”; and with that
he shot the fish out into the stream again.

After that he went a long, long way, and there met him a Wolf, which
was so famished that it lay and crawled along the road on its belly.

“Dear friend, do let me have your horse”, said the Wolf; “I’m so hungry
the wind whistles through my ribs; I’ve had nothing to eat these two
years.”

“No”, said Boots, “this will never do; “first I came to a raven, and I
was forced to give him my food; next I came to a salmon, and him I had
to help into the water again; and now you will have my horse. It can’t
be done, that it can’t, for then I should have nothing to ride on.”

“Nay, dear friend, but you can help me”, said Graylegs the wolf; “you
can ride upon my back, and I’ll help you again in your utmost need.”

“Well! the help I shall get from you will not be great, I’ll be bound”,
said the Prince; “but you may take my horse, since you are in such
need.”

So when the wolf had eaten the horse, Boots took the bit and put it
into the wolf’s jaw, and laid the saddle on his back; and now the wolf
was so strong, after what he had got inside, that he set off with the
Prince like nothing. So fast he had never ridden before.

“When we have gone a bit farther”, said Graylegs; “I’ll show you the
Giant’s house.”

So after a while they came to it.

“See, here is the Giant’s house”, said the Wolf; “and see, here are
your six brothers, whom the Giant has turned into stone; and see here
are their six brides, and away yonder is the door, and in at that door
you must go.”

“Nay, but I daren’t go in”, said the Prince; “he’ll take my life.”

“No! no!” said the Wolf; “when you get in you’ll find a Princess, and
she’ll tell you what to do to make an end of the Giant. Only mind and
do as she bids you.”

Well! Boots went in, but, truth to say, he was very much afraid. When
he came in the Giant was away, but in one of the rooms sat the
Princess, just as the wolf had said, and so lovely a princess Boots had
never yet set eyes on.

“Oh! heaven help you! whence have you come?” said the Princess, as she
saw him; “it will surely be your death. No one can make an end of the
Giant who lives here, for he has no heart in his body.”

“Well! well!” said Boots; “but now that I am here, I may as well try
what I can do with him; and I will see if I can’t free my brothers, who
are standing turned to stone out of doors; and you, too, I will try to
save, that I will.”

“Well, if you must, you must”, said the Princess; “and so let us see if
we can’t hit on a plan. Just creep under the bed yonder, and mind and
listen to what he and I talk about. But, pray, do lie as still as a
mouse.”

So he crept under the bed, and he had scarce got well underneath it,
before the Giant came.

“Ha!” roared the Giant, “what a smell of Christian blood there is in
the house!”

“Yes, I know there is”, said the Princess, “for there came a magpie
flying with a man’s bone, and let it fall down the chimney. I made all
the haste I could to get it out, but all one can do, the smell doesn’t
go off so soon.”

So the Giant said no more about it, and when night came, they went to
bed. After they had lain awhile, the Princess said:

“There is one thing I’d be so glad to ask you about, if I only dared.”

“What thing is that?” asked the Giant.

“Only where it is you keep your heart, since you don’t carry it about
you”, said the Princess.

“Ah! that’s a thing you’ve no business to ask about; but if you must
know, it lies under the door-sill”, said the Giant.

“Ho! ho!” said Boots to himself under the bed, “then we’ll soon see if
we can’t find it.”

Next morning the Giant got up cruelly early, and strode off to the
wood; but he was hardly out of the house before Boots and the Princess
set to work to look under the door-sill for his heart; but the more
they dug, and the more they hunted, the more they couldn’t find it.

“He has baulked us this time”, said the Princess, “but we’ll try him
once more.”

So she picked all the prettiest flowers she could find, and strewed
them over the door-sill, which they had laid in its right place again;
and when the time came for the Giant to come home again, Boots crept
under the bed. Just as he was well under, back came the Giant.

Snuff—snuff, went the Giant’s nose. “My eyes and limbs, what a smell of
Christian blood there is in here”, said he.

“I know there is”, said the Princess, “for there came a magpie flying
with a man’s bone in his bill, and let it fall down the chimney. I made
as much haste as I could to get it out, but I daresay it’s that you
smell.”

So the Giant held his peace, and said no more about it. A little while
after, he asked who it was that had strewed flowers about the
door-sill.

“Oh, I, of course”, said the Princess.

“And, pray, what’s the meaning of all this?” said the Giant.

“Ah!” said the Princess, “I’m so fond of you that I couldn’t help
strewing them, when I knew that your heart lay under there.”

“You don’t say so”, said the Giant; “but after all it doesn’t lie there
at all.”

So when they went to bed again in the evening, the Princess asked the
Giant again where his heart was, for she said she would so like to
know.

“Well”, said the Giant, “if you must know, it lies away yonder in the
cupboard against the wall.”

“So, so!” thought Boots and the Princess; “then we’ll soon try to find
it.”

Next morning the Giant was away early, and strode off to the wood, and
so soon as he was gone Boots and the Princess were in the cupboard
hunting for his heart, but the more they sought for it, the less they
found it.

“Well”, said the Princess, “we’ll just try him once more.”

So she decked out the cupboard with flowers and garlands, and when the
time came for the Giant to come home, Boots crept under the bed again.

Then back came the Giant.

Snuff-snuff! “My eyes and limbs, what a smell of Christian blood there
is in here!”

“I know there is”, said the Princess; “for a little while since there
came a magpie flying with a man’s bone in his bill, and let it fall
down the chimney. I made all the haste I could to get it out of the
house again; but after all my pains, I daresay it’s that you smell.”

When the Giant heard that, he said no more about it; but a little while
after, he saw how the cupboard was all decked about with flowers and
garlands; so he asked who it was that had done that? Who could it be
but the Princess.

“And, pray, what’s the meaning of all this tom-foolery?” asked the
Giant.

“Oh, I’m so fond of you, I couldn’t help doing it when I knew that your
heart lay there”, said the Princess.

“How can you be so silly as to believe any such thing?” said the Giant.

“Oh yes; how can I help believing it, when you say it”, said the
Princess.

“You’re a goose”, said the Giant; “where my heart is, you will never
come.”

“Well”, said the Princess;” but for all that, ’twould be such a
pleasure to know where it really lies.”

Then the poor Giant could hold out no longer, but was forced to say:

“Far, far away in a lake lies an island; on that island stands a
church; in that church is a well; in that well swims a duck; in that
duck there is an egg, and in that egg there lies my heart,—you
darling!”

In the morning early, while it was still grey dawn, the Giant strode
off to the wood.

“Yes! now I must set off too”, said Boots; “if I only knew how to find
the way.” He took a long, long farewell of the Princess, and when he
got out of the Giant’s door, there stood the Wolf waiting for him. So
Boots told him all that had happened inside the house, and said now he
wished to ride to the well in the church, if he only knew the way. So
the Wolf bade him jump on his back, he’d soon find the way; and away
they went, till the wind whistled after them, over hedge and field,
over hill and dale. After they had travelled many, many days, they came
at last to the lake. Then the Prince did not know how to get over it,
but the Wolf bade him only not be afraid, but stick on, and so he
jumped into the lake with the Prince on his back, and swam over to the
island. So they came to the church; but the church keys hung high, high
up on the top of the tower, and at first the Prince did not know how to
get them down.

“You must call on the raven”, said the Wolf.

So the Prince called on the raven, and in a trice the raven came, and
flew up and fetched the keys, and so the Prince got into the church.
But when he came to the well, there lay the duck, and swam about
backwards and forwards, just as the Giant had said. So the Prince stood
and coaxed it and coaxed it, till it came to him, and he grasped it in
his hand; but just as he lifted it up from the water the duck dropped
the egg into the well, and then Boots was beside himself to know how to
get it out again.

“Well, now you must call on the salmon to be sure”, said the Wolf; and
the king’s son called on the salmon, and the salmon came and fetched up
the egg from the bottom of the well.

Then the Wolf told him to squeeze the egg, and as soon as ever he
squeezed it the Giant screamed out.

“Squeeze it again”, said the Wolf; and when the Prince did so, the
Giant screamed still more piteously, and begged and prayed so prettily
to be spared, saying he would do all that the Prince wished if he would
only not squeeze his heart in two.

“Tell him, if he will restore to life again your six brothers and their
brides, whom he has turned to stone, you will spare his life”, said the
Wolf. Yes, the Giant was ready to do that, and he turned the six
brothers into king’s sons again, and their brides into king’s
daughters.

“Now, squeeze the egg in two”, said the Wolf. So Boots squeezed the egg
to pieces, and the Giant burst at once.

Now, when he had made an end of the Giant, Boots rode back again on the
wolf to the Giant’s house, and there stood all his six brothers alive
and merry, with their brides. Then Boots went into the hill-side after
his bride, and so they all set off home again to their father’s house.
And you may fancy how glad the old king was when he saw all his seven
sons come back, each with his bride—“But the loveliest bride of all is
the bride of Boots, after all”, said the king, “and he shall sit
uppermost at the table, with her by his side.”

So he sent out, and called a great wedding-feast, and the mirth was
both loud and long, and if they have not done feasting, why, they are
still at it.




THE FOX AS HERDSMAN


Once on a time there was a woman who went out to hire a herdsman, and
she met a bear.

“Whither away, Goody?” said Bruin.

“Oh, I’m going out to hire a herdsman”, answered the woman.

“Why not have me for a herdsman?” said Bruin.

“Well, why not?” said the woman. “If you only knew how to call the
flock; just let me hear?”

“OW, OW!” growled the bear.

“No, no! I won’t have you”, said the woman, as soon as she heard him
say that, and off she went on her way.

So, when she had gone a bit further, she met a wolf.

“Whither away, Goody?” asked the Wolf.

“Oh!” said she, “I’m going out to hire a herdsman.”

“Why not have me for a herdsman?” said the Wolf.

“Well, why not? if you can only call the flock; let me hear?” said she.

“UH, UH!” said the Wolf.

“No, no!” said the woman; “you’ll never do for me.”

Well, after she had gone a while longer, she met a fox.

“Whither away, Goody?” asked the Fox.

“Oh, I’m just going out to hire a herdsman”, said the woman.

“Why not have me for your herdsman?” asked the Fox.

“Well, why not?” said she; “if you only knew how to call the flock; let
me hear?”

“DIL-DAL-HOLOM”, sung out the Fox, in such a fine clear voice.

“Yes; I’ll have you for my herdsman”, said the woman; and so she set
the Fox to herd her flock.

The first day the Fox was herdsman he ate up all the woman’s goats; the
next day he made an end of all her sheep; and the third day he ate up
all her kine. So, when he came home at even, the woman asked what he
had done with all her flocks?

“Oh!” said the Fox, “their skulls are in the stream, and their bodies
in the holt.”

Now, the Goody stood and churned when the fox said this, but she
thought she might as well step out and see after her flock; and while
she was away the Fox crept into the churn and ate up the cream. So when
the Goody came back and saw that, she fell into such a rage, that she
snatched up the little morsel of the cream that was left, and threw it
at the fox as he ran off, so that he got a dab of it on the end of his
tail, and that’s the reason why the fox has a white tip to his brush.




THE MASTERMAID


Once on a time there was a king who had several sons—I don’t know how
many there were—but the youngest had no rest at home, for nothing else
would please him but to go out into the world and try his luck, and
after a long time the king was forced to give him leave to go. Now,
after he had travelled some days, he came one night to a Giant’s house,
and there he got a place in the Giant’s service. In the morning the
Giant went off to herd his goats, and as he left the yard, he told the
Prince to clean out the stable; “and after you have done that, you
needn’t do anything else to-day; for you must know it is an easy master
you have come to. But what is set you to do you must do well, and you
mustn’t think of going into any of the rooms which are beyond that in
which you slept, for if you do, I’ll take your life.”

“Sure enough, it is an easy master I have got”, said the Prince to
himself, as he walked up and down the room, and carolled and sang, for
he thought there was plenty of time to clean out the stable.

“But still it would be good fun just to peep into his other rooms, for
there must be something in them which he is afraid lest I should see,
since he won’t give me leave to go in.”

So he went into the first room, and there was a pot boiling on a hook
by the wall, but the Prince saw no fire underneath it. I wonder what is
inside it, he thought; and then he dipped a lock of his hair into it,
and the hair seemed as if it were all turned to copper.

“What a dainty broth,” he said; “if one tasted it, he’d look grand
inside his gullet”; and with that he went into the next room. There,
too, was a pot hanging by a hook, which bubbled and boiled; but there
was no fire under that either.

“I may as well try this too”, said the Prince, as he put another lock
into the pot, and it came out all silvered.

“They haven’t such rich broth in my father’s house”, said the Prince;
“but it all depends on how it tastes”, and with that he went on into
the third room. There, too, hung a pot, and boiled just as he had seen
in the two other rooms, and the Prince had a mind to try this too, so
he dipped a lock of hair into it, and it came out gilded, so that the
light gleamed from it.

“‘Worse and worse’, said the old wife; but I say better and better”,
said the Prince; “but if he boils gold here, I wonder what he boils in
yonder.”

He thought he might as well see; so he went through the door into the
fourth room. Well, there was no pot in there, but there was a Princess,
seated on a bench, so lovely, that the Prince had never seen anything
like her in his born days.

“Oh! in Heaven’s name”, she said, “what do you want here?”

“I got a place here yesterday”, said the Prince.

“A place, indeed! Heaven help you out of it.”

“Well, after all, I think I’ve got an easy master; he hasn’t set me
much to do to-day, for after I have cleaned out the stable, my day’s
work is over.”

“Yes, but how will you do it”, she said; “for if you set to work to
clean it like other folk, ten pitchforks full will come in for every
one you toss out. But I will teach you how to set to work; you must
turn the fork upside down, and toss with the handle, and then all the
dung will fly out of itself.”

“Yes, he would be sure to do that”, said the Prince; and so he sat
there the whole day, for he and the Princess were soon great friends,
and had made up their minds to have one another, and so the first day
of his service with the Giant was not long, you may fancy. But when the
evening drew on, she said “twould be as well if he got the stable
cleaned out before the Giant came home; and when he went to the stable,
he thought he would just see if what she had said were true, and so he
began to work like the grooms in his father’s stable; but he soon had
enough of that, for he hadn’t worked a minute before the stable was so
full of dung that he hadn’t room to stand. Then he did as the Princess
bade him, and turned up the fork and worked with the handle, and lo! in
a trice the stable was as clean as if it had been scoured. And when he
had done his work, he went back into the room where the Giant had given
him leave to be, and began to walk up and down, and to carol and sing.
So after a bit, home came the Giant with his goats.

“Have you cleaned the stable?” asked the Giant.

“Yes, now it’s all right and tight, master”, answered the Prince.

“I’ll soon see if it is”, growled the Giant, and strode off to the
stable, where he found it just as the Prince had said.

“You’ve been talking to my Mastermaid, I can see”, said the Giant; “for
you’ve not sucked this knowledge out of your own breast.”

“Mastermaid!” said the Prince, who looked as stupid as an owl, “what
sort of thing is that, master? I’d be very glad to see it.”

“Well, well!” said the Giant; “you’ll see her soon enough”.

Next day the Giant set off with his goats again, and before he went he
told the Prince to fetch home his horse, which was out at grass on the
hill-side, and when he had done that he might rest all the day.

“For you must know, it is an easy master you have come to”, said the
Giant; “but if you go into any of the rooms I spoke of yesterday, I’ll
wring your head off.”

So off he went with his flock of goats.

“An easy master you are indeed”, said the Prince; “but for all that,
I’ll just go in and have a chat with your Mastermaid; may be she’ll be
as soon mine as yours.” So he went in to her, and she asked him what he
had to do that day.

“Oh! nothing to be afraid of”, said he; “I’ve only to go up to the
hill-side to fetch his horse.”

“Very well, and how will you set about it?”

“Well, for that matter, there’s no great art in riding a horse home. I
fancy I’ve ridden fresher horses before now”, said the Prince.

“Ah, but this isn’t so easy a task as you think; but I’ll teach you how
to do it. When you get near it, fire and flame will come out of its
nostrils, as out of a tar barrel; but look out, and take the bit which
hangs behind the door yonder, and throw it right into his jaws, and he
will grow so tame that you may do what you like with him.”

Yes! the Prince would mind and do that; and so he sat in there the
whole day, talking and chattering with the Mastermaid about one thing
and another, but they always came back to how happy they would be if
they could only have one another, and get well away from the Giant;
and, to tell the truth, the Prince would have clean forgotten both the
horse and the hill-side, if the Mastermaid hadn’t put him in mind of
them when evening drew on, telling him he had better set out to fetch
the horse before the Giant came home. So he set off, and took the bit
which hung in the corner, ran up the hill, and it wasn’t long before he
met the horse, with fire and flame streaming out of its nostrils. But
he watched his time, and, as the horse came open-jawed up to him, he
threw the bit into its mouth, and it stood as quiet as a lamb. After
that, it was no great matter to ride it home and put it up, you may
fancy; and then the Prince went into his room again, and began to carol
and sing.

So the Giant came home again at even with his goats; and the first
words he said were:

“Have you brought my horse down from the hill?”

“Yes, master, that I have”, said the Prince; “and a better horse I
never bestrode; but for all that I rode him straight home, and put him
up safe and sound.”

“I’ll soon see to that”, said the Giant, and ran out to the stable, and
there stood the horse just as the Prince had said.

“You’ve talked to my Mastermaid, I’ll be bound, for you haven’t sucked
this out of your own breast”, said the Giant again.

“Yesterday master talked of this Mastermaid, and to-day it’s the same
story”, said the Prince, who pretended to be silly and stupid. “Bless
you, master! why don’t you show me the thing at once? I should so like
to see it only once in my life.”

“Oh, if that’s all”, said the Giant, “you’ll see her soon enough.”

The third day, at dawn, the Giant went off to the wood again with his
goats; but before he went he said to the Prince:

“To-day you must go to Hell and fetch my fire-tax. When you have done
that you can rest yourself all day, for you must know it is an easy
master you have come to”; and with that off he went.

“Easy master, indeed!” said the Prince. “You may be easy, but you set
me hard tasks all the same. But I may as well see if I can find your
Mastermaid, as you call her. I daresay she’ll tell me what to do”; and
so in he went to her again.

So when the Mastermaid asked what the Giant had set him to do that day,
he told her how he was to go to Hell and fetch the fire-tax.

“And how will you set about it?” asked the Mastermaid.

“Oh, that you must tell me”, said the Prince. “I have never been to
Hell in my life; and even if I knew the way, I don’t know how much I am
to ask for.”

“Well, I’ll soon tell you”, said the Mastermaid; “you must go to the
steep rock away yonder, under the hill-side, and take the club that
lies there, and knock on the face of the rock. Then there will come out
one all glistening with fire; to him you must tell your errand; and
when he asks you how much you will have, mind you say, ‘As much as I
can carry.’”

Yes; he would be sure to say that; so he sat in there with the
Mastermaid all that day too; and though evening drew on, he would have
sat there till now, had not the Mastermaid put him in mind that it was
high time to be off to Hell to fetch the Giant’s fire-tax before he
came home. So he went on his way, and did just as the Mastermaid had
told him; and when he reached the rock, he took up the club and gave a
great thump. Then the rock opened, and out came one whose face
glistened, and out of whose eyes and nostrils flew sparks of fire.

“What is your will?” said he.

“Oh! I’m only come from the Giant to fetch his fire-tax”, said the
Prince.

“How much will you have then?” said the other.

“I never wish for more than I am able to carry”, said the Prince.

“Lucky for you that you did not ask for a whole horse-load”, said he
who came out of the rock; “but come now into the rock with me, and you
shall have it.”

So the Prince went in with him, and you may fancy what heaps and heaps
of gold and silver he saw lying in there, just like stones in a gravel
pit; and he got a load just as big as he was able to carry, and set off
home with it. Now, when the Giant came home with his goats at even, the
Prince went into his room, and began to carol and sing as he had done
the evenings before.

“Have you been to Hell after my fire-tax?” roared the Giant.

“Oh yes; that I have, master”, answered the Prince.

“Where have you put it?” said the Giant.

“There stands the sack on the bench yonder”, said the Prince.

“I’ll soon see to that”, said the Giant, who strode off to the bench,
and there he saw the sack so full that the gold and silver dropped out
on the floor as soon as ever he untied the string.

“You’ve been talking to my Mastermaid, that I can see”, said the Giant;
“but if you have, I’ll wring your head off.”

“Mastermaid!” said the Prince; “yesterday master talked of this
Mastermaid, and to-day he talks of her again, and the day before
yesterday it was the same story. I only wish I could see what sort of
thing she is! that I do.”

“Well, well, wait till to-morrow”, said the Giant, “and then I’ll take
you in to her myself.”

“Thank you kindly, master”, said the Prince; “but it’s only a joke of
master’s, I’ll be bound.”

So next day the Giant took him in to the Mastermaid, and said to her:

“Now, you must cut his throat, and boil him in the great big pot you
wot of; and when the broth is ready, just give me a call.”

After that, he laid him down on the bench to sleep, and began to snore
so, that it sounded like thunder on the hills.

So the Mastermaid took a knife and cut the Prince in his little finger,
and let three drops of blood fall on a three-legged stool; and after
that she took all the old rags, and soles of shoes, and all the rubbish
she could lay hands on, and put them into the pot; and then she filled
a chest full of ground gold, and took a lump of salt, and a flask of
water that hung behind the door, and she took, besides, a golden apple,
and two golden chickens, and off she set with the Prince from the
Giant’s house as fast as they could; and when they had gone a little
way, they came to the sea, and after that they sailed over the sea; but
where they got the ship from, I have never heard tell.

So when the Giant had slumbered a good bit, he began to stretch himself
as he lay on the bench and called out, “Will it be soon done?”

“Only just begun”, answered the first drop of blood on the stool.

So the Giant lay down to sleep again, and slumbered a long, long time.
At last he began to toss about a little, and cried out:

“Do you hear what I say; will it be soon done?” but he did not look up
this time, any more than the first, for he was still half asleep.

“Half done”, said the second drop of blood.

Then the Giant thought again it was the Mastermaid, so he turned over
on his other side, and fell asleep again; and when he had gone on
sleeping for many hours, he began to stir and stretch his old bones,
and to call out,—

“Isn’t it done yet?”

“Done to a turn”, said the third drop of blood.

Then the Giant rose up and began to rub his eyes, but he couldn’t see
who it was that was talking to him, so he searched and called for the
Mastermaid, but no one answered.

“Ah, well! I dare say she’s just run out of doors for a bit”, he
thought, and took up a spoon and went up to the pot to taste the broth;
but he found nothing but shoe-soles, and rags, and such stuff; and it
was all boiled up together, so that he couldn’t tell which was thick
and which was thin. As soon as he saw this, he could tell how things
had gone, and he got so angry he scarce knew which leg to stand upon.
Away he went after the Prince and the Mastermaid, till the wind
whistled behind him; but before long, he came to the water and couldn’t
cross it.

“Never mind”, he said; “I know a cure for this. I’ve only got to call
on my stream-sucker.”

So he called on his stream-sucker, and he came and stooped down, and
took one, two, three gulps; and then the water fell so much in the sea,
that the Giant could see the Mastermaid and the Prince sailing in their
ship.

“Now, you must cast out the lump of salt”, said the Mastermaid.

So the Prince threw it overboard, and it grew up into a mountain so
high, right across the sea, that the Giant couldn’t pass it, and the
stream-sucker couldn’t help him by swilling any more water.

“Never mind!” cried the Giant; “there’s a cure for this too.” So he
called on his hill-borer to come and bore through the mountain, that
the stream-sucker might creep through and take another swill; but just
as they had made a hole through the hill, and the stream-sucker was
about to drink, the Mastermaid told the Prince to throw overboard a
drop or two out of the flask, and then the sea was just as full as
ever, and before the stream-sucker could take another gulp, they
reached the land and were saved from the Giant.

So they made up their minds to go home to the Prince’s father, but the
Prince would not hear of the Mastermaid’s walking, for he thought it
seemly neither for her nor for him.

“Just wait here ten minutes”, he said, “while I go home after the seven
horses which stand in my father’s stall. It’s no great way off, and I
shan’t be long about it; but I will not hear of my sweetheart walking
to my father’s palace.”

“Ah!” said the Mastermaid, “pray don’t leave me, for if you once get
home to the palace, you’ll forget me outright; I know you will.”

“Oh!” said he, “how can I forget you; you with whom I have gone through
so much, and whom I love so dearly?”

There was no help for it, he must and would go home to fetch the coach
and seven horses, and she was to wait for him by the seaside. So at
last the Mastermaid was forced to let him have his way; she only said:

“Now, when you get home, don’t stop so much as to say good day to any
one, but go straight to the stable and put to the horses, and drive
back as quick as you can; for they will all come about you; but do as
though you did not see them; and above all things, mind you do not
taste a morsel of food, for if you do, we shall both come to grief.”

All this the Prince promised; but he thought all the time there was
little fear of his forgetting her.

Now, just as he came home to the palace, one of his brothers was
thinking of holding his bridal feast, and the bride, and all her kith
and kin, were just come to the palace. So they all thronged round him,
and asked about this thing and that, and wanted him to go in with them;
but he made as though he did not see them, and went straight to the
stall and got out the horses, and began to put them to. And when they
saw they could not get him to go in, they came out to him with meat and
drink, and the best of everything they had got ready for the feast; but
the Prince would not taste so much as a crumb, and put to as fast as he
could. At last the bride’s sister rolled an apple across the yard to
him, saying:

“Well, if you won’t eat anything else, you may as well take a bite of
this, for you must be both hungry and thirsty after so long a journey.”

So he took up the apple and bit a piece out of it; but he had scarce
done so, before he forgot the Mastermaid, and how he was to drive back
for her.

“Well, I think I must be mad”, he said; “what am I to do with this
coach and horses?” So he put the horses up again, and went along with
the others into the palace, and it was soon settled that he should have
the bride’s sister, who had rolled the apple over to him.

There sat the Mastermaid by the seashore, and waited and waited for the
Prince, but no Prince came; so at last she went up from the shore, and
after she had gone a bit she came to a little hut which lay by itself
in a copse close by the king’s palace. She went in and asked if she
might lodge there. It was an old dame that owned the hut, and a
cross-grained scolding hag she was as ever you saw. At first she would
not hear of the Mastermaid’s lodging in her house, but at last, for
fair words and high rent, the Mastermaid got leave to be there. Now the
but was as dark and dirty as a pigsty, so the Mastermaid said she would
smarten it up a little, that their house might look inside like other
people’s. The old hag did not like this either, and showed her teeth,
and was cross; but the Mastermaid did not mind her. She took her chest
of gold, and threw a handful or so into the fire, and lo! the gold
melted, and bubbled and boiled over out of the grate, and spread itself
over the whole hut, till it was gilded both outside and in. But as soon
as the gold began to bubble and boil, the old hag got so afraid that
she tried to run out as if the Evil One were at her heels; and as she
ran out at the door, she forgot to stoop, and gave her head such a
knock against the lintel, that she broke her neck, and that was the end
of her.

Next morning the Constable passed that way, and you may fancy he could
scarce believe his eyes when he saw the golden hut shining and
glistening away in the copse; but he was still more astonished when he
went in and saw the lovely maiden who sat there. To make a long story
short, he fell over head and ears in love with her, and begged and
prayed her to become his wife.

“Well, but have you much money?” asked the Mastermaid.

Yes, for that matter, he said, he was not so badly off, and off he went
home to fetch the money, and when he came back at even he brought a
half-bushel sack, and set it down on the bench. So the Mastermaid said
she would have him, since he was so rich; but they were scarce in bed
before she said she must get up again:

“For I have forgotten to make up the fire.”

“Pray, don’t stir out of bed”, said the Constable; “I’ll see to it.”

So he jumped out of bed, and stood on the hearth in a trice.

“As soon as you have got hold of the shovel, just tell me”, said the
Mastermaid.

“Well, I am holding it now”, said the Constable.

Then the Mastermaid said:

“God grant that you may hold the shovel, and the shovel you, and may
you heap hot burning coals over yourself till morning breaks.”

So there stood the Constable all night long, shovelling hot burning
coals over himself; and though he begged, and prayed, and wept, the
coals were not a bit colder for that; but as soon as day broke, and he
had power to cast away the shovel, he did not stay long, as you may
fancy, but set off as if the Evil One or the bailiff were at his heels;
and all who met him stared their eyes out at him, for he cut capers as
though he were mad, and he could not have looked in worse plight if he
had been flayed and tanned, and every one wondered what had befallen
him, but he told no one where he had been, for shame’s sake.

Next day the Attorney passed by the place where the Mastermaid lived,
and he too saw how it shone and glistened in the copse; so he turned
aside to find out who owned the hut; and when he came in and saw the
lovely maiden, he fell more in love with her than the Constable, and
began to woo her in hot haste.

Well, the Mastermaid asked him, as she had asked the Constable, if he
had a good lot of money? and the Attorney said he wasn’t so badly off;
and as a proof he went home to fetch his money. So at even he came back
with a great fat sack of money—I think it was a whole bushel sack—and
set it down on the bench; and the long and the short of the matter was,
that he was to have her, and they went to bed. But all at once the
Mastermaid had forgotten to shut the door of the porch, and she must
get up and make it fast for the night.

“What, you do that!” said the Attorney, “while I lie here; that can
never be; lie still, while I go and do it.”

So up he jumped, like a pea on a drum-head, and ran out into the porch.

“Tell me”, said the Mastermaid, “when you have hold of the door-latch.”

“I’ve got hold of it now”, said the Attorney.

“God grant, then”, said the Mastermaid, “that you may hold the door,
and the door you, and that you may go from wall to wall till day
dawns.”

So you may fancy what a dance the Attorney had all night long; such a
waltz he never had before, and I don’t think he would much care if he
never had such a waltz again. Now he pulled the door forward, and then
the door pulled him back, and so he went on, now dashed into one corner
of the porch, and now into the other, till he was almost battered to
death. At first he began to curse and swear, and then to beg and pray,
but the door cared for nothing but holding its own till break of day.
As soon as it let go its hold, off set the Attorney, leaving behind him
his money to pay for his night’s lodging, and forgetting his courtship
altogether, for to tell the truth, he was afraid lest the house-door
should come dancing after him. All who met him stared and gaped at him,
for he too cut capers like a madman, and he could not have looked in
worse plight if he had spent the whole night in butting against a flock
of rams.

The third day the Sheriff passed that way, and he too saw the golden
hut, and turned aside to find out who lived there; and he had scarce
set eyes on the Mastermaid, before he began to woo her. So she answered
him as she had answered the other two. If he had lots of money she
would have him, if not, he might go about his business. Well, the
Sheriff said he wasn’t so badly off, and he would go home and fetch the
money, and when he came again at even, he had a bigger sack even than
the Attorney—it must have been at least a bushel and a half, and put it
down on the bench. So it was soon settled that he was to have the
Mastermaid, but they had scarce gone to bed before the Mastermaid said
she had forgotten to bring home the calf from the meadow, so she must
get up and drive him into the stall. Then the Sheriff swore by all the
powers that should never be, and, stout and fat as he was, up he jumped
as nimbly as a kitten.

“Well, only tell me when you’ve got hold of the calf’s tail”, said the
Mastermaid.

“Now I have hold of it”, said the Sheriff.

“God grant”, said the Mastermaid, “that you may hold the calf’s tail,
and the calf’s tail you, and that you may make a tour of the world
together till day dawns”.

Well you may just fancy how the Sheriff had to stretch his legs; away
they went, the calf and he, over high and low, across hill and dale,
and the more the Sheriff cursed and swore, the faster the calf ran and
jumped. At dawn of day the poor Sheriff was well nigh broken-winded,
and so glad was he to let go the calf’s tail, that he forgot his sack
of money and everything else. As he was a great man, he went a little
slower than the Attorney and the Constable, but the slower he went the
more time people had to gape and stare at him; and I must say they made
good use of their time, for he was terribly tattered and torn, after
his dance with the calf.

Next day was fixed for the wedding at the palace, and the eldest
brother was to drive to church with his bride, and the younger, who had
lived with the Giant, with the bride’s sister. But when they had got
into the coach, and were just going to drive off, one of the trace-pins
snapped off; and though they made at least three in its place, they all
broke, from whatever sort of wood they were made. So time went on and
on, and they couldn’t get to church, and every one grew very downcast.
But all at once the Constable said, for he too was bidden to the
wedding, that yonder away in the copse lived a maiden.

“And if you can only get her to lend you the handle of her shovel with
which she makes up her fire, I know very well it will hold.”

Well! they sent a messenger on the spot, with such a pretty message to
the maiden, to know if they couldn’t get the loan of her shovel which
the Constable had spoken of; and the maiden said “yes”, they might have
it; so they got a trace-pin which wasn’t likely to snap.

But all at once, just as they were driving off, the bottom of the coach
tumbled to bits. So they set to work to make a new bottom as they best
might; but it mattered not how many nails they put into it, nor of what
wood they made it, for as soon as ever they got the bottom well into
the coach and were driving off, snap it went in two again, and they
were even worse off than when they lost the trace-pin. Just then the
Attorney said—for if the Constable was there, you may fancy the
Attorney was there too: “Away yonder, in the copse, lives a maiden, and
if you could only get her to lend you one-half of her porch-door, I
know it can hold together.”

Well! they sent another message to the copse, and asked so prettily if
they couldn’t have the loan of the gilded porch-door which the Attorney
had talked of; and they got it on the spot. So they were just setting
out; but now the horses were not strong enough to draw the coach,
though there were six of them; then they put on eight, and ten, and
twelve, but the more they put on, and the more the coachman whipped,
the more the coach wouldn’t stir an inch. By this time it was far on in
the day, and every one about the palace was in doleful dumps; for to
church they must go, and yet it looked as if they should never get
there. So at last the Sheriff said, that yonder in the gilded hut, in
the copse, lived a maiden, and if they could only get the loan of her
calf:

“I know it can drag the coach, though it were as heavy as a mountain.”

Well they all thought it would look silly to be drawn to church by a
calf, but there was no help for it, so they had to send a third time,
and ask so prettily in the King’s name, if he couldn’t get the loan of
the calf the Sheriff had spoken of, and the Mastermaid let them have it
on the spot, for she was not going to say “no” this time either. So
they put the calf on before the horses, and waited to see if it would
do any good, and away went the coach over high and low, and stock and
stone, so that they could scarce draw their breath; sometimes they were
on the ground, and sometimes up in the air, and when they reached the
church, the calf began to run round and round it like a spinning jenny,
so that they had hard work to get out of the coach, and into the
church. When they went back, it was the same story, only they went
faster, and they reached the palace almost before they knew they had
set out.

Now when they sat down to dinner, the Prince who had served with the
Giant said he thought they ought to ask the maiden who had lent them
her shovel-handle and porch-door, and calf, to come up to the palace.

“For”, said he, “if we hadn’t got these three things, we should have
been sticking here still.”

Yes; the King thought that only fair and right, so he sent five of his
best men down to the gilded but to greet the maiden from the King, and
to ask her if she wouldn’t be so good as to came up and dine at the
palace.

“Greet the King from me”, said the Mastermaid, “and tell him, if he’s
too good to come to me, so am I too good to go to him.”

So the King had to go himself, and then the Mastermaid went up with him
without more ado; and as the King thought she was more than she seemed
to be, he sat her down in the highest seat by the side of the youngest
bridegroom.

Now, when they had sat a little while at table, the Mastermaid took out
her golden apple, and the golden cock and hen, which she had carried
off from the Giant, and put them down on the table before her, and the
cock and hen began at once to peck at one another, and to fight for the
golden apple.

“Oh! only look”, said the Prince; “see how those two strive for the
apple.”

“Yes!” said the Mastermaid; “so we two strove to get away that time
when we were together in the hillside.”

Then the spell was broken, and the Prince knew her again, and you may
fancy how glad he was. But as for the witch who had rolled the apple
over to him, he had her torn to pieces between twenty-four horses, so
that there was not a bit of her left, and after that they held on with
the wedding in real earnest; and though they were still stiff and
footsore, the Constable, the Attorney, and the Sheriff, kept it up with
the best of them.




THE CAT ON THE DOVREFELL


Once on a time there was a man up in Finnmark who had caught a great
white bear, which he was going to take to the king of Denmark. Now, it
so fell out, that he came to the Dovrefell just about Christmas Eve,
and there he turned into a cottage where a man lived, whose name was
Halvor, and asked the man if he could get house-room there, for his
bear and himself.

“Heaven never help me, if what I say isn’t true!” said the man; “but we
can’t give any one house-room just now, for every Christmas Eve such a
pack of Trolls come down upon us, that we are forced to flit, and
haven’t so much as a house over our own heads, to say nothing of
lending one to any one else.”

“Oh?” said the man, “if that’s all, you can very well lend me your
house; my bear can lie under the stove yonder, and I can sleep in the
side-room.”

Well, he begged so hard, that at last he got leave to stay there; so
the people of the house flitted out, and before they went, everything
was got ready for the Trolls; the tables were laid, and there was rice
porridge, and fish boiled in lye, and sausages, and all else that was
good, just as for any other grand feast.

So, when everything was ready, down came the Trolls. Some were great,
and some were small; some had long tails, and some had no tails at all;
some, too, had long, long noses; and they ate and drank, and tasted
everything. Just then one of the little Trolls caught sight of the
white bear, who lay under the stove; so he took a piece of sausage and
stuck it on a fork, and went and poked it up against the bear’s nose,
screaming out:

“Pussy, will you have some sausage?”

Then the white bear rose up and growled, and hunted the whole pack of
them out of doors, both great and small.

Next year Halvor was out in the wood, on the afternoon of Christmas
Eve, cutting wood before the holidays, for he thought the Trolls would
come again; and just as he was hard at work, he heard a voice in the
wood calling out:

“Halvor! Halvor!”

“Well”, said Halvor, “here I am.”

“Have you got your big cat with you still?”

“Yes, that I have”, said Halvor; “she’s lying at home under the stove,
and what’s more, she has now got seven kittens, far bigger and fiercer
than she is herself.”

“Oh, then, we’ll never come to see you again”, bawled out the Troll
away in the wood, and he kept his word; for since that time the Trolls
have never eaten their Christmas brose with Halvor on the Dovrefell.




PRINCESS ON THE GLASS HILL


Once on a time there was a man who had a meadow, which lay high up on
the hill-side, and in the meadow was a barn, which he had built to keep
his hay in. Now, I must tell you, there hadn’t been much in the barn
for the last year or two, for every St. John’s night, when the grass
stood greenest and deepest, the meadow was eaten down to the very
ground the next morning, just as if a whole drove of sheep had been
there feeding on it over night. This happened once, and it happened
twice; so at last the man grew weary of losing his crop of hay, and
said to his sons—for he had three of them, and the youngest was
nicknamed Boots, of course—that now one of them must just go and sleep
in the barn in the outlying field when St. John’s night came, for it
was too good a joke that his grass should be eaten, root and blade,
this year, as it had been the last two years. So whichever of them went
must keep a sharp look-out; that was what their father said.

Well, the eldest son was ready to go and watch the meadow; trust him
for looking after the grass! It shouldn’t be his fault if man or beast,
or the fiend himself, got a blade of grass. So, when evening came, he
set off to the barn, and lay down to sleep; but a little on in the
night came such a clatter, and such an earthquake, that walls and roof
shook, and groaned, and creaked; then up jumped the lad, and took to
his heels as fast as ever he could; nor dared he once look round till
he reached home; and as for the hay, why it was eaten up this year just
as it had been twice before.

The next St. John’s night, the man said again, it would never do to
lose all the grass in the outlying field year after year in this way,
so one of his sons must just trudge off to watch it, and watch it well
too. Well, the next oldest son was ready to try his luck, so he set
off, and lay down to sleep in the barn as his brother had done before
him; but as the night wore on, there came on a rumbling and quaking of
the earth, worse even than on the last St. John’s night, and when the
lad heard it, he got frightened, and took to his heels as though he
were running a race.

Next year the turn came to Boots; but when he made ready to go, the
other two began to laugh and to make game of him, saying,

“You’re just the man to watch the hay, that you are; you, who have done
nothing all your life but sit in the ashes and toast yourself by the
fire.”

But Boots did not care a pin for their chattering, and stumped away as
evening drew on, up the hill-side to the outlying field. There he went
inside the barn and lay down; but in about an hour’s time the barn
began to groan and creak, so that it was dreadful to hear.

“Well”, said Boots to himself, “if it isn’t worse than this, I can
stand it well enough.”

A little while after came another creak and an earthquake, so that the
litter in the barn flew about the lad’s ears.

“Oh!” said Boots to himself, “if it isn’t worse than this, I daresay I
can stand it out.”

But just then came a third rumbling, and a third earthquake, so that
the lad thought walls and roof were coming down on his head; but it
passed off, and all was still as death about him.

“It’ll come again, I’ll be bound”, thought Boots; but no, it didn’t
come again; still it was, and still it stayed; but after he had lain a
little while, he heard a noise as if a horse were standing just outside
the barn-door, and cropping the grass. He stole to the door, and peeped
through a chink, and there stood a horse feeding away. So big, and fat,
and grand a horse, Boots had never set eyes on; by his side on the
grass lay a saddle and bridle, and a full set of armour for a knight,
all of brass, so bright that the light gleamed from it.

“Ho, ho!” thought the lad; “it’s you, is it, that eats up our hay? I’ll
soon put a spoke in your wheel, just see if I don’t.”

So he lost no time, but took the steel out of his tinder-box, and threw
it over the horse; then it had no power to stir from the spot, and
became so tame that the lad could do what he liked with it. So he got
on its back, and rode off with it to a place which no one knew of, and
there he put up the horse. When he got home, his brothers laughed and
asked how he had fared?

“You didn’t lie long in the barn, even if you had the heart to go so
far as the field.”

“Well”, said Boots, “all I can say is, I lay in the barn till the sun
rose, and neither saw nor heard anything; I can’t think what there was
in the barn to make you both so afraid.”

“A pretty story”, said his brothers; “but we’ll soon see how you have
watched the meadow”; so they set off; but when they reached it, there
stood the grass as deep and thick as it had been over night.

Well, the next St. John’s eve it was the same story over again; neither
of the elder brothers dared to go out to the outlying field to watch
the crop; but Boots, he had the heart to go, and everything happened
just as it had happened the year before. First a clatter and an
earthquake, then a greater clatter and another earthquake, and so on a
third time; only this year the earthquakes were far worse than the year
before. Then all at once everything was as still as death, and the lad
heard how something was cropping the grass outside the barn-door, so he
stole to the door, and peeped through a chink; and what do you think he
saw? why, another horse standing right up against the wall, and chewing
and champing with might and main. It was far finer and fatter than that
which came the year before, and it had a saddle on its back, and a
bridle on its neck, and a full suit of mail for a knight lay by its
side, all of silver, and as grand as you would wish to see.

“Ho ho!” said Boots to himself; “it’s you that gobbles up our hay, is
it? I’ll soon put a spoke in your wheel”; and with that he took the
steel out of his tinder-box, and threw it over the horse’s crest, which
stood as still as a lamb. Well, the lad rode this horse, too, to the
hiding-place where he kept the other one, and after that he went home.

“I suppose you’ll tell us”, said one of his brothers, “there’s a fine
crop this year too, up in the hayfield.”

“Well, so there is”, said Boots; and off ran the others to see, and
there stood the grass thick and deep, as it was the year before; but
they didn’t give Boots softer words for all that.

Now, when the third St. John’s eve came, the two elder still hadn’t the
heart to lie out in the barn and watch the grass, for they had got so
scared at heart the night they lay there before, that they couldn’t get
over the fright; but Boots, he dared to go; and, to make a long story
short, the very same thing happened this time as had happened twice
before. Three earthquakes came, one after the other, each worse than
the one which went before, and when the last came, the lad danced about
with the shock from one barn wall to the other; and after that, all at
once, it was still as death. Now when he had lain a little while, he
heard something tugging away at the grass outside the barn, so he stole
again to the door-chink, and peeped out, and there stood a horse close
outside—far, far bigger and fatter than the two he had taken before.

“Ho, ho!” said the lad to himself, “it’s you, is it, that comes here
eating up our hay? I’ll soon stop that—I’ll soon put a spoke in your
wheel.” So he caught up his steel and threw it over the horse’s neck,
and in a trice it stood as if it were nailed to the ground, and Boots
could do as he pleased with it. Then he rode off with it to the
hiding-place where he kept the other two, and then went home. When he
got home, his two brothers made game of him as they had done before,
saying, they could see he had watched the grass well, for he looked for
all the world as if he were walking in his sleep, and many other
spiteful things they said, but Boots gave no heed to them, only asking
them to go and see for themselves; and when they went, there stood the
grass as fine and deep this time as it had been twice before.

Now, you must know that the king of the country where Boots lived had a
daughter, whom he would only give to the man who could ride up over the
hill of glass, for there was a high, high hill, all of glass, as smooth
and slippery as ice, close by the king’s palace. Upon the tip top of
the hill the king’s daughter was to sit, with three golden apples in
her lap, and the man who could ride up and carry off the three golden
apples, was to have half the kingdom, and the Princess to wife. This
the king had stuck up on all the church-doors in his realm, and had
given it out in many other kingdoms besides. Now, this Princess was so
lovely, that all who set eyes on her, fell over head and ears in love
with her whether they would or no. So I needn’t tell you how all the
princes and knights who heard of her were eager to win her to wife, and
half the kingdom beside; and how they came riding from all parts of the
world on high prancing horses, and clad in the grandest clothes, for
there wasn’t one of them who hadn’t made up his mind that he, and he
alone, was to win the Princess.

So when the day of trial came, which the king had fixed, there was such
a crowd of princes and knights under the glass hill, that it made one’s
head whirl to look at them; and every one in the country who could even
crawl along was off to the hill, for they all were eager to see the man
who was to win the Princess. So the two elder brothers set off with the
rest; but as for Boots, they said outright he shouldn’t go with them,
for if they were seen with such a dirty, changeling, all begrimed with
smut from cleaning their shoes and sifting cinders in the dust-hole,
they said folk would make game of them.

“Very well”, said Boots, “it’s all one to me. I can go alone, and stand
or fall by myself.”

Now when the two brothers came to the hill of glass, the knights and
princes were all hard at it, riding their horses till they were all in
a foam; but it was no good, by my troth; for as soon as ever the horses
set foot on the hill, down they slipped, and there wasn’t one who could
get a yard or two up; and no wonder, for the hill was as smooth as a
sheet of glass, and as steep as a house-wall. But all were eager to
have the Princess and half the kingdom. So they rode and slipped, and
slipped and rode, and still it was the same story over again. At last
all their horses were so weary that they could scarce lift a leg, and
in such a sweat that the lather dripped from them, and so the knights
had to give up trying any more. So the king was just thinking that he
would proclaim a new trial for the next day, to see if they would have
better luck, when all at once a knight came riding up on so brave a
steed, that no one had ever seen the like of it in his born days, and
the knight had mail of brass, and the horse a brass bit in his mouth,
so bright that the sunbeams shone from it. Then all the others called
out to him he might just as well spare himself the trouble of riding at
the hill, for it would lead to no good; but he gave no heed to them,
and put his horse at the hill, and went up it like nothing for a good
way, about a third of the height; and when he had got so far, he turned
his horse round and rode down again. So lovely a knight the Princess
thought she had never yet seen; and while he was riding, she sat and
thought to herself: “Would to heaven he might only come up and down the
other side.”

And when she saw him turning back, she threw down one of the golden
apples after him, and it rolled down into his shoe. But when he got to
the bottom of the hill he rode off so fast that no one could tell what
had become of him. That evening all the knights and princes were to go
before the king, that he who had ridden so far up the hill might show
the apple which the princess had thrown, but there was no one who had
anything to show. One after the other they all came, but not a man of
them could show the apple.

At even the brothers of Boots came home too, and had such a long story
to tell about the riding up the hill.

“First of all”, they said, “there was not one of the whole lot who
could get so much as a stride up; but at last came one who had a suit
of brass mail, and a brass bridle and saddle, all so bright that the
sun shone from them a mile off. He was a chap to ride, just! He rode a
third of the way up the hill of glass, and he could easily have ridden
the whole way up, if he chose; but he turned round and rode down,
thinking, maybe, that was enough for once.”

“Oh! I should so like to have seen him, that I should”, said Boots, who
sat by the fireside, and stuck his feet into the cinders, as was his
wont.

“Oh!” said his brothers, “you would, would you? You; look fit to keep
company with such high lords, nasty beast that you are, sitting there
amongst the ashes.”

Next day the brothers were all for setting off again, and Boots begged
them this time, too, to let him go with them and see the riding; but
no, they wouldn’t have him at any price, he was too ugly and nasty,
they said.

“Well, well!” said Boots;” if I go at all, I must go by myself. I’m not
afraid.”

So when the brothers got to the hill of glass, all the princes and
knights began to ride again, and you may fancy they had taken care to
shoe their horses sharp; but it was no good—they rode and slipped, and
slipped and rode, just as they had done the day before, and there was
not one who could get so far as a yard up the hill. And when they had
worn out their horses, so that they could not stir a leg, they were all
forced to give it up as a bad job. So the king thought he might as well
proclaim that the riding should take place the day after for the last
time, just to give them one chance more; but all at once it came across
his mind that he might as well wait a little longer, to see if the
knight in brass mail would come this day too. Well! they saw nothing of
him; but all at once came one riding on a steed, far, far, braver and
finer than that on which the knight in brass had ridden, and he had
silver mail, and a silver saddle and bridle, all so bright that the
sun-beams gleamed and glanced from them far away. Then the others
shouted out to him again, saying, he might as well hold hard, and not
try to ride up the hill, for all his trouble would be thrown away; but
the knight paid no heed to them, and rode straight at the hill, and
right up it, till he had gone two-thirds of the way, and then he
wheeled his horse round and rode down again. To tell the truth, the
Princess liked him still better than the knight in brass, and she sat
and wished he might only be able to come right up to the top, and down
the other side; but when she saw him turning back, she threw the second
apple after him, and it rolled down and fell into his shoe. But, as
soon as ever he had come down from the hill of glass, he rode off so
fast that no one could see what became of him.

At even, when all were to go in before the king and the Princess, that
he who had the golden apple might show it, in they went, one after the
other, but there was no one who had any apple to show, and the two
brothers, as they had done on the former day, went home and told how
things had gone, and how all had ridden at the hill, and none got up.

“But, last of all”, they said, “came one in a silver suit, and his
horse had a silver saddle and a silver bridle. He was just a chap to
ride; and he got two-thirds up the hill, and then turned back. He was a
fine fellow, and no mistake; and the Princess threw the second gold
apple to him.”

“Oh!” said Boots, “I should so like to have seen him too, that I
should.”

“A pretty story”, they said. “Perhaps you think his coat of mail was as
bright as the ashes you are always poking about, and sifting, you nasty
dirty beast.”

The third day everything happened as it had happened the two days
before. Boots begged to go and see the sight, but the two wouldn’t hear
of his going with them. When they got to the hill there was no one who
could get so much as a yard up it; and now all waited for the knight in
silver mail, but they neither saw nor heard of him. At last came one
riding on a steed, so brave that no one had ever seen his match; and
the knight had a suit of golden mail, and a golden saddle and bridle,
so wondrous bright that the sunbeams gleamed from them a mile off. The
other knights and princes could not find time to call out to him not to
try his luck, for they were amazed to see how grand he was. So he rode
right at the hill, and tore up it like nothing, so that the Princess
hadn’t even time to wish that he might get up the whole way. As soon as
ever he reached the top, he took the third golden apple from the
Princess’ lap, and then turned his horse and rode down again. As soon
as he got down, he rode off at full speed, and was out of sight in no
time.

Now, when the brothers got home at even, you may fancy what long
stories they told, how the riding had gone off that day; and amongst
other things, they had a deal to say about the knight in golden mail.

“He just was a chap to ride!” they said; “so grand a knight isn’t to be
found in the wide world.”

“Oh!” said Boots, “I should so like to have seen him, that I should.”

“Ah! “said his brothers, “his mail shone a deal brighter than the
glowing coals which you are always poking and digging at; nasty dirty
beast that you are.”

Next day all the knights and princes were to pass before the king and
the Princess—it was too late to do so the night before, I suppose—that
he who had the gold apple might bring it forth; but one came after
another, first the princes, and then the knights, and still no one
could show the gold apple.

“Well”, said the king, “some one must have it, for it was something
that we all saw with our own eyes, how a man came and rode up and bore
it off.”

So he commanded that every one who was in the kingdom should come up to
the palace and see if they could show the apple. Well, they all came
one after another, but no one had the golden apple, and after a long
time the two brothers of Boots came. They were the last of all, so the
king asked them if there was no one else in the kingdom who hadn’t
come.

“Oh, yes”, said they; “we have a brother, but he never carried off the
golden apple. He hasn’t stirred out of the dusthole on any of the three
days.”

“Never mind that”, said the king; “he may as well come up to the palace
like the rest.”

So Boots had to go up to the palace.

“How, now”, said the king; “have you got the golden apple? Speak out!”

“Yes, I have”, said Boots; “here is the first, and here is the second,
and here is the third too”; and with that he pulled all three golden
apples out of his pocket, and at the same time threw off his sooty
rags, and stood before them in his gleaming golden mail.

“Yes!” said the king; “you shall have my daughter, and half my kingdom,
for you well deserve both her and it.”

So they got ready for the wedding, and Boots got the Princess to wife,
and there was great merry-making at the bridal-feast, you may fancy,
for they could all be merry though they couldn’t ride up the hill of
glass; and all I can say is, if they haven’t left off their
merry-making yet, why, they’re still at it.




HOW ONE WENT OUT TO WOO


Once on a time there was a lad who went out to woo him a wife. Amongst
other places, he came to a farm-house, where the household were little
better than beggars; but when the wooer came in, they wanted to make
out that they were well to do, as you may guess. Now the husband had
got a new arm to his coat.

“Pray, take a seat”, he said to the wooer; “but there’s a shocking dust
in the house.”

So he went about rubbing and wiping all the benches and tables with his
new arm, but he kept the other all the while behind his back.

The wife she had got one new shoe, and she went stamping and sliding
with it up against the stools and chairs, saying, “How untidy it is
here! Everything is out of its place!”

Then they called out to their daughter to come down and put things to
rights; but the daughter, she had got a new cap; so she put her head in
at the door, and kept nodding and nodding, first to this side, and then
to that.

“Well! for my part”, she said, “I can’t be everywhere at once.”

Aye! aye! that was a well-to-do household the wooer had come to.


THE COCK AND HEN


(In this tale the notes of the Cock and Hen must be imitated.)

_Hen_ —You promise me shoes year after year, year after year, and yet I
get no shoes!

_Cock_ —You shall have them, never fear! Henny penny!

_Hen_ —I lay egg after egg, egg after egg, and yet I go about barefoot!

_Cock_ —Well, take your eggs, and be off to the tryst, and buy yourself
shoes, and don’t go any longer barefoot!




THE MASTER-SMITH


Once on a time, in the days when our Lord and St Peter used to wander
on earth, they came to a smith’s house. He had made a bargain with the
Devil, that the fiend should have him after seven years, but during
that time he was to be the master of all masters in his trade, and to
this bargain both he and the Devil had signed their names. So he had
stuck up in great letters over the door of his forge: _“Here dwells the
Master over all Masters.”_

Now when our Lord passed by and saw that, he went in.

“Who are you?” he said to the Smith.

“Read what’s written over the door”, said the Smith; “but maybe you
can’t read writing. If so, you must wait till some one comes to help
you.”

Before our Lord had time to answer him, a man came with his horse,
which he begged the Smith to shoe.

“Might I have leave to shoe it?” asked our Lord.

“You may try, if you like”, said the Smith; “you can’t do it so badly
that I shall not be able to make it right again.”

So our Lord went out and took one leg off the horse, and laid it in the
furnace, and made the shoe red-hot; after that, he turned up the ends
of the shoe, and filed down the heads of the nails, and clenched the
points; and then he put back the leg safe and sound on the horse again.
And when he was done with that leg, he took the other fore-leg and did
the same with it; and when he was done with that, he took the
hind-legs—first, the off, and then the near leg, and laid them in the
furnace, making the shoes red-hot, turning up the ends; filing the
heads of the nails, and clenching the points; and after all was done,
putting the legs on the horse again. All the while, the Smith stood by
and looked on.

“You’re not so bad a smith after all”, said he.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” said our Lord.

A little while after came the Smith’s mother to the forge, and called
him to come home and eat his dinner; she was an old, old woman with an
ugly crook on her back, and wrinkles in her face, and it was as much as
she could do to crawl along.

“Mark now, what you see”, said our Lord.

Then he took the woman and laid her in the furnace, and smithied a
lovely young maiden out of her.

“Well”, said the Smith, “I say now, as I said before, you are not such
a bad smith after all. There it stands over my door. _Here dwells the
Master over all Masters_ ; but for all that, I say right out, one
learns as long as one lives”; and with that he walked off to his house
and ate his dinner.

So after dinner, just after he had got back to his forge, a man came
riding up to have his horse shod.

“It shall be done in the twinkling of an eye”, said the Smith, “for I
have just learnt a new way to shoe; and a very good way it is when the
days are short.”

So he began to cut and hack till he had got all the horse’s legs off,
for he said, I don’t know why one should go pottering backwards and
forwards—first, with one leg, and then with another.

Then he laid the legs in the furnace, just as he had seen our Lord lay
them, and threw on a great heap of coal, and made his mates work the
bellows bravely; but it went as one might suppose it would go. The legs
were burnt to ashes, and the Smith had to pay for the horse.

Well, he didn’t care much about that, but just then an old beggar-woman
came along the road, and he thought to himself, “better luck next
time”; so he took the old dame and laid her in the furnace, and though
she begged and prayed hard for her life, it was no good.

“You’re so old, you don’t know what is good for you”, said the Smith;
“now you shall be a lovely young maiden in half no time, and for all
that, I’ll not charge you a penny for the job.”

But it went no better with the poor old woman than with the horse’s
legs.

“That was ill done, and I say it”, said our Lord.

“Oh! for that matter”, said the Smith, “there’s not many who’ll ask
after her, I’ll be bound; but it’s a shame of the Devil, if this is the
way he holds to what is written up over the door.”

“If you might have three wishes from me”, said our Lord, “what would
you wish for?”

“Only try me”, said the Smith, “and you’ll soon know.”

So our Lord gave him three wishes.

“Well”, said the Smith, “first and foremost, I wish that any one whom I
ask to climb up into the pear-tree that stands outside by the wall of
my forge, may stay sitting there till I ask him to come down again. The
second wish I wish is, that any one whom I ask to sit down in my easy
chair which stands inside the workshop yonder, may stay sitting there
till I ask him to get up. Last of all, I wish that any one whom I ask
to creep into the steel purse which I have in my pocket, may stay in it
till I give him leave to creep out again.”

“You have wished as a wicked man”, said St Peter; “first and foremost,
you should have wished for God’s grace and goodwill.”

“I durstn’t look so high as that”, said the Smith; and after that our
Lord and St Peter bade him “good-bye”, and went on their way.

Well, the years went on and on, and when the time was up, the Devil
came to fetch the Smith, as it was written in their bargain.

“Are you ready?” he said, as he stuck his nose in at the door of the
forge.

“Oh”, said the Smith, “I must just hammer the head of this tenpenny
nail first; meantime, you can just climb up into the pear-tree, and
pluck yourself a pear to gnaw at; you must be, both hungry and thirsty
after your journey.”

So the Devil thanked him for his kind offer, and climbed up into the
pear-tree.

“Very good”, said the Smith; “but now, on thinking the matter over, I
find I shall never be able to have done hammering the head of this nail
till four years are out at least, this iron is so plaguey hard; down
you can’t come in all that time, but may sit up there and rest your
bones.”

When the Devil heard this, he begged and prayed till his voice was as
thin as a silver penny that he might have leave to come down; but there
was no help for it. There he was, and there he must stay. At last he
had to give his word of honour not to come again till the four years
were out, which the Smith had spoken of, and then the Smith said, “Very
well, now you may come down.”

So when the time was up, the Devil came again to fetch the Smith.

“You’re ready now, of course”, said he; “you’ve had time enough to
hammer the head of that nail, I should think.”

“Yes, the head is right enough now”, said the Smith; “but still you
have come a little tiny bit too soon, for I haven’t quite done
sharpening the point; such plaguey hard iron I never hammered in all my
born days. So while I work at the point, you may just as well sit down
in my easy chair and rest yourself; I’ll be bound you’re weary after
coming so far.”

“Thank you kindly”, said the Devil, and down he plumped into the easy
chair; but just as he had made himself comfortable, the Smith said, on
second thoughts, he found he couldn’t get the point sharp till four
years were out. First of all, the Devil begged so prettily to be let
out of the chair, and afterwards, waxing wroth, he began to threaten
and scold; but the Smith kept on, all the while excusing himself, and
saying it was all the iron’s fault, it was so plaguy hard, and telling
the Devil he was not so badly off to have to sit quietly in an easy
chair, and that he would let him out to the minute when the four years
were over. Well, at last there was no help for it, and the Devil had to
give his word of honour not to fetch the Smith till the four years were
out; and then the Smith said:

“Well now, you may get up and be off about your business”, and away
went the Devil as fast as he could lay legs to the ground.

When the four years were over, the Devil came again to fetch the Smith,
and he called out, as he stuck his nose in at the door of the forge:

“Now, I know you must be ready.”

“Ready, aye, ready”, answered the Smith; “we can go now as soon as you
please; but hark ye, there is one thing I have stood here and thought,
and thought, I would ask you to tell me. Is it true what people say,
that the Devil can make himself as small as he pleases?”

“God knows, it is the very truth”, said the Devil.

“Oh!” said the Smith; “it _is_ true, is it? then I wish you would just
be so good as to creep into this steel purse of mine, and see whether
it is sound at the bottom, for to tell you the truth, I’m afraid my
travelling money will drop out.”

“With all my heart”, said the Devil, who made himself small in a trice,
and crept into the purse; but he was scarce in when the Smith snapped
to the clasp.

“Yes”, called out the Devil inside the purse; “it’s right and tight
everywhere.”

“Very good”, said the Smith; “I’m glad to hear you say so, but ‘more
haste the worse speed’, says the old saw, and ‘forewarned is
forearmed’, says another; so I’ll just weld these links a little
together, just for safety’s sake”; and with that he laid the purse in
the furnace, and made it red-hot.

“AU! AU!” screamed the Devil, “are you mad? don’t you know I’m inside
the purse?”

“Yes, I do!” said the Smith; “but I can’t help you, for another old saw
says, ‘one must strike while the iron is hot’”; and as he said this, he
took up his sledge-hammer, laid the purse on the anvil, and let fly at
it as hard as he could.

“AU! AU! AU!” bellowed the Devil, inside the purse. “Dear friend, do
let me out, and I’ll never come near you again.”

“Very well!” said the Smith; “now, I think, the links are pretty well
welded, and you may come out”; so he unclasped the purse, and away went
the Devil in such a hurry that he didn’t once look behind him.

Now, some time after, it came across the Smith’s mind that he had done
a silly thing in making the Devil his enemy, for, he said to himself:

“If, as is like enough, they won’t have me in the kingdom of Heaven, I
shall be in danger of being houseless, since I’ve fallen out with him
who rules over Hell.”

So he made up his mind it would be best to try to get either into Hell
or Heaven, and to try at once, rather than to put it off any longer, so
that he might know how things really stood. Then he threw his
sledge-hammer over his shoulder and set off; and when he had gone a
good bit of the way, he came to a place where two roads met, and where
the path to the kingdom of Heaven parts from the path that leads to
Hell, and here he overtook a tailor, who was pelting along with his
goose in his hand.

“Good day”, said the Smith; “whither are you off to?”

“To the kingdom of Heaven”, said the Tailor, “if I can only get into
it”—“but whither are you going yourself?”

“Oh, our ways don’t run together”, said the Smith; “for I have made up
my mind to try first in Hell, as the Devil and I know something of one
another, from old times.”

So they bade one another “Good-bye”, and each went his way; but the
Smith was a stout, strong man, and got over the ground far faster than
the tailor, and so it wasn’t long before he stood at the gates of Hell.
Then he called the watch, and bade him go and tell the Devil there was
some one outside who wished to speak a word with him.

“Go out”, said the Devil to the watch, “and ask him who he is?” So that
when the watch came and told him that, the Smith answered:

“Go and greet the Devil in my name, and say it is the Smith who owns
the purse he wots of; and beg him prettily to let me in at once, for I
worked at my forge till noon, and I have had a long walk since.”

But when the Devil heard who it was, he charged the watch to go back
and lock up all the nine locks on the gates of Hell.

“And, besides”, he said, “you may as well put on a padlock, for if he
only once gets in, he’ll turn Hell topsy-turvy!”

“Well!” said the Smith to himself, when he saw them busy bolting up the
gates, “there’s no lodging to be got here, that’s plain; so I may as
well try my luck in the kingdom of Heaven”; and with that he turned
round and went back till he reached the cross-roads, and then he went
along the path the tailor had taken. And now, as he was cross at having
gone backwards and forwards so far for no good, he strode along with
all his might, and reached the gate of Heaven just as St Peter was
opening it a very little, just enough to let the half-starved tailor
slip in. The Smith was still six or seven strides off the gate, so he
thought to himself, “Now there’s no time to be lost”; and, grasping his
sledge-hammer, he hurled it into the opening of the door just as the
tailor slunk in; and if the Smith didn’t get in then, when the door was
ajar, why I don’t know what has become of him.




THE TWO STEP-SISTERS


Once on a time there was a couple, and each of them had a daughter by a
former marriage. The woman’s daughter was dull and lazy, and could
never turn her hand to anything, and the man’s daughter was brisk and
ready; but somehow or other she could never do anything to her
stepmother’s liking, and both the woman and her daughter would have
been glad to be rid of her.

So it fell one day the two girls were to go out and spin by the side of
the well, and the woman’s daughter had flax to spin, but the man’s
daughter got nothing to spin but bristles.

“I don’t know how it is”, said the woman’s daughter, “you’re always so
quick and sharp, but still I’m not afraid to spin a match with you.”

Well, they agreed that she whose thread first snapped, should go down
the well. So they span away; but just as they were hard at it, the
man’s daughter’s thread broke, and she had to go down the well. But
when she got to the bottom she saw far and wide around her a fair green
mead, and she hadn’t hurt herself at all.

So she walked on a bit, till she came to a hedge which she had to
cross.

“Ah! don’t tread hard on me, pray don’t, and I’ll help you another
time, that I will”, said the Hedge.

Then the lassie made herself as light as she could, and trode so
carefully she scarce touched a twig.

So she went on a bit further, till she came to a brindled cow, which
walked there with a milking-pail on her horns. ’Twas a large pretty
cow, and her udder was so full and round.

“Ah! be so good as to milk me, pray”, said the Cow; “I’m so full of
milk. Drink as much as you please, and throw the rest over my hoofs,
and see if I don’t help you some day.”

So the man’s daughter did as the cow begged. As soon as she touched the
teats, the milk spouted out into the pail. Then she drank till her
thirst was slaked; and the rest she threw over the cow’s hoofs, and the
milking-pail she hung on her horns again.

So when she had gone a bit further, a big wether met her, which had
such thick long wool, it hung down and draggled after him on the
ground, and on one of his horns hung a great pair of shears.

“Ah, please clip off my wool”, said the Sheep, “for here I go about
with all this wool, and catch up everything I meet, and besides, it’s
so warm, I’m almost choked. Take as much of the fleece as you please,
and twist the rest round my neck, and see if I don’t help you some
day.”

Yes! she was willing enough, and the sheep lay down of himself on her
lap, and kept quite still, and she clipped him so neatly, there wasn’t
a scratch on his skin. Then she took as much of the wool as she chose,
and the rest she twisted round the neck of the sheep.

A little further on, she came to an apple tree, which was loaded with
apples; all its branches were bowed to the ground, and leaning against
the stem was a slender pole.

“Ah! do be so good as to pluck my apples off me”, said the Tree, “so
that my branches may straighten themselves again, for it’s bad work to
stand so crooked; but when you beat them down, don’t strike me too
hard. Then eat as many as you please, lay the rest round my root, and
see if I don’t help you some day or other.”

Yes, she plucked all she could reach with her hands, and then she took
the pole and knocked down the rest, and afterwards she ate her fill,
and the rest she laid neatly round the root.

So she walked on a long, long way, and then she came to a great
farm-house, where an old hag of the Trolls lived with her daughter.
There she turned in to ask if she could get a place.

“Oh!” said the old hag; “it’s no use your trying. We’ve had ever so
many maids, but none of them was worth her salt.”

But she begged so prettily that they would just take her on trial, that
at last they let her stay. So the old hag gave her a sieve, and bade
her go and fetch water in it. She thought it strange to fetch water in
a sieve, but still she went, and when she came to the well, the little
birds began to sing,

Daub in clay, Stuff in straw!
Daub in clay, Stuff in straw.


Yes, she did so, and found she could carry water in a sieve well
enough; but when she got home with the water, and the old witch saw the
sieve, she cried out:

“THIS YOU HAVEN’T SUCKED OUT OF YOUR OWN BREAST.”

So the old witch said, now she might go into the byre to pitch out dung
and milk kine; but when she got there, she found a pitchfork so long
and heavy, she couldn’t stir it, much less work with it. She didn’t
know at all what to do, or what to make of it; but the little birds
sang again that she should take the broom-stick and toss out a little
with that, and all the rest of the dung would fly after it. So she did
that, and as soon as ever she began with the broom-stick, the byre was
as clean as if it had been swept and washed.

Now she had to milk the kine, but they were so restless that they
kicked and frisked; there was no getting near them to milk them.

But the little birds sang outside:

A little drop, a tiny sup,
For the little birds to drink it up.


Yes, she did that; she just milked a tiny drop, ’twas as much as she
could, for the little birds outside; and then all the cows stood still
and let her milk them. They neither kicked nor frisked; they didn’t
even lift a leg.

So when the old witch saw her coming in with the milk, she cried out:

“THIS YOU HAVEN’T SUCKED OUT OF YOUR OWN BREAST. BUT NOW JUST TAKE THIS
BLACK WOOL AND WASH IT WHITE.”

This the lassie was at her wits’ end to know how to do, for she had
never seen or heard of any one who could wash black wool white. Still
she said nothing, but took the wool and went down with it to the well.
There the little birds sang again and told her to take the wool and dip
it into the great butt that stood there; and she did so, and out it
came as white as snow.

“Well! I never!” said the old witch, when she came in with the wool,
“it’s no good keeping you. You can do everything, and at last you’ll be
the plague of my life. We’d best part, so take your wages and be off.”

Then the old hag drew out three caskets, one red, one green, and one
blue, and of these the lassie was to choose one as wages for her
service. Now she didn’t know at all which to choose, but the little
birds sang:

Don’t take the red, don’t take the green,
But take the blue, where may be seen
Three little crosses all in a row;
We saw the marks, and so we know.


So she took the blue casket, as the birds sang.

“Bad luck to you, then”, said the old witch; “see if I don’t make you
pay for this!”

So when the man’s daughter was just setting off, the old witch shot a
red-hot bar of iron after her, but she sprang behind the door and hid
herself, so that it missed her, for her friends, the little birds, had
told her beforehand how to behave. Then she walked on and on as fast as
ever she could; but when she got to the apple tree, she heard an awful
clatter behind her on the road, and that was the old witch and her
daughter coming after her.

So the lassie was so frightened and scared, she didn’t know what to do.

“Come hither to me, lassie, do you hear”, said the Apple tree, “I’ll
help you; get under my branches and hide, for if they catch you,
they’ll tear you to death, and take the casket from you.”

Yes! she did so, and she had hardly hidden herself before up came the
old witch and her daughter.

“Have you seen any lassie pass this way, you apple tree”, said the old
hag.

“Yes, yes”, said the Apple tree; “one ran by here an hour ago; but now
she’s got so far ahead, you’ll never catch her up.”

So the old witch turned back and went home again. Then the lassie
walked on a bit, but when she came just about where the sheep was, she
heard an awful clatter beginning on the road behind her, and she didn’t
know what to do, she was so scared and frightened; for she knew well
enough it was the old witch, who had thought better of it.

“Come hither to me, lassie”, said the Wether, “and I’ll help you. Hide
yourself under my fleece, and then they’ll not see you; else they’ll
take away the casket, and tear you to death.”

Just then up came the old witch, tearing along.

“Have you seen any lassie pass here, you sheep?” she cried to the
wether.

“Oh yes”, said the Wether, “I saw one an hour ago, but she ran so fast,
you’ll never catch her.”

So the old witch turned round and went home.

But when the lassie had come to where she met the cow, she heard
another awful clatter behind her.

“Come hither to me, lassie”, said the Cow, “and I’ll help you to hide
yourself under my udder, else the old hag will come and take away your
casket, and tear you to death.”

True enough, it wasn’t long before she came up.

“Have you seen any lassie pass here, you cow?” said the old hag.

“Yes, I saw one an hour ago”, said the Cow, “but she’s far away now,
for she ran so fast I don’t think you’ll ever catch her up!”

So the old hag turned round, and went back home again.

When the lassie had walked a long, long way farther on, and was not far
from the hedge, she heard again that awful clatter on the road behind
her, and she got scared and frightened, for she knew well enough it was
the old hag and her daughter, who had changed their minds.

“Come hither to me, lassie”, said the Hedge, “and I’ll help you. Creep
under my twigs, so that they can’t see you; else they’ll take the
casket from you, and tear you to death.”

Yes! she made all the haste she could to get under the twigs of the
hedge.

“Have you seen any lassie pass this way, you hedge?” said the old hag
to the hedge.

“No, I haven’t seen any lassie”, answered the Hedge, and was as
smooth-tongued as if he had got melted butter in his mouth; but all the
while he spread himself out, and made himself so big and tall, one had
to think twice before crossing him. And so the old witch had no help
for it but to turn round and go home again.

So when the man’s daughter got home, her step-mother and her
step-sister were more spiteful against her than ever; for now she was
much neater, and so smart, it was a joy to look at her. Still she
couldn’t get leave to live with them, but they drove her out into a
pigsty. That was to be her house. So she scrubbed it out so neat and
clean, and then she opened her casket, just to see what she had got for
her wages. But as soon as ever she unlocked it, she saw inside so much
gold and silver, and lovely things, which came streaming out till all
the walls were hung with them, and at last the pigsty was far grander
than the grandest king’s palace. And when the step-mother and her
daughter came to see this, they almost jumped out of their skin, and
began to ask what kind of a place she had down there?

“Oh”, said the lassie, “can’t you see, when I have got such good wages.
’Twas such a family, and such a mistress to serve, you couldn’t find
their like anywhere.”

Yes! the woman’s daughter made up her mind to go out to serve too, that
she might get just such another gold casket. So they sat down to spin
again, and now the woman’s daughter was to spin bristles, and the man’s
daughter flax, and she whose thread first snapped, was to go down the
well. It wasn’t long, as you may fancy, before the woman’s daughter’s
thread snapped, and so they threw her down the well.

So the same thing happened. She fell to the bottom, but met with no
harm, and found herself on a lovely green meadow. When she had walked a
bit she came to the hedge. “Don’t tread hard on me, pray, lassie, and
I’ll help you again”, said the Hedge.

“Oh!” said she, “what should I care for a bundle of twigs?” and tramped
and stamped over the hedge till it cracked and groaned again.

A little farther on she came to the cow, which walked about ready to
burst for want of milking.

“Be so good as to milk me, lassie”, said the Cow, “and I’ll help you
again. Drink as much as you please, but throw the rest over my hoofs.”

Yes! she did that; she milked the cow, and drank till she could drink
no more; but when she left off, there was none left to throw over the
cow’s hoofs, and as for the pail, she tossed it down the hill and
walked on.

When she had gone a bit further, she came to the sheep which walked
along with his wool dragging after him.

“Oh, be so good as to clip me, lassie”, said the Sheep, “and I’ll serve
you again. Take as much of the wool as you will, but twist the rest
round my neck.”

Well! she did that; but she went so carelessly to work, that she cut
great pieces out of the poor sheep, and as for the wool, she carried it
all away with her.

A little while after she came to the apple tree, which stood there
quite crooked with fruit again.

“Be so good as to pluck the apples off me, that my limbs may grow
straight, for it’s weary work to stand all awry”, said the Apple tree.
“But please take care not to beat me too hard. Eat as many as you will,
but lay the rest neatly round my root, and I’ll help you again.”

Well, she plucked those nearest to her, and thrashed down those she
couldn’t reach with the pole, but she didn’t care how she did it, and
broke off and tore down great boughs, and ate till she was as full as
full could be, and then she threw down the rest under the tree.

So when she had gone a good bit further, she came to the farm where the
old witch lived. There she asked for a place, but the old hag said she
wouldn’t have any more maids, for they were either worth nothing, or
were too clever, and cheated her out of her goods. But the woman’s
daughter was not to be put off, she _would_ have a place, so the old
witch said she’d give her a trial, if she was fit for anything.

The first thing she had to do was to fetch water in a sieve. Well, off
she went to the well, and drew water in a sieve, but as fast as she got
it in it ran out again. So the little birds sung:

Daub in clay,
Put in straw!
Daub in clay,
Put in straw!


But she didn’t care to listen to the birds’ song, and pelted them with
clay, till they flew off far away. And so she had to go home with the
empty sieve, and got well scolded by the old witch.

Then she was to go into the byre to clean it, and milk the kine. But
she was too good for such dirty work, she thought. Still, she went out
into the byre, but when she got there, she couldn’t get on at all with
the pitchfork, it was so big. The birds said the same to her as they
had said to her step-sister, and told her to take the broomstick, and
toss out a little dung, and then all the rest would fly after it; but
all she did with the broomstick was to throw it at the birds. When she
came to milk, the kine were so unruly, they kicked and pushed, and
every time she got a little milk in the pail, over they kicked it. Then
the birds sang again:

A little drop and a tiny sup
For the little birds to drink it up.


But she beat and banged the cows about, and threw and pelted at the
birds everything she could lay hold of, and made such a to do, ’twas
awful to see. So she didn’t make much either of her pitching, or
milking, and when she came indoors she got blows as well as hard words
from the old witch, who sent her off to wash the black wool white; but
that, too, she did no better.

Then the old witch thought this really too bad, so she set out the
three caskets, one red, one green, and one blue, and said she’d no
longer any need of her services, for she wasn’t worth keeping, but for
wages she should have leave to choose whichever casket she pleased.

Then sung the little birds:

Don’t take the red, don’t take the green,
But choose the blue, where may be seen
Three little crosses all in a row;v We saw the marks, and so we know.


She didn’t care a pin for what the birds sang, but took the red, which
caught her eye most. And so she set out on her road home, and she went
along quietly and easily enough; there was no one who came after _her_.

So when she got home, her mother was ready to jump with joy, and the
two went at once into the ingle, and put the casket up there, for they
made up their minds there could be nothing in it but pure silver and
gold, and they thought to have all the walls and roof gilded like the
pigsty. But lo! when they opened the casket there came tumbling out
nothing but toads, and frogs, and snakes; and worse than that, whenever
the woman’s daughter opened her mouth, out popped a toad or a snake,
and all the vermin one ever thought of, so that at last there was no
living in the house with her.

That was all the wages _she_ got for going out to service with the old
witch.




BUTTERCUP


Once on a time there was an old wife who sat and baked. Now, you must
know that this old wife had a little son, who was so plump and fat, and
so fond of good things, that they called him Buttercup; she had a dog,
too, whose name was Goldtooth, and as she was baking, all at once
Goldtooth began to bark.

“Run out, Buttercup, there’s a dear!” said the old wife, “and see what
Goldtooth is barking at.”

So the boy ran out, and came back crying out:

“Oh, Heaven help us! here comes a great big witch, with her head under
her arm, and a bag at her back.”

“Jump under the kneading-trough and hide yourself”, said his mother.

So in came the old hag!

“Good day”, said she!

“God bless you!” said Buttercup’s mother.

“Isn’t your Buttercup at home to-day?” asked the hag.

“No, that he isn’t. He’s out in the wood with his father, shooting
ptarmigan.”

“Plague take it”, said the hag, “for I had such a nice little silver
knife I wanted to give him.”

“Pip, pip! here I am”, said Buttercup under the kneading-trough, and
out he came.

“I’m so old, and stiff in the back”, said the hag, “you must creep into
the bag and fetch it out for yourself.”

But when Buttercup was well into the bag, the hag threw it over her
back and strode off, and when they had gone a good bit of the way, the
old hag got tired, and asked:

“How far is it off to Snoring?”

“Half a mile”, answered Buttercup.

So the hag put down the sack on the road, and went aside by herself
into the wood, and lay down to sleep. Meantime Buttercup set to work
and cut a hole in the sack with his knife; then he crept out and put a
great root of a fir-tree into the sack, and ran home to his mother.

When the hag got home and saw what there was in the sack, you may fancy
she was in a fine rage.

Next day the old wife sat and baked again, and her dog began to bark
just as he did the day before.

“Run out, Buttercup, my boy”, said she, “and see what Goldtooth is
barking at.”

“Well, I never!” cried Buttercup, as soon as he got out; “if there
isn’t that ugly old beast coming again with her head under her arm, and
a great sack at her back.”

“Under the kneading-trough with you and hide”, said his mother.

“Good day!” said the hag, “is your Buttercup at home to-day?”

“I’m sorry to say he isn’t”, said his mother; “he’s out in the wood
with his father, shooting ptarmigan.”

“What a bore”, said the hag; “here I have a beautiful little silver
spoon I want to give him.”

“Pip, pip! here I am”, said Buttercup, and crept out.

“I’m so stiff in the back”, said the old witch, “you must creep into
the sack and fetch it out for yourself.”

So when Buttercup was well into the sack, the hag swung it over her
shoulders and set off home as fast as her legs could carry her. But
when they had gone a good bit, she grew weary, and asked:

“How far is it off to Snoring?”

“A mile and a half”, answered Buttercup.

So the hag set down the sack, and went aside into the wood to sleep a
bit, but while she slept, Buttercup made a hole in the sack and got
out, and put a great stone into it. Now, when the old witch got home,
she made a great fire on the hearth, and put a big pot on it, and got
everything ready to boil Buttercup; but when she took the sack, and
thought she was going to turn out Buttercup into the pot, down plumped
the stone and made a hole in the bottom of the pot, so that the water
ran out and quenched the fire. Then the old hag was in a dreadful rage,
and said, “If he makes himself ever so heavy next time, he shan’t take
me in again.” The third day everything went just as it had gone twice
before; Goldtooth began to bark, and Buttercup’s mother said to him:

“Do run out and see what our dog is barking at.”

So out he went, but he soon came back crying out:

“Heaven save us! Here comes the old hag again with her head under her
arm, and a sack at her back.”

“Jump under the kneading-trough and hide”, said his mother.

“Good day!” said the hag, as she came in at the door; “is your
Buttercup at home to-day?”

“You’re very kind to ask after him”, said his mother; “but he’s out in
the wood with his father, shooting ptarmigan.”

“What a bore now”, said the old hag; “here have I got such a beautiful
little silver fork for him.”

“Pip, pip! here I am”, said Buttercup, as he came out from under the
kneading-trough.

“I’m so stiff in the back”, said the hag, “you must creep into the sack
and fetch it out for yourself.”

But when Buttercup was well inside the sack, the old hag swung it
across her shoulders, and set off as fast as she could. This time she
did not turn aside to sleep by the way, but went straight home with
Buttercup in the sack, and when she reached her house it was Sunday.

So the old hag said to her daughter:

“Now you must take Buttercup and kill him, and boil him nicely till I
come back, for I’m off to church to bid my guests to dinner.”

So, when all in the house were gone to church the daughter was to take
Buttercup and kill him, but then she didn’t know how to set about it at
all.

“Stop a bit”, said Buttercup; “I’ll soon show you how to do it; just
lay your head on the chopping-block, and you’ll soon see.”

So the poor silly thing laid her head down, and Buttercup took an axe
and chopped her head off, just as if she had been a chicken. Then he
laid her head in the bed, and popped her body into the pot, and boiled
it so nicely; and when he had done that, he climbed up on the roof, and
dragged up with him the fir-tree root and the stone, and put the one
over the door, and the other at the top of the chimney.

So when the household came back from church, and saw the head on the
bed, they thought it was the daughter who lay there asleep; and then
they thought they would just taste the broth.

Good, by my troth!
Buttercup broth,


said the old hag.

Good, by my troth!
Daughter broth,


said Buttercup down the chimney, but no one heeded him.

So the old hag’s husband, who was every bit as bad as she, took the
spoon to have a taste.

Good, by my troth!
Buttercup broth,


said he.

Good, by my troth!
Daughter broth,


said Buttercup down the chimney pipe.

Then they all began to wonder who it could be that chattered so, and
ran out to see. But when they came out at the door, Buttercup threw
down on them the fir-tree root and the stone, and broke all their heads
to bits. After that he took all the gold and silver that lay in the
house, and went home to his mother, and became a rich man.




TAMING THE SHREW


Once on a time there was a king, and he had a daughter who was such a
scold, and whose tongue went so fast, there was no stopping it. So he
gave out that the man who could stop her tongue should have the
Princess to wife, and half his kingdom into the bargain. Now, three
brothers, who heard this, made up their minds to go and try their luck;
and first of all the two elder went, for they thought they were the
cleverest; but they couldn’t cope with her at all, and got well
thrashed besides.

Then Boots, the youngest, set off, and when he had gone a little way he
found an ozier band lying on the road, and he picked it up. When he had
gone a little farther he found a piece of a broken plate, and he picked
that up too. A little farther on he found a dead magpie, and a little
farther on still, a crooked ram’s horn; so he went on a bit and found
the fellow to the horn; and at last, just as he was crossing the fields
by the king’s palace, where they were pitching out dung, he found a
worn-out shoe-sole. All these things he took with him into the palace,
and went before the Princess.

“Good day”, said he.

“Good day”, said she, and made a wry face.

“Can I get my magpie cooked here?” he asked.

“I’m afraid it will burst”, answered the Princess.

“Oh! never fear! for I’ll just tie this ozier band round it”, said the
lad, as he pulled it out.

“The fat will run out of it”, said the Princess.

“Then I’ll hold this under it”, said the lad, and showed her the piece
of broken plate.

“You are so crooked in your words”, said the Princess, “there’s no
knowing where to have you.”

“No, I’m not crooked”, said the lad; “but this is”, as he held up one
of the horns.

“Well!” said the Princess, “I never saw the match of this in all my
days.”

“Why, here you see the match to it”, said the lad, as he pulled out the
other ram’s horn.

“I think”, said the Princess, “you must have come here to wear out my
tongue with your nonsense.”

“No, I have not”, said the lad; “but this is worn out”, as he pulled
out the shoe-sole.

To this the Princess hadn’t a word to say, for she had fairly lost her
voice with rage.

“Now you are mine”, said the lad; and so he got the Princess to wife,
and half the kingdom.




SHORTSHANKS


Once on a time, there was a poor couple who lived in a tumble-down hut,
in which there was nothing but black want, so that they hadn’t a morsel
to eat, nor a stick to burn. But though they had next to nothing of
other things, they had God’s blessing in the way of children, and every
year they had another babe. Now, when this story begins, they were just
looking out for a new child; and, to tell the truth, the husband was
rather cross, and he was always going about grumbling and growling, and
saying, “For his part, he thought one might have too many of these
God’s gifts.” So when the time came that the babe was to be born, he
went off into the wood to fetch fuel, saying, “he didn’t care to stop
and see the young squaller; he’d be sure to hear him soon enough,
screaming for food.”

Now, when her husband was well out of the house, his wife gave birth to
a beautiful boy, who began to look about the room as soon as ever he
came into the world.

“Oh! dear mother”, he said, “give me some of my brother’s cast-off
clothes, and a few days’ food, and I’ll go out into the world and try
my luck; you have children enough as it is, that I can see.”

“God help you, my son!” answered his mother; “that can never be, you
are far too young yet.”

But the tiny one stuck to what he said, and begged and prayed till his
mother was forced to let him have a few old rags, and a little food
tied up in a bundle, and off he went right merrily and manfully into
the wide world. But he was scarce out of the house before his mother
had another boy, and he too looked about him, and said:

“Oh, dear mother! give me some of my brother’s old clothes and a few
days’ food, and I’ll go out into the world to find my twin-brother; you
have children enough already on your hands, that I can see.”

“God help you, my poor little fellow!” said his mother; “you are far
too little, this will never do.”

But it was no good; the tiny one begged and prayed so hard, till he got
some old tattered rags and a bundle of food; and so he wandered out
into the world like a man, to find his twin-brother. Now, when the
younger had walked a while, he saw his brother a good bit on before
him, so he called out to him to stop.

“Holloa! can’t you stop? why, you lay legs to the ground as if you were
running a race. But you might just as well have stayed to see your
youngest, brother before you set off into the world in such a hurry.”

So the elder stopped and looked round; and when the younger had come up
to him and told him the whole story, and how he was his brother, he
went on to say:

“But let’s sit down here and see what our mother has given us for
food.” So they sat down together, and were soon great friends.

Now when they had gone a bit farther on their way, they came to a brook
which ran through a green meadow, and the youngest said now the time
was come to give one another names, “Since we set off in such a hurry
that we hadn’t time to do it at home, we may as well do it here.”

“Well!” said the elder, “and what shall your name be?”

“Oh!” said the younger, “my name shall be Shortshanks; and yours, what
shall it be?”

“I will be called King Sturdy”, answered the eldest.

So they christened each other in the brook, and went on; but when they
had walked a while they came to a cross road, and agreed they should
part there, and each take his own road. So they parted, but they hadn’t
gone half a mile before their roads met again. So they parted the
second time, and took each a road; but in a little while the same thing
happened, and they met again, they scarce knew how; and the same thing
happened a third time also. Then they agreed that they should each
choose a quarter of the heavens, and one was to go east and the other
west; but before they parted, the elder said:

“If you ever fall into misfortune or need, call three times on me, and
I will come and help you; but mind you don’t call on me till you are at
the last pinch.”

“Well!” said Shortshanks, “if that’s to be the rule, I don’t think we
shall meet again very soon.”

After that they bade each other good-bye, and Shortshanks went east,
and King Sturdy west.

Now, you must know, when Shortshanks had gone a good bit alone, he met
an old, old crook-backed hag, who had only one eye, and Shortshanks
snapped it up.

“Oh! oh!” screamed the hag, “what has become of my eye?”

“What will you give me”, asked Shortshanks, “if you get your eye back?”

“I’ll give you a sword, and such a sword! It will put a whole army to
flight, be it ever so great”, answered the old woman.

“Out with it, then!” said Shortshanks.

So the old hag gave him the sword, and got her eye back again. After
that, Shortshanks wandered on a while, and another old, old
crook-backed hag met him who had only one eye, which Shortshanks stole
before she was aware of him.

“Oh, oh! whatever has become of my eye”, screamed the hag.

“What will you give me to get your eye back?” asked Shortshanks.

“I’ll give you a ship”, said the woman, “which can sail over fresh
water and salt water, and over high hills and deep dales.”

“Well! out with it”, said Shortshanks.

So the old woman gave him a little tiny ship, no bigger than he could
put in his pocket, and she got her eye back again, and they each went
their way. But when he had wandered on a long, long way, he met a third
time an old, old crook-backed hag, with only one eye. This eye, too,
Shortshanks stole; and when the hag screamed and made a great to-do,
bawling out what had become of her eye, Shortshanks said:

“What will you give me to get back your eye?”

Then she answered:

“I’ll give you the art how to brew a hundred lasts of malt at one
strike.”

Well! for teaching that art the old hag got back her eye, and they each
went their way.

But when Shortshanks had walked a little way, he thought it might be
worth while to try his ship; so he took it out of his pocket, and put
first one foot into it, and then the other; and as soon as ever he set
one foot into it, it began to grow bigger and bigger, and by the time
he set the other foot into it, it was as big as other ships that sail
on the sea. Then Shortshanks said:

“Off and away, over fresh water and salt water, over high hills and
deep dales, and don’t stop till you come to the king’s palace.”

And lo! away went the ship as swiftly as a bird through the air, till
it came down a little below the king’s palace, and there it stopped.
From the palace windows people had stood and seen Shortshanks come
sailing along, and they were all so amazed that they ran down to see
who it could be that came sailing in a ship through the air. But while
they were running down, Shortshanks had stepped out of his ship and put
it into his pocket again; for as soon as he stepped out of it, it
became as small as it was when he got it from the old woman. So those
who had run down from the palace saw no one but a ragged little boy
standing down there by the strand. Then the king asked whence he came,
but the boy said he didn’t know, nor could he tell them how he had got
there. There he was, and that was all they could get out of him; but he
begged and prayed so prettily to get a place in the king’s palace;
saying, if there was nothing else for him to do, he could carry in wood
and water for the kitchen-maid, that their hearts were touched, and he
got leave to stay there.

Now when Shortshanks came up to the palace, he saw how it was all hung
with black, both outside and in, wall and roof; so he asked the
kitchen-maid what all that mourning meant?

“Don’t you know?” said the kitchen-maid; “I’ll soon tell you: the
king’s daughter was promised away a long time ago to three ogres, and
next Thursday evening one of them is coming to fetch her. Ritter Red,
it is true, has given out that he is man enough to set her free, but
God knows if he can do it; and now you know why we are all in grief and
sorrow.”

So when Thursday evening came, Ritter Red led the Princess down to the
strand, for there it was she was to meet the Ogre, and he was to stay
by her there and watch; but he wasn’t likely to do the Ogre much harm,
I reckon, for as soon as ever the Princess had sat down on the strand,
Ritter Red climbed up into a great tree that stood there, and hid
himself as well as he could among the boughs. The Princess begged and
prayed him not to leave her, but Ritter Red turned a deaf ear to her,
and all he said was:

“Tis better for one to lose life than for two.”

That was what Ritter Red said.

Meantime Shortshanks went to the kitchen-maid, and asked her so
prettily if he mightn’t go down to the strand for a bit?

“And what should take you down to the strand?” asked the kitchen-maid.
“You know you’ve no business there.”

“Oh, dear friend”, said Shortshanks, “do let me go? I should so like to
run down there and play a while with the other children; that I
should.”

“Well, well!” said the kitchen-maid, “off with you; but don’t let me
catch you staying there a bit over the time when the brose for supper
must be set on the fire, and the roast put on the spit; and let me see;
when you come back, mind you bring a good armful of wood with you.”

Yes! Shortshanks would mind all that; so off he ran down to the strand.

But just as he reached the spot where the Princess sat, what should
come but the Ogre tearing along in his ship, so that the wind roared
and howled after him. He was so tall and stout it was awful to look on
him, and he had five heads of his own.

“Fire and flame!” screamed the Ogre.

“Fire and flame yourself!” said Shortshanks.

“Can you fight?” roared the Ogre.

“If I can’t, I can learn”, said Shortshanks.

So the Ogre struck at him with a great thick iron club which he had in
his fist, and the earth and stones flew up five yards into the air
after the stroke.

“My!” said Shortshanks, “that was something like a blow, but now you
shall see a stroke of mine.”

Then he grasped the sword he had got from the old crook-backed hag, and
cut at the Ogre; and away went all his five heads flying over the sand.
So when the Princess saw she was saved, she was so glad that she scarce
knew what to do, and she jumped and danced for joy. “Come, lie down,
and sleep a little in my lap”, she said to Shortshanks, and as he slept
she threw over him a tinsel robe.

Now you must know, it wasn’t long before Ritter Red crept down from the
tree, as soon as he saw there was nothing to fear in the way, and he
went up to the Princess and threatened her until she promised to say it
was he who had saved her life; for if she wouldn’t say so, he said he
would kill her on the spot. After that he cut out the Ogre’s lungs and
tongue, and wrapped them up in his handkerchief, and so led the
Princess back to the palace, and whatever honours he had not before, he
got then, for the king did not know how to find honour enough for him,
and made him sit every day on his right hand at dinner.

As for Shortshanks, he went first of all on board the Ogre’s ship, and
took a whole heap of gold and silver rings, as large as hoops, and
trotted off with them as hard as he could to the palace. When the
kitchen-maid set her eyes on all that gold and silver, she was quite
scared, and asked him:

“But dear, good, Shortshanks, wherever did you get all this from?” for
she was rather afraid he hadn’t come rightly by it.

“Oh!” answered Shortshanks, “I went home for a bit, and there I found
these hoops, which had fallen off some old pails of ours, so I laid
hands on them for you, if you must know.”

Well! when the kitchen-maid heard they were for her, she said nothing
more about the matter, but thanked Shortshanks, and they were good
friends again.

The next Thursday evening it was the same story over again; all were in
grief and trouble, but Ritter Red said, as he had saved the Princess
from one Ogre, it was hard if he couldn’t save her from another; and
down he led her to the strand as brave as a lion. But he didn’t do this
Ogre much harm either, for when the time came that they looked for the
Ogre, he said, as he had said before:

“’Tis better one should lose life than two”, and crept up into his tree
again. But Shortshanks begged the kitchen-maid to let him go down to
the strand for a little.

“Oh!” asked the kitchen-maid, “and what business have you down there?”

“Dear friend”, said Shortshanks. “do pray let me go. I long so to run
down and play a while with the other children.”

Well! the kitchen-maid gave him leave to go, but he must promise to be
back by the time the roast was turned, and he was to mind and bring a
big bundle of wood with him. So Shortshanks had scarce got down to the
strand, when the Ogre came tearing along in his ship, so that the wind
howled and roared around him; he was twice as big as the other Ogre,
and he had ten heads on his shoulders.

“Fire and flame!” screamed the Ogre.

Fire and flame yourself!” answered Shortshanks.

“Can you fight?” roared the Ogre.

“If I can’t, I can learn”, said Shortshanks.

Then the Ogre struck at him with his iron club; it was even bigger than
that which the first Ogre had, and the earth and stones flew up ten
yards into the air.

My!” said Shortshanks, “that was something like a blow now you shall
see a stroke of mine.” Then he grasped his sword, and cut off all the
Ogre’s ten heads at one blow, and sent them dancing away over the sand.

Then the Princess said again to him, “Lie down and sleep a little while
on my lap”; and while Shortshanks lay there, she threw over him a
silver robe. But as soon as Ritter Red marked that there was no more
danger in the way, he crept down from the tree, and threatened the
Princess, till she was forced to give her word, to say it was he who
had set her free; after that, he cut the lungs and tongue out of the
Ogre, and wrapped them in his handkerchief, and led the Princess back
to the palace. Then you may fancy what mirth and joy there was, and the
king was at his wits’ end to know how to show Ritter Red honour and
favour enough.

This time, too, Shortshanks took a whole armful of gold and silver
rings from the Ogre’s ship, and when he came back to the palace the
kitchen-maid clapped her hands in wonder, asking wherever he got all
that gold and silver from. But Shortshanks answered that he had been
home a while, and that the hoops had fallen off some old pails, so he
had laid his hands on them for his friend the kitchen-maid. So when the
third Thursday evening came, everything happened as it had happened
twice before; the whole palace was hung with black, and all went about
mourning and weeping. But Ritter Red said he couldn’t see what need
they had to be so afraid; he had freed the Princess from two Ogres, and
he could very well free her from a third; so he led her down to the
strand, but when the time drew near for the Ogre to come up, he crept
into his tree again, and hid himself. The Princess begged and prayed,
but it was no good, for Ritter Red said again:

“’Tis better that one should lose life than two.”

That evening, too, Shortshanks begged for leave to go down to the
strand.

“Oh!” said the kitchen-maid, “what should take you down there?”

But he begged and prayed so, that at last he got leave to go, only he
had to promise to be back in the kitchen again when the roast was to be
turned. So off he went, but he had scarce reached the strand when the
Ogre came with the wind howling and roaring after him. He was much,
much bigger than either of the other two, and he had fifteen heads on
his shoulders.

“Fire and flame!” roared out the Ogre.

“Fire and flame yourself!” said Shortshanks.

“Can you fight?” screamed the Ogre.

“If I can’t, I can learn”, said Shortshanks.

“I’ll soon teach you”, screamed the Ogre, and struck at him with his
iron club, so that the earth and stones flew up fifteen yards into the
air.

“My!” said Shortshanks, “that was something like a blow; but now you
shall see a stroke of mine.”

As he said that, he grasped his sword, and cut off all the Ogre’s
fifteen heads at one blow, and sent them all dancing over the sand.

So the Princess was freed from all the Ogres, and she both blessed and
thanked Shortshanks for saving her life.

“Sleep now a while on my lap”, she said; and he laid his head on her
lap, and while he slept, she threw over him a golden robe.

“But how shall we let it be known that it is you that have saved me?”
she asked, when he awoke.

“Oh, I’ll soon tell you”, answered Shortshanks. “When Ritter Red has
led you home again, and given himself out as the man who has saved you,
you know he is to have you to wife, and half the kingdom. Now, when
they ask you, on your wedding-day, whom you will have to be your
cup-bearer, you must say, ‘I will have the ragged boy who does odd jobs
in the kitchen, and carries in wood and water for the kitchen-maid.’ So
when I am filling your cups, I will spill a drop on his plate, but none
on yours; then he will be wroth, and give me a blow, and the same thing
will happen three times. But the third time you must mind and say,
‘Shame on you! to strike my heart’s darling; he it is who set me free,
and him will I have!’”

After that Shortshanks ran back to the palace, as he had done before;
but he went first on board the Ogre’s ship, and took a whole heap of
gold, silver, and precious stones, and out of them he gave the
kitchen-maid another great armful of gold and silver rings.

Well! as for Ritter Red, as soon as ever he saw that all risk was over,
he crept down from his tree, and threatened the Princess till she was
forced to promise she would say it was he who had saved her. After
that, he led her back to the palace, and all the honour shown him
before was nothing to what he got now, for the king thought of nothing
else than how he might best honour the man who had saved his daughter
from the three Ogres. As for his marrying her, and having half the
kingdom, that was a settled thing, the king said. But-when the
wedding-day came, the Princess begged she might have the ragged boy who
carried in wood and water for the cook to be her cup-bearer at the
bridal-feast.

“I can’t think why you should want to bring that filthy beggar boy in
here”, said Ritter Red; but the Princess had a will of her own, and
said she would have him, and no one else, to pour out her wine; so she
had her way at last. Now everything went as it had been agreed between
Shortshanks and the Princess; he spilled a drop on Ritter Red’s plate,
but none on hers, and each time Ritter Red got wroth and struck him. At
the first blow Shortshank’s rags fell off which he had worn in the
kitchen; at the second the tinsel robe fell off; and at the third the
silver robe; and then he stood in his golden robe, all gleaming and
glittering in the light. Then the Princess said:

“Shame on you! to strike my heart’s darling! he has saved me, and him
will I have!”

Ritter Red cursed and swore it was he who had set her free; but the
king put in his word, and said:

“The man who saved my daughter must have some token to show for it.”

Yes! Ritter Red had something to show, and he ran off at once after his
handkerchief with the lungs and tongues in it, and Shortshanks fetched
all the gold and silver, and precious things, he had taken out of the
Ogres’ ships. So each laid his tokens before the king, and the king
said:

“The man who has such precious stores of gold, and silver, and
diamonds, must have slain the Ogre, and spoiled his goods, for such
things are not to be had elsewhere.”

So Ritter Red was thrown into a pit full of snakes, and Shortshanks was
to have the Princess and half the kingdom.

One day Shortshanks and the king were out walking, and Shortshanks
asked the king if he hadn’t any more children?

“Yes”, said the king, “I had another daughter; but the Ogre has taken
her away, because there was no one who could save her. Now you are
going to have one daughter, but if you can set the other free whom the
Ogre has carried off, you shall have her too with all my heart, and the
other half of my kingdom.”

“Well”, said Shortshanks, “I may as well try; but I must have an iron
cable, five hundred fathoms long, and five hundred men, and food for
them to last fifteen weeks, for I have a long voyage before me.”

Yes! the king said he should have them, but he was afraid there wasn’t
a ship in his kingdom big enough to carry such a freight.

“Oh! if that’s all”, said Shortshanks, “I have a ship of my own.”

With that he whipped out of his pocket the ship he had got from the old
hag.

The king laughed, and thought it was all a joke; but Shortshanks begged
him only to give him what he asked, and he should soon see if it was a
joke. So they got together what he wanted, and Shortshanks bade him put
the cable on board the ship first of all; but there was no one man who
could lift it, and there wasn’t room for more than one at a time round
the tiny ship. Then Shortshanks took hold of the cable by one end, and
laid a link or two into the ship; and as he threw in the links, the
ship grew bigger and bigger, till at last it got so big, that there was
room enough and to spare in it for the cable, and the five hundred men,
and their food, and Shortshanks, and all. Then he said to the ship:

“Off and away, over fresh water and salt water, over high hill and deep
dale, and don’t stop till you come to where the king’s daughter is.”
And away went the ship over land and sea, till the wind whistled after
it.

So when they had sailed far, far away, the ship stood stock still in
the middle of the sea.

“Ah!” said Shortshanks, “now we have got so far; but how we are to get
back is another story.”

Then he took the cable and tied one end of it round his waist, and
said:

“Now, I must go to the bottom, but when I give the cable a good tug,
and want to come up again, mind you all hoist away with a will, or your
lives will be lost as well as mine”; and with these words overboard he
leapt, and dived down, so that the yellow waves rose round him in an
eddy.

Well, he sank and sank, and at last he came to the bottom, and there he
saw a great rock rising up with a door in it, so he opened the door and
went in. When he got inside, he saw another Princess, who sat and
sewed, but when she saw Shortshanks, she clasped her hands together and
cried out:

“Now, God be thanked! you are the first Christian man I’ve set eyes on
since I came here.”

“Very good”, said Shortshanks; “but do you know I’ve come to fetch
you?”

“Oh!” she cried, “you’ll never fetch me; you’ll never have that luck,
for if the Ogre sees you, he’ll kill you on the spot.”

“I’m glad you spoke of the Ogre”, said Shortshanks; “’twould be fine
fun to see him; whereabouts is he?”

Then the Princess told him the Ogre was out looking for some one who
could brew a hundred lasts of malt at one strike, for he was going to
give a great feast, and less drink wouldn’t do.

“Well! I can do that”, said Shortshanks.

“Ah!” said the Princess, “if only the Ogre wasn’t so hasty, I might
tell him about you; but he’s so cross; I’m afraid he’ll tear you to
pieces as soon as he comes in, without waiting to hear my story. Let me
see what is to be done. Oh! I have it; just hide yourself in the
side-room yonder, and let us take our chance.”

Well! Shortshanks did as she told him, and he had scarce crept into the
side-room before the Ogre came in.

“HUF!” said the Ogre; “what a horrid smell of Christian man’s blood!”

“Yes!” said the Princess, “I know there is, for a bird flew over the
house with a Christian man’s bone in his bill, and let it fall down the
chimney. I made all the haste I could to get it out again, but I dare
say it’s that you smell.”

“Ah!” said the Ogre, “like enough.”

Then the Princess asked the Ogre if he had laid hold of any one who
could brew a hundred lasts of malt at one strike?

“No”, said the Ogre, “I can’t hear of any one who can do it.”

“Well”, she said, “a while ago, there was a chap in here who said he
could do it.”

“Just like you, with your wisdom!” said the Ogre; “why did you let him
go away then, when you knew he was the very man I wanted?”

“Well then, I didn’t let him go”, said the Princess; “but father’s
temper is a little hot, so I hid him away in the side-room yonder; but
if father hasn’t hit upon any one, here he is.”

“Well”, said the Ogre, “let him come in then.”

So Shortshanks came in, and the Ogre asked him if it were true that he
could brew a hundred lasts of malt at a strike?

“Yes it is”, said Shortshanks.

“Twas good luck then to lay hands on you”, said the Ogre, “and now fall
to work this minute; but heaven help you if you don’t brew the ale
strong enough.”

“Oh”, said Shortshanks, “never fear, it shall be stinging stuff”; and
with that he began to brew without more fuss, but all at once he cried
out:

“I must have more of you Ogres to help in the brewing, for these I have
got a’nt half strong enough.”

Well, he got more—so many, that there was a whole swarm of them, and
then the brewing went on bravely. Now when the sweet-wort was ready,
they were all eager to taste it, you may guess; first of all the Ogre,
and then all his kith and kin. But Shortshanks had brewed the wort so
strong that they all fell down dead, one after another, like so many
flies, as soon as they had tasted it. At last there wasn’t one of them
left alive but one vile old hag, who lay bed-ridden in the
chimney-corner.

“Oh you poor old wretch”, said Shortshanks, “you may just as well taste
the wort along with the rest.”

So, he went and scooped up a little from the bottom of the copper in a
scoop, and gave her a drink, and so he was rid of the whole pack of
them.

As he stood there and looked about him, he cast his eye on a great
chest, so he took it and filled it with gold and silver; then he tied
the cable round himself and the Princess and the chest, and gave it a
good tug, and his men pulled them all up, safe and sound. As soon as
ever Shortshanks was well up, he said to the ship,

“Off and away, over fresh water and salt water, high hill and deep
dale, and don’t stop till you come to the king’s palace”; and
straightway the ship held on her course, so that the yellow billows
foamed round her. When the people in the palace saw the ship sailing
up, they were not slow in meeting them with songs and music, welcoming
Shortshanks with great joy; but the gladdest of all was the king, who
had now got his other daughter back again.

But now Shortshanks was rather down-hearted, for you must know that
both the princesses wanted to have him, and he would have no other than
the one he had first saved, and she was the youngest. So he walked up
and down, and thought and thought what he should do to get her, and yet
do something to please her sister. Well, one day as he was turning the
thing over in his mind, it struck him if he only had his brother King
Sturdy, who was so like him that no one could tell the one from the
other, he would give up to him the other princess and half the kingdom,
for he thought one-half was quite enough.

Well, as soon as ever this came into his mind, he went outside the
palace and called on King Sturdy, but no one came. So he called a
second time a little louder, but still no one came. Then he called out
the third time “King Sturdy” with all his might, and there stood his
brother before him. “Didn’t I say!” he said to Shortshanks, “didn’t I
say you were not to call me except in your utmost need? and here there
is not so much as a gnat to do you any harm”, and with that he gave him
such a box on the ear that Shortshanks tumbled head over heels on the
grass.

“Now shame on you to “hit so hard!” said Shortshanks. “First of all I
won a princess and half the kingdom, and then I won another princess
and the other half of the kingdom; and now I’m thinking to give you one
of the princesses and half the kingdom. Is there any rhyme or reason in
giving me such a box on the ear?”

When King Sturdy heard that, he begged his brother to forgive him, and
they were soon as good friends as ever again.

“Now”, said Shortshanks, “you know, we are so much alike, that no one
can tell the one from the other; so just change clothes with me and go
into the palace; then the princesses will think it is I that am coming
in, and the one that kisses you first you shall have for your wife, and
I will have the other for mine.”

And he said this because he knew well enough that the elder king’s
daughter was the stronger, and so he could very well guess how things
would go. As for King Sturdy, he was willing enough, so he changed
clothes with his brother and went into the palace. But when he came
into the Princesses’ bower they thought it was Shortshanks, and both
ran up to him to kiss him; but the elder, who was stronger and bigger,
pushed her sister on one side, and threw her arms round King Sturdy’s
neck, and gave him a kiss; and so he got her for his wife, and
Shortshanks got the younger Princess. Then they made ready for the
wedding, and you may fancy what a grand one it was, when I tell you,
that the fame of it was noised abroad over seven kingdoms.




GUDBRAND ON THE HILL-SIDE


Once on a time there was a man whose name was Gudbrand; he had a farm
which lay far, far away upon a hill-side, and so they called him
Gudbrand on the Hill-side.

Now, you must know this man and his goodwife lived so happily together,
and understood one another so well, that all the husband did the wife
thought so well done there was nothing like it in the world, and she
was always glad whatever he turned his hand to. The farm was their own
land, and they had a hundred dollars lying at the bottom of their
chest, and two cows tethered up in a stall in their farm-yard.

So one day his wife said to Gudbrand:

“Do you know, dear, I think we ought to take one of our cows into town,
and sell it; that’s what I think; for then we shall have some money in
hand, and such well-to-do people as we ought to have ready money like
the rest of the world. As for the hundred dollars at the bottom of the
chest yonder, we can’t make a hole in them, and I’m sure I don’t know
what we want with more than one cow. Besides, we shall gain a little in
another way, for then I shall get off with only looking after one cow,
instead of having, as now, to feed and litter and water two.”

Well, Gudbrand thought his wife talked right good sense, so he set off
at once with the cow on his way to town to sell her; but when he got to
the town, there was no one who would buy his cow.

“Well! well! never mind”, said Gudbrand, “at the worst, I can only go
back home again with my cow. I’ve both stable and tether for her, I
should think, and the road is no farther out than in”; and with that he
began to toddle home with his cow.

But when he had gone a bit of the way, a man met him who had a horse to
sell, so Gudbrand thought ’twas better to have a horse than a cow, so
he swopped with the man. A little farther on he met a man walking along
and driving a fat pig before him, and he thought it better to have a
fat pig than a horse, so he swopped with the man. After that he went a
little farther, and a man met him with a goat; so he thought it better
to have a goat than a pig, and he swopped with the man that owned the
goat. Then he went on a good bit till he met a man who had a sheep, and
he swopped with him too, for he thought it always better to have a
sheep than a goat. After a while he met a man with a goose, and he
swopped away the sheep for the goose; and when he had walked a long,
long time, he met a man with a cock, and he swopped with him, for he
thought in this wise, “’Tis surely better to have a cock than a goose.”
Then he went on till the day was far spent, and he began to get very
hungry, so he sold the cock for a shilling, and bought food with the
money, for, thought Gudbrand on the Hill-side, “’Tis always better to
save one’s life than to have a cock.”

After that he went on home till he reached his nearest neighbour’s
house, where he turned in.

“Well”, said the owner of the house, “how did things go with you in
town?”

“Rather so so”, said Gudbrand, “I can’t praise my luck, nor do I blame
it either”, and with that he told the whole story from first to last.

“Ah!” said his friend, “you’ll get nicely called over the coals, that
one can see, when you get home to your wife. Heaven help you, I
wouldn’t stand in your shoes for something.”

“Well!” said Gudbrand on the Hill-side, “I think things might have gone
much worse with me; but now, whether I have done wrong or not, I have
so kind a goodwife, she never has a word to say against anything that I
do.”

“Oh!” answered his neighbour, “I hear what you say, but I don’t believe
it for all that.”

“Shall we lay a bet upon it?” asked Gudbrand on the Hill-side. “I have
a hundred dollars at the bottom of my chest at home; will you lay as
many against them?”

Yes! the friend was ready to bet; so Gudbrand stayed there till
evening, when it began to get dark, and then they went together to his
house, and the neighbour was to stand outside the door and listen,
while the man went in to see his wife.

“Good evening!” said Gudbrand on the Hill-side.

“Good evening!” said the goodwife. “Oh! is that you? now God be
praised.”

Yes! it was he. So the wife asked how things had gone with him in town?

“Oh! only so so”, answered Gudbrand; “not much to brag of. When I got
to the town there was no one who would buy the cow, so you must know I
swopped it away for a horse.”

“For a horse”, said his wife; “well that is good of you; thanks with
all my heart. We are so well to do that we may drive to church, just as
well as other people; and if we choose to keep a horse we have a right
to get one, I should think. So run out, child, and put up the horse.”

“Ah!” said Gudbrand, “but you see I’ve not got the horse after all; for
when I got a bit farther on the road, I swopped it away for a pig.”

“Think of that, now!” said the wife; “you did just as I should have
done myself; a thousand thanks! Now I can have a bit of bacon in the
house to set before people when they come to see me, that I can. What
do we want with a horse? People would only say we had got so proud that
we couldn’t walk to church. Go out, child, and put up the pig in the
sty.”

“But I’ve not got the pig either”, said Gudbrand; “for when I got a
little farther on, I swopped it away for a milch goat.”

“Bless us!” cried his wife, “how well you manage everything! Now I
think it over, what should I do with a pig? People would only point at
us and say, ‘Yonder they eat up all they have got.’ No! now I have got
a goat, and I shall have milk and cheese, and keep the goat too. Run
out, child, and put up the goat.”

“Nay, but I haven’t got the goat either”, said Gudbrand, “for a little
farther on I swopped it away, and got a fine sheep instead.”

“You don’t say so!” cried his wife; “why, you do everything to please
me, just as if I had been with you; what do we want with a goat? If I
had it I should lose half my time in climbing up the hills to get it
down. No! if I have a sheep, I shall have both wool and clothing, and
fresh meat in the house. Run out, child, and put up the sheep.”

“But I haven’t got the sheep any more than the rest”, said Gudbrand;
“for when I had gone a bit farther, I swopped it away for a goose.”

“Thank you! thank you! with all my heart”, cried his wife; “what should
I do with a sheep? I have no spinning-wheel, nor carding-comb, nor
should I care to worry myself with cutting, and shaping, and sewing
clothes. We can buy clothes now, as we have always done; and now I
shall have roast goose, which I have longed for so often; and, besides,
down to stuff my little pillow with. Run out, child, and put up the
goose.”

“Ah!” said Gudbrand, “but I haven’t the goose either; for when I had
gone a bit farther I swopped it away for a cock.”

“Dear me!” cried his wife, “how you think of everything! just as I
should have done myself. A cock! think of that! why it’s as good as an
eight-day clock, for every morning the cock crows at four o’clock, and
we shall be able to stir our stumps in good time. What should we do
with a goose? I don’t know how to cook it; and as for my pillow, I can
stuff it with cotton-grass. Run out, child, and put up the cock.”

“But, after all, I haven’t got the cock”, said Gudbrand; “for when I
had gone a bit farther, I got as hungry as a hunter, so I was forced to
sell the cock for a shilling, for fear I should starve.”

“Now, God be praised that you did so!” cried his wife; “whatever you
do, you do it always just after my own heart. What should we do with
the cock? We are our own masters, I should think, and can lie a-bed in
the morning as long as we like. Heaven be thanked that I have got you
safe back again; you who do everything so well that I want neither cock
nor goose; neither pigs nor kine.”

Then Gudbrand opened the door and said; “Well, what do you say now?
Have I won the hundred dollars?” and his neighbour was forced to allow
that he had.




THE BLUE BELT


Once on a time there was an old beggar-woman, who had gone out to beg.
She had a little lad with her, and when she had got her bag full, she
struck across the hills towards her own home. So when they had gone a
bit up the hill-side, they came upon a little blue belt, which lay
where two paths met, and the lad asked his mother’s leave to pick it
up.

“No”, said she, “maybe there’s witchcraft in it”; and so with threats
she forced him to follow her. But when they had gone a bit further, the
lad said he must turn aside a moment out of the road, and meanwhile his
mother sat down on a tree-stump. But the lad was a long time gone, for
as soon as he got so far into the wood, that the old dame could not see
him, he ran off to where the belt lay, took it up, tied it round his
waist, and lo! he felt as strong as if he could lift the whole hill.
When he got back, the old dame was in a great rage, and wanted to know
what he had been doing all that while. “You don’t care how much time
you waste, and yet you know the night is drawing on, and we must cross
the hill before it is dark!” So on they tramped; but when they had got
about half-way, the old dame grew weary, and said she must rest under a
bush.

“Dear mother”, said the lad, “mayn’t I just go up to the top of this
high crag while you rest, and try if I can’t see some sign of folk
hereabouts?”

Yes! he might do that; so when he had got to the top, he saw a light
shining from the north. So he ran down and told his mother.

“We must get on, mother; we are near a house, for I see a bright light
shining quite close to us in the north.” Then she rose and shouldered
her bag, and set off to see; but they hadn’t gone far, before there
stood a steep spur of the hill, right across their path.

“Just as I thought!” said the old dame; “now we can’t go a step
farther; a pretty bed we shall have here!”

But the lad took the bag under one arm, and his mother under the other,
and ran straight up the steep crag with them.

“Now, don’t you see! don’t you see that we are close to a house! don’t
you see the bright light?”

But the old dame said those were no Christian folk, but Trolls, for she
was at home in all that forest far and near, and knew there was not a
living soul in it, until you were well over the ridge, and had come
down on the other side. But they went on, and in a little while they
came to a great house which was all painted red.

“What’s the good?” said the old dame, “we daren’t go in, for here the
Trolls live.”

“Don’t say so; we must go in. There must be men where the lights shine
so”, said the lad. So in he went, and his mother after him, but he had
scarce opened the door before she swooned away, for there she saw a
great stout man, at least twenty feet high, sitting on the bench.

“Good evening, grandfather!” said the lad.

“Well, here I’ve sat three hundred years”, said the man who sat on the
bench, “and no one has ever come and called me grandfather before.”
Then the lad sat down by the man’s side, and began to talk to him as if
they had been old friends.

“But what’s come over your mother?” said the man, after they had
chattered a while. “I think she swooned away; you had better look after
her.”

So the lad went and took hold of the old dame; and dragged her up the
hall along the floor. That brought her to herself, and she kicked, and
scratched, and flung herself about, and at last sat down upon a heap of
firewood in the corner; but she was so frightened that she scarce dared
to look one in the face.

After a while, the lad asked if they could spend the night there.

“Yes, to be sure”, said the man.

So they went on talking again, but the lad soon got hungry, and wanted
to know if they could get food as well as lodging.

“Of course”, said the man, “that might be got too.” And after he had
sat a while longer, he rose up and threw six loads of dry pitch-pine on
the fire. This made the old hag still more afraid.

“Oh! now he’s going to roast us alive”, she said, in the corner where
she sat.

And when the wood had burned down to glowing embers, up got the man and
strode out of his house.

“Heaven bless and help us! what a stout heart you have got”, said the
old dame; “don’t you see we have got amongst Trolls?”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said the lad; “no harm if we have.”

In a little while back came the man with an ox so fat and big, the lad
had never seen its like, and he gave it one blow with his fist under
the ear, and down it fell dead on the floor. When that was done, he
took it up by all the four legs, and laid it on the glowing embers, and
turned it and twisted it about till it was burnt brown outside. After
that, he went to a cupboard and took out a great silver dish, and laid
the ox on it; and the dish was so big that none of the ox hung over on
any side. This he put on the table, and then he went down into the
cellar, and fetched a cask of wine, knocked out the head, and put the
cask on the table, together with two knives, which were each six feet
long. When this was done, he bade them go and sit down to supper and
eat. So they went, the lad first and the old dame after, but she began
to whimper and wail, and to wonder how she should ever use such knives.
But her son seized one, and began to cut slices out of the thigh of the
ox, which he placed before his mother. And when they had eaten a bit,
he took up the cask with both hands, and lifted it down to the floor;
then he told his mother to come and drink, but it was still so high she
couldn’t reach up to it; so he caught her up, and held her up to the
edge of the cask while she drank; as for himself, he clambered up and
hung down like a cat inside the cask while he drank. So when he had
quenched his thirst, he took up the cask and put it back on the table,
and thanked the man for the good meal, and told his mother to come and
thank him too, and a-feared though she was, she dared do nothing else
but thank the man. Then the lad sat down again alongside the man and
began to gossip, and after they had sat a while, the man said,

“Well! I must just go and get a bit of supper too”; and so he went to
the table and ate up the whole ox—hoofs, and horns, and all—and drained
the cask to the last drop, and then went back and sat on the bench.

As for beds”, he said, “I don’t know what’s to be done. I’ve only got
one bed and a cradle; but we could get on pretty well if you would
sleep in the cradle, and then your mother might lie in the bed yonder.”

“Thank you kindly, that’ll do nicely”, said the lad; and with that he
pulled off his clothes and lay down in the cradle; but, to tell you the
truth; it was quite as big as a four-poster. As for the old dame, she
had to follow the man who showed her to bed, though she was out of her
wits for fear.

“Well!” thought the lad to himself, “’twill never do to go to sleep
yet. I’d best lie awake and listen how things go as the night wears
on.”

So after a while the man began to talk to the old dame, and at last he
said:

“We two might live here so happily together, could we only be rid of
this son of yours.”

“But do you know how to settle him? Is that what you’re thinking of?”
said she.

“Nothing easier”, said he; at any rate he would try. He would just say
he wished the old dame would stay and keep house for him a day or two,
and then he would take the lad out with him up the hill to quarry
corner-stones, and roll down a great rock on him. All this the lad lay
and listened to.

Next day the Troll—for it was a Troll as clear as day—asked if the old
dame would stay and keep house for him a few days; and as the day went
on he took a great iron crowbar, and asked the lad if he had a mind to
go with him up the hill and quarry a few corner-stones. With all his
heart, he said, and went with him; and so, after they had split a few
stones, the Troll wanted him to go down below and look after cracks in
the rock; and while he was doing this, the Troll worked away, and
wearied himself with his crowbar till he moved a whole crag out of its
bed, which came rolling right down on the place where the lad was; but
he held it up till he could get on one side, and then let it roll on.

“Oh!” said the lad to the Troll, “now I see what you mean to do with
me. You want to crush me to death; so just go down yourself and look
after the cracks and refts in the rock, and I’ll stand up above.”

The Troll did not dare to do otherwise than the lad bade him, and the
end of it was that the lad rolled down a great rock, which fell upon
the Troll, and broke one of his thighs.

“Well! you are in a sad plight”, said the lad, as he strode down,
lifted up the rock, and set the man free. After that he had to put him
on his back and carry him home; so he ran with him as fast as a horse,
and shook him so that the Troll screamed and screeched as if a knife
were run into him. And when he got home, they had to put the Troll to
bed, and there he lay in a sad pickle.

When the night wore on the Troll began to talk to the old dame again,
and to wonder how ever they could be rid of the lad.

“Well”, said the old dame, “if you can’t hit on a plan to get rid of
him, I’m sure I can’t.”

“Let me see”, said the Troll; “I’ve got twelve lions in a garden; if
they could only get hold of the lad they’d soon tear him to pieces.”

So the old dame said it would be easy enough to get him there. She
would sham sick, and say she felt so poorly, nothing would do her any
good but lion’s milk. All that the lad lay and listened to; and when he
got up in the morning his mother said she was worse than she looked,
and she thought she should never be right again unless she could get
some lion’s milk.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll be poorly a long time, mother”, said the lad,
“for I’m sure I don’t know where any is to be got.”

“Oh! if that be all”, said the Troll, “there’s no lack of lion’s milk,
if we only had the man to fetch it”; and then he went on to say how his
brother had a garden with twelve lions in it, and how the lad might
have the key if he had a mind to milk the lions. So the lad took the
key and a milking pail, and strode off; and when he unlocked the gate
and got into the garden, there stood all the twelve lions on their
hind-paws, rampant and roaring at him. But the lad laid hold of the
biggest, and led him about by the fore-paws, and dashed him against
stocks and stones, till there wasn’t a bit of him left but the two
paws. So when the rest saw that, they were so afraid that they crept up
and lay at his feet like so many curs. After that they followed him
about wherever he went, and when he got home, they lay down outside the
house, with their fore-paws on the door sill.

“Now, mother, you’ll soon be well”, said the lad, when he went in, “for
here is the lion’s milk.”

He had just milked a drop in the pail.

But the Troll, as he lay in bed, swore it was all a lie. He was sure
the lad was not the man to milk lions.

When the lad heard that, he forced the Troll to get out of bed, threw
open the door, and all the lions rose up and seized the Troll, and at
last the lad had to make them leave their hold.

That night the Troll began to talk to the old dame again.

“I’m sure I can’t tell how to put this lad out of the way—he is so
awfully strong; can’t you think of some way?

“No,” said the old dame, “if you can’t tell, I’m sure I can’t.”

“Well!” said the Troll, “I have two brothers in a castle; they are
twelve times as strong as I am, and that’s why I was turned out and had
to put up with this farm. They hold that castle, and round it there is
an orchard with apples in it, and whoever eats those apples sleeps for
three days and three nights. If we could only get the lad to go for the
fruit, he wouldn’t be able to keep from tasting the apples, and as soon
as ever he fell asleep my brothers would tear him in pieces.”

The old dame said she would sham sick, and say she could never be
herself again unless she tasted those apples; for she had set her heart
on them.

All this the lad lay and listened to.

When the morning came the old dame was so poorly that she couldn’t
utter a word but groans and sighs. She was sure she should never be
well again, unless she had some of those apples that grew in the
orchard near the castle where the man’s brothers lived; only she had no
one to send for them.

Oh! the lad was ready to go that instant; but the eleven lions went
with him. So when he came to the orchard, he climbed up into the apple
tree and ate as many apples as he could, and he had scarce got down
before he fell into a deep sleep; but the lions all lay round him in a
ring. The third day came the Troll’s brothers, but they did not come in
man’s shape. They came snorting like man-eating steeds, and wondered
who it was that dared to be there, and said they would tear him to
pieces, so small that there should not be a bit of him left. But up
rose the lions and tore the Trolls into small pieces, so that the place
looked as if a dung heap had been tossed about it; and when they had
finished the Trolls they lay down again. The lad did not wake till late
in the afternoon, and when he got on his knees and rubbed the sleep out
of his eyes, he began to wonder what had been going on, when he saw the
marks of hoofs. But when he went towards the castle, a maiden looked
out of a window who had seen all that had happened, and she said:

“You may thank your stars you weren’t in that tussle, else you must
have lost your life.”

“What! I lose my life! No fear of that, I think,” said the lad.

So she begged him to come in, that she might talk with him, for she
hadn’t seen a Christian soul ever since she came there. But when she
opened the door the lions wanted to go in too, but she got so
frightened that she began to scream, and so the lad let them lie
outside. Then the two talked and talked, and the lad asked how it came
that she, who was so lovely, could put up with those ugly Trolls. She
never wished it, she said; ’twas quite against her will. They had
seized her by force, and she was the King of Arabia’s daughter. So they
talked on, and at last she asked him what he would do; whether she
should go back home, or whether he would have her to wife. Of course he
would have her, and she shouldn’t go home.

After that they went round the castle, and at last they came to a great
hall, where the Trolls’ two great swords hung high up on the wall.

“I wonder if you are man enough to wield one of these,” said the
Princess.

“Who?—I?” said the lad. “’Twould be a pretty thing if I couldn’t wield
one of these.”

With that he put two or three chairs one a-top of the other, jumped up,
and touched the biggest sword with his finger tips, tossed it up in the
air, and caught it again by the hilt; leapt down, and at the same time
dealt such a blow with it on the floor that the whole hall shook. After
he had thus got down, he thrust the sword under his arm and carried it
about with him.

So, when they had lived a little while in the castle, the Princess
thought she ought to go home to her parents, and let them know what had
become of her; so they loaded a ship, and she set sail from the castle.

After she had gone, and the lad had wandered about a little, he called
to mind that he had been sent on an errand thither, and had come to
fetch something for his mother’s health; and though he said to himself,
“After all, the old dame was not so bad but she’s all right by this
time”—still he thought he ought to go and just see how she was. So he
went and found both the man and his mother quite fresh and hearty.

“What wretches you are to live in this beggarly hut”, said the lad.
“Come with me up to my castle, and you shall see what a fine fellow I
am.”

Well! they were both ready to go, and on the way his mother talked to
him, and asked, “How it was he had got so strong?”

“If you must know, it came of that blue belt which lay on the hill-side
that time when you and I were out begging”, said the lad.

“Have you got it still?” asked she.

“Yes”—he had. It was tied round his waist.

“Might she see it?”

“Yes, she might”; and with that he pulled open his waistcoat and shirt
to show it her.

Then she seized it with both hands, tore it off, and twisted it round
her fist.

“Now”, she cried, “what shall I do with such a wretch as you? I’ll just
give you one blow, and dash your brains out!”

“Far too good a death for such a scamp”, said the Troll. “No! let’s
first burn out his eyes, and then turn him adrift in a little boat.”

So they burned out his eyes and turned him adrift, in spite of his
prayers and tears; but, as the boat drifted, the lions swam after, and
at last they laid hold of it and dragged it ashore on an island, and
placed the lad under a fir tree. They caught game for him, and they
plucked the birds and made him a bed of down; but he was forced to eat
his meat raw, and he was blind. At last, one day the biggest lion was
chasing a hare which was blind, for it ran straight over stock and
stone, and the end was, it ran right up against a fir-stump and tumbled
head over heels across the field right into a spring; but lo! when it
came out of the spring it saw its way quite plain, and so saved its
life.

“So, so!” thought the lion, and went and dragged the lad to the spring,
and dipped him over head and ears in it. So, when he had got his sight
again, he went down to the shore and made signs to the lions that they
should all lie close together like a raft; then he stood upon their
backs while they swam with him to the mainland. When he had reached the
shore he went up into a birchen copse, and made the lions lie quiet.
Then he stole up to the castle, like a thief, to see if he couldn’t lay
hands on his belt; and when he got to the door, he peeped through the
keyhole, and there he saw his belt hanging up over a door in the
kitchen. So he crept softly in across the floor, for there was no one
there; but as soon as he had got hold of the belt, he began to kick and
stamp about as though he were mad. Just then his mother came rushing
out.

“Dear heart, my darling little boy! do give me the belt again”, she
said.

“Thank you kindly”, said he. “Now you shall have the doom you passed on
me”, and he fulfilled it on the spot. When the old Troll heard that, he
came in and begged and prayed so prettily that he might not be smitten
to death.

“Well, you may live”, said the lad, “but you shall undergo the same
punishment you gave me”; and so he burned out the Troll’s eyes, and
turned him adrift on the sea in a little boat, but he had no lions to
follow him.

Now the lad was all alone, and he went about longing and longing for
the Princess; at last he could bear it no longer; he must set out to
seek her, his heart was so bent on having her. So he loaded four ships
and set sail for Arabia. For some time they had fair wind and fine
weather, but after that they lay wind-bound under a rocky island. So
the sailors went ashore and strolled about to spend the time, and there
they found a huge egg, almost as big as a little house. So they began
to knock it about with large stones, but, after all, they couldn’t
crack the shell. Then the lad came up with his sword to see what all
the noise was about, and when he saw the egg, he thought it a trifle to
crack it; so he gave it one blow and the egg split, and out came a
chicken as big as an elephant.

“Now we have done wrong”, said the lad; “this can cost us all our
lives”; and then he asked his sailors if they were men enough to sail
to Arabia in four-and-twenty hours if they got a fine breeze. Yes! they
were good to do that, they said, so they set sail with a fine breeze,
and got to Arabia in three-and-twenty hours. As soon as they landed,
the lad ordered all the sailors to go and bury themselves up to the
eyes in a sandhill, so that they could barely see the ships. The lad
and the captains climbed a high crag and sate down under a fir.

In a little while came a great bird flying with an island in its claws,
and let it fall down on the fleet, and sunk every ship. After it had
done that, it flew up to the sandhill and flapped its wings, so that
the wind nearly took off the heads of the sailors, and it flew past the
fir with such force that it turned the lad right about, but he was
ready with his sword, and gave the bird one blow and brought it down
dead.

After that he went to the town, where every one was glad because the
king had got his daughter back; but now the king had hidden her away
somewhere himself, and promised her hand as a reward to any one who
could find her, and this though she was betrothed before. Now as the
lad went along he met a man who had white bear-skins for sale, so he
bought one of the hides and put it on; and one of the captains was to
take an iron chain and lead him about, and so he went into the town and
began to play pranks. At last the news came to the king’s ears, that
there never had been such fun in the town before, for here was a white
bear that danced and cut capers just as it was bid. So a messenger came
to say the bear must come to the castle at once, for the king wanted to
see its tricks. So when it got to the castle every one was afraid, for
such a beast they had never seen before; but the captain said there was
no danger unless they laughed at it. They mustn’t do that, else it
would tear them to pieces. When the king heard that, he warned all the
court not to laugh. But while the fun was going on, in came one of the
king’s maids, and began to laugh and make game of the bear, and the
bear flew at her and tore her, so that there was scarce a rag of her
left. Then all the court began to bewail, and the captain most of all.

“Stuff and nonsense”, said the king; “she’s only a maid, besides it’s
more my affair than yours.”

When the show was over, it was late at night. “It’s no good your going
away, when it’s so late”, said the king. “The bear had best sleep
here.”

“Perhaps it might sleep in the ingle by the kitchen fire”, said the
captain.

“Nay”, said the king, “it shall sleep up here, and it shall have
pillows and cushions to sleep on.” So a whole heap of pillows and
cushions was brought, and the captain had a bed in a side-room.

But at midnight the king came with a lamp in his hand and a big bunch
of keys, and carried off the white bear. He passed along gallery after
gallery, through doors and rooms, up-stairs and down-stairs, till at
last he came to a pier which ran out into the sea. Then the king began
to pull and haul at posts and pins, this one up and that one down, till
at last a little house floated up to the water’s edge. There he kept
his daughter, for she was so dear to him that he had hid her, so that
no one could find her out. He left the white bear outside while he went
in and told her how it had danced and played its pranks. She said she
was afraid, and dared not look at it; but he talked her over, saying
there was no danger, if she only wouldn’t laugh. So they brought the
bear in, and locked the door, and it danced and played its tricks; but
just when the fun was at its height, the Princess’s maid began to
laugh. Then the lad flew at her and tore her to bits, and the Princess
began to cry and sob.

“Stuff and nonsense”, cried the king; “all this fuss about a maid! I’ll
get you just as good a one again. But now I think the bear had best
stay here till morning, for I don’t care to have to go and lead it
along all those galleries and stairs at this time of night.”

“Well!” said the Princess, “if it sleeps here, I’m sure I won’t.”

But just then the bear curled himself up and lay down by the stove; and
it was settled at last that the Princess should sleep there too, with a
light burning. But as soon as the king was well gone, the white bear
came and begged her to undo his collar. The Princess was so scared she
almost swooned away; but she felt about till she found the collar, and
she had scarce undone it before the bear pulled his head off. Then she
knew him again, and was so glad there was no end to her joy, and she
wanted to tell her father at once that her deliverer was come. But the
lad would not hear of it; he would earn her once more, he said. So in
the morning when they heard the king rattling at the posts outside, the
lad drew on the hide, and lay down by the stove.

“Well, has it lain still?” the king asked.

“I should think so”, said the Princess; “it hasn’t so much as turned or
stretched itself once.”

When they got up to the castle again, the captain took the bear and led
it away, and then the lad threw off the hide, and went to a tailor and
ordered clothes fit for a prince; and when they were fitted on he went
to the king, and said he wanted to find the Princess.

“You’re not the first who has wished the same thing”, said the king,
“but they have all lost their lives; for if any one who tries can’t
find her in four-and-twenty hours his life is forfeited.”

Yes; the lad knew all that. Still he wished to try, and if he couldn’t
find her, ’twas his look-out. Now in the castle there was a band that
played sweet tunes, and there were fair maids to dance with, and so the
lad danced away. When twelve hours were gone, the king said:

“I pity you with all my heart. You’re so poor a hand at seeking; you
will surely lose your life.”

“Stuff!” said the lad; “while there’s life there’s hope! So long as
there’s breath in the body there’s no fear; we have lots of time”; and
so he went on dancing till there was only one hour left.

Then he said he would begin to search.

“It’s no use now”, said the king; “time’s up.”

“Light your lamp; out with your big bunch of keys”, said the lad, “and
follow me whither I wish to go. There is still a whole hour left.”

So the lad went the same way which the king had led him the night
before, and he bade the king unlock door after door till they came down
to the pier which ran out into the sea.

“It’s all no use, I tell you”, said the king; “time’s up, and this will
only lead you right out into the sea.”

“Still five minutes more”, said the lad, as he pulled and pushed at the
posts and pins, and the house floated up.

“Now the time is up”, bawled the king; “come hither, headsman, and take
off his head.”

“Nay, nay!” said the lad; “stop a bit, there are still three minutes!
Out with the key, and let me get into this house.”

But there stood the king and fumbled with his keys, to draw out the
time. At last he said he hadn’t any key.

“Well, if you haven’t, I _have_”, said the lad, as he gave the door
such a kick that it flew to splinters inwards on the floor.

At the door the Princess met him, and told her father this was her
deliverer, on whom her heart was set. So she had him; and this was how
the beggar boy came to marry the king’s daughter of Arabia.




WHY THE BEAR IS STUMPY-TAILED


One day the Bear met the Fox, who came slinking along with a string of
fish he had stolen.

“Whence did you get those from?” asked the Bear.

“Oh! my Lord Bruin, I’ve been out fishing and caught them”, said the
Fox.

So the Bear had a mind to learn to fish too, and bade the Fox tell him
how he was to set about it.

“Oh! it’s an easy craft for you”, answered the Fox, “and soon learnt.
You’ve only got to go upon the ice, and cut a hole and stick your tail
down into it; and so you must go on holding it there as long as you
can. You’re not to mind if your tail smarts a little; that’s when the
fish bite. The longer you hold it there the more fish you’ll get; and
then all at once out with it, with a cross pull sideways, and with a
strong pull too.”

Yes; the Bear did as the Fox had said, and held his tail a long, long
time down in the hole, till it was fast frozen in. Then he pulled it
out with a cross pull, and it snapped short off. That’s why Bruin goes
about with a stumpy tail this very day.




NOT A PIN TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM


Once on a time there was a man, and he had a wife. Now this couple
wanted to sow their fields, but they had neither seed-corn nor money to
buy it with. But they had a cow, and the man was to drive it into town
and sell it, to get money to buy corn for seed. But when it came to the
pinch, the wife dared not let her husband start for fear he should
spend the money in drink, so she set off herself with the cow, and took
besides a hen with her.

Close by the town she met a butcher, who asked:

“Will you sell that cow, Goody?”

“Yes, that I will”, she answered.

“Well, what do you want for her?”

“Oh! I must have five shillings for the cow, but you shall have the hen
for ten pounds.”

“Very good!” said the man; “I don’t want the hen, and you’ll soon get
it off your hands in the town, but I’ll give you five shillings for the
cow.”

Well, she sold her cow for five shillings, but there was no one in the
town who would give ten pounds for a lean tough old hen, so she went
back to the butcher, and said:

“Do all I can, I can’t get rid of this hen, master! you must take it
too, as you took the cow.”

“Well”, said the butcher, “come along and we’ll see about it.” Then he
treated her both with meat and drink, and gave her so much brandy that
she lost her head, and didn’t know what she was about, and fell fast
asleep. But while she slept, the butcher took and dipped her into a
tar-barrel, and then laid her down on a heap of feathers; and when she
woke up, she was feathered all over, and began to wonder what had
befallen her.

“Is it me, or is it not me? No, it can never be me; it must be some
great strange bird. But what shall I do to find out whether it is me or
not. Oh! I know how I shall be able to tell whether it is me; if the
calves come and lick me, and our dog Tray doesn’t bark at me when I get
home, then it must be me, and no one else.”

Now, Tray, her dog, had scarce set his eyes on the strange monster
which came through the gate, than he set up such a barking, one would
have thought all the rogues and robbers in the world were in the yard.

“Ah, deary me”, said she, “I thought so; it can’t be me surely.” So she
went to the straw-yard, and the calves wouldn’t lick her, when they
snuffed in the strong smell of tar. “No, no!” she said, “it can’t be
me; it must be some strange outlandish bird.”

So she crept up on the roof of the safe and began to flap her arms, as
if they had been wings, and was just going to fly off.

When her husband saw all this, out he came with his rifle, and began to
take aim at her.

“Oh!” cried his wife, “don’t shoot, don’t shoot! it is only me.”

“If it’s you”, said her husband, “don’t stand up there like a goat on a
house-top, but come down and let me hear what you have to say for
yourself.”

So she crawled down again, but she hadn’t a shilling to shew, for the
crown she had got from the butcher she had thrown away in her
drunkenness. When her husband heard her story, he said, “You’re only
twice as silly as you were before”, and he got so angry that he made up
his mind to go away from her altogether, and never to come back till he
had found three other Goodies as silly as his own.

So he toddled off, and when he had walked a little way he saw a Goody,
who was running in and out of a newly-built wooden cottage with an
empty sieve, and every time she ran in, she threw her apron over the
sieve just as if she had something in it, and when she got in she
turned it upside down on the floor.

“Why, Goody!” he asked, “what are you doing?”

“Oh”, she answered, “I’m only carrying in a little sun; but I don’t
know how it is, when I’m outside, I have the sun in my sieve, but when
I get inside, somehow or other I’ve thrown it away. But in my old
cottage I had plenty of sun, though I never carried in the least bit. I
only wish I knew some one who would bring the sun inside; I’d give him
three hundred dollars and welcome.”

“Have you got an axe?” asked the man. “If you have, I’ll soon bring the
sun inside.”

So he got an axe and cut windows in the cottage, for the carpenters had
forgotten them; then the sun shone in, and he got his three hundred
dollars.

“That was one of them”, said the man to himself, as he went on his way.

After a while he passed by a house, out of which came an awful
screaming and bellowing; so he turned in and saw a Goody, who was hard
at work banging her husband across the head with a beetle, and over his
head she had drawn a shirt without any slit for the neck.

“Why, Goody!” he asked, “will you beat your husband to death?”

“No”, she said, “I only must have a hole in this shirt for his neck to
come through.”

All the while the husband kept on screaming and calling out:

“Heaven help and comfort all who try on new shirts. If anyone would
teach my Goody another way of making a slit for the neck in my new
shirts, I’d give him three hundred dollars down and welcome.”

“I’ll do it in the twinkling of an eye”, said the man, “if you’ll only
give me a pair of scissors.”

So he got a pair of scissors, and snipped a hole in the neck, and went
off with his three hundred dollars.

“That was another of them”, he said to himself, as he walked along.

Last of all, he came to a farm, where he made up his mind to rest a
bit. So when he went in, the mistress asked him:

“Whence do you come, master?”

“Oh!” said he, “I come from Paradise Place”, for that was the name of
his farm.

“From Paradise Place!” she cried, “you don’t say so! Why, then, you
must know my second husband Peter, who is dead and gone, God rest his
soul.”

For you must know this Goody had been married three times, and as her
first and last husbands had been bad, she had made up her mind that the
second only was gone to heaven.

“Oh yes”, said the man; “I know him very well.”

“Well”, asked the Goody, “how do things go with him, poor dear soul?”

“Only middling”, was the answer; “he goes about begging from house to
house, and has neither food nor a rag to his back. As for money, he
hasn’t a sixpence to bless himself with.”

“Mercy on me”, cried out the Goody; “he never ought to go about such a
figure when he left so much behind him. Why, there’s a whole cupboard
full of old clothes up-stairs which belonged to him, besides a great
chest full of money yonder. Now, if you will take them with you, you
shall have a horse and cart to carry them. As for the horse, he can
keep it, and sit on the cart, and drive about from house to house, and
then he needn’t trudge on foot.”

So the man got a whole cart-load of clothes, and a chest full of
shining dollars, and as much meat and drink as he would; and when he
had got all he wanted, he jumped into the cart and drove off.

“That was the third”, he said to himself, as he went along. Now this
Goody’s third husband was a little way off in a field ploughing, and
when he saw a strange man driving off from the farm with his horse and
cart, he went home and asked his wife who that was that had just
started with the black horse.

“Oh, do you mean him?” said the Goody; “why, that was a man from
Paradise, who said that Peter, my dear second husband, who is dead and
gone, is in a sad plight, and that he goes from house to house begging,
and has neither clothes nor money; so I just sent him all those old
clothes he left behind him, and the old money box with the dollars in
it.” The man saw how the land lay in a trice, so he saddled his horse
and rode off from the farm at full gallop. It wasn’t long before he was
close behind the man who sat and drove the cart; but when the latter
saw this he drove the cart into a thicket by the side of the road,
pulled out a handful of hair from the horse’s tail, jumped up on a
little rise in the wood, where he tied the hair fast to a birch, and
then lay down under it, and began to peer and stare up at the sky.

“Well, well, if I ever!” he said, as Peter the third came riding up.
“No! I never saw the like of this in all my born days!”

Then Peter stood and looked at him for some time, wondering what had
come over him; but at last he asked:

“What do you lie there staring at?”

“No”, kept on the man, “I never did see anything like it!—here is a man
going straight up to heaven on a black horse, and here you see his
horse’s tail still hanging in this birch; and yonder up in the sky you
see the black horse.”

Peter looked first at the man, and then at the sky, and said:

“I see nothing but the horse hair in the birch; that’s all I see!”

“Of course you can’t where you stand”, said the man; “but just come and
lie down here, and stare straight up, and mind you don’t take your eyes
off the sky; and then you shall see what you shall see.”

But while Peter the third lay and stared up at the sky till his eyes
filled with tears, the man from Paradise Place took his horse and
jumped on its back and rode off both with it and the cart and horse.

When the hoofs thundered along the road, Peter the third jumped up; but
he was so taken aback when he found the man had gone off with his horse
that he hadn’t the sense to run after him till it was too late.

He was rather down in the mouth when he got home to his Goody; but when
she asked him what he had done with the horse, he said,

“I gave it to the man too for Peter the second, for I thought it wasn’t
right he should sit in a cart, and scramble about from house to house;
so now he can sell the cart and buy himself a coach to drive about in.”

“Thank you heartily!” said his wife; “I never thought you could be so
kind.”

Well, when the man reached home, who had got the six hundred dollars
and the cart-load of clothes and money, he saw that all his fields were
ploughed and sown, and the first thing he asked his wife was, where she
had got the seed-corn from.

“Oh”, she said, “I have always heard that what a man sows he shall
reap, so I sowed the salt which our friends the north-country men laid
up here with us, and if we only have rain I fancy it will come up
nicely.”

“Silly you are”, said her husband, “and silly you will be so long as
you live; but that is all one now, for the rest are not a bit wiser
than you. There is not a pin to choose between you.”




ONE’S OWN CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS PRETTIEST


A sportsman went out once into a wood to shoot, and he met a Snipe.

“Dear friend”, said the Snipe, “don’t shoot my children!”

“How shall I know your children?” asked the Sportsman; “what are they
like?”

“Oh!” said the Snipe, “mine are the prettiest children in all the
wood.”

“Very well”, said the Sportsman, “I’ll not shoot them; don’t be
afraid.”

But for all that, when he came back, there he had a whole string of
young snipes in his hand which he had shot.

“Oh, oh!” said the Snipe, “why did you shoot my children after all?”

“What! these your children!” said the Sportsman; “why, I shot the
ugliest I could find, that I did!”

“Woe is me!” said the Snipe; “don’t you know that each one thinks his
own children the prettiest in the world?”




THE THREE PRINCESSES OF WHITELAND


Once on a time there was a fisherman who lived close by a palace, and
fished for the king’s table. One day when he was out fishing he just
caught nothing. Do what he would—however he tried with bait and
angle—there was never a sprat on his hook. But when the day was far
spent a head bobbed up out of the water, and said:

“If I may have what your wife bears under her girdle, you shall catch
fish enough.”

So the man answered boldly, “Yes”; for he did not know that his wife
was going to have a child. After that, as was like enough, he caught
plenty of fish of all kinds. But when he got home at night and told his
story, how he had got all that fish, his wife fell a-weeping and
moaning, and was beside herself for the promise which her husband had
made, for she said, “I bear a babe under my girdle.”

Well, the story soon spread, and came up to the castle; and when the
king heard the woman’s grief and its cause, he sent down to say he
would take care of the child, and see if he couldn’t save it.

So the months went on and on, and when her time came the fisher’s wife
had a boy; so the king took it at once, and brought it up as his own
son, until the lad grew up. Then he begged leave one day to go out
fishing with his father; he had such a mind to go, he said. At first
the king wouldn’t hear of it, but at last the lad had his way, and
went. So he and his father were out the whole day, and all went right
and well till they landed at night. Then the lad remembered he had left
his handkerchief, and went to look for it; but as soon as ever he got
into the boat, it began to move off with him at such speed that the
water roared under the bow, and all the lad could do in rowing against
it with the oars was no use; so he went and went the whole night, and
at last he came to a white strand, far far away.

There he went ashore, and when he had walked about a bit, an old, old
man met him, with a long white beard.

“What’s the name of this land?” asked the lad.

“Whiteland”, said the man, who went on to ask the lad whence he came,
and what he was going to do. So the lad told him all.

“Aye, aye!” said the man; “now when you have walked a little farther
along the strand here, you’ll come to three Princesses, whom you will
see standing in the earth up to their necks, with only their heads out.
Then the first—she is the eldest—will call out and beg you so prettily
to come and help her; and the second will do the same; to neither of
these shall you go; make haste past them, as if you neither saw nor
heard anything. But the third you shall go to, and do what she asks. If
you do this, you’ll have good luck—that’s all.”

When the lad came to the first Princess, she called out to him, and
begged him so prettily to come to her, but he passed on as though he
saw her not. In the same way he passed by the second; but to the third
he went straight up.

“If you’ll do what I bid you”, she said, “you may have which of us you
please.”

“Yes”; he was willing enough; so she told him how three Trolls had set
them down in the earth there; but before they had lived in the castle
up among the trees.

“Now”, she said, “you must go into that castle, and let the Trolls whip
you each one night for each of us. If you can bear that, you’ll set us
free.”

Well, the lad said he was ready to try.

“When you go in”, the Princess went on to say, “you’ll see two lions
standing at the gate; but if you’ll only go right in the middle between
them they’ll do you no harm. Then go straight on into a little dark
room, and make your bed. Then the Troll will come to whip you; but if
you take the flask which hangs on the wall, and rub yourself with the
ointment that’s in it, wherever his lash falls, you’ll be as sound as
ever. Then grasp the sword that hangs by the side of the flask and
strike the Troll dead.”

Yes, he did as the Princess told him; he passed in the midst between
the lions, as if he hadn’t seen them, and went straight into the little
room, and there he lay down to sleep. The first night there came a
Troll with three heads and three rods, and whipped the lad soundly; but
he stood it till the Troll was done; then he took the flask and rubbed
himself, and grasped the sword and slew the Troll.

So, when he went out next morning, the Princesses stood out of the
earth up to their waists.

The next night ’twas the same story over again, only this time the
Troll had six heads and six rods, and he whipped him far worse than the
first; but when he went out next morning, the Princesses stood out of
the earth as far as the knee. The third night there came a Troll that
had nine heads and nine rods, and he whipped and flogged the lad so
long that he fainted away; then the Troll took him up and dashed him
against the wall; but the shock brought down the flask, which fell on
the lad, burst, and spilled the ointment all over him, and so he became
as strong and sound as ever again. Then he wasn’t slow; he grasped the
sword and slew the Troll; and next morning when he went out of the
castle the Princesses stood before him with all their bodies out of the
earth. So he took the youngest for his Queen, and lived well and
happily with her for some time.

At last he began to long to go home for a little to see his parents.
His Queen did not like this; but at last his heart was so set on it,
and he longed and longed so much, there was no holding him back, so she
said,

“One thing you must promise me. This—Only to do what your father begs
you to do, and not what your mother wishes”; and that he promised.

Then she gave him a ring, which was of that kind that any one who wore
it might wish two wishes. So he wished himself home, and when he got
home his parents could not wonder enough what a grand man their son had
become.

Now, when he had been at home some days, his mother wished him to go up
to the palace and show the king what a fine fellow he had come to be.
But his father said:

“No! don’t let him do that; if he does, we shan’t have any more joy of
him this time.”

But it was no good, the mother begged and prayed so long, that at last
he went. So when he got up to the palace, he was far braver, both in
clothes and array, than the other king, who didn’t quite like this, and
at last he said:

“All very fine; but here you can see my queen, what like she is, but I
can’t see yours, that I can’t. Do you know, I scarce think she’s so
good-looking as mine.”

“Would to Heaven”, said the young king, “she were standing here, then
you’d see what she was like.” And that instant there she stood before
them.

But she was very woeful, and said to him:

“Why did you not mind what I told you; and why did you not listen to
what your father said? Now, I must away home, and as for you, you have
had both your wishes.”

With that she knitted a ring among his hair with her name on it, and
wished herself home, and was off.

Then the young king was cut to the heart, and went, day out day in,
thinking and thinking how he should get back to his queen. “I’ll just
try”, he thought, “if I can’t learn where Whiteland lies”; and so he
went out into the world to ask. So when he had gone a good way, he came
to a high hill, and there he met one who was lord over all the beasts
of the wood, for they all came home to him when he blew his horn; so
the king asked if he knew where Whiteland was?

“No, I don’t”, said he, “but I’ll ask my beasts.” Then he blew his horn
and called them, and asked if any of them knew where Whiteland lay? but
there was no beast that knew.

So the man gave him a pair of snow-shoes.

“When you get on these”, he said, “you’ll come to my brother, who lives
hundreds of miles off; he is lord over all the birds of the air. Ask
him. When you reach his house, just turn the shoes, so that the toes
point this way, and they’ll come home of themselves.” So when the king
reached the house, he turned the shoes as the lord of the beasts had
said, and away they went home of themselves.

So he asked again after Whiteland, and the man called all the birds
with a blast of his horn, and asked if any of them knew where Whiteland
lay; but none of the birds knew. Now, long, long after the rest of the
birds, came an old eagle, which had been away ten round years, but he
couldn’t tell any more than the rest.

“Well! well!” said the man, “I’ll lend you a pair of snow-shoes, and
when you get them on, they’ll carry you to my brother, who lives
hundreds of miles off; he’s lord of all the fish in the sea; you’d
better ask him. But don’t forget to turn the toes of the shoes this
way.”

The king was full of thanks, got on the shoes, and when he came to the
man who was lord over the fish of the sea, he turned the toes round,
and so off they went home like the other pair. After that, he asked
again after Whiteland.

So the man called the fish with a blast, but no fish could tell where
it lay. At last came an old pike, which they had great work to call
home, he was such a way off. So when they asked him he said:

“Know it! I should think I did. I’ve been cook there ten years, and
to-morrow I’m going there again; for now, the queen of Whiteland, whose
king is away, is going to wed another husband.”

“Well!” said the man, “as this is so, I’ll give you a bit of advice.
Hereabouts, on a moor, stand three brothers, and here they have stood
these hundred years, fighting about a hat, a cloak, and a pair of
boots. If any one has these three things he can make himself invisible,
and wish himself any where he pleases. You can tell them you wish to
try the things, and after that, you’ll pass judgment between them,
whose they shall be.”

Yes! the king thanked the man, and went and did as he told him.

“What’s all this?” he said to the brothers. “Why do you stand here
fighting for ever and a day? Just let me try these things, and I’ll
give judgment whose they shall be.”

They were very willing to do this; but as soon as he had got the hat,
cloak, and boots, he said:

“When we meet next time, I’ll tell you my judgment”, and with these
words he wished himself away.

So as he went along up in the air, he came up with the North Wind.

“Whither away?” roared the North Wind.

“To Whiteland”, said the king; and then he told him all that had
befallen him.

“Ah”, said the North Wind, “you go faster than I—you do; for you can go
straight, while I have to puff and blow round every turn and corner.
But when you get there, just place yourself on the stairs by the side
of the door, and then I’ll come storming in, as though I were going to
blow down the whole castle. And then when the prince, who is to have
your queen, comes out to see what’s the matter, just you take him by
the collar and pitch him out of doors; then I’ll look after him, and
see if I can’t carry him off.”

Well—the king did as the North Wind said. He took his stand on the
stairs, and when the North Wind came, storming and roaring, and took
hold of the castle wall, so that it shook again, the prince came out to
see what was the matter. But as soon as ever he came, the king caught
him by the collar and pitched him out of doors, and then the North Wind
caught him up and carried him off. So when there was an end of him, the
king went into the castle, and at first his queen didn’t know him, he
was so wan and thin, through wandering so far and being so woeful; but
when he shewed her the ring, she was as glad as glad could be; and so
the rightful wedding was held, and the fame of it spread far and wide.




THE LASSIE AND HER GODMOTHER


Once on a time a poor couple lived far, far away in a great wood. The
wife was brought to bed, and had a pretty girl, but they were so poor
they did not know how to get the babe christened, for they had no money
to pay the parson’s fees. So one day the father went out to see if he
could find any one who was willing to stand for the child and pay the
fees; but though he walked about the whole day from one house to
another, and though all said they were willing enough to stand, no one
thought himself bound to pay the fees. Now, when he was going home
again, a lovely lady met him, dressed so fine, and who looked so
thoroughly good and kind; she offered to get the babe christened, but
after that, she said, she must keep it for her own. The husband
answered, he must first ask his wife what she wished to do; but when he
got home and told his story, the wife said, right out, “No!”

Next day the man went out again, but no one would stand if they had to
pay the fees; and though he begged and prayed, he could get no help.
And again as he went home, towards evening the same lovely lady met
him, who looked so sweet and good, and she made him the same offer. So
he told his wife again how he had fared, and this time she said, if he
couldn’t get any one to stand for his babe next day, they must just let
the lady have her way, since she seemed so kind and good.

The third day, the man went about, but he couldn’t get any one to
stand; and so when, towards evening, he met the kind lady again, he
gave his word she should have the babe if she would only get it
christened at the font. So next morning she came to the place where the
man lived, followed by two men to stand godfathers, took the babe and
carried it to church, and there it was christened. After that she took
it to her own house, and there the little girl lived with her several
years, and her foster-mother was always kind and friendly to her.

Now, when the lassie had grown to be big enough to know right and
wrong, her foster-mother got ready to go on a journey. “You have my
leave”, she said, “to go all over the house, except those rooms which I
shew you”; and when she had said that, away she went.

But the lassie could not forbear just to open one of the doors a little
bit, when—POP! out flew a Star.

When her foster-mother came back, she was very vexed to find that the
star had flown out, and she got very angry with her foster-daughter,
and threatened to send her away; but the child cried and begged so hard
that she got leave to stay.

Now, after a while, the foster-mother had to go on another journey;
and, before she went, she forbade the lassie to go into those two rooms
into which she had never been. She promised to beware; but when she was
left alone, she began to think and to wonder what there could be in the
second room, and at last she could not help setting the door a little
ajar, just to peep in, when—POP! out flew the Moon.

When her foster-mother came home and found the Moon let out, she was
very downcast, and said to the lassie she must go away, she could not
stay with her any longer. But the lassie wept so bitterly, and prayed
so heartily for forgiveness, that this time, too, she got leave to
stay.

Some time after, the foster-mother had to go away again, and she
charged the lassie, who by this time was half grown up, most earnestly
that she mustn’t try to go into, or to peep into, the third room. But
when her foster-mother had been gone some time, and the lassie was
weary of walking about alone, all at once she thought, “Dear me, what
fun it would be just to peep a little into that third room.” Then she
thought she mustn’t do it for her foster-mother’s sake; but when the
bad thought came the second time she could hold out no longer; come
what might, she must and would look into the room; so she just opened
the door a tiny bit, when—POP! out flew the Sun.

But when her foster-mother came back and saw that the sun had flown
away, she was cut to the heart, and said, “Now, there was no help for
it, the lassie must and should go away; she couldn’t hear of her
staying any longer.” Now the lassie cried her eyes out, and begged and
prayed so prettily; but it was all no good.

“Nay! but I must punish you!” said her foster-mother; “but you may have
your choice, either to be the loveliest woman in the world, and not to
be able to speak, or to keep your speech, and be the ugliest of all
women; but away from me you must go.”

And the lassie said, “I would sooner be lovely.” So she became all at
once wondrous fair; but from that day forth she was dumb.

So, when she went away from her foster-mother, she walked and wandered
through a great, great wood; but the farther she went, the farther off
the end seemed to be. So, when the evening came on, she clomb up into a
tall tree, which grew over a spring, and there she made herself up to
sleep that night. Close by lay a castle, and from that castle came
early every morning a maid to draw water to make the Prince’s tea, from
the spring over which the lassie was sitting. So the maid looked down
into the spring, saw the lovely face in the water, and thought it was
her own; then she flung away the pitcher, and ran home; and, when she
got there, she tossed up her head and said, “If I’m so pretty, I’m far
too good to go and fetch water.”

So another maid had to go for the water, but the same thing happened to
her; she went back and said she was far too pretty and too good to
fetch water from the spring for the Prince. Then the Prince went
himself, for he had a mind to see what all this could mean. So, when he
reached the spring, he too saw the image in the water; but he looked up
at once, and became aware of the lovely lassie who sate there up in the
tree. Then he coaxed her down and took her home; and at last made up
his mind to have her for his queen, because she was so lovely; but his
mother, who was still alive, was against it.

“She can’t speak”, she said, “and maybe she’s a wicked witch.”

But the Prince could not be content till he got her. So after they had
lived together a while, the lassie was to have a child, and when the
child came to be born, the Prince set a strong watch round her; but at
the birth one and all fell into a deep sleep, and her foster-mother
came, cut the babe on its little finger, and smeared the queen’s mouth
with the blood; and said:

“Now you shall be as grieved as I was when you let out the star”; and
with these words she carried off the babe.

But when those who were on the watch woke, they thought the queen had
eaten her own child, and the old queen was all for burning her alive,
but the Prince was so fond of her that at last he begged her off, but
he had hard work to set her free.

So the next time the young queen was to have a child, twice as strong a
watch was set as the first time, but the same thing happened over
again, only this time her foster-mother said:

“Now you shall be as grieved as I was when you let the moon out.”

And the queen begged and prayed, and wept; for when her foster-mother
was there, she could speak—but it was all no good.

And now the old queen said she must be burnt, but the Prince found
means to beg her off. But when the third child was to be born, a watch
was set three times as strong as the first, but just the same thing
happened. Her foster-mother came while the watch slept, took the babe,
and cut its little finger, and smeared the queen’s mouth with the
blood, telling her now she should be as grieved as she had been when
the lassie let out the sun.

And now the Prince could not save her any longer. She must and should
be burnt. But just as they were leading her to the stake, all at once
they saw her foster-mother, who came with all three children—two she
led by the hand, and the third she had on her arm; and so she went up
to the young queen and said:

“Here are your children; now you shall have them again. I am the Virgin
Mary, and so grieved as you have been, so grieved was I when you let
out sun, and moon, and star. Now you have been punished for what you
did, and henceforth you shall have your speech.”

How glad the Queen and Prince now were, all may easily think, but no
one can tell. After that they were always happy; and from that day even
the Prince’s mother was very fond of the young queen.




THE THREE AUNTS


Once on a time there was a poor man who lived in a hut far away in the
wood, and got his living by shooting. He had an only daughter who was
very pretty, and as she had lost her mother when she was a child, and
was now half grown up, she said she would go out into the world and
earn her bread.

“Well, lassie!” said the father, “true enough you have learnt nothing
here but how to pluck birds and roast them, but still you may as well
try to earn your bread.”

So the girl went off to seek a place, and when she had gone a little
while, she came to a palace. There she stayed and got a place, and the
queen liked her so well, that all the other maids got envious of her.
So they made up their minds to tell the queen how the lassie said she
was good to spin a pound of flax in four and twenty hours, for you must
know the queen was a great housewife, and thought much of good work.

“Have you said this? then you shall do it”, said the queen; “but you
may have a little longer time if you choose.”

Now, the poor lassie dared not say she had never spun in all her life,
but she only begged for a room to herself. That she got, and the wheel
and the flax were brought up to her. There she sat sad and weeping, and
knew not how to help herself. She pulled the wheel this way and that,
and twisted and turned it about, but she made a poor hand of it, for
she had never even seen a spinning-wheel in her life.

But all at once, as she sat there, in came an old woman to her.

“What ails you, child?” she said.

“Ah!” said the lassie, with a deep sigh, “it’s no good to tell you, for
you’ll never be able to help me.”

“Who knows?” said the old wife. “May be I know how to help you after
all.”

Well, thought the lassie to herself, I may as well tell her, and so she
told her how her fellow-servants had given out that she was good to
spin a pound of flax in four and twenty hours.

“And here am I, wretch that I am, shut up to spin all that heap in a
day and a night, when I have never even seen a spinning-wheel in all my
born days.”

“Well, never mind, child”, said the old woman. “If you’ll call me Aunt
on the happiest day of your life, I’ll spin this flax for you, and so
you may just go away and lie down to sleep.”

Yes, the lassie was willing enough, and off she went and lay down to
sleep.

Next morning when she awoke, there lay all the flax spun on the table,
and that so clean and fine, no one had ever seen such even and pretty
yarn. The queen was very glad to get such nice yarn, and she set
greater store by the lassie than ever. But the rest were still more
envious, and agreed to tell the queen how the lassie had said she was
good to weave the yarn she had spun in four and twenty hours. So the
queen said again, as she had said it she must do it; but if she
couldn’t quite finish it in four and twenty hours, she wouldn’t be too
hard upon her, she might have a little more time. This time, too, the
lassie dared not say No, but begged for a room to herself, and then she
would try. There she sat again, sobbing and crying, and not knowing
which way to turn, when another old woman came in and asked:

“What ails you, child?”

At first the lassie wouldn’t say, but at last she told her the whole
story of her grief.

“Well, well!” said the old wife, “never mind. If you’ll call me Aunt on
the happiest day of your life, I’ll weave this yarn for you, and so you
may just be off, and lie down to sleep.”

Yes, the lassie was willing enough; so she went away and lay down to
sleep. When she awoke, there lay the piece of linen on the table, woven
so neat and close, no woof could be better. So the lassie took the
piece and ran down to the queen, who was very glad to get such
beautiful linen, and set greater store than ever by the lassie. But as
for the others, they grew still more bitter against her, and thought of
nothing but how to find out something to tell about her.

At last they told the queen the lassie had said she was good to make up
the piece of linen into shirts in four and twenty hours. Well, all
happened as before; the lassie dared not say she couldn’t sew; so she
was shut up again in a room by herself, and there she sat in tears and
grief. But then another old wife came, who said she would sew the
shirts for her if she would call her Aunt on the happiest day of her
life. The lassie was only too glad to do this, and then she did as the
old wife told her, and went and lay down to sleep.

Next morning when she woke she found the piece of linen made up into
shirts, which lay on the table—and such beautiful work no one had ever
set eyes on; and more than that, the shirts were all marked and ready
for wear. So, when the queen saw the work, she was so glad at the way
in which it was sewn, that she clapped her hands, and said:

“Such sewing I never had, nor even saw in all my born days”; and after
that she was as fond of the lassie as of her own children; and she said
to her:

“Now, if you like to have the Prince for your husband, you shall have
him; for you will never need to hire work-women. You can sew, and spin,
and weave all yourself.”

So as the lassie was pretty, and the Prince was glad to have her, the
wedding soon came on. But just as the Prince was going to sit down with
the bride to the bridal feast, in came an ugly old hag with a long
nose—I’m sure it was three ells long.

So up got the bride and made a curtsey, and said: “Good-day, Auntie.”

“_That_ Auntie to my bride?” said the Prince.

“Yes, she was!”

“Well, then, she’d better sit down with us to the feast”, said the
Prince; but, to tell you the truth, both he and the rest thought she
was a loathsome woman to have next you.

But just then in came another ugly old hag. She had a back so humped
and broad, she had hard work to get through the door. Up jumped the
bride in a trice, and greeted her with “Good-day, Auntie!”

And the Prince asked again if that were his bride’s aunt. They both
said Yes; so the Prince said, if that were so, she too had better sit
down with them to the feast.

But they had scarce taken their seats before another ugly old hag came
in, with eyes as large as saucers, and so red and bleared, ’twas
gruesome to look at her. But up jumped the bride again, with her
“Good-day, Auntie”, and her, too, the Prince asked to sit down; but I
can’t say he was very glad, for he thought to himself: “Heaven shield
me from such Aunties as my bride has!” So when he had sat awhile, he
could not keep his thoughts to himself any longer, but asked,

“But how, in all the world, can my bride, who is such a lovely lassie,
have such loathsome, misshapen Aunts?”

“I’ll soon tell you how it is”, said the first. “I was just as
good-looking when I was her age; but the reason why I’ve got this long
nose is, because I was always kept sitting, and poking, and nodding
over my spinning, and so my nose got stretched and stretched, until it
got as long as you now see it.”

“And I”, said the second, “ever since I was young, I have sat and
scuttled backwards and forwards over my loom, and that’s how my back
has got so broad and humped as you now see it.”

“And I”, said the third, “ever since I was little, I have sat, and
stared, and sewn, and sewn and stared, night and day; and that’s why my
eyes have got so ugly and red, and now there’s no help for them.”

“So! so! “said the Prince, “’twas lucky I came to know this; for if
folk can get so ugly and loathsome by all this, then my bride shall
neither spin, nor weave, nor sew all her life long.”




THE COCK, THE CUCKOO, AND THE BLACK-COCK


[This is another of those tales in which the birds’ notes must be
imitated.]

Once on a time the Cock, the Cuckoo, and the Black-cock bought a cow
between them. But when they came to share it, and couldn’t agree which
should buy the others out, they settled that he who woke first in the
morning should have the cow.

So the Cock woke first.

Now the cow’s mine!
Now the cow’s mine!
Hurrah! hurrah!


he crew, and as he crew, up awoke the Cuckoo.

Half cow!
Half cow!


sang the Cuckoo, and woke up the Black-cock.

A like share, a like share;
Dear friends, that’s only fair!
Saw see! See saw!


That’s what the Black-cock said.

And now, can you tell me which of them ought to have the cow?




RICH PETER THE PEDLAR


Once on a time there was a man whom they called Rich Peter the Pedlar,
because he used to travel about with a pack, and got so much money,
that he became quite rich. This Rich Peter had a daughter, whom he held
so dear that all who came to woo her, were sent about their business,
for no one was good enough for her, he thought. Well, this went on and
on, and at last no one came to woo her, and as years rolled on, Peter
began to be afraid that she would die an old maid.

“I wonder now”, he said to his wife, “why suitors no longer come to woo
our lass, who is so rich. ’Twould be odd if no body cared to have her,
for money she has, and more she shall have. I think I’d better just go
off to the Stargazers, and ask them whom she shall have, for not a soul
comes to us now.”

“But how”, asked the wife, “can the Stargazers answer that?”

“Can’t they?” said Peter; “why! they read all things in the stars.”

So he took with him a great bag of money, and set off to the
Stargazers, and asked them to be so good as to look at the stars, and
tell him the husband his daughter was to have. Well! the Stargazers
looked and looked, but they said they could see nothing about it. But
Peter begged them to look better, and to tell him the truth; he would
pay them well for it. So the Stargazers looked better, and at last they
said that his daughter’s husband was to be the miller’s son, who was
only just born, down at the mill below Rich Peter’s house. Then Peter
gave the Stargazers a hundred dollars, and went home with the answer he
had got. Now, he thought it too good a joke that his daughter should
wed one so newly born, and of such poor estate. He said this to his
wife, and added:

“I wonder now if they would sell me the boy; then I’d soon put him out
of the way?”

“I daresay they would”, said his wife; “you know they’re very poor.”

So Peter went down to the mill, and asked the miller’s wife whether she
would sell him her son; she should get a heap of money for him?

“No!” that she wouldn’t.

“Well!” said Peter, “I’m sure I can’t see why you shouldn’t; you’ve
hard work enough as it is to keep hunger out of the house, and the boy
won’t make it easier, I think.”

But the mother was so proud of the boy, she couldn’t part with him. So
when the miller came home, Peter said the same thing to him, and gave
his word to pay six hundred dollars for the boy, so that they might buy
themselves a farm of their own, and not have to grind other folks’
corn, and to starve when they ran short of water. The miller thought it
was a good bargain, and he talked over his wife; and the end was, that
Rich Peter got the boy. The mother cried and sobbed, but Peter
comforted her by saying the boy should be well cared for; only they had
to promise never to ask after him, for he said he meant to send him far
away to other lands, so that he might learn foreign tongues.

So when Peter the Pedlar got home with the boy, he sent for a
carpenter, and had a little chest made, which was so tidy and neat,
’twas a joy to see. This he made water-tight with pitch, put the
miller’s boy into it, locked it up, and threw it into the river, where
the stream carried it away.

“Now, I’m rid of him”, thought Peter the Pedlar.

But when the chest had floated ever so far down the stream, it came
into the mill-head of another mill, and ran down and hampered the shaft
of the wheel, and stopped it. Out came the miller to see what stopped
the mill, found the chest and took it up. So when he came home to
dinner to his wife, he said:

“I wonder now whatever there can be inside this chest which came
floating down the mill-head, and stopped our mill to-day?”

“That we’ll soon know”, said his wife; “see, there’s the key in the
lock, just turn it.”

So they turned the key and opened the chest, and lo! there lay the
prettiest child you ever set eyes on. So they were both glad, and were
ready to keep the child, for they had no children of their own, and
were so old, they could now hope for none.

Now, after a little while, Peter the Pedlar began to wonder how it was
no one came to woo his daughter, who was so rich in land, and had so
much ready money. At last, when no one came, off he went again to the
Stargazers, and offered them a heap of money if they could tell him
whom his daughter was to have for a husband.

“Why! we have told you already, that she is to have the miller’s son
down yonder”, said the Stargazers.

“All very true, I daresay”, said Peter the Pedlar; “but it so happens
he’s dead; but if you can tell me whom she’s to have, I’ll give you two
hundred dollars, and welcome.” So the Stargazers looked at the stars
again, but they got quite cross, and said,

“We told you before, and we tell you now, she is to have the miller’s
son, whom you threw into the river, and wished to make an end of; for
he is alive, safe and sound, in such and such a mill, far down the
stream.”

So Peter the Pedlar gave them two hundred dollars for this news, and
thought how he could best be rid of the miller’s son. The first thing
Peter did when he got home, was to set off for the mill. By that time
the boy was so big that he had been confirmed, and went about the mill
and helped the miller. Such a pretty boy you never saw.

“Can’t you spare me that lad yonder?” said Peter the Pedlar to the
miller.

“No! that I can’t”, he answered; “I’ve brought him up as my own son,
and he has turned out so well, that now he’s a great help and aid to me
in the mill, for I’m getting old and past work.”

“It’s just the same with me”, said Peter the Pedlar; “that’s why I’d
like to have some one to learn my trade. Now, if you’ll give him up to
me, I’ll give you six hundred dollars, and then you can buy yourself a
farm, and live in peace and quiet the rest of your days.”

Yes! when the miller heard that, he let Peter the Pedlar have the lad.

Then the two travelled about far and wide, with their packs and wares,
till they came to an inn, which lay by the edge of a great wood. From
this Peter the Pedlar sent the lad home with a letter to his wife, for
the way was not so long if you took the short cut across the wood, and
told him to tell her she was to be sure and do what was written in the
letter as quickly as she could. But it was written in the letter, that
she was to have a great pile made there and then, fire it, and cast the
miller’s son into it. If she didn’t do that, he’d burn her alive
himself when he came back. So the lad set off with the letter across
the wood, and when evening came on he reached a house far, far away in
the wood, into which he went; but inside he found no one. In one of the
rooms was a bed ready made, so he threw himself across it and fell
asleep. The letter he had stuck into his hat-band, and the hat he
pulled over his face. So when the robbers came back—for in that house
twelve robbers had their abode—and saw the lad lying on the bed, they
began to wonder who he could be, and one of them took the letter and
broke it open, and read it.

“Ho! ho!” said he; “this comes from Peter the Pedlar, does it? Now
we’ll play him a trick. It would be a pity if the old niggard made an
end of such a pretty lad.”

So the robbers wrote another letter to Peter the Pedlar’s wife, and
fastened it under his hat-band while he slept; and in that they wrote,
that as soon as ever she got it she was to make a wedding for her
daughter and the miller’s boy, and give them horses and cattle, and
household stuff, and set them up for themselves in the farm which he
had under the hill; and if he didn’t find all this done by the time he
came back, she’d smart for it—that was all.

Next day the robbers let the lad go, and when he came home and
delivered the letter, he said he was to greet her kindly from Peter the
Pedlar, and to say that she was to carry out what was written in the
letter as soon as ever she could.

“You must have behaved very well then”, said Peter, the Pedlar’s wife
to the miller’s boy, “if he can write so about you now, for when you
set off, he was so mad against you, he didn’t know how to put you out
of the way.” So she married them on the spot, and set them up for
themselves, with horses, and cattle, and household stuff, in the farm
up under the hill.

No long time after Peter the Pedlar came home, and the first thing he
asked was, if she had done what he had written in his letter.

“Aye! aye!” she said; “I thought it rather odd, but I dared not do
anything else”; and so Peter asked where his daughter was.

“Why, you know well enough where she is”, said his wife. “Where should
she be but up at the farm under the hill, as you wrote in the letter.”

So when Peter the Pedlar came to hear the whole story, and came to see
the letter, he got so angry he was ready to burst with rage, and off he
ran up to the farm to the young couple.

“It’s all very well, my son, to say you have got my daughter”, he said
to the miller’s lad; “but if you wish to keep her, you must go to the
Dragon of Deepferry, and get me three feathers out of his tail; for he
who has them may get anything he chooses.”

“But where shall I find him?” said his son-in-law.

“I’m sure I can’t tell”, said Peter the Pedlar; “that’s your look-out,
not mine.”

So the lad set off with a stout heart, and after he had walked some
way, he came to a king’s palace.

“Here I’ll just step in and ask”, he said to himself; “for such great
folk know more about the world than others, and perhaps I may here
learn the way to the Dragon.”

Then the King asked him whence he came, and whither he was going?

“Oh!” said the lad, “I’m going to the Dragon of Deepferry to pluck
three feathers out of his tail, if I only knew where to find him.”

“You must take luck with you, then”, said the King, “for I never heard
of any one who came back from that search. But if you find him, just
ask him from me why I can’t get clear water in my well; for I’ve dug it
out time after time, and still I can’t get a drop of clear water.”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to ask him”, said the lad. So he lived on the fat of
the land at the palace, and got money and food when he left it.

At even he came to another king’s palace; and when he went into the
kitchen, the King came out of the parlour, and asked whence he came,
and on what errand he was bound?

“Oh!” said the lad, “I’m going to the Dragon of Deepferry to pluck
three feathers out of his tail.”

“Then you must take luck with you”, said the King, “for I never yet
heard that any one came back who went to look for him. But if you find
him, be so good as to ask him from me where my daughter is, who has
been lost so many years. I have hunted for her, and had her name given
out in every church in the country, but no one can tell me anything
about her.”

“Yes, I’ll mind and do that”, said the lad; and in that palace too he
lived on the best, and when he went away he got both money and food.

So when evening drew on again he came at last to another king’s palace.
Here who should come out into the kitchen but the Queen, and she asked
him whence he came, and on what errand he was bound?

“I’m going to the Dragon of Deepferry to pluck three feathers out of
his tail”, said the lad.

“Then you’d better take a good piece of luck with you”, said the Queen,
“for I never heard of any one that came back from him. But if you find
him, just be good enough to ask him from me where I shall find my gold
keys which I have lost.”

“Yes! I’ll be sure to ask him”, said the lad.

Well! when he left the palace he came to a great broad river; and while
he stood there and wondered whether he should cross it, or go down
along the bank, an old hunchbacked man came up, and asked whither he
was going?

“Oh, I’m going to the Dragon of Deepferry, if I could only find any one
to tell where I can find him.”

“I can tell you that”, said the man; “for here I go backwards and
forwards, and carry those over who are going to see him. He lives just
across, and when you climb the hill you’ll see his castle; but mind, if
you come to talk with him, to ask him from me how long I’m to stop here
and carry folk over.”

“I’ll be sure to ask him”, said the lad.

So the man took him on his back and carried him over the river; and
when he climbed the hill, he saw the castle, and went in.

He found there a Princess who lived with the Dragon all alone; and she
said:

“But, dear friend, how can Christian folk dare to come hither? None
have been here since I came, and you’d best be off as fast as you can;
for as soon as the Dragon comes home, he’ll smell you out, and gobble
you up in a trice, and that’ll make me so unhappy.”

“Nay! nay!” said the lad; “I can’t go before I’ve got three feathers
out of his tail.”

“You’ll never get them”, said, the Princess; “you’d best be off.”

But the lad wouldn’t go; he would wait for the Dragon, and get the
feathers, and an answer to all his questions.

“Well, since you’re so steadfast I’ll see what I can do to help you”,
said the Princess; “just try to lift that sword that hangs on the wall
yonder.”

No; the lad could not even stir it.

“I thought so”, said the Princess; “but just take a drink out of this
flask.”

So when the lad had sat a while, he was to try again; and then he could
just stir it.

“Well! you must take another drink”, said the Princess, “and then you
may as well tell me your errand hither.”

So he took another drink, and then he told her how one king had begged
him to ask the Dragon, how it was he couldn’t get clean water in his
well?—how another had bidden him ask, what had become of his daughter,
who had been lost many years since?—and how a queen had begged him to
ask the Dragon what had become of her gold keys?—and, last of all, how
the ferryman had begged him to ask the Dragon, how long he was to stop
there and carry folk over?? When he had done his story, and took hold
of the sword, he could lift it; and when he had taken another drink, he
could brandish it.

“Now”, said the Princess, “if you don’t want the Dragon to make an end
of you, you’d best creep under the bed, for night is drawing on, and
he’ll soon be home, and then you must lie as still as you can, lest he
should find you out. And when we have gone to bed, I’ll ask him, but
you must keep your ears open, and snap up all that he says; and under
the bed you must lie till all is still, and the Dragon falls asleep;
then creep out softly and seize the sword, and as soon as he rises,
look out to hew off his head at one stroke, and at the same time pluck
out the three feathers, for else he’ll tear them out himself, that no
one may get any good by them.”

So the lad crept under the bed, and the Dragon came home.

“What a smell of Christian flesh”, said the Dragon.

“Oh, yes”, said the Princess, “a raven came flying with a man’s bone in
his bill, and perched on the roof. No doubt it’s that you smell.”

“So it is, I daresay”, said the Dragon.

So the Princess served supper; and after they had eaten, they went to
bed. But after they had lain a while, the Princess began to toss about,
and all at once she started up and said:

“Ah! ah!”

“What’s the matter?” said the Dragon.

“Oh”, said the Princess, “I can’t rest at all, and I’ve had such a
strange dream.”

“What did you dream about? Let’s hear?” said the Dragon.

“I thought a king came here, and asked you what he must do to get clear
water in his well.”

“Oh”, said the Dragon, “he might just as well have found that out for
himself. If he dug the well out, and took out the old rotten stump
which lies at the bottom, he’d get clean water, fast enough. But be
still now, and don’t dream any more.”

When the Princess had lain a while, she began to toss about, and at
last she started up with her

“Ah! ah!”

“What’s the matter now?” said the Dragon.

“Oh! I can’t get any rest at all, and I’ve had such a strange dream”,
said the Princess.

“Why, you seem full of dreams to-night”, said the Dragon what was your
dream now?”

“I thought a king came here, and asked you what had become of his
daughter who had been lost many years since”, said the Princess.

“Why, you are she”, said the Dragon; “but he’ll never set eyes on you
again. But now, do pray be still, and let me get some rest, and don’t
let’s have any more dreams, else I’ll break your ribs.”

Well, the Princess hadn’t lain much longer before she began to toss
about again. At last she started up with her

“Ah! ah!”

“What! Are you at it again?” said the Dragon. “What’s the matter now?”
for he was wild and sleep-surly, so that he was ready to fly to pieces.

“Oh, don’t be angry”, said the Princess; “but I’ve had such a strange
dream.”

“The deuce take your dreams”, roared the Dragon; “what did you dream
this time?”

“I thought a queen came here, who asked you to tell her where she would
find her gold keys, which she has lost.”

“Oh”, said the Dragon, “she’ll find them soon enough if she looks among
the bushes where she lay that time she wots of. But do now let me have
no more dreams, but sleep in peace.”

So they slept a while; but then the Princess was just as restless as
ever, and at last she screamed out:

“Ah! ah!”

“You’ll never behave till I break your neck”, said the Dragon, who was
now so wroth that sparks of fire flew out of his eyes. “What’s the
matter now?”

“Oh, don’t be so angry”, said the Princess; “I can’t bear that; but
I’ve had such a strange dream.”

“Bless me!” said the Dragon, “if I ever heard the like of these
dreams—there’s no end to them. And pray, what did you dream now?”

“I thought the ferryman down at the ferry came and asked how long he
was to stop there and carry folk over”, said the Princess.

“The dull fool!” said the Dragon; “he’d soon be free, if he chose. When
any one comes who wants to go across, he has only to take and throw him
into the river, and say, ‘Now, carry folk over yourself till someone
sets you free.’ But now, pray let’s have an end of these dreams, else
I’ll lead you a pretty dance.”

So the Princess let him sleep on. But as soon as all was still, and the
miller’s lad heard that the Dragon snored, he crept out. Before it was
light the Dragon rose; but he had scarce set both his feet on the floor
before the lad cut off his head, and plucked three feathers out of his
tail. Then came great joy, and both the lad and the Princess took as
much gold, and silver, and money, and precious things as they could
carry; and when they came down to the ford, they so puzzled the
ferryman with all they had to tell, that he quite forgot to ask what
the Dragon had said about him till they had got across.

“Halloa, you sir”, he said, as they were going off, “did you ask the
Dragon what I begged you to ask?”

“Yes I did”, said the lad, “and he said, ‘When any one comes and wants
to go over, you must throw him into the midst of the river, and say,
“Now, carry folk over yourself till some one comes to set you free,”’
and then you’ll be free.”

“Ah, bad luck to you”, said the ferryman; “had you told me that before,
you might have set me free yourself.”

So, when they got to the first palace, the Queen asked if he had spoken
to the Dragon about her gold keys? “Yes”, said the lad, and whispered
in the Queen’s ear, “he said you must look among the bushes where you
lay the day you wot of.”

“Hush! hush! Don’t say a word”, said the Queen, and gave the lad a
hundred dollars.

When they came to the second palace, the King asked if he had spoken to
the Dragon of what he begged him?

“Yes”, said the lad, “I did; and see, here is your daughter.”

At that the King was so glad, he would gladly have given the Princess
to the miller’s lad to wife, and half the kingdom beside; but as he was
married already, he gave him two hundred dollars, and coaches and
horses, and as much gold and silver as he could carry away.

When he came to the third King’s palace, out came the King and asked if
he had asked the Dragon of what he begged him?

“Yes”, said the lad, “and he said you must dig out the well, and take
out the rotten old stump which lies at the bottom, and then you’ll get
plenty of clear water.”

Then the King gave him three hundred dollars, and he set out home; but
he was so loaded with gold and silver, and so grandly clothed, that it
gleamed and glistened from him, and he was now far richer than Peter
the Pedlar.

When Peter got the feathers he hadn’t a word more to say against the
wedding; but when he saw all that wealth, he asked if there was much
still left at the Dragon’s castle.

“Yes, I should think so”, said the lad; “there was much more than I
could carry with me—so much, that you might load many horses with it;
and if you choose to go, you may be sure there’ll be enough for you.”

So his son-in-law told him the way so clearly, that he hadn’t to ask it
of any one.

“But the horses”, said the lad “you’d best leave this side the river;
for the old ferryman, he’ll carry you over safe enough.”

So Peter set off, and took with him great store of food and many
horses; but these he left behind him on the river’s brink, as the lad
had said. And the old ferryman took him upon his back; but when they
had come a bit out into the stream, he cast him into the midst of the
river, and said,

“Now you may go backwards and forwards here, and carry folk over till
you are set free.”

And unless some one has set him free, there goes Rich Peter the Pedlar
backwards and forwards, and carries folk across this very day.




GERTRUDE’S BIRD


In those days when our Lord and St Peter wandered upon earth, they came
once to an old wife’s house, who sat baking. Her name was Gertrude, and
she had a red mutch on her head. They had walked a long way, and were
both hungry, and our Lord begged hard for a bannock to stay their
hunger. Yes, they should have it. So she took a little tiny piece of
dough and rolled it out, but as she rolled it, it grew and grew till it
covered the whole griddle.

Nay, that was too big; they couldn’t have that. So she took a tinier
bit still; but when that was rolled out, it covered the whole griddle
just the same, and that bannock was too big, she said; they couldn’t
have that either.

The third time she took a still tinier bit—so tiny you could scarce see
it; but it was the same story over again—the bannock was too big.

“Well”, said Gertrude, “I can’t give you anything; you must just go
without, for all these bannocks are too big.”

Then our Lord waxed wroth, and said:

“Since you loved me so little as to grudge me a morsel of food, you
shall have this punishment: you shall become a bird, and seek your food
between bark and bole; and never get a drop to drink save when it
rains.”

He had scarce said the last word before she was turned into a great
black woodpecker, or Gertrude’s bird, and flew from her kneading-trough
right up the chimney; and till this very day you may see her flying
about, with her red mutch on her head, and her body all black, because
of the soot in the chimney; and so she hacks and taps away at the trees
for her food, and whistles when rain is coming, for she is ever
athirst, and then she looks for a drop to cool her tongue.




BOOTS AND THE TROLL


Once on a time there was a poor man who had three sons. When he died,
the two elder set off into the world to try their luck, but the
youngest they wouldn’t have with them at any price.

“As for you”, they said, “you’re fit for nothing but to sit and poke
about in the ashes.”

So the two went off and got places at a palace—the one under the
coachman, and the other under the gardener. But Boots, he set off too,
and took with him a great kneading-trough, which was the only thing his
parents left behind them, but which the other two would not bother
themselves with. It was heavy to carry, but he did not like to leave it
behind, and so, after he had trudged a bit, he too came to the palace,
and asked for a place. So they told him they did not want him, but he
begged so prettily that at last he got leave to be in the kitchen, and
carry in wood and water for the kitchen maid. He was quick and ready,
and in a little while every one liked him; but the two others were
dull, and so they got more kicks than halfpence, and grew quite envious
of Boots, when they saw how much better he got on.

Just opposite the palace, across a lake, lived a Troll, who had seven
silver ducks which swam on the lake, so that they could be seen from
the palace. These the king had often longed for; and so the two elder
brothers told the coachman:

“If our brother only chose, he has said he could easily get the king
those seven silver ducks.”

You may fancy it wasn’t long before the coachman told this to the king;
and the king called Boots before him, and said:

“Your brothers say you can get me the silver ducks; so now go and fetch
them.”

“I’m sure I never thought or said anything of the kind,” said the lad.

“You did say so, and you shall fetch them”, said the king, who would
hold his own.

“Well! well!” said the lad; “needs must, I suppose; but give me a
bushel of rye, and a bushel of wheat, and I’ll try what I can do.”

So he got the rye and the wheat, and put them into the kneading-trough
he had brought with him from home, got in, and rowed across the lake.
When he reached the other side he began to walk along the shore, and to
sprinkle and strew the grain, and at last he coaxed the ducks into his
kneading-trough, and rowed back as fast as ever he could.

When he got half over, the Troll came out of his house, and set eyes on
him.

“HALLOA!” roared out the Troll; “is it you that has gone off with my
seven silver ducks.”

“AYE! AYE!” said the lad.

“Shall you be back soon?” asked the Troll.

“Very likely”, said the lad.

So when he got back to the king, with the seven silver ducks, he was
more liked than ever, and even the king was pleased to say, “Well
done!” But at this his brothers grew more and more spiteful and
envious; and so they went and told the coachman that their brother had
said, if he chose, he was man enough to get the king the Troll’s
bed-quilt, which had a gold patch and a silver patch, and a silver
patch and a gold patch; and this time, too, the coachman was not slow
in telling all this to the king. So the king said to the lad, how his
brothers had said he was good to steal the Troll’s bed-quilt, with gold
and silver patches; so now he must go and do it, or lose his life.

Boots answered, he had never thought or said any such thing; but when
he found there was no help for it, he begged for three days to think
over the matter.

So when the three days were gone, he rowed over in his kneading-trough,
and went spying about. At last he saw those in the Troll’s cave come
out and hang the quilt out to air, and as soon as ever they had gone
back into the face of the rock, Boots pulled the quilt down, and rowed
away with it as fast as he could.

And when he was half across, out came the Troll and set eyes on him,
and roared out:

“HALLOA! Is it you who took my seven silver ducks?”

“AYE! AYE!” said the lad.

“And now, have you taken my bed-quilt, with silver patches and gold
patches, and gold patches and silver patches?”

“Aye! aye!” said the lad.

“Shall you come back again?”

“Very likely”, said the lad.

But when he got back with the gold and silver patchwork quilt, every
one was fonder of him than ever, and he was made the king’s
body-servant.

At this, the other two were still more vexed, and, to be revenged, they
went and told the coachman:

“Now, our brother has said, he is man enough to get the king the gold
harp which the Troll has, and that harp is of such a kind, that all who
listen when it is played grow glad, however sad they may be.”

Yes! the coachman went and told the king, and he said to the lad:

“If you have said this, you shall do it. If you do it, you shall have
the Princess and half the kingdom. If you don’t, you shall lose your
life.”

“I’m sure I never thought or said anything of the kind”, said the lad;
“but if there’s no help for it, I may as well try; but I must have six
days to think about it.”

Yes! he might have six days, but when they were over, he must set out.

Then he took a tenpenny nail, a birch-pin, and a waxen taper-end in his
pocket, and rowed across, and walked up and down before the Troll’s
cave, looking stealthily about him. So when the Troll came out, he saw
him at once.

“HO, HO!” roared the Troll; “is it you who took my seven silver ducks?”

“AYE! AYE!” said the lad.

“And it is you who took my bed-quilt, with the gold and silver
patches?” asked the Troll.

“Aye! aye!” said the lad.

So the Troll caught hold of him at once, and took him off into the cave
in the face of the rock.

“Now, daughter dear”, said the Troll, “I’ve caught the fellow who stole
the silver ducks and my bed-quilt, with gold and silver patches; put
him into the fattening coop, and when he’s fat, we’ll kill him, and
make a feast for our friends.”

She was willing enough, and put him at once into the fattening coop,
and there he stayed eight days, fed on the best, both in meat and
drink, and as much as he could cram. So, when the eight days were over,
the Troll said to his daughter to go down and cut him in his little
finger, that they might see if he were fat. Down she came to the coop.

“Out with your little finger!” she said.

But Boots stuck out his tenpenny nail, and she cut at it.

“Nay! nay! he’s as hard as iron still”, said the Troll’s daughter, when
she got back to her father; “we can’t take him yet.”

After another eight days the same thing happened, and this time Boots
stuck out his birchen pin.

“Well, he’s a little better”, she said, when she got back to the Troll;
“but still he’ll be as hard as wood to chew.”

But when another eight days were gone, the Troll told his daughter to
go down and see if he wasn’t fat now.

“Out with your little finger”, said the Troll’s daughter, when she
reached the coop, and this time Boots stuck out the taper end.

“Now he’ll do nicely”, she said.

“Will he?” said the Troll. “Well, then, I’ll just set off and ask the
guests; meantime you must kill him, and roast half and boil half.”

So when the Troll had been gone a little while, the daughter began to
sharpen a great long knife.

“Is that what you’re going to kill me with?” asked the lad.

“Yes it is,” said she.

“But it isn’t sharp”, said the lad. “Just let me sharpen it for you,
and then you’ll find it easier work to kill me.”

So she let him have the knife, and he began to rub and sharpen it on
the whetstone.

“Just let me try it on one of your hair plaits; I think it’s about
right now.”

So he got leave to do that; but at the same time that he grasped the
plait of hair, he pulled back her head, and at one gash, cut off the
Troll’s daughter’s head; and half of her he roasted and half of her he
boiled, and served it all up.

After that he dressed himself in her clothes, and sat away in the
corner.

So when the Troll came home with his guests, he called out to his
daughter—for he thought all the time it was his daughter—to come and
take a snack.

“No, thank you”, said the lad, “I don’t care for food, I’m so sad and
downcast.”

“Oh!” said the Troll, “if that’s all, you know the cure; take the harp,
and play a tune on it.”

“Yes!” said the lad; “but where has it got to; I can’t find it.”

“Why, you know well enough”, said the Troll; “you used it last; where
should it be but over the door yonder?

The lad did not wait to be told twice; he took down the harp, and went
in and out playing tunes; but, all at once he shoved off the
kneading-trough, jumped into it, and rowed off, so that the foam flew
around the trough.

After a while the Troll thought his daughter was a long while gone, and
went out to see what ailed her; and then he saw the lad in the trough,
far, far out on the lake.

“HALLOA! Is it you”, he roared, “that took my seven silver ducks?”

“AYE, AYE!” said the lad.

“Is it you that took my bed-quilt, with the gold and silver patches.”

“Yes!” said the lad.

“And now you have taken off my gold harp?” screamed the Troll.

“Yes!” said the lad; “I’ve got it, sure enough.”

“And haven’t I eaten you up after all, then?”

“No, no! ’twas your own daughter you ate”, answered the lad.

But when the Troll heard that, he was so sorry, he burst; and then
Boots rowed back, and took a whole heap of gold and silver with him, as
much as the trough could carry. And so, when he came to the palace with
the gold harp, he got the Princess and half the kingdom, as the king
had promised him; and, as for his brothers, he treated them well, for
he thought they had only wished his good when they said what they had
said.




GOOSEY GRIZZEL


Once on a time there was a widower, who had a housekeeper named
Grizzel, who set her mutch at him and teazed him early and late to
marry her. At last the man got so weary of her, he was at his wits’ end
to know how to get rid of her. So it fell on a day, between hay time
and harvest, the two went out to pull hemp. Grizzel’s head was full of
her good looks and her handiness, and she worked away at the hemp till
she grew giddy from the strong smell of the ripe seed, and at last down
she fell flat, fast asleep among the hemp. While she slept, her master
got a pair of scissors and cut her skirts short all round, and then he
rubbed her all over, face and all, first with tallow and then with
soot, till she looked worse than the Deil himself. So, when Grizzel
woke and saw how ugly she was, she didn’t know herself.

“Can this be me now?” said Grizzel. “Nay, nay! it can never be me. So
ugly have I never been; it’s surely the Deil himself?”

Well! that she might really know the truth, she went off and knocked at
her master’s door, and asked,

“Is your Girzie at home the day, father?”

“Aye, aye, our Girzie is at home safe enough”, said the man, who wanted
to be rid of her.

“Well, well!” she said to herself, “then I can’t be his Grizzel,” and
stole away; and right glad the man was, I can tell you.

So, when she had walked a bit she came to a great wood, where she met
two thieves. “The very men for my money, thought Grizzel, “since I am
the Deil, thieves are just fit fellows for me.”

But the thieves were not of the same mind, not they. As soon as they
set eyes on her, they took to their heels as fast as they could, for
they thought the Evil One was come to catch them. But it was no good,
for Grizzel was long-legged and swift-footed, and she came up with them
before they knew where they were.

“If you’re going out to steal, I’ll go with you and help,” said
Grizzel, “for I know the whole country round.” So, when the thieves
heard that, they thought they had found a good mate, and were no longer
afraid.

Then they said they were off to steal a sheep, only they didn’t know
where to lay hold of one.

“Oh!” said Grizzel, “that’s a small matter, for I was maid with a
farmer ever so long out in the wood yonder, and I could find the
sheepfold, though the night were dark as pitch.”

The thieves thought that grand; and when they came to the place,
Grizzel was to go into the fold and turn out the sheep, and they were
to lay hold on it. Now, the sheepfold lay close to the wall of the room
where the farmer slept, so Grizzel crept quite softly and carefully
into the fold; but, as soon as she got in, she began to scream out to
the thieves, “Will you have a wether or a ewe? here are lots to choose
from.”

“Hush, hush!” said the thieves, “only take one that is fine and fat.”

“Yes, yes! but will you have a wether or a ewe? will you have a wether
or a ewe? for here are lots to choose from,” screeched Grizzel.

“Hush, hush!” said the thieves again, “only take one that’s fine and
fat; it’s all the same to us whether it’s a wether or a ewe.”

“Yes!” screeched Grizzel, who stuck to her own; “but will you have a
wether or a ewe—a wether or a ewe? here are lots to choose from.”

“Hold your jaw!” said the thieves, “and take a fine fat one, wether or
ewe, its all one to us.”

But just then out came the farmer in his shirt, who had been waked by
all this clatter, and wanted to see what was going on. So the thieves
took to their heels, and Grizzel after them, upsetting the farmer in
her flight.

“Stop, boys! stop, boys!” she screamed; but the farmer, who had only
seen the black monster, grew so afraid that he could scarce stand, for
he thought it was the Deil himself that had been in his sheepfold. The
only help he knew was, to go indoors and wake up the whole house; and
they all sat down to read and pray, for he had heard that was the way
to send the Deil about his business.

Now the next night the thieves said they must go and steal a fat goose,
and Grizzel was to shew them the way. So when they came to the
goosepen, Grizzel was to go in and turn one out, for she knew the ways
of the place, and the thieves were to stand outside and catch it. But
as soon as ever she got in she began to scream,

“Will you have goose or gander? you may pick and choose here.”

“Hush hush! choose only a fine fat one”, said the thieves. “Yes, yes!
but will you have goose or gander—goose or gander? you may pick and
choose”, screamed Grizzel.

“Hush, hush! only choose one that’s fine and fat, and it’s all one to
us whether it’s goose or gander; but do hold your jaw”, said they.

But while Grizzel and the thieves were settling this, one of the geese
began to cackle, and then another cackled, and then the whole flock
cackled and hissed, and out came the farmer to see what all the noise
could mean, and away went the thieves, and Grizzel after them, at full
speed, and the farmer thought again it was the black Deil flying away;
for long-legged she was, and she had no skirts to hamper her.

“Stop a bit, boys!” she kept on screaming, “you might as well have said
whether you would have goose or gander?”

But they had no time to stop, they thought; and, as for the farmer, he
began to read and pray with all his house, small and great, for they
thought it was the Deil, and no mistake.

Now, the third day, when night came, the thieves and Grizzel were so
hungry they did not know what to do; so they made up their minds to go
to the larder of a rich farmer, who lived by the wood’s side, and steal
some food. Well, off they went, but the thieves did not dare to venture
themselves, so Grizzel was to go up the steps which led to the larder,
and hand the food out, and the others were to stand below and take it
from her. So when Grizzel got inside, she saw the larder was full of
all sorts of things, fresh meat and salt, and sausages and oat-cake.
The thieves begged her to be still, and just throw out something to
eat, and to bear in mind how badly they had fated for two nights. But
Grizzel stuck to her own, that she did.

“Will you have fresh meat, or salt, or sausages, or oat-cake? Just
look, what a lovely oat-cake”, she bawled out enough to split your
head. “You may have what you please, for here’s plenty to choose from.”

But the farmer woke with all this noise, and ran out to see what it all
meant. As for the thieves, off they ran as fast as they could; but
while the farmer was looking after them, down came Grizzel so black and
ugly.

“Stop a bit! stop a bit, boys!” she bellowed; “you may have what you
please, for there’s plenty to choose from.”

And when the farmer saw that ugly monster, he, too, thought the Deil
was loose, for he had heard what had happened to his neighbours the
evenings before; so he began both to read and pray, and every one in
the whole parish began to read and pray, for they knew that you could
read the Deil away.

The next evening was Saturday evening, and the thieves wanted to steal
a fat ram for their Sunday dinner; and well they might, for they had
fasted many days. But they wouldn’t have Grizzel with them at any
price. She brought bad luck with her jaw, they said; so while Grizzel
was walking about waiting for them on Sunday morning, she got so
awfully hungry—for she had fasted for three days—that she went into a
turnip-field and pulled up some turnips to eat. But when the farmer who
owned the turnips rose, he felt uneasy in his mind, and thought he
would just go and take a look at his turnips on the Sunday morning. So
he pulled on his trousers and went across the moss which lay under the
hill, where the turnip-field lay. But when he got to the bottom of the
field, he saw something black walking about in the field and pulling up
his turnips, and he soon made up his mind that it was the Deil. So away
he ran home as fast as he could, and said the Deil was among the
turnips. This frightened the whole house out of their wits, and they
agreed they’d best send for the priest, and get him to bind the Deil.

“That won’t do”, said the goodwife, “this is Sunday morning, you’ll
never get the priest to come; for either he’ll be in bed; or if he’s
up, he’ll be learning his sermon by heart.”

“Oh!” said the goodman, “never fear; I’ll promise him a fat loin of
veal, and then he’ll come fast enough.”

So off he went to the priest’s house; but when he got there, sure
enough, the priest was still in bed. The maid begged the farmer to walk
into the parlour while she ran up to the priest, and said:

“Farmer So-and-So was downstairs, and wished to have a word with him.”

Well! when the priest heard that such a worthy man was downstairs, he
got up at once, and came down just as he was, in his slippers and
nightcap.

So the goodman told his errand; how the Deil was loose in his
turnip-field; and if the priest would only come and bind him, he would
send him a fat loin of veal. Yes! the priest was willing enough, and
called out to his groom, to saddle his horse, while he dressed himself.

“Nay, nay, father!” said the man; “the Deil won’t wait for us long, and
no one knows where we shall find him again if we miss him now. Your
reverence must come at once, just as you are.”

So the priest followed him just as he was, with the clothes he stood
in, and went off in his nightcap and slippers. But when they got to the
moss, it was so moist the priest couldn’t cross it in his slippers. So
the goodman took him on his back to carry him over. On they went, the
goodman picking his way from one clump to the other, till they got to
the middle; then Grizzel caught sight of them, and thought it was the
thieves bringing the ram.

“Is he fat?” she screamed; “is he fat?” and made such a noise that the
wood rang again.

“The Deil knows if he’s fat or lean; I’m sure I don’t”, said the
goodman, when he heard that; “but, if you want to know, you had better
come yourself and see.”

And then he got so afraid, he threw the priest head over heels into the
soft wet moss, and took to his legs; and if the priest hasn’t got out,
why I dare say he’s lying there still.




THE LAD WHO WENT TO THE NORTH WIND


Once on a time there was an old widow who had one son; and as she was
poorly and weak, her son had to go up into the safe to fetch meal for
cooking; but when he got outside the safe, and was just going down the
steps, there came the North Wind, puffing and blowing, caught up the
meal, and so away with it through the air. Then the lad went back into
the safe for more; but when he came out again on the steps, if the
North Wind didn’t come again and carry off the meal with a puff; and,
more than that, he did so the third time. At this the lad got very
angry; and as he thought it hard that the North Wind should behave so,
he thought he’d just look him up, and ask him to give up his meal.

So off he went, but the way was long, and he walked and walked; but at
last he came to the North Wind’s house.

“Good day!” said the lad, “and thank you for coming to see us
yesterday.”

“GOOD DAY!” answered the North Wind, for his voice was loud and gruff,
“AND THANKS FOR COMING TO SEE ME. WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

“Oh!” answered the lad, “I only wished to ask you to be so good as to
let me have back that meal you took from me on the safe steps, for we
haven’t much to live on; and if you’re to go on snapping up the morsel
we have, there’ll be nothing for it but to starve.”

“I haven’t got your meal”, said the North Wind; “but if you are in such
need, I’ll give you a cloth which will get you everything you want, if
you only say, “Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kind of good
dishes!”

With this the lad was well content. But, as the way was so long he
couldn’t get home in one day, so he turned into an inn on the way; and
when they were going to sit down to supper he laid the cloth on a table
which stood in the corner, and said,

“Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes.”

He had scarce said so before the cloth did as it was bid; and all who
stood by thought it a fine thing, but most of all the landlady. So,
when all were fast asleep at dead of night, she took the lad’s cloth,
and put another in its stead, just like the one he had got from the
North Wind, but which couldn’t so much as serve up a bit of dry bread.

So, when the lad woke, he took his cloth and went off with it, and that
day he got home to his mother.

“Now”, said he, “I’ve been to the North Wind’s house, and a good fellow
he is, for he gave me this cloth, and when I only say to it, ‘Cloth,
spread yourself, and serve up all kind of good dishes’, I get any sort
of food I please.”

“All very true, I daresay,” said his mother; “but seeing is believing,
and I shan’t believe it till I see it.”

So the lad made haste, drew out a table, laid the cloth on it, and
said:

“Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kind of good dishes.”

But never a bit of dry bread did the cloth serve up.

“Well”, said the lad, “there’s no help for it but to go to the North
Wind again”; and away he went.

So he came to where the North Wind lived late in the afternoon.

“Good evening!” said the lad.

“Good evening!” said the North Wind.

“I want my rights for that meal of ours which you took”, said the lad;
“for, as for that cloth I got, it isn’t worth a penny.”

“I’ve got no meal”, said the North Wind; “but yonder you have a ram
which coins nothing but golden ducats as soon as you say to it:

‘Rain, ram! make money!’

So the lad thought this a fine thing; but as it was too far to get home
that day, he turned in for the night to the same inn where he had slept
before.

Before he called for anything, he tried the truth of what the North
Wind had said of the ram, and found it all right; but, when the
landlord saw that, he thought it was a famous ram, and, when the lad
had fallen asleep, he took another which couldn’t coin gold ducats, and
changed the two.

Next morning off went the lad; and when he got home to his mother, he
said:

“After all, the North Wind is a jolly fellow; for now he has given me a
ram which can coin golden ducats if I only say ‘Ram, ram! make money.’”

“All very true, I daresay”, said his mother; “but I shan’t believe any
such stuff until I see the ducats made.”

“Ram, ram! make money!” said the lad; but if the Ram made anything, it
wasn’t money.

So the lad went back again to the North Wind, and blew him up, and said
the ram was worth nothing, and he must have his rights for the meal.

“Well!” said the North Wind; “I’ve nothing else to give you but that
old stick in the corner yonder; but it’s a stick of that kind that if
you say:

“‘Stick, stick! lay on!’ it lays on till you say: ‘Stick, stick! now
stop!’”

So, as the way was long, the lad turned in this night too to the
landlord; but as he could pretty well guess how things stood as to the
cloth and the ram, he lay down at once on the bench and began to snore,
as if he were asleep.

Now the landlord, who easily saw that the stick must be worth
something, hunted up one which was like it, and when he heard the lad
snore, was going to change the two; but, just as the landlord was about
to take it, the lad bawled out: “Stick, stick! lay on!”

So the stick began to beat the landlord, till he jumped over chairs,
and tables, and benches, and yelled and roared:

“Oh my! oh my! bid the stick be still, else it will beat me to death,
and you shall have back both your cloth and our ram.”

When the lad thought the landlord had got enough, he said:

“Stick, stick! now stop!”

Then he took the cloth and put it into his pocket, and went home with
his stick in his hand, leading the ram by a cord round its horns; and
so he got his rights for the meal he had lost.




THE MASTER THIEF


Once upon a time there was a poor cottager who had three sons. He had
nothing to leave them when he died, and no money with which to put them
to any trade, so that he did not know what to make of them. At last he
said he would give them leave to take to anything each liked best, and
to go whithersoever they pleased, and he would go with them a bit of
the way; and so he did. He went with them till they came to a place
where three roads met, and there each of them chose a road, and their
father bade them good-bye, and went back home. I have never heard tell
what became of the two elder; but as for the youngest, he went both far
and long, as you shall hear.

So it fell out one night as he was going through a great wood that such
bad weather overtook him. It blew, and sleeted, and drove so that he
could scarce keep his eyes open; and in a trice, before he knew how it
was, he got bewildered, and could not find either road or path. But as
he went on and on, at last he saw a glimmering of light far far off in
the wood. So he thought he would try and get to the light; and after a
time he did reach it. There it was in a large house, and the fire was
blazing so brightly inside, that he could tell the folk had not yet
gone to bed; so he went in and saw an old dame bustling about and
minding the house.

“Good evening!” said the youth.

“Good evening!” said the old dame.

“Hutetu! it’s such foul weather out of doors to-night”, said he.

“So it is”, said she.

“Can I get leave to have a bed and shelter here to-night?” asked the
youth.

“You’ll get no good by sleeping here”, said the old dame; “for if the
folk come home and find you here, they’ll kill both me and you.”

“What sort of folk, then, are they who live here?” asked the youth.

“Oh, robbers! And a bad lot of them too”, said the old dame. “They
stole me away when I was little, and have kept me as their housekeeper
ever since.”

“Well, for all that, I think I’ll just go to bed”, said the youth.
“Come what may, I’ll not stir out at night in such weather.”

“Very well”, said the old dame; “but if you stay, it will be the worse
for you.”

With that the youth got into a bed which stood there, but he dared not
go to sleep, and very soon after in came the robbers; so the old dame
told them how a stranger fellow had come in whom she had not been able
to get out of the house again.

“Did you see if he had any money?” said the robbers.

“Such a one as he money!” said the old dame, “the tramper! Why, if he
had clothes to his back, it was as much as he had.”

Then the robbers began to talk among themselves what they should do
with him; if they should kill him outright, or what else they should
do. Meantime the youth got up and began to talk to them, and to ask if
they didn’t want a servant, for it might be that he would be glad to
enter their service.

“Oh”, said they, “if you have a mind to follow the trade that we
follow, you can very well get a place here.”

“It’s all one to me what trade I follow”, said the youth; “for when I
left home, father gave me leave to take to any trade I chose.”

“Well, have you a mind to steal?” asked the robbers.

“I don’t care”, said the youth, for he thought it would not take long
to learn that trade.

Now there lived a man a little way off who had three oxen. One of these
he was to take to the town to sell, and the robbers had heard what he
was going to do, so they said to the youth, if he were good to steal
the ox from the man by the way without his knowing it, and without
doing him any harm, they would give him leave to be their serving-man.

Well! the youth set off, and took with him a pretty shoe, with a silver
buckle on it, which lay about the house; and he put the shoe in the
road along which the man was going with his ox; and when he had done
that, he went into the wood and hid himself under a bush. So when the
man came by he saw the shoe at once.

“That’s a nice shoe”, said he. “If I only had the fellow to it, I’d
take it home with me, and perhaps I’d put my old dame in a good humour
for once.” For you must know he had an old wife, so cross and snappish,
it was not long between each time that she boxed his ears. But then he
bethought him that he could do nothing with the odd shoe unless he had
the fellow to it; so he went on his way and let the shoe lie on the
road.

Then the youth took up the shoe, and made all the haste he could to get
before the man by a short cut through the wood, and laid it down before
him in the road again. When the man came along with his ox, he got
quite angry with himself for being so dull as to leave the fellow to
the shoe lying in the road instead of taking it with him; so he tied
the ox to the fence, and said to himself, “I may just as well run back
and pick up the other, and then I’ll have a pair of good shoes for my
old dame, and so, perhaps, I’ll get a kind word from her for once.”

So he set off, and hunted and hunted up and down for the shoe, but no
shoe did he find; and at length he had to go back with the one he had.
But, meanwhile the youth had taken the ox and gone off with it; and
when the man came and saw his ox gone, he began to cry and bewail, for
he was afraid his old dame would kill him outright when she came to
know that the ox was lost. But just then it came across his mind that
he would go home and take the second ox, and drive it to the town, and
not let his old dame know anything about the matter. So he did this,
and went home and took the ox without his dame’s knowing it, and set
off with it to the town. But the robbers knew all about it, and they
said to the youth, if he could get this ox too, without the man’s
knowing it, and without his doing him any harm, he should be as good as
any one of them. If that were all, the youth said, he did not think it
a very hard thing.

This time he took with him a rope, and hung himself up under the
arm-pits to a tree right in the man’s way. So the man came along with
his ox, and when he saw such a sight hanging there he began to feel a
little queer.

“Well”, said he, “whatever heavy thoughts you had who have hanged
yourself up there, it can’t be helped; you may hang for what I care! I
can’t breathe life into you again”; and with that he went on his way
with his ox. Down slipped the youth from the tree, and ran by a
footpath, and got before the man, and hung himself up right in his way
again.

“Bless me!” said the man, “were you really so heavy at heart that you
hanged yourself up there—or is it only a piece of witchcraft that I see
before me? Aye, aye! you may hang for all I care, whether you are a
ghost or whatever you are.” So he passed on with his ox.

Now the youth did just as he had done twice before; he jumped down from
the tree, ran through the wood by a footpath, and hung himself up right
in the man’s way again. But when the man saw this sight for the third
time, he said to himself:

“Well! this is an ugly business! Is it likely now that they should have
been so heavy at heart as to hang themselves, all these three? No! I
cannot think it is anything else than a piece of witchcraft that I see.
But now I’ll soon know for certain; if the other two are still hanging
there, it must be really so; but if they are not, then it can be
nothing but witchcraft that I see.”

So he tied up his ox, and ran back to see if the others were still
really hanging there. But while he went and peered up into all the
trees, the youth jumped down and took his ox and ran off with it. When
the man came back and found his ox gone, he was in a sad plight, and,
as any one might know without being told, he began to cry and bemoan;
but at last he came to take it easier, and so he thought:

“There’s no other help for it than to go home and take the third ox
without my dame’s knowing it, and to try and drive a good bargain with
it, so that I may get a good sum of money for it.”

So he went home and set off with the ox, and his old dame knew never a
word about the matter. But the robbers, they knew all about it, and
they said to the youth, that if he could steal this ox as he had stolen
the other two, then he should be master over the whole band. Well, the
youth set off, and ran into the wood; and as the man came by with his
ox he set up a dreadful bellowing, just like a great ox in the wood.
When the man heard that, you can’t think how glad he was, for it seemed
to him that he knew the voice of his big bullock, and he thought that
now he should find both of them again; so he tied up the third ox, and
ran off from the road to look for them in the wood; but meantime the
youth went off with the third ox. Now, when the man came back and found
he had lost this ox too, he was so wild that there was no end to his
grief. He cried and roared and beat his breast, and, to tell the truth,
it was many days before he dared go home; for he was afraid lest his
old dame should kill him outright on the spot.

As for the robbers, they were not very well pleased either, when they
had to own that the youth was master over the whole band. So one day
they thought they would try their hands at something which he was not
man enough to do; and they set off all together, every man Jack of
them, and left him alone at home. Now, the first thing that he did when
they were all well clear of the house, was to drive the oxen out to the
road, so that they might run back to the man from whom he had stolen
them; and right glad he was to see them, as you may fancy. Next he took
all the horses which the robbers had, and loaded them with the best
things he could lay his hands on-gold and silver, and clothes and other
fine things; and then he bade the old dame to greet the robbers when
they came back, and to thank them for him, and to say that now he was
setting off on his travels, and they would have hard work to find him
again; and with that, off he started.

After a good bit he came to the road along which he was going when he
fell among the robbers, and when he got near home, and could see his
father’s cottage, he put on a uniform which he had found among the
clothes he had taken from the robbers, and which was made just like a
general’s. So he drove up to the door as if he were any other great
man. After that he went in and asked if he could have a lodging? No;
that he couldn’t at any price.

“How ever should I be able”, said the man, “to make room in my house
for such a fine gentleman—I who scarce have a rag to lie upon, and
miserable rags too?”

“You always were a stingy old hunks”, said the youth, “and so you are
still, when you won’t take your own son in.”

“What, you my son!” said the man.

“Don’t you know me again?” said the youth. Well, after a little while
he did know him again.

“But what have you been turning your hand to, that you have made
yourself so great a man in such haste?” asked the man.

“Oh! I’ll soon tell you”, said the youth. “You said I might take to any
trade I chose, and so I bound myself apprentice to a pack of thieves
and robbers, and now I’ve served my time out, and am become a Master
Thief.”

Now there lived a Squire close by to his father’s cottage, and he had
such a great house, and such heaps of money, he could not tell how much
he had. He had a daughter too, and a smart and pretty girl she was. So
the Master Thief set his heart upon having her to wife, and he told his
father to go to the Squire and ask for his daughter for him.

“If he asks by what trade I get my living, you can say I’m a Master
Thief.”

“I think you’ve lost your wits”, said the man, “for you can’t be in
your right mind when you think of such stuff.”

No! he had not lost his wits, his father must and should go to the
Squire, and ask for his daughter.

“Nay, but I tell you, I daren’t go to the Squire and be your spokesman;
he who is so rich, and has so much money”, said the man.

Yes, there was no help for it, said the Master Thief; he should go
whether he would or no; and if he did not go by fair means, he would
soon make him go by foul. But the man was still loath to go; so he
stepped after him, and rubbed him down with a good birch cudgel, and
kept on till the man came crying and sobbing inside the Squire’s door.

“How now, my man! what ails you?” said the Squire. So he told him the
whole story; how he had three sons who set off one day, and how he had
given them leave to go whithersoever they would, and to follow whatever
calling they chose. “And here now is the youngest come home, and has
thrashed me till he has made me come to you and ask for your daughter
for him to wife; and he bids me say, besides, that he’s a Master
Thief.” And so he fell to crying and sobbing again.

“Never mind, my man”, said the Squire, laughing; “just go back and tell
him from me, he must prove his skill first. If he can steal the roast
from the spit in the kitchen on Sunday, while all the household are
looking after it, he shall have my daughter. Just go and tell him
that.”

So he went back and told the youth, who thought it would be an easy
job. So he set about and caught three hares alive, and put them into a
bag, and dressed himself in some old rags, until he looked so poor and
filthy that it made one’s heart bleed to see; and then he stole into
the passage at the back-door of the Squire’s house on the Sunday
forenoon, with his bag, just like any other beggar-boy. But the Squire
himself and all his household were in the kitchen watching the roast.
Just as they were doing this, the youth let one hare go, and it set off
and ran round and round the yard in front of the house.

“Oh, just look at that hare!” said the folk in the kitchen, and were
all for running out to catch it.

Yes, the Squire saw it running too. “Oh, let it run”, said he; “there’s
no use in thinking to catch a hare on the spring.”

A little while after, the youth let the second hare go, and they saw it
in the kitchen, and thought it was the same they had seen before, and
still wanted to run out and catch it; but the Squire said again it was
no use. It was not long before the youth let the third hare go, and it
set off and ran round and round the yard as the others before it. Now,
they saw it from the kitchen, and still thought it was the same hare
that kept on running about, and were all eager to be out after it.

“Well, it is a fine hare”, said the Squire; “come let’s see if we can’t
lay our hands on it.”

So out he ran, and the rest with him—away they all went, the hare
before, and they after; so that it was rare fun to see. But meantime
the youth took the roast and ran off with it; and where the Squire got
a roast for his dinner that day I don’t know; but one thing I know, and
that is, that he had no roast hare, though he ran after it till he was
both warm and weary.

Now it chanced that the Priest came to dinner that day, and when the
Squire told him what a trick the Master Thief had played him, he made
such game of him that there was no end of it.

“For my part”, said the Priest, “I can’t think how it could ever happen
to me to be made such a fool of by a fellow like that.”

“Very well—only keep a sharp look-out”, said the Squire; “maybe he’ll
come to see you before you know a word of it.” But the Priest stuck to
his text—that he did, and made game of the Squire because he had been
so taken in.

Later in the afternoon came the Master Thief, and wanted to have the
Squire’s daughter, as he had given his word. But the Squire began to
talk him over, and said, “Oh, you must first prove your skill a little
more; for what you did to-day was no great thing, after all. Couldn’t
you now play off a good trick on the Priest, who is sitting in there,
and making game of me for letting such a fellow as you twist me round
his thumb.”

“Well, as for that, it wouldn’t be hard”, said the Master Thief. So he
dressed himself up like a bird, threw a great white sheet over his
body, took the wings of a goose and tied them to his back, and so
climbed up into a great maple which stood in the Priest’s garden. And
when the Priest came home in the evening, the youth began to bawl out:

“Father Laurence! Father Laurence!”—for that was the Priest’s name.

“Who is that calling me?” said the Priest.

“I am an angel”, said the Master Thief, “sent from God to let you know
that you shall be taken up alive into heaven for your piety’s sake.
Next Monday night you must hold yourself ready for the journey, for I
shall come then to fetch you in a sack; and all your gold and your
silver, and all that you have of this world’s goods, you must lay
together in a heap in your dining-room.”

Well, Father Laurence fell on his knees before the angel, and thanked
him; and the very next day he preached a farewell sermon, and gave it
out how there had come down an angel unto the big maple in his garden,
who had told him that he was to be taken up alive into heaven for his
piety’s sake; and he preached and made such a touching discourse, that
all who were at church wept, both young and old.

So the next Monday night came the Master Thief like an angel again, and
the Priest fell on his knees and thanked him before he was put into the
sack; but when he had got him well in, the Master Thief drew and
dragged him over stocks and stones.

“OW! OW!” groaned the Priest inside the sack, “wherever are we going?”

“This is the narrow way which leadeth unto the kingdom of heaven”, said
the Master Thief, who went on dragging him along till he had nearly
broken every bone in his body. At last he tumbled him into a
goose-house that belonged to the Squire, and the geese began pecking
and pinching him with their bills, so that he was more dead than alive.

“Now you are in the flames of purgatory, to be cleansed and purified
for life everlasting”, said the Master Thief; and with that he went his
way, and took all the gold which the Priest had laid together in his
dining-room. The next morning, when the goose-girl came to let the
geese out, she heard how the Priest lay in the sack, and bemoaned
himself in the goose-house.

“In heaven’s name, who’s there, and what ails you?” she cried.

“Oh!” said the Priest, “if you are an angel from heaven, do let me out,
and let me return again to earth, for it is worse here than in hell.
The little fiends keep on pinching me with tongs.”

“Heaven help us, I am no angel at all”, said the girl, as she helped
the Priest out of the sack; “I only look after the Squire’s geese, and
like enough they are the little fiends which have pinched your
reverence.”

“Oh!” groaned the Priest, “this is all that Master Thief’s doing. Ah!
my gold and my silver, and my fine clothes.” And he beat his breast,
and hobbled home at such a rate that the girl thought he had lost his
wits all at once.

Now when the Squire came to hear how it had gone with the Priest, and
how he had been along the narrow way, and into purgatory, he laughed
till he well-nigh split his sides. But when the Master Thief came and
asked for his daughter as he had promised, the Squire put him off
again, and said:

“You must do one masterpiece better still, that I may see plainly what
you are fit for. Now, I have twelve horses in my stable, and on them I
will put twelve grooms, one on each. If you are so good a thief as to
steal the horses from under them, I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“Very well, I daresay I can do it”, said the Master Thief; “but shall I
really have your daughter if I can?”

“Yes, if you can, I’ll do my best for you”, said the Squire. So the
Master Thief set off to a shop, and bought brandy enough to fill two
pocket-flasks, and into one of them he put a sleepy drink, but into the
other only brandy. After that he hired eleven men to lie in wait at
night, behind the Squire’s stable-yard; and last of all, for fair words
and a good bit of money, he borrowed a ragged gown and cloak from an
old woman; and so, with a staff in his hand, and a bundle at his back,
he limped off, as evening drew on, towards the Squire’s stable. Just as
he got there they were watering the horses for the night, and had their
hands full of work. “What the devil do you want?” said one of the
grooms to the old woman.

“Oh, oh! hutetu! it is so bitter cold”, said she, and shivered and
shook, and made wry faces. “Hutetu! it is so cold, a poor wretch may
easily freeze to death”; and with that she fell to shivering and
shaking again.

“Oh! for the love of heaven, can I get leave to stay here a while, and
sit inside the stable door?”

“To the devil with your leave”, said one. “Pack yourself off this
minute, for if the Squire sets his eye on you, he’ll lead us a pretty
dance.”

“Oh! the poor old bag-of-bones”, said another, whose heart took pity on
her, “the old hag may sit inside and welcome; such a one as she can do
no harm.”

And the rest said, some she should stay, and some she shouldn’t; but
while they were quarrelling and minding the horses, she crept further
and further into the stable, till at last she sat herself down behind
the door; and when she had got so far, no one gave any more heed to
her.

As the night wore on, the men found it rather cold work to sit so still
and quiet on horseback.

“Hutetu! it is so devilish cold”, said one, and beat his arms
crosswise.

“That it is”, said another; “I freeze so, that my teeth chatter.”

“If one only had a quid to chew”, said a third.

Well! there was one who had an ounce or two; so they shared it between
them, though it wasn’t much, after all, that each got; and so they
chewed and spat, and spat and chewed. This helped them somewhat; but in
a little while they were just as bad as ever.

“Hutetu!” said one, and shivered and shook.

“Hutetu!” said the old woman, and shivered so, that every tooth in her
head chattered. Then she pulled out the flask with brandy in it, and
her hand shook so that the spirit splashed about in the flask, and then
she took such a gulp, that it went “bop” in her throat.

“What’s that you’ve got in your flask, old girl?” said one of the
grooms.

“Oh! it’s only a drop of brandy, old man”, said she.

“Brandy! Well, I never! Do let me have a drop”, screamed the whole
twelve, one after another.

“Oh! but it is such a little drop”, mumbled the old woman, “it will not
even wet your mouths round.” But they must and would have it; there was
no help for it; and so she pulled out the flask with the sleepy drink
in it, and put it to the first man’s lips; then she shook no more, but
guided the flask so that each of them got what he wanted, and the
twelfth had not done drinking before the first sat and snored. Then the
Master Thief threw off his beggar’s rags, and took one groom after the
other so softly off their horses, and set them astride on the beams
between the stalls; and so he called his eleven men, and rode off with
the Squire’s twelve horses. But when the Squire got up in the morning,
and went to look after his grooms, they had just begun to come to; and
some of them fell to spurring the beams with their spurs, till the
splinters flew again, and some fell off, and some still hung on and sat
there looking like fools.

“Ho! ho!” said the Squire; “I see very well who has been here; but as
for you, a pretty set of blockheads you must be to sit here and let the
Master Thief steal the horses from between your legs.”

So they all got a good leathering because they had not kept a sharper
look-out.

Further on in the day came the Master Thief again, and told how he had
managed the matter, and asked for the Squire’s daughter, as he had
promised; but the Squire gave him one hundred dollars down, and said he
must do something better still.

“Do you think now”, said he, “you can steal the horse from under me
while I am out riding on his back?” “O, yes! I daresay I could”, said
the Master Thief, “if I were really sure of getting your daughter.”

Well, well, the Squire would see what he could do; and he told the
Master Thief a day when he would be taking a ride on a great common
where they drilled the troops. So the Master Thief soon got hold of an
old worn-out jade of a mare, and set to work, and made traces and
collar of withies and broom-twigs, and bought an old beggarly cart and
a great cask. After that he told an old beggar woman, he would give her
ten dollars if she would get inside the cask, and keep her mouth agape
over the taphole, into which he was going to stick his finger. No harm
should happen to her; she should only be driven about a little; and if
he took his finger out more than once, she was to have ten dollars
more. Then he threw a few rags and tatters over himself, and stuffed
himself out, and put on a wig and a great beard of goat’s hair, so that
no one could know him again, and set off for the common, where the
Squire had already been riding about a good bit. When he reached the
place, he went along so softly and slowly that he scarce made an inch
of way. “Gee up! Gee up!” and so he went on a little; then he stood
stock still, and so on a little again; and altogether the pace was so
poor it never once came into the Squire’s head that this could be the
Master Thief.

At last the Squire rode right up to him, and asked if he had seen any
one lurking about in the wood thereabouts. “No”, said the man, “I
haven’t seen a soul.”

“Harkye, now”, said the Squire, “if you have a mind to ride into the
wood, and hunt about and see if you can fall upon any one lurking about
there, you shall have the loan of my horse, and a shilling into the
bargain, to drink my health, for your pains.”

“I don’t see how I can go”, said the man, “for I am going to a wedding
with this cask of mead, which I have been to town to fetch, and here
the tap has fallen out by the way, and so I must go along, holding my
finger in the taphole.”

“Ride off”, said the Squire; “I’ll look after your horse and cask.”

Well, on these terms the man was willing to go; but he begged the
Squire to be quick in putting his finger into the taphole when he took
his own out, and to mind and keep it there till he came back. At last
the Squire grew weary of standing there with his finger in the taphole,
so he took it out.

“Now I shall have ten dollars more!” screamed the old woman inside the
cask; and then the Squire saw at once how the land lay, and took
himself off home; but he had not gone far before they met him with a
fresh horse, for the Master Thief had already been to his house, and
told them to send one. The day after, he came to the Squire and would
have his daughter, as he had given his word; but the Squire put him off
again with fine words, and gave him two hundred dollars, and said he
must do one more masterpiece. If he could do that, he should have her.
Well, well, the Master Thief thought he could do it, if he only knew
what it was to be.

“Do you think, now”, said the Squire, “you can steal the sheet off our
bed, and the shift off my wife’s back. Do you think you could do that?”

“It shall be done”, said the Master Thief. “I only wish I was as sure
of getting your daughter.”

So when night began to fall, the Master Thief went out and cut down a
thief who hung on the gallows, and threw him across his shoulders, and
carried him off. Then he got a long ladder and set it up against the
Squire’s bedroom window, and so climbed up, and kept bobbing the dead
man up and down, just for all the world like one that was peeping in at
the window.

“That’s the Master Thief, old lass!” said the Squire, and gave his wife
a nudge on the side. “Now see if I don’t shoot him, that’s all.”

So saying he took up a rifle which he had laid at his bedside.

“No! no! pray don’t shoot him after telling him he might come and try”,
said his wife.

“Don’t talk to me, for shoot him I will”, said he; and so he lay there
and aimed and aimed; but as soon as the head came up before the window,
and he saw a little of it, so soon was it down again. At last he
thought he had a good aim; “bang” went the gun, down fell the dead body
to the ground with a heavy thump, and down went the Master Thief too as
fast as he could.

“Well”, said the Squire, “it is quite true that I am the chief
magistrate in these parts; but people are fond of talking, and it would
be a bore if they came to see this dead man’s body. I think the best
thing to be done is that I should go down and bury him.”

“You must do as you think best, dear”, said his wife. So the Squire got
out of bed and went downstairs, and he had scarce put his foot out of
the door before the Master Thief stole in, and went straight upstairs
to his wife.

“Why, dear, back already!” said she, for she thought it was her
husband.

“O yes, I only just put him into a hole, and threw a little earth over
him. It is enough that he is out of sight, for it is such a bad night
out of doors; by-and-by I’ll do it better. But just let me have the
sheet to wipe myself with—he was so bloody—and I have made myself in
such a mess with him.”

So he got the sheet.

After a while he said:

“Do you know I am afraid you must let me have your nightshift too, for
the sheet won’t do by itself; that I can see.”

So she gave him the shift also. But just then it came across his mind
that he had forgotten to lock the house-door, so he must step down and
look to that before he came back to bed, and away he went with both
shift and sheet.

A little while after came the true Squire.

“Why! what a time you’ve taken to lock the door, dear!” said his wife;
“and what have you done with the sheet and shift?”

“What do you say?” said the Squire.

“Why, I am asking what you have done with the sheet and shift that you
had to wipe off the blood”, said she.

“What, in the Deil’s name!” said the Squire, “has he taken me in this
time too?”

Next day came the Master Thief and asked for the Squire’s daughter, as
he had given his word; and then the Squire dared not do anything else
than give her to him, and a good lump of money into the bargain; for,
to tell the truth, he was afraid lest the Master Thief should steal the
eyes out of his head, and that the people would begin to say spiteful
things of him if he broke his word. So the Master Thief lived well and
happily from that time forward. I don’t know whether he stole any more;
but if he did, I am quite sure it was only for the sake of a bit of
fun.




THE BEST WISH


Once on a time there were three brothers; I don’t quite know how it
happened, but each of them had got the right to wish one thing,
whatever he chose. So the two elder were not long a-thinking; they
wished that every time they put their hands in their pockets they might
pull out a piece of money; for, said they:

“The man who has as much money as he wishes for is always sure to get
on in the world.”

But the youngest wished something better still. He wished that every
woman he saw might fall in love with him as soon as she saw him; and
you shall soon hear how far better this was than gold and goods.

So, when they had all wished their wishes, the two elder were for
setting out to see the world; and Boots, their youngest brother, asked
if he mightn’t go along with them; but they wouldn’t hear of such a
thing.

“Wherever we go”, they said, “we shall be treated as counts and kings;
but you, you starveling wretch, who haven’t a penny, and never will
have one, who do you think will care a bit about you?”

“Well, but in spite of that, I’d like to go with you”, said Boots;
“perhaps a dainty bit may fall to my share too off the plates of such
high and mighty lords.”

At last, after begging and praying, he got leave to go with them, if he
would be their servant, else they wouldn’t hear of it.

So, when they had gone a day or so, they came to an inn, where the two
who had the money alighted, and called for fish and flesh, and fowl,
and brandy and mead, and everything that was good; but Boots, poor
fellow, had to look after their luggage and all that belonged to the
two great people. Now, as he went to and fro outside, and loitered
about in the inn-yard, the innkeeper’s wife looked out of window and
saw the servant of the gentlemen upstairs; and, all at once, she
thought she had never set eyes on such a handsome chap. So she stared
and stared, and the longer she looked the handsomer he seemed.

“Why what, by the Deil’s skin and bones, is it that you are standing
there gaping at out of the window?” said her husband. “I think ’twould
be better if you just looked how the sucking pig is getting on, instead
of hanging out of window in that way. Don’t you know what grand folk we
have in the house to-day?”

“Oh!” said his old dame, “I don’t care a farthing about such a pack of
rubbish; if they don’t like it they may lump it, and be off; but just
do come and look at this lad out in the yard; so handsome a fellow I
never saw in all my born days; and, if you’ll do as I wish, we’ll ask
him to step in and treat him a little, for, poor lad, he seems to have
a hard fight of it.”

“Have you lost the little brains you had, Goody?” said the husband,
whose eyes glistened with rage; “into the kitchen with you, and mind
the fire; but don’t stand there glowering after strange men.”

So the wife had nothing left for it but to go into the kitchen, and
look after the cooking; as for the lad outside, she couldn’t get leave
to ask him in, or to treat him either; but just as she was about
spitting the pig in the kitchen, she made an excuse for running out
into the yard, and then and there she gave Boots a pair of scissors, of
such a kind that they cut of themselves out of the air the loveliest
clothes any one ever saw, silk and satin, and all that was fine.

“This you shall have because you are so handsome,” said the innkeeper’s
wife.

So when the two elder brothers had crammed themselves with roast and
boiled, they wished to be off again, and Boots had to stand behind
their carriage, and be their servant; and so they travelled a good way,
till they came to another inn. There the two brothers again alighted
and went indoors, but Boots, who had no money, they wouldn’t have
inside with them; no, he must wait outside and watch the luggage. “And
mind”, they said, “if any one asks whose servant you are, say we are
two foreign Princes.”

But the same thing happened now as happened before; while Boots stood
hanging about out in the yard, the innkeeper’s wife came to the window
and saw him, and she too fell in love with him, just like the first
innkeeper’s wife; and there she stood and stared, for she thought she
could never have her fill of looking at him. Then her husband came
running through the room with something the two Princes had ordered.

“Don’t stand there staring like a cow at a barn-door, but take this
into the kitchen, and look after your fish-kettle, Goody”, said the
man; “don’t you see what grand people we have in the house to-day?”

“I don’t care a farthing for such a pack of rubbish”, said the wife;
“if they don’t like what they get they may lump it, and eat what they
brought with them. But just do come here, and see what you shall see!
Such a handsome fellow as walks here, out in the yard, I never saw in
all my born days. Shan’t we ask him in and treat him a little; he looks
as if he needed it, poor chap?” and then she went on:

“Such a love! such a love!”

“You never had much wit, and the little you had is clean gone, I can
see”, said the man, who was much more angry than the first innkeeper,
and chased his wife back, neck and crop, into the kitchen.

“Into the kitchen with you, and don’t stand glowering after lads”, he
said.

So she had to go in and mind her fish-kettle, and she dared not treat
Boots, for she was afraid of her old man; but as she stood there making
up the fire, she made an excuse for running out into the yard, and then
and there she gave Boots a table-cloth, which was such that it covered
itself with the best dishes you could think of, as soon as it was
spread out.

“This you shall have”, she said, “because you’re so handsome.”

So when the two brothers had eaten and drank of all that was in the
house, and had paid the bill in hard cash, they set off again, and
Boots stood up behind their carriage. But when they had gone so far
that they grew hungry again, they turned into a third inn, and called
for the best and dearest they could think of.

“For”, said they, “we are two kings on our travels, and as for our
money, it grows like grass.”

Well, when the innkeeper heard that, there was such a roasting, and
baking, and boiling; why! you might smell the dinner at the next
neighbour’s house, though it wasn’t so very near; and the innkeeper was
at his wits’ end to find all he wished to put before the two kings. But
Boots, he had to stand outside here too, and look after the things in
the carriage.

So it was the same story over again. The innkeeper’s wife came to the
window and peeped out, and there she saw the servant standing by the
carriage. Such a handsome chap she had never set eyes on before; so she
looked and looked, and the more she stared the handsomer he seemed to
the innkeeper’s wife. Then out came the innkeeper, scampering through
the room, with some dainty which the travelling kings had ordered, and
he wasn’t very soft-tongued when he saw his old dame standing and
glowering out of the window.

“Don’t you know better than to stand gaping and staring there, when we
have such great folk in the house”, he said; “back into the kitchen
with you this minute, to your custards.”

“Well! well!” she said, “as for them, I don’t care a pin. If they can’t
wait till the custards are baked, they may go without—that’s all. But
do, pray, come here, and you’ll see such a lovely lad standing out here
in the yard. Why I never saw such a pretty fellow in my life. Shan’t we
ask him in now, and treat him a little, for he looks as if it would do
him good. Oh! what a darling! What a darling!”

“A wanton gadabout you’ve been all your days, and so you are still”,
said her husband, who was in such a rage he scarce knew which leg to
stand on; “but if you don’t be off to your custards this minute, I’ll
soon find out how to make you stir your stumps; see if I don’t.”

So the wife had off to her custards as fast as she could, for she knew
that her husband would stand no nonsense; but as she stood there over
the fire she stole out into the yard, and gave Boots a tap.

“If you only turn this tap”, she said; “you’ll get the finest drink of
whatever kind you choose, both mead, and wine, and brandy; and this you
shall have because you are so handsome.”

So when the two brothers had eaten and drunk all they could, they
started from the inn, and Boots stood up behind again as their servant,
and thus they drove far and wide, till they came to a king’s palace.
There the two elder gave themselves out for two emperor’s sons, and as
they had plenty of money, and were so fine that their clothes shone
again ever so far off, they were well treated. They had rooms in the
palace, and the king couldn’t tell how to make enough of them. But
Boots, who went about in the same rags he stood in when he left home,
and who had never a penny in his pocket, he was taken up by the king’s
guard, and put across to an island, whither they used to row over all
the beggars and rogues that came to the palace. This the king had
ordered, because he wouldn’t have the mirth at the palace spoilt by
those dirty blackguards; and thither, too, only just as much food as
would keep body and soul together was sent over everyday. Now Boots’
brothers saw very well that the guard was rowing him over to the
island, but they were glad to be rid of him, and didn’t pay the least
heed to him.

But when Boots got over there, he just pulled out his scissors and
began to snip and cut in the air; so the scissors cut out the finest
clothes any one would wish to see; silk and satin both, and all the
beggars on the island were soon dressed far finer than the king and all
his guests in the palace. After that, Boots pulled out his table-cloth,
and spread it out, and so they got food too, the poor beggars. Such a
feast had never been seen at the king’s palace, as was served that day
at the Beggars’ Isle.

“Thirsty, too, I’ll be bound you all are”, said Boots, and out with his
tap, gave it a turn, and so the beggars got all a drop to drink; and
such ale and mead the king himself had never tasted in all his life.

So, next morning, when those who were to bring the beggars their food
on the island, came rowing over with the scrapings of the porridge-pots
and cheese-parings—that was what the poor wretches had—the beggars
wouldn’t so much as taste them, and the king’s men fell to wondering
what it could mean; but they wondered much more when they got a good
look at the beggars, for they were so fine the guard thought they must
be Emperors or Popes at least, and that they must have rowed to a wrong
island; but when they looked better about them, they saw they were come
to the old place.

Then they soon found out it must be he whom they had rowed out the day
before who had brought the beggars on the island all this state and
bravery; and as soon as they got back to the palace, they were not slow
to tell how the man, whom they had rowed over the day before, had
dressed out all the beggars so fine and grand that precious things fell
from their clothes.

“And as for the porridge and cheese we took, they wouldn’t even taste
them, so proud have they got”, they said.

One of them, too, had smelt out that the lad had a pair of scissors
which he cut out the clothes with.

“When he only snips with those scissors up in the air he snips and cuts
out nothing but silk and satin”, said he.

So, when the Princess heard that, she had neither peace nor rest till
she saw the lad and his scissors that cut out silk and satin from the
air; such a pair was worth having, she thought, for with its help she
would soon get all the finery she wished for. Well, she begged the king
so long and hard, he was forced to send a messenger for the lad who
owned the scissors; and when he came to the palace, the Princess asked
him if it were true that he had such and such a pair of scissors, and
if he would sell it to her. Yes, it was all true he had such a pair,
said Boots, but sell it he wouldn’t; and with that he took the scissors
out of his pocket, and snipped and snipped with them in the air till
strips of silk and satin flew all about him.

“Nay, but you must sell me these scissors”, said the Princess. “You may
ask what you please for them, but have them I must.”

No! Such a pair of scissors he wouldn’t sell at any price, for he could
never get such a pair again; and while they stood and haggled for the
scissors, the Princess had time to look better at Boots, and she too
thought with the innkeepers’ wives that she had never seen such a
handsome fellow before. So she began to bargain for the scissors over
again, and begged and prayed Boots to let her have them; he might ask
many, many hundred dollars for them, ’twas all the same to her, so she
got them.

“No! sell them I won’t”, said Boots; “but all the same, if I can get
leave to sleep one night on the floor of the Princess’ bedroom, close
by the door, I’ll give her the scissors. I’ll do her no harm, but if
she’s afraid, she may have two men to watch inside the room.”

Yes! the Princess was glad enough to give him leave, for she was ready
to grant him anything if she only got the scissors. So Boots lay on the
floor inside the Princess’ bedroom that night, and two men stood watch
there too; but the Princess didn’t get much rest after all; for when
she ought to have been asleep, she must open her eyes to look at Boots,
and so it went on the whole night. If she shut her eyes for a minute,
she peeped out at him again the next, such a handsome fellow he seemed
to her to be.

Next morning Boots was rowed over to the Beggars’ isle again; but when
they came with the porridge scrapings and cheese parings from the
palace, there was no one who would taste them that day either, and so
those who brought the food were more astonished than ever. But one of
those who brought the food contrived to smell out that the lad who had
owned the scissors owned also a table-cloth, which he only needed to
spread out, and it was covered with all the good things he could wish
for. So when he got back to the palace, he wasn’t long before he said:

“Such hot joints and such custards I never saw the like of in the
king’s palace.”

And when the Princess heard that, she told it to the king, and begged
and prayed so long, that he was forced to send a messenger out to the
island to fetch the lad who owned the table-cloth; and so Boots came
back to the palace. The Princess must and would have the cloth of him,
and offered him gold and green woods for it, but Boots wouldn’t sell it
at any price.

“But if I may have leave to lie on the bench by the Princess’ bed-side
to-night, she shall have the cloth; but if she’s afraid, she is welcome
to set four men to watch inside the room.”

Yes! the Princess agreed to this, so Boots lay down on the bench by the
bed-side, and the four men watched; but if the Princess hadn’t much
sleep the night before, she had much less this, for she could scarce
get a wink of sleep; there she lay wide awake looking at the lovely lad
the whole night through, and after all, the night seemed too short.

Next morning Boots was rowed off again to the Beggars’ island, though
sorely against the Princess’ will, so happy was she to be near him; but
it was past praying for; to the island he must go, and there was an end
of it. But when those who brought the food to the beggars came with the
porridge scrapings and cheese parings, there wasn’t one of them who
would even look at what the king sent, and those who brought it didn’t
wonder either; though they all thought it strange that none of them
were thirsty. But just then, one of the king’s guard smelled out that
the lad who had owned the scissors and the table-cloth had a tap
besides, which, if one only turned it a little, gave out the rarest
drink, both ale, and mead, and wine. So when he came back to the
palace, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut this time any more than before;
he went about telling high and low about the tap, and how easy it was
to draw all sorts of drink out of it.

“And as for that mead and ale, I’ve never tasted the like of them in
the king’s palace; honey and syrup are nothing to them for sweetness.”

So when the Princess heard that, she was all for getting the tap, and
was nothing loath to strike a bargain with the owner either. So she
went again to the king, and begged him to send a messenger to the
Beggars’ Isle after the lad who had owned the scissors and cloth, for
now he had another thing worth having, she said; and when the king
heard it was a tap, that was good to give the best ale and wine any one
could drink, when one gave it a turn, he wasn’t long in sending the
messenger, I should think.

So when Boots came up to the palace, the Princess asked whether it were
true he had a tap which could do such and such things? “Yes! he had
such a tap in his waistcoat pocket”, said Boots; but when the Princess
wished with all her might to buy it, Boots said, as he had said twice
before, he wouldn’t sell it, even if the Princess bade half the kingdom
for it.

“But all the same”, said Boots; “if I may have leave to sleep on the
Princess’ bed to-night, outside the quilt, she shall have my tap. I’ll
not do her any harm; but, if she’s afraid, she may set eight men to
watch in her room.”

“Oh, no!” said the Princess, “there was no need of that, she knew him
now so well”; and so Boots lay outside the Princess’ bed that night.
But if she hadn’t slept much the two nights before, she had less sleep
that night; for she couldn’t shut her eyes the livelong night, but lay
and looked at Boots, who lay alongside her outside the quilt.

So, when she got up in the morning, and they were going to row Boots
back to the island, she begged them to hold hard a little bit; and in
she ran to the king, and begged him so prettily to let her have Boots
for a husband, she was so fond of him, and, unless she had him, she did
not care to live.

“Well, well!” said the king, “you shall have him if you must; for he
who has such things is just as rich as you are.”

So Boots got the Princess and half the kingdom—the other half he was to
have when the king died; and so everything went smooth and well; but as
for his brothers, who had always been so bad to him, he packed them off
to the Beggars’ island.

“There”, said Boots, “perhaps they may find out which is best off, the
man who has his pockets full of money, or the man whom all women fall
in love with.”

Nor, to tell you the truth, do I think it would help them much to
wander about upon the Beggars’ island pulling pieces of money out of
their pockets; and so, if Boots hasn’t taken them off the island, there
they are still walking about to this very day, eating cheese-parings
and the scrapings of the porridge-pots.




THE THREE BILLY-GOATS GRUFF


Once on a time there were three Billy-goats, who were to go up to the
hill-side to make themselves fat, and the name of all three was
“Gruff”.

On the way up was a bridge over a burn they had to cross; and under the
bridge lived a great ugly Troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a
nose as long as a poker.

So first of all came the youngest billy-goat Gruff to cross the bridge.

“Trip, trap; trip, trap!” went the bridge.

“WHO’S THAT tripping over my bridge?” roared the Troll.

“Oh! it is only I, the tiniest billy-goat Gruff; and I’m going up to
the hill-side to make myself fat”, said the billy-goat, with such a
small voice.

“Now, I’m coming to gobble you up”, said the Troll.

“Oh, no! pray don’t take me. I’m too little, that I am”, said the
billy-goat; “wait a bit till the second billy-goat Gruff comes, he’s
much bigger.”

“Well! be off with you”, said the Troll.

A little while after came the second billy-goat Gruff to cross the
bridge.

“TRIP, TRAP! TRIP, TRAP! TRIP, TRAP!” went the bridge.

“WHO’S THAT tripping over my bridge?” roared the Troll.

“Oh! it’s the second billy-goat Gruff, and I’m going up to the
hill-side to make myself fat”, said the billy-goat, who hadn’t such a
small voice.

“Now, I’m coming to gobble you up”, said the Troll.

“Oh, no! don’t take me, wait a little till the big billy-goat Gruff
comes, he’s much bigger.”

“Very well! be off with you”, said the Troll.

But just then up came the big billy-goat Gruff.

“TRIP, TRAP! TRIP, TRAP! TRIP, TRAP!” went the bridge, for the
billy-goat was so heavy that the bridge creaked and groaned under him.

“WHO’S THAT tramping over my bridge?” roared the Troll.

“IT’S I! THE BIG BILLY-GOAT GRUFF”, said the billy-goat, who had an
ugly hoarse voice of his own.

“Now, I’m coming to gobble you up”, roared the Troll.

Well, come along! I’ve got two spears,
And I’ll poke your eyeballs out at your ears;
I’ve got besides two curling-stones,
And I’ll crush you to bits, body and bones.


That was what the big billy-goat said; and so he flew at the Troll and
poked his eyes out with his horns, and crushed him to bits, body and
bones, and tossed him out into the burn, and after that he went up to
the hill-side. There the billy-goats got so fat they were scarce able
to walk home again; and if the fat hasn’t fallen off them, why they’re
still fat; and so:

Snip, snap, snout,
This tale’s told out.




WELL DONE AND ILL PAID


Once on a time there was a man, who had to drive his sledge to the wood
for fuel. So a Bear met him.

“Out with your horse”, said the Bear, “or I’ll strike all your sheep
dead by summer.”

“Oh! heaven help me then”, said the man; “there’s not a stick of
firewood in the house; you must let me drive home a load of fuel, else
we shall be frozen to death. I’ll bring the horse to you to-morrow
morning.”

Yes! on those terms he might drive the wood home, that was a bargain;
but Bruin said, “if he didn’t come back, he should lose all his sheep
by summer”.

So the man got the wood on the sledge and rattled homewards, but he
wasn’t over pleased at the bargain you may fancy. So just then a Fox
met him.

“Why, what’s the matter?” said the Fox; “why are you so down in the
mouth?”

“Oh, if you want to know”, said the man; “I met a Bear up yonder in the
wood, and I had to give my word to him to bring Dobbin back to-morrow,
at this very hour; for if he didn’t get him, he said he would tear all
my sheep to death by summer.”

“Stuff, nothing worse than that”, said the Fox; “if you’ll give me your
fattest wether, I’ll soon set you free; see if I don’t.”

Yes! the man gave his word, and swore he would keep it too.

“Well, when you come with Dobbin to-morrow for the bear”, said the Fox,
“I’ll make a clatter up in that heap of stones yonder, and so when the
bear asks what that noise is, you must say ’tis Peter the Marksman, who
is the best shot in the world; and after that you must help yourself.”

Next day off set the man, and when he met the Bear, something began to
make a clatter up in the heap of stones.

“Hist! what’s that?” said the Bear.

“Oh! that’s Peter the Marksman, to be sure”, said the than; “he’s the
best shot in the world. I know him by his voice.”

“Have you seen any bears about here, Eric?” shouted out a voice in the
wood.

“Say, no!” said the Bear.

“No, I haven’t seen any”, said Eric.

“What’s that then, that stands alongside your sledge?” bawled out the
voice in the wood.

“Say it’s an old fir-stump”, said the Bear.

“Oh, it’s only an old fir-stump”, said the man.

“Such fir-stumps we take in our country and roll them on our sledges”,
bawled out the voice; “if you can’t do it yourself, I’ll come and help
you.”

“Say you can help yourself, and roll me up on the sledge”, said the
Bear.

“No, thank ye, I can help myself well enough”, said the man, and rolled
the Bear on to the sledge.

“Such fir-stumps we always bind fast on our sledges in our part of the
world”, bawled out the voice; “shall I come and help you?”

“Say you can help yourself, and bind me fast, do”, said the Bear.

“No, thanks, I can help myself well enough”, said the man, who set to
binding Bruin fast with all the ropes he had, so that at last the bear
couldn’t stir a paw.

“Such fir-stumps we always drive our axes into, in our part of the
world”, bawled out the voice; “for then we guide them better going down
the steep pitches.”

“Pretend to drive your axe into me, do now”, said the bear. Then the
man took up his axe, and at one blow split the bear’s skull, so that
Bruin lay dead in a trice, and so the man and the Fox were great
friends, and on the best terms. But when they came near the farm, the
Fox said:

“I’ve no mind to go right home with you, for I can’t say I like your
tykes; so I’ll just wait here, and you can bring the wether to me, but
mind and pick out one nice and fat.”

Yes! the man would be sure to do that, and thanked the Fox much for his
help. So when he had put up Dobbin, he went across to the sheep-stall.

“Whither away, now?” asked his old dame.

“Oh!” said the man, “I’m only going to the sheep-stall to fetch a fat
wether for that cunning Fox, who set our Dobbin free. I gave him my
word I would.”

“Whither, indeed”, said the old dame; “never a one shall that thief of
a Fox get. Haven’t we got Dobbin safe, and the bear into the bargain;
and as for the Fox, I’ll be bound he’s stolen more of our geese than
the wether is worth; and even if he hasn’t stolen them, he will. No,
no; take a brace of your swiftest hounds in a sack, and slip them loose
after him; and then, perhaps, we shall be rid of this robbing Reynard.”

Well, the man thought that good advice; so he took two fleet red
hounds, put them into a sack, and set off with them.

“Have you brought the wether?” said the Fox.

“Yes, come and take it”, said the man, as he untied the sack and let
slip the hounds.

“HUF”, said the Fox, and gave a great spring; “true it is what the old
saw says, ‘Well done is often ill paid’; and now, too, I see the truth
of another saying, ‘The worst foes are those of one’s own house.’” That
was what the Fox said as he ran off, and saw the red foxy hounds at his
heels.




THE HUSBAND WHO WAS TO MIND THE HOUSE


Once on a time there was a man, so surly and cross, he never thought
his wife did anything right in the house. So, one evening, in
hay-making time, he came home, scolding and swearing, and showing his
teeth and making a dust.

“Dear love, don’t be so angry; there’s a good man”, said his goody;
“to-morrow let’s change our work. I’ll go out with the mowers and mow,
and you shall mind the house at home.”

Yes! the husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing,
he said.

So, early next morning, his goody took a scythe over her neck, and went
out into the hay-field with the mowers, and began to mow; but the man
was to mind the house, and do the work at home.

First of all, he wanted to churn the butter; but when he had churned a
while, he got thirsty, and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of
ale. So, just when he had knocked in the bung, and was putting the tap
into the cask, he heard overhead the pig come into the kitchen. Then
off he ran up the cellar steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he
could, to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn; but when
he got up, and saw the pig had already knocked the churn over, and
stood there, routing and grunting amongst the cream which was running
all over the floor, he got so wild with rage that he quite forgot the
ale-barrel, and ran at the pig as hard as he could. He caught it, too,
just as it ran out of doors, and gave it such a kick, that piggy lay
for dead on the spot.

Then all at once he remembered he had the tap in his hand; but when he
got down to the cellar, every drop of ale had run out of the cask.

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the
churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at
dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow
was still shut up in the byre, and hadn’t had a bit to eat or a drop to
drink all the morning, though the sun was high. Then all at once he
thought ’twas too far to take her down to the meadow, so he’d just get
her up on the house top-for the house, you must know, was thatched with
sods, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now their house lay
close up against a steep down, and he thought if he laid a plank across
to the thatch at the back he’d easily get the cow up.

But still he couldn’t leave the churn, for there was his little babe
crawling about on the floor, and “if I leave it”, he thought, “the
child is safe to upset it”. So he took the churn on his back, and went
out with it; but then he thought he’d better first water the cow before
he turned her out on the thatch; so he took up a bucket to draw water
out of the well; but, as he stooped down at the well’s brink, all the
cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders, and so down into the
well.

Now it was near dinner-time, and he hadn’t even got the butter yet; so
he thought he’d best boil the porridge, and filled the pot with water,
and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow
might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he
got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to
the cow’s neck and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round
his own thigh; and he had to make haste, for the water now began to
boil in the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.

So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, down fell the
cow off the house-top after all, and as she fell, she dragged the man
up the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast; and as for the cow,
she hung half-way down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for
she could neither get down nor up.

And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her
husband to come and call them home to dinner; but never a call they
had. At last she thought she’d waited long enough, and went home. But
when she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she
ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But as she did this,
down came her husband out of the chimney; and so when his old dame came
inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the
porridge pot.




DAPPLEGRIM


Once on a time there was a rich couple who had twelve sons; but the
youngest when he was grown up, said he wouldn’t stay any longer at
home, but be off into the world to try his luck. His father and mother
said he did very well at home, and had better stay where he was. But
no, he couldn’t rest; away he must and would go. So at last they gave
him leave. And when he had walked a good bit, he came to a king’s
palace, where he asked for a place, and got it.

Now the daughter of the king of that land had been carried off into the
hill by a Troll, and the king had no other children; so he and all his
land were in great grief and sorrow, and the king gave his word that
any one who could set her free should have the Princess and half the
kingdom. But there was no one who could do it, though many tried.

So when the lad had been there a year or so, he longed to go home again
and see his father and mother, and back he went, but when he got home
his father and mother were dead, and his brothers had shared all that
the old people owned between them, and so there was nothing left for
the lad.

“Shan’t I have anything at all, then, out of father’s and mother’s
goods?” said the lad.

“Who could tell you were still alive, when you went gadding and
wandering about so long?” said his brothers. “But all the same; there
are twelve mares up on the hill which we haven’t yet shared among us;
if you choose to take them for your share, you’re quite welcome.”

Yes! the lad was quite content; so he thanked his brothers, and went at
once up on the hill, where the twelve mares were out at grass. And when
he got up there and found them, each of them had a foal at her side,
and one of them had besides, along with her, a big dapple-gray foal,
which was so sleek that the sun shone from its coat.

“A fine fellow you are, my little foal”, said the lad.

“Yes”, said the foal; “but if you’ll only kill all the other foals, so
that I may run and suck all the mares one year more, you’ll see how big
and sleek I’ll be then.”

Yes! the lad was ready to do that; so he killed all those twelve foals,
and went home again.

So when he came back the next year to look after his foal and mares,
the foal was so fat and sleek, that the sun shone from its coat, and it
had grown so big, the lad had hard work to mount it. As for the mares,
they had each of them another foal.

“Well, it’s quite plain I lost nothing by letting you suck all my
twelve mares”, said the lad to the yearling, “but now you’re big enough
to come along with me.”

“No”, said the colt, “I must bide here a year longer; and now kill all
the twelve foals, that I may suck all the mares this year too, and
you’ll see how big and sleek I’ll be by summer.”

Yes! the lad did that; and next year when he went up on the hill to
look after his colt and the mares, each mare had her foal, but the
dapple colt was so tall the lad couldn’t reach up to his crest when he
wanted to feel how fat he was; and so sleek he was too, that his coat
glistened in the sunshine.

“Big and beautiful you were last year, my colt”, said the lad, “but
this year you’re far grander. There’s no such horse in the king’s
stable. But now you must come along with me.”

“No”, said Dapple again, “I must stay here one year more. Kill the
twelve foals as before, that I may suck the mares the whole year, and
then just come and look at me when the summer comes.”

Yes! the lad did that; he killed the foals, and went away home.

But when he went up next year to look after Dapple and the mares, he
was quite astonished. So tall, and stout, and sturdy, he never thought
a horse could be; for Dapple had to lie down on all fours before the
lad could bestride him, and it was hard work to get up even then,
although he lay flat; and his coat was so smooth and sleek, the
sunbeams shone from it as from a looking-glass.

This time Dapple was willing enough to follow the lad, so he jumped up
on his back, and when he came riding home to his brothers, they all
clapped their hands and crossed themselves, for such a horse they had
never heard of nor seen before.

“If you will only get me the best shoes you can for my horse, and the
grandest saddle and bridle that are to be found”, said the lad, “you
may have my twelve mares that graze up on the hill yonder, and their
twelve foals into the bargain.” For you must know that this year too
every mare had her foal.

Yes, his brothers were ready to do that, and so the lad got such strong
shoes under his horse, that the stones flew high aloft as he rode away
across the hills; and he had a golden saddle and a golden bridle, which
gleamed and glistened a long way off.

“Now we’re off to the king’s palace”, said Dapplegrim—that was his
name; “but mind you ask the king for a good stable and good fodder for
me.”

Yes! the lad said he would mind; he’d be sure not to forget; and when
he rode off from his brothers’ house, you may be sure it wasn’t long,
with such a horse under him, before he got to the king’s palace.

When he came there the king was standing on the steps, and stared and
stared at the man who came riding along.

“Nay, nay!”, said he, “such a man and such a horse I never yet saw in
all my life.”

But when the lad asked if he could get a place in the king’s household,
the king was so glad he was ready to jump and dance as he stood on the
steps.

Well, they said, perhaps he might get a place there.

“Aye”, said the lad, “but I must have good stable-room for my horse,
and fodder that one can trust.”

Yes! he should have meadow-hay and oats, as much as Dapple could cram,
and all the other knights had to lead their horses out of the stable
that Dapplegrim might stand alone, and have it all to himself.

But it wasn’t long before all the others in the king’s household began
to be jealous of the lad, and there was no end to the bad things they
would have done to him, if they had only dared. At last they thought of
telling the king he had said he was man enough to set the king’s
daughter free—whom the Troll had long since carried away into the
hill—if he only chose. The king called the lad before him, and said he
had heard the lad said he was good to do so and so; so now he must go
and do it. If he did it, he knew how the king had promised his daughter
and half the kingdom, and that promise would be faithfully kept; if he
didn’t, he should be killed.

The lad kept on saying he never said any such thing; but it was no
good—the king wouldn’t even listen to him; and so the end of it was he
was forced to say he’d go and try.

So he went into the stable, down in the mouth and heavy-hearted, and
then Dapplegrim asked him at once why he was in such dumps.

Then the lad told him all, and how he couldn’t tell which way to turn:

“For as for setting the Princess free, that’s downright stuff.”

“Oh! but it might be done, perhaps”, said Dapplegrim. “I’ll help you
through; but you must first have me well shod. You must go and ask for
ten pound of iron and twelve pound of steel for the shoes, and one
smith to hammer and another to hold.”

Yes, the lad did that, and got for answer “Yes!” He got both the iron
and the steel, and the smiths, and so Dapplegrim was shod both strong
and well, and off went the lad from the court-yard in a cloud of dust.

But when he came to the hill into which the Princess had been carried,
the pinch was how to get up the steep wall of rock where the Troll’s
cave was, in which the Princess had been hid. For you must know the
hill stood straight up and down right on end, as upright as a
house-wall, and as smooth as a sheet of glass.

The first time the lad went at it he got a little way up; but then
Dapple’s fore-legs slipped, and down they went again, with a sound like
thunder on the hill.

The second time he rode at it he got some way further up; but then one
fore-leg slipped, and down they went with a crash like a landslip.

But the third time Dapple said:

“Now we must show our mettle”; and went at it again till the stones
flew heaven-high about them, and so they got up.

Then the lad rode right into the cave at full speed, and caught up the
Princess, and threw her over his saddle-bow and out and down again
before the Troll had time even to get on his legs; and so the Princess
was freed.

When the lad came back to the palace, the king was both happy and glad
to get his daughter back; that you may well believe; but somehow or
other, though I don’t know how, the others about the court had so
brought it about that the king was angry with the lad after all.

“Thanks you shall have for freeing my Princess”, said he to the lad,
when he brought the Princess into the hall, and made his bow.

“She ought to be mine as well as yours; for you’re a word-fast man, I
hope”, said the lad.

“Aye, aye!” said the king, “have her you shall, since I said it; but
first of all, you must make the sun shine into my palace hall.”

Now, you must know there was a high steep ridge of rock close outside
the windows, which threw such a shade over the hall that never a
sunbeam shone into it.

“That wasn’t in our bargain”, answered the lad; “but I see this is past
praying against; I must e’en go and try my luck, for the Princess I
must and will have.”

So down he went to Dapple, and told him what the king wanted, and
Dapplegrim thought it might easily be done, but first of all he must be
new shod; and for that ten pound of iron, and twelve pound of steel
besides, were needed, and two smiths, one to hammer and the other to
hold, and then they’d soon get the sun to shine into the palace hall.

So when the lad asked for all these things, he got them at once—the
king couldn’t say nay for very shame; and so Dapplegrim got new shoes,
and such shoes! Then the lad jumped upon his back, and off they went
again; and for every leap that Dapplegrim gave, down sank the ridge
fifteen ells into the earth, and so they went on till there was nothing
left of the ridge for the king to see.

When the lad got back to the king’s palace, he asked the king if the
Princess were not his now; for now no one could say that the sun didn’t
shine into the hall. But then the others set the king’s back up again,
and he answered the lad should have her of course, he had never thought
of anything else; but first of all he must get as grand a horse for the
bride to ride on to church as the bridegroom had himself.

The lad said the king hadn’t spoken a word about this before, and that
he thought he had now fairly earned the Princess; but the king held to
his own; and more, if the lad couldn’t do that he should lose his life;
that was what the king said. So the lad went down to the stable in
doleful dumps, as you may well fancy, and there he told Dapplegrim all
about it; how the king had laid that task on him, to find the bride as
good a horse as the bridegroom had himself, else he would lose his
life.

“But that’s not so easy”, he said, “for your match isn’t to be found in
the wide world.”

“Oh yes, I have a match”, said Dapplegrim; “but ’tisn’t so easy to find
him, for he abides in Hell. Still we’ll try. And now you must go up to
the king and ask for new shoes for me, ten pound of iron, and twelve
pound of steel; and two smiths, one to hammer and one to hold; and mind
you see that the points and ends of these shoes are sharp; and twelve
sacks of rye, and twelve sacks of barley, and twelve slaughtered oxen,
we must have with us; and mind, we must have the twelve ox-hides, with
twelve hundred spikes driven into each; and, let me see, a big
tar-barrel—that’s all we want.”

So the lad went up to the king and asked for all that Dapplegrim had
said, and the king again thought he couldn’t say nay, for shame’s sake,
and so the lad got all he wanted.

Well, he jumped up on Dapplegrim’s back, and rode away from the palace,
and when he had ridden far far over hill and heath, Dapple asked:

“Do you hear anything?”

“Yes, I hear an awful hissing and rustling up in the air,” said the
lad; “I think I’m getting afraid.”

“That’s all the wild birds that fly through the wood. They are sent to
stop us; but just cut a hole in the corn-sacks, and then they’ll have
so much to do with the corn, they’ll forget us quite.”

Yes! the lad did that; he cut holes in the corn-sacks, so that the rye
and barley ran out on all sides. Then all the wild birds that were in
the wood came flying round them so thick that the sunbeams grew dark;
but as soon as they saw the corn, they couldn’t keep to their purpose,
but flew down and began to pick and scratch at the rye and barley, and
after that they began to fight among themselves. As for Dapplegrim and
the lad, they forgot all about them, and did them no harm.

So the lad rode on and on—far far over mountain and dale, over
sand-hills and moor. Then Dapplegrim began to prick up his ears again,
and at last he asked the lad if he heard anything?

“Yes! now I hear such an ugly roaring and howling in the wood all
round, it makes me quite afraid.”

“Ah!” said Dapplegrim, “that’s all the wild beasts that range through
the wood, and they’re sent out to stop us. But just cast out the twelve
carcasses of the oxen, that will give them enough to do, and so they’ll
forget us outright.”

Yes! the lad cast out the carcasses, and then all the wild beasts in
the wood, both bears, and wolves, and lions—all fell beasts of all
kinds—came after them. But when they saw the carcasses, they began to
fight for them among themselves till blood flowed in streams; but
Dapplegrim and the lad they quite forgot.

So the lad rode far away, and they changed the landscape many many
times, for Dapplegrim didn’t let the grass grow under him, as you may
fancy. At last Dapple gave a great neigh.

“Do you hear anything?” he said.

“Yes, I hear something like a colt neighing loud, a long long way off”,
answered the lad.

“That’s a full-grown colt then”, said Dapplegrim, “if we hear him neigh
so loud such a long way off.”

After that they travelled a good bit, changing the landscape once or
twice, maybe. Then Dapplegrim gave another neigh.

“Now listen, and tell me if you hear anything”, he said.

“Yes, now I hear a neigh like a full-grown horse”, answered the lad.

“Aye! aye!” said Dapplegrim, “you’ll hear him once again soon, and then
you’ll hear he’s got a voice of his own.”

So they travelled on and on, and changed the landscape once or twice,
perhaps, and then Dapplegrim neighed the third time; but before he
could ask the lad if he heard anything, something gave such a neigh
across the heathy hill-side, the lad thought hill and rock would surely
be rent asunder.

“Now, he’s here!” said Dapplegrim; “make haste, now, and throw the ox
hides, with the spikes in them, over me, and throw down the tar-barrel
on the plain; then climb up into that great spruce-fir yonder. When it
comes fire will flash out of both nostrils, and then the tar-barrel
will catch fire. Now, mind what I say. If the flame rises, I win; if it
falls, I lose; but if you see me winning take and cast the bridle—you
must take it off me—over its head, and then it will be tame enough.”

So just as the lad had done throwing the ox hides, with the spikes,
over Dapplegrim, and had cast down the tar-barrel on the plain, and had
got well up into the spruce-fir, up galloped a horse, with fire
flashing out of his nostrils, and the flame caught the tar-barrel at
once. Then Dapplegrim and the strange horse began to fight till the
stones flew heaven high. They fought and bit, and kicked, both with
fore-feet and hind-feet, and sometimes the lad could see them, and
sometimes he couldn’t; but at last the flame began to rise; for
wherever the strange horse kicked or bit, he met the spiked hides, and
at last he had to yield. When the lad saw that, he wasn’t long in
getting down from the tree, and in throwing the bridle over its head,
and then it was so tame you could hold it with a pack-thread.

And what do you think? that horse was dappled too, and so like
Dapplegrim, you couldn’t tell which was which. Then the lad bestrode
the new Dapple he had broken, and rode home to the palace, and old
Dapplegrim ran loose by his side. So when he got home, there stood the
king out in the yard.

“Can you tell me now”, said the lad, “which is the horse I have caught
and broken, and which is the one I had before. If you can’t, I think
your daughter is fairly mine.”

Then the king went and looked at both Dapples, high and low, before and
behind, but there wasn’t a hair on one which wasn’t on the other as
well. “No”, said the king, “that I can’t; and since you’ve got my
daughter such a grand horse for her wedding, you shall have her with
all my heart. But still, we’ll have one trial more, just to see whether
you’re fated to have her. First, she shall hide herself twice, and then
you shall hide yourself twice. If you can find out her hiding-place,
and she can’t find out yours, why then you’re fated to have her, and so
you shall have her.”

“That’s not in the bargain either”, said the lad; “but we must just
try, since it must be so”; and so the Princess went off to hide herself
first.

So she turned herself into a duck, and lay swimming on a pond that was
close to the palace. But the lad only ran down to the stable, and asked
Dapplegrim what she had done with herself.

“Oh, you only need to take your gun”, said Dapplegrim, “and go down to
the brink of the pond, and aim at the duck which lies swimming about
there, and she’ll soon show herself.”

So the lad snatched up his gun and ran off to the pond. “I’ll just take
a pop at this duck”, he said, and began to aim at it.

“Nay, nay, dear friend, don’t shoot. It’s I”, said the Princess.

So he had found her once.

The second time the Princess turned herself into a loaf of bread, and
laid herself on the table among four other loaves; and so like was she
to the others, no one could say which was which.

But the lad went again down to the stable to Dapplegrim, and said how
the Princess had hidden herself again, and he couldn’t tell at all what
had become of her.

“Oh, just take and sharpen a good bread-knife”, said Dapplegrim,” and
do as if you were going to cut in two the third loaf on the left hand
of those four loaves which are lying on the dresser in the king’s
kitchen, and you’ll find her soon enough.”

Yes! the was down in the kitchen in no time, and began to sharpen the
biggest bread-knife he could lay hands on; then he caught hold of the
third loaf on the left hand, and put the knife to it, as though he was
going to cut it in two. I’ll just have a slice off this loaf”, he said,

Nay, dear friend”, said the Princess, “don’t cut. It’s I” So he had
found her twice.

Then he was to go and hide; but he and Dapplegrim had settled it all so
well beforehand, it wasn’t easy to find him. First he turned himself
into a tick, and hid himself in Dapplegrim’s left nostril; and the
Princess went about hunting him everywhere, high and low; at last she
wanted to go into Dapplegrim’s stall, but he began to bite and kick, so
that she daren’t go near him, and so she couldn’t find the lad.

“Well”, she said, “since I can’t find you, you must show where you are
yourself”; and in a trice the lad stood there on the stable floor.

The second time Dapplegrim told him again what to do; and then he
turned himself into a clod of earth, and stuck himself between Dapple’s
hoof and shoe on the near forefoot. So the Princess hunted up and down,
out and in, everywhere; at last she came into the stable, and wanted to
go into Dapplegrim’s loose-box. This time he let her come up to him,
and she pried high and low, but under his hoofs she couldn’t come, for
he stood firm as a rock on his feet, and so she couldn’t find the lad.

“Well; you must just show yourself, for I’m sure I can’t find you”,
said the Princess, and as she spoke the lad stood by her side on the
stable floor.

“Now you are mine indeed”, said the lad; “for now you can see I’m fated
to have you.” This he said both to the father and daughter.

“Yes; it is so fated”, said the king; “so it must be.” Then they got
ready the wedding in right down earnest, and lost no time about it; and
the lad got on Dapplegrim, and the Princess on Dapplegrim’s match, and
then you may fancy they were not long on their way to the church.




FARMER WEATHERSKY


Once on a time there was a man and his wife, who had an only son, and
his name was Jack. The old dame thought it high time for her son to go
out into the world to learn a trade, and bade her husband be off with
him.

“But all you do”, she said, “mind you bind him to some one who can
teach him to be master above all masters”; and with that she put some
food and a roll of tobacco into a bag, and packed them off.

Well! they went to many masters; but one and all said they could make
the lad as good as themselves, but better they couldn’t make him. So
when the man came home again to his wife with that answer, she said:

“I don’t care what you make of him; but this I say and stick to, you
must bind him to some one where he can learn to be master above all
masters”; and with that she packed up more food and another roll of
tobacco, and father and son had to be off again.

Now when they had walked a while they got upon the ice, and there they
met a man who came whisking along in a sledge, and drove a black horse.

“Whither away?” said the man.

“Well!” said the father, “I’m going to bind my son to some one who is
good to teach him a trade; but my old dame comes of such fine folk, she
will have him taught to be master above all masters.”

“Well met then”, said the driver; “I’m just the man for your money, for
I’m looking out for such an apprentice. Up with you behind!” he added
to the lad, and whisk! off they went, both of them, and sledge and
horse, right up into the air.

“Nay, nay!” cried the lad’s father, “you haven’t told me your name, nor
where you live.”

“Oh!” said the master, “I’m at home alike north and south, and east and
west, and my name’s _Farmer Weathersky_. In a year and a day you may
come here again, and then I’ll tell you if I like him.” So away they
went through the air, and were soon out of sight.

So when the man got home, his old dame asked what had become of her
son.

“Well”, said the man, “Heaven knows, I’m sure I don’t. They went up
aloft”; and so he told her what had happened. But when the old dame
heard that her husband couldn’t tell at all when her son’s
apprenticeship would be out, nor whither he had gone, she packed him
off again, and gave him another bag of food and another roll of
tobacco.

So, when he had walked a bit, he came to a great wood, which stretched
on and on all day as he walked through it. When it got dark he saw a
great light, and he went towards it. After a long, long time he came to
a little but under a rock, and outside stood an old hag drawing water
out of a well with her nose, so long was it.

“Good evening, mother!” said the man.

“The same to you”, said the old hag. “It’s hundreds of years since any
one called me mother.”

“Can I have lodging here to-night?” asked the man.

“No! that you can’t”, said she.

But then the man pulled out his roll of tobacco, lighted his pipe, and
gave the old dame a whiff, and a pinch of snuff. Then she was so happy
she began to dance for joy, and the end was, she gave the man leave to
stop the night.

So next morning he began to ask after Farmer Weathersky. “No! she never
heard tell of him, but she ruled over all the four-footed beasts;
perhaps some of them might know him.” So she played them all home with
a pipe she had, and asked them all, but there wasn’t one of them who
knew anything about Farmer Weathersky.

“Well!” said the old hag, “there are three sisters of us; maybe one of
the other two know where he lives. I’ll lend you my horse and sledge,
and then you’ll be at her house by night; but it’s at least three
hundred miles off, the nearest way.”

Then the man started off, and at night reached the house, and when he
came there, there stood another old hag before the door, drawing water
out of the well with her nose.

“Good evening, mother!” said the man.

“The same to you”, said she; “it’s hundreds of years since any one
called me mother.”

“Can I lodge here to-night?” asked the man.

“No!” said the old hag.

But he took out his roll of tobacco, lighted his pipe, and gave the old
dame a whiff, and a good pinch of snuff besides, on the back of her
hand. Then she was so happy that she began to jump and dance for joy,
and so the man got leave to stay the night. When that was over, he
began to ask after Farmer Weathersky. “No! she had never heard tell of
him; but she ruled all the fish in the sea; perhaps some of them might
know something about him.” So she played them all home with a pipe she
had, and asked them, but there wasn’t one of them who knew anything
about Farmer Weathersky.

“Well, well!” said the old hag, “there’s one sister of us left; maybe
she knows something about him. She lives six hundred miles off, but
I’ll lend you my horse and sledge, and then you’ll get there by
nightfall.”

Then the man started off, and reached the house by nightfall, and there
he found another old hag who stood before the grate, and stirred the
fire with her nose, so long and tough it was.

“Good evening, mother!” said the man.

“The same to you”, said the old hag; “it’s hundreds of years since any
one called me mother.”

“Can I lodge here to-night?” asked the man.

“No”, said the old hag.

Then the man pulled out his roll of tobacco again, and lighted his
pipe, and gave the old hag such a pinch of snuff it covered the whole
back of her hand. Then she got so happy she began to dance for joy, and
so the man got leave to stay. But when the night was over, he began to
ask after Farmer Weathersky. She never heard tell of him she said; but
she ruled over all the birds of the air, and so she played them all
home with a pipe she had, and when she had mustered them all, the Eagle
was missing. But a little while after he came flying home, and when she
asked him, he said he had just come straight from Farmer Weathersky.
Then the old hag said he must guide the man thither; but the eagle said
he must have something to eat first, and besides he must rest till the
next day; he was so tired with flying that long way, he could scarce
rise from the earth.

So when he had eaten his fill and taken a good rest, the old hag pulled
a feather out of the Eagle’s tail, and put the man there in its stead;
so the Eagle flew off with the man, and flew, and flew, but they didn’t
reach Farmer Weathersky’s house before midnight.

So when they got there, the Eagle said

“There are heaps of dead bodies lying about outside but you mustn’t
mind them. Inside the house every man Jack of them are so sound asleep,
“t will be hard work to wake them; but you must go straight to the
table drawer, and take out of it three crumbs of bread, and when you
hear some one snoring loud, pull three feathers out of his head; he
won’t wake for all that.”

So the man did as he was told, and after he had taken the crumbs of
bread, he pulled out the first feather.

“OOF!” growled Farmer Weathersky, for it was he who snored.

So the man pulled out another feather.

“OOF!” he growled again.

But when he pulled out the third, Farmer Weathersky roared so, the man
thought roof and wall would have flown asunder, but for all that the
snorer slept on.

After that the Eagle told him what he was to do. He went to the yard,
and there at the stable-door he stumbled against a big gray stone, and
that he lifted up; underneath it lay three chips of wood, and those he
picked up too; then he knocked at the stable-door, and it opened of
itself. Then he threw down the three crumbs of bread, and a hare came
and ate them up; that hare he caught and kept. After that the Eagle
bade him pull three feathers out of his tail, and put the hare, the
stone, the chips, and himself there instead, and then he would fly away
home with them all.

So when the Eagle had flown a long way, he lighted on a rock to rest.

“Do you see anything?” it asked.

“Yes”, said the man, “I see a flock of crows coming flying after us.”

“We’d better be off again, then”, said the Eagle, who flew away.

After a while it asked again:

“Do you see anything now?”

“Yes”, said the man; “now the crows are close behind us.”

“Drop now the three feathers you pulled out of his head, said the
Eagle.

Well, the man dropped the feathers, and as soon as ever he dropped them
they became a flock of ravens which drove the crows home again. Then
the Eagle flew on far away with the man, and at last it lighted on
another stone to rest.

“Do you see anything?” it said.

“I’m not sure”, said the man; “I fancy I see something coming far far
away”.

“We’d better get on then”, said the Eagle; and after a while it said
again:

“Do you see anything?”

“Yes”, said the man, “now he’s close at our heels.”

“Now, you must let fall the chips of wood which you took from under the
gray stone at the stable door”, said the Eagle.

Yes! the man let them fall, and they grew at once up into tall thick
wood, so that Farmer Weathersky had to go back home to fetch an axe to
hew his way through. While he did this, the Eagle flew ever so far, but
when it got tired, it lighted on a fir to rest.

“Do you see anything?” it said.

“Well! I’m not sure”, said the man; “but I fancy I catch a glimpse of
something far away.”

“We’d best be off then”, said the Eagle; and off it flew as fast as it
could. After a while it said:

“Do you see anything now?”

“Yes! now he’s close behind us”, said the man.

“Now, you must drop the big stone you lifted up at the stable door”,
said the Eagle.

The man did so, and as it fell it became a great high mountain, which
Farmer Weathersky had to break his way through. When he had got half
through the mountain, he tripped and broke one of his legs, and so he
had to limp home again and patch it up.

But while he was doing this, the Eagle flew away to the man’s house
with him and the hare, and as soon as they got home, the man went into
the churchyard and sprinkled Christian mould over the hare, and lo! it
turned into “Jack”, his son.

Well, you may fancy the old dame was glad to get her son again, but
still she wasn’t easy in her mind about his trade, and she wouldn’t
rest till he gave her a proof that he was “master above all masters”.

So when the fair came round, the lad changed himself into a bay horse,
and told his father to lead him to the fair. “Now, when any one comes”,
he said, “to buy me, you may ask a hundred dollars for me; but mind you
don’t forget to take the headstall off me; if you do, Farmer Weathersky
will keep me for ever, for he it is who will come to deal with you.”

So it turned out. Up came a horse-dealer, who had a great wish to deal
for the horse, and he gave a hundred dollars down for him; but when the
bargain was struck, and Jack’s father had pocketed the money, the
horse-dealer wanted to have the headstall. “Nay, nay!” said the man,
“there’s nothing about that in the bargain; and besides, you can’t have
the headstall, for I’ve other horses at home to bring to town
to-morrow.”

So each went his way; but they hadn’t gone far before Jack took his own
shape and ran away, and when his father got home, there sat Jack in the
ingle.

Next day he turned himself into a brown horse, and told his father to
drive him to the fair.

“And when any one comes to buy me, you may ask two hundred dollars for
me—he’ll give that and treat you besides; but whatever you do, and
however much you drink, don’t forget to take the headstall off me, else
you’ll never set eyes on me again.”

So all happened as he had said; the man got two hundred dollars for the
horse and a glass of drink besides, and when the buyer and seller
parted, it was as much as he could do to remember to take off the
headstall. But the buyer and the horse hadn’t got far on the road
before Jack took his own shape, and when the man got home, there sat
Jack in the ingle.

The third day, it was the same story over again: the lad turned himself
into a black horse, and told his father some one would come and bid
three hundred dollars for him, and fill his skin with meat and drink
besides; but however much he ate or drank, he was to mind and not
forget to take the headstall off, else he’d have to stay with Farmer
Weathersky all his life long.

“No, no; I’ll not forget, never fear”, said the man.

So when he came to the fair, he got three hundred dollars for the
horse, and as it wasn’t to be a dry bargain, Farmer Weathersky made him
drink so much that he quite forgot to take the headstall off, and away
went Farmer Weathersky with the horse. Now when he had gone a little
way, Farmer Weathersky thought he would just stop and have another
glass of brandy; so he put a barrel of red-hot nails under his horse’s
nose, and a sieve of oats under his tail, hung the halter, upon a hook,
and went into the inn. So the horse stood there and stamped and pawed,
and snorted and reared. Just then out came a lassie, who thought it a
shame to treat a horse so.

“Oh, poor beastie”, she said, “what a cruel master you must have to
treat you so”, and as she said this she pulled the halter off the hook,
so that the horse might turn round and taste the oats.

“I’M AFTER YOU”, roared Farmer Weathersky, who came rushing out of the
door.

But the horse had already shaken off the headstall, and jumped into a
duck-pond, where he turned himself into a tiny fish. In went Farmer
Weathersky after him, and turned himself into a great pike. Then Jack
turned himself into a dove, and Farmer Weathersky made himself into a
hawk, and chased and struck at the dove. But just then a Princess stood
at the window of the palace and saw this struggle.

“Ah! poor dove”, she cried, “if you only knew what I know, you’d fly to
me through this window.”

So the dove came flying in through the window, and turned itself into
Jack again, who told his own tale.

“Turn yourself into a gold ring, and put yourself on my finger”, said
the Princess.

“Nay, nay!” said Jack, “that’ll never do, for then Farmer Weathersky
will make the king sick, and then there’ll be no one who can make him
well again till Farmer Weathersky comes and cures him, and then, for
his fee, he’ll ask for that gold ring.”

“Then I’ll say I had it from my mother, and can’t part with it”, said
the Princess.

Well, Jack turned himself into a gold ring, and put himself on the
Princess’ finger, and so Farmer Weathersky couldn’t get at him. But
then followed what the lad had foretold; the king fell sick, and there
wasn’t a doctor in the kingdom who could cure him till Farmer
Weathersky came, and he asked for the ring off the Princess’ finger for
his fee. So the king sent a messenger to the Princess for the ring; but
the Princess said she wouldn’t part with it, her mother had left it
her. When the king heard that, he flew into a rage, and said he would
have the ring, whoever left it to her.

“Well”, said the Princess, “it’s no good being cross about it. I can’t
get it off, and if you must have the ring, you must take my finger
too.”

“If you’ll let me try, I’ll soon get the ring off”, said Farmer
Weathersky.

“No, thanks, I’ll try myself”, said the Princess, and flew off to the
grate and put ashes on her finger. Then the ring slipped off and was
lost among the ashes. So Farmer Weathersky turned himself into a cock,
who scratched and pecked after the ring in the grate, till he was up to
the ears in ashes. But while he was doing this, Jack turned himself
into a fox, and bit off the cock’s head; and so if the Evil One was in
Farmer Weathersky, it is all over with him now.




LORD PETER


Once on a time there was a poor couple, and they had nothing in the
world but three sons. What the names the two elder had I can’t say, but
the youngest he was called Peter. So when their father and mother died,
the sons were to share what was left, but there was nothing but a
porridge-pot, a griddle, and a cat.

The eldest, who was to have first choice, he took the pot; “for”, said
he, “whenever I lend the pot to any one to boil porridge, I can always
get leave to scrape it”.

The second took the griddle; “for”, said he, “whenever I lend it to any
one, I’ll always get a morsel of dough to make a bannock.”

But the youngest, he had no choice left him; if he was to choose
anything it must be the cat.

“Well!” said he, “if I lend the cat to any one I shan’t get much by
that; for if pussy gets a drop of milk, she’ll want it all herself.
Still, I’d best take her along with me; I shouldn’t like her to go
about here and starve.”

So the brothers went out into the world to try their luck, and each
took his own way; but when the youngest had gorse a while, the cat
said:

“Now you shall have a good turn, because you wouldn’t let me stay
behind in the old cottage and starve. Now, I’m off to the wood to lay
hold of a fine fat head of game, and then you must go up to the king’s
palace that you see yonder, and say you are come with a little present
for the king; and when he asks who sends it, you must say, ‘Why, who
should it be from but Lord Peter.’”

Well! Peter hadn’t waited long before back came the cat with a reindeer
from the wood; she had jumped up on the reindeer’s head, between his
horns, and said, “If you don’t go straight to the king’s palace I’ll
claw your eyes out.”

So the reindeer had to go whether he liked it or no.

And when Peter got to the palace he went into the kitchen with the
deer, and said: “Here I’m come with a little present for the king, if
he won’t despise it.”

Then the King went out into the kitchen, and when he saw the fine plump
reindeer, he was very glad.

“But, my dear friend”, he said, “who in the world is it that sends me
such a fine gift?”

“Oh!” said Peter, “who should send it but Lord Peter.”

“Lord Peter! Lord Peter!” said the King. “Pray tell me where he lives”;
for he thought it a shame not to know so great a man. But that was just
what the lad wouldn’t tell him; he daren’t do it, he said, because his
master had forbidden him.

So the King gave him a good bit of money to drink his health, and bade
him be sure and say all kind of pretty things, and many thanks for the
present to his master when he got home.

Next day the Cat went again into the wood, and jumped up on a red
deer’s head, and sat between his horns, and forced him to go to the
palace. Then Peter went again into the kitchen, and said he was come
with a little present for the King, if he would be pleased to take it.
And the King was still more glad to get the red deer than he had been
to get the reindeer, and asked again who it was that sent so fine a
present.

“Why, it’s Lord Peter, of course”, said the lad; but when the King
wanted to know where Lord Peter lived, he got the same answer as the
day before; and this day, too, he gave Peter a good lump of money to
drink his health with.

The third day the Cat came with an elk. And so when Peter got into the
palace kitchen, and said he had a little present for the King, if he’d
be pleased to take it, the King came out at once into the kitchen; and
when he saw the grand big elk, he was so glad he scarce knew which leg
to stand on; and this day, too, he gave Peter many many more dollars—at
least a hundred. He wished now, once for all, to know where this Lord
Peter lived, and asked and asked about this thing and that, but the lad
said he daren’t say, for his master’s sake, who had strictly forbidden
him to tell.

“Well, then”, said the King, “beg Lord Peter to come and see me.”

Yes, the lad would take that message; but when Peter got out into the
yard again, and met the Cat, he said,

“A pretty scrape you’ve got me into now, for here’s the King, who wants
me to come and see him, and you know I’ve nothing to go in but these
rags I stand and walk in.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid about that”, said the Cat; “in three days you
shall have coach and horses, and fine clothes, so fine that the gold
falls from them, and then you may go and see the king very well. But
mind, whatever you see in the king’s palace, you must say you have far
finer and grander things of your own. Don’t forget that.”

No, no, Peter would bear that in mind, never fear.

So when three days were over, the Cat came with a coach and horses, and
clothes, and all that Peter wanted, and altogether it was as grand as
anything you ever set eyes on; so off he set, and the Cat ran alongside
the coach. The King met him well and graciously; but whatever the King
offered him, and whatever he showed him, Peter said, ’twas all very
well, but he had far finer and better things in his own house. The King
seemed not quite to believe this, but Peter stuck to what he said, and
at last the King got so angry, he couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Now I’ll go home with you”, he said, “and see if it be true what
you’ve been telling me, that you have far finer and better things of
your own. But if you’ve been telling a pack of lies, Heaven help you,
that’s all I say.”

“Now, you’ve got me into a fine scrape”, said Peter to the Cat, “for
here’s the King coming home with me; but my home, that’s not so easy to
find, I think.”

“Oh! never mind”, said the Cat; “only do you drive after me as I run
before.”

So off they set; first Peter, who drove after his Cat, and then the
King and all his court.

But when they had driven a good bit, they came to a great flock of fine
sheep, that had wool so long it almost touched the ground.

“If you’ll only say”, said the Cat to the Shepherd, “this flock of
sheep belongs to Lord Peter, when the King asks you, I’ll give you this
silver spoon”, which she had taken with her from the King’s palace.

Yes! he was willing enough to do that. So when the king came up, he
said to the lad who watched the sheep,

“Well, I never saw so large and fine a flock of sheep in my life! Whose
is it? my little lad.”

“Why”, said the lad, “whose should it be but Lord Peter’s.”

A little while after they came to a great, great herd of fine brindled
kine, who were all so sleek the sun shone from them.

“If you’ll only say”, said the Cat to the neat-herd, “this herd is Lord
Peter’s, when the King asks you, I’ll give you this silver ladle”; and
the ladle too she had taken from the King’s palace.

“Yes! with all my heart”, said the neat-herd.

So when the King came up, he was quite amazed at the fine fat herd, for
such a herd he had never seen before, and so he asked the neat-herd who
owned those brindled kine.

“Why! who should own them but Lord Peter”, said the neat-herd.

So they went on a little further, and came to a great, great drove of
horses, the finest you ever saw, six of each colour, bay, and black,
and brown, and chesnut.

“If you’ll only say this drove of horses is Lord Peter’s when the King
asks you”, said the Cat, “I’ll give you this silver stoop”; and the
stoop too she had taken from the palace.

Yes! the lad was willing enough; and so when the King came up, he was
quite amazed at the grand drove of horses, for the matches of such
horses he had never yet set eyes on, he said.

So he asked the lad who watched them, whose all these blacks, and bays,
and browns, and chesnuts were?

“Whose should they be”, said the lad, “but Lord Peter’s.”

So when they had gone a good bit farther, they came to a castle; first
there was a gate of tin, and next there was a gate of silver, and next
a gate of gold. The castle itself was of silver, and so dazzling white,
that it quite hurt one’s eyes to look at in the sunbeams which fell on
it just as they reached it.

So they went into it, and the Cat told Peter to say this was his house.
As for the castle inside, it was far finer than it looked outside, for
everything was pure gold—chairs, and tables, and benches, and all. And
when the King had gone all over it, and seen everything high and low,
he got quite shameful and downcast.

“Yes”, he said at last; “Lord Peter has everything far finer than I
have, there’s no gainsaying that”, and so he wanted to be off home
again.

But Peter begged him to stay to supper, and the King stayed, but he was
sour, and surly the whole time.

So as they sat at supper, back came the Troll who owned the castle, and
gave such a great knock at the door.

“WHO’S THIS EATING MY MEAT AND DRINKING MY MEAD LIKE SWINE IN HERE”,
roared out the Troll.

As soon as the Cat heard that, she ran down to the gate.

“Stop a bit”, she said, “and I’ll tell you how the farmer sets to work
to get in his winter rye.”

And so she told him such a long story about the winter rye.

“First of all, you see, he ploughs his field, and then he dungs it, and
then he ploughs it again, and then he harrows it”; and so she went on
till the sun rose.

“Oh, do look behind you, and there you’ll see such a lovely lady”, said
the Cat to the Troll.

So the Troll turned round, and, of course, as soon as he saw the sun he
burst.

“Now all this is yours”, said the Cat to Lord Peter. “Now, you must cut
off my head; that’s all I ask for what I have done for you.”

“Nay, nay”, said Lord Peter, “I’ll never do any such thing, that’s
flat.”

“If you don’t”, said the Cat,” see if I don’t claw your eyes out.”

Well! so Lord Peter had to do it, though it was sore against his will.
He cut off the Cat’s head, but there and then she became the loveliest
Princess you ever set eyes on, and Lord Peter fell in love with her at
once.

“Yes! all this greatness was mine first”, said the Princess, “but a
Troll bewitched me to be a Cat in your father’s and mother’s cottage.
Now you may do as you please, whether you take me as your queen or not,
for you are now king over all this realm.”

Well, well; there was little doubt Lord Peter would be willing enough
to have her as his queen, and so there was a wedding that lasted eight
whole days, and a feast besides; and after it was over, I stayed no
longer with Lord Peter and his lovely queen, and so I can’t say
anything more about them.




THE SEVEN FOALS


Once on a time there was a poor couple who lived in a wretched hut, far
far away in the wood. How they lived I can’t tell, but I’m sure it was
from hand to mouth, and hard work even then; but they had three sons,
and the youngest of them was Boots, of course, for he did little else
than lie there and poke about in the ashes.

So one day the eldest lad said he would go out to earn his bread, and
he soon got leave, and wandered out into the world. There he walked and
walked the whole day, and when evening drew in, he came to a king’s
palace, and there stood the King out on the steps, and asked whither he
was bound.

“Oh, I’m going about, looking after a place”, said the lad.

“Will you serve me?” asked the King, “and watch my seven foals. If you
can watch them one whole day, and tell me at night what they eat and
what they drink, you shall have the Princess to wife, and half my
kingdom; but if you can’t, I’ll cut three red stripes out of your back.
Do you hear?”

Yes! that was an easy task, the lad thought; he’d do that fast enough,
never fear.

So next morning, as soon as the first peep of dawn came, the king’s
coachman let out the seven foals. Away they went, and the lad after
them. You may fancy how they tore over hill and dale, through bush and
bog. When the lad had run so a long time, he began to get weary, and
when he had held on a while longer, he had more than enough of his
watching, and just there, he came to a cleft in a rock, where an old
hag sat and spun with a distaff. As soon as she saw the lad who was
running after the foals till the sweat ran down his brow, this old hag
bawled out:

“Come hither, come hither, my pretty son, and let me comb your hair.”

Yes! the lad was willing enough; so he sat down in the cleft of the
rock with the old hag, and laid his head on her lap, and she combed his
hair all day whilst he lay there, and stretched his lazy bones.

So, when evening drew on, the lad wanted to go away. “I may just as
well toddle straight home now”, said he, “for it’s no use my going back
to the palace.”

“Stop a bit till it’s dark”, said the old hag, “and then the king’s
foals will pass by here again, and then you can run home with them, and
then no one will know that you have lain here all day long, instead of
watching the foals.”

So, when they came, she gave the lad a flask of water and a clod of
turf. Those he was to show to the King, and say that was what his seven
foals ate and drank.

“Have you watched true and well the whole day, now?” asked the King,
when the lad came before him in the evening.

“Yes, I should think so”, said the lad.

“Then you can tell me what my seven foals eat and drink”, said the
King.

“Yes!” and so the lad pulled out the flask of water and the clod of
turf, which the old hag had given him.

“Here you see their meat, and here you see their drink”, said the lad.

But then the King saw plain enough how he had watched, and he got so
wroth, he ordered his men to chase him away home on the spot; but first
they were to cut three red stripes out of his back, and rub salt into
them. So when the lad got home again, you may fancy what a temper he
was in. He’d gone out once to get a place, he said, but he’d never do
so again.

Next day the second sons aid he would go out into the world to try his
luck. His father and mother said “No”, and bade him look at his
brother’s back; but the lad wouldn’t give in; he held to his own, and
at last he got leave to go, and set off. So when he had walked the
whole day, he, too, came to the king’s palace. There stood the King out
on the steps, and asked whither he was bound? and when the lad said he
was looking about for a place, the King said he might have a place
there, and watch his seven foals. But the king laid down the same
punishment, and the same reward, as he had settled for his brother.
Well, the lad was willing enough; he took the place at once with the
King, for he thought he’d soon watch the foals, and tell the King what
they ate and drank. So, in the gray of the morning, the coachman let
out the seven foals, and off they went again over hill and dale, and
the lad after them. But the same thing happened to him as had befallen
his brother. When he had run after the foals a long long time, till he
was both warm and weary, he passed by the cleft in a rock, where an old
hag sat and spun with a distaff, and she bawled out to the lad:

“Come hither, come hither, my pretty son, and let me comb your hair.”

That the lad thought a good offer, so he let the foals run on their
way, and sat down in the cleft with the old hag. There he sat, and
there he lay, taking his ease, and stretching his lazy bones the whole
day.

When the foals came back at nightfall, he too got a flask of water and
clod of turf from the old hag to show to the King. But when the King
asked the lad:

“Can you tell me now, what my seven foals eat and drink?” and the lad
pulled out the flask and the clod, and said:

“Here you see their meat, and here you see their drink.”

Then the King got wroth again, and ordered them to cut three red
stripes out of the lad’s back, and rub salt in, and chase him home that
very minute. And so when the lad got home, he also told how he had
fared, and said, he had gone out once to get a place, but he’d never do
so any more.

The third day Boots wanted to set out; he had a great mind to try and
watch the seven foals, he said. The others laughed at him, and made
game of him, saying:

“When we fared so ill, you’ll do it better—a fine joke; you look like
it—you, who have never done anything but lie there and poke about in
the ashes.”

“Yes!” said Boots, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t go, for I’ve got it
into my head, and can’t get it out again.”

And so, in spite of all the jeers of the others and the prayers of the
old people, there was no help for it, and Boots set out.

So after he had walked the whole day, he too came at dusk to the king’s
palace. There stood the King out on the steps, and asked whither he was
bound.

“Oh”, said Boots, “I’m going about seeing if I can hear of a place.”

“Whence do you come then?” said the King, for he wanted to know a
little more about them before he took any one into his service.

So Boots said whence he came, and how he was brother to those two who
had watched the king’s seven foals, and ended by asking if he might try
to watch them next day.

“Oh, stuff!” said the King, for he got quite cross if he even thought
of them; “if you’re brother to those two, you’re not worth much, I’ll
be bound. I’ve had enough of such scamps.”

“Well”, said Boots; but since I’ve come so far, I may just as well get
leave to try, I too.”

“Oh, very well; with all my heart”, said the King, “if you _will_ have
your back flayed, you’re quite welcome.”

“I’d much rather have the Princess”, said Boots.

So next morning, at gray of dawn, the coachman let out the seven foals
again, and away they went over hill and dale, through bush and bog, and
Boots behind them. And so, when he too had run a long while, he came to
the cleft in the rock, where the old hag sat, spinning at her distaff.
So she bawled out to Boots:

“Come hither, come hither, my pretty son, and let me comb your hair.”

“Don’t you wish you may catch me”, said Boots. “Don’t you wish you may
catch me”, as he ran along, leaping and jumping, and holding on by one
of the foal’s tails. And when he had got well past the cleft in the
rock, the youngest foal said:

“Jump up on my back, my lad, for we’ve a long way before us still.”

So Boots jumped up on his back.

So they went on, and on, a long, long way.

“Do you see anything now”, said the Foal.

“No”, said Boots.

So they went on a good bit farther.

“Do you see anything now?” asked the Foal.

“Oh no”, said the lad.

So when they had gone a great, great way farther—I’m sure I can’t tell
how far—the Foal asked again:

“Do you see anything now?”

“Yes”, said Boots; “now I see something that looks white—just like a
tall, big birch trunk.”

“Yes”, said the Foal; “we’re going into that trunk.” So when they got
to the trunk, the eldest foal took and pushed it on one side, and then
they saw a door where it had stood, and inside the door was a little
room, and in the room there was scarce anything but a little fireplace
and one or two benches; but behind the door hung a great rusty sword
and a little pitcher.

“Can you brandish the sword?” said the Foals; “try.” So Boots tried,
but he couldn’t; then they made him take a pull at the pitcher; first
once, then twice, and then thrice, and then he could wield it like
anything.

“Yes”, said the Foals, “now you may take the sword with you, and with
it you must cut off all our seven heads on your wedding-day, and then
we’ll be princes again as we were before. For we are brothers of that
Princess whom you are to have when you can tell the King what we eat
and drink; but an ugly Troll has thrown this shape over us. Now mind,
when you have hewn off our heads, to take care to lay each head at the
tail of the trunk which it belonged to before, and then the spell will
have no more power over us.”

Yes! Boots promised all that, and then on they went. And when they had
travelled a long long way, the Foal asked:

“Do you see anything?”

“No”, said Boots.

So they travelled a good bit still.

“And now?” asked the Foal.

“No, I see nothing”, said Boots.

So they travelled many many miles again, over hill and dale.

“Now then”, said the Foal, “do you see anything now?”

“Yes”, said Boots, “now I see something like a blue stripe, far far
away.”

“Yes”, said the Foal, “that’s a river we’ve got to cross.” Over the
river was a long, grand bridge; and when they had got over to the other
side, they travelled on a long, long way. At last the Foal asked again:

“If Boots didn’t see anything?”

“Yes, this time he saw something that looked black far far away, just
as though it were a church steeple.”

“Yes”, said the Foal, “that’s where we’re going to turn in.”

So when the foals got into the churchyard, they became men again, and
looked like Princes, with such fine clothes that it glistened from
them; and so they went into the church, and took the bread and wine
from the priest who stood at the altar. And Boots he went in too; but
when the priest had laid his hands on the Princes, and given them the
blessing, they went out of the church again, and Boots went out too;
but he took with him a flask of wine and a wafer. And soon as ever the
seven Princes came out into the churchyard, they were turned into foals
again, and so Boots got up on the back of the youngest, and so they all
went back the same way that they had come; only they went much, much
faster. First they crossed the bridge, next they passed the trunk, and
then they passed the old hag, who sat at the cleft and span, and they
went by her so fast, that Boots couldn’t hear what the old hag
screeched after him; but he heard so much as to know she was in an
awful rage.

It was almost dark when they got back to the palace, and the King
himself stood out on the steps and waited for them. “Have you watched
well and true the whole day?” said he to Boots.

“I’ve done my best”, answered Boots.

“Then you can tell me what my seven foals eat and drink”, said the
King.

Then Boots pulled out the flask of wine and the wafer, and showed them
to the King.

“Here you see their meat, and here you see their drink”, said he.

“Yes”, said the King, “you have watched true and well, and you shall
have the Princess and half the kingdom.”

So they made ready the wedding-feast, and the King said it should be
such a grand one, it should be the talk far and near.

But when they sat down to the bridal-feast, the bridegroom got up and
went down to the stable, for he said he had forgotten something, and
must go to fetch it. And when he got down there, he did as the Foals
had said, and hewed their heads off, all seven, the eldest first, and
the others after him; and at the same time he took care to lay each
head at the tail of the foal to which it belonged; and as he did this,
lo! they all became Princes again.

So when he went into the bridal hall with the seven princes, the King
was so glad he both kissed Boots and patted him on the back, and his
bride was still more glad of him than she had been before.

“Half the kingdom you have got already”, said the King, “and the other
half you shall have after my death; for my sons can easily get
themselves lands and wealth, now they are princes again.”

And so, like enough, there was mirth and fun at that wedding. I was
there too; but there was no one to care for poor me; and so I got
nothing but a bit of bread and butter, and I laid it down on the stove,
and the bread was burnt and the butter ran, and so I didn’t get even
the smallest crumb. Wasn’t that a great shame?




THE WIDOW’S SON


Once on a time there was a poor, poor widow, who had an only son. She
dragged on with the boy till he had been confirmed, and then she said
she couldn’t feed him any longer, he must just go out and earn his own
bread. So the lad wandered out into the world, and when he had walked a
day or so, a strange man met him.

“Whither away?” asked the man.

“Oh, I’m going out into the world to try and get a place”, said the
lad.

“Will you come and serve me?” said the man.

“Oh yes; just as soon you as any one else”, said the lad.

“Well, you’ll have a good place with me”, said the man; “for you’ll
only have to keep me company, and do nothing at all else beside.”

So the lad stopped with him, and lived on the fat of the land, both in
meat and drink, and had little or nothing to do; but he never saw a
living soul in that man’s house.

So one day the man said:

“Now, I’m going off for eight days, and that time you’ll have to spend
here all alone; but you must not go into any one of these four rooms
here. If you do, I’ll take your life when I come back.”

“No”, said the lad, he’d be sure not to do that. But when the man had
been gone three or four days, the lad couldn’t bear it any longer, but
went into the first room, and when he got inside he looked round, but
he saw nothing but a shelf over the door where a bramble-bush rod lay.

Well, indeed! thought the lad; a pretty thing to forbid my seeing this.

So when the eight days were out, the man came home, and the first thing
he said was:

“You haven’t been into any of these rooms, of course.”

“No, no; that I haven’t”, said the lad.

“I’ll soon see that”, said the man, and went at once into the room
where the lad had been.

“Nay, but you have been in here”, said he; “and now you shall lose your
life.”

Then the lad begged and prayed so hard that he got off with his life,
but the man gave him a good thrashing. And when it was over, they were
as good friends as ever.

Some time after the man set off again, and said he should be away
fourteen days; but before he went he forbade the lad to go into any of
the rooms he had not been in before; as for that he had been in, he
might go into that, and welcome. Well, it was the same story aver
again, except that the lad stood out eight days before he went in. In
this room, too, he saw nothing but a shelf over the door, and a big
stone, and a pitcher of water on it. Well, after all, there’s not much
to be afraid of my seeing here, thought the lad.

But when the man came back, he asked if he had been into any of the
rooms. No, the lad hadn’t done anything of the kind.

“Well, well; I’ll soon see that,” said the man; and when he saw that
the lad had been in them after all, he said, “Ah! now I’ll spare you no
longer; now you must lose your life.”

But the lad begged and prayed for himself again, and so this time too
he got off with stripes; though he got as many as his skin could carry.
But when he got sound and well again, he led just as easy a life as
ever, and he and the man were just as good friends.

So a while after the man was to take another journey, and now he said
he should be away three weeks, and he forbade the lad anew to go into
the third room, for if he went in there he might just make up his mind
at once to lose his life. Then after fourteen days the lad couldn’t
bear it, but crept into the room, but he saw nothing at all in there
but a trap door on the floor; and when he lifted it up and looked down,
there stood a great copper cauldron which bubbled and boiled away down
there; but he saw no fire under it.

“Well, I should just like to know if it’s hot,” thought the lad, and
stuck his finger down into the broth, and when he pulled it out again,
lo! it was gilded all over. So the lad scraped and scrubbed it, but the
gilding wouldn’t go off, so he bound a piece of rag round it; and when
the man came back, and asked what was the matter with his finger, the
lad said he’d given it such a bad cut. But the man tore off the rag,
and then he soon saw what was the matter with the finger. First he
wanted to kill the lad outright, but when he wept, and begged, he only
gave him such a thrashing that he had to keep his bed three days. After
that the man took down a pot from the wall, and rubbed him over with
some stuff out of it, and so the lad was sound and fresh as ever.

So after a while the man started off again, and this time he was to be
away a month. But before he went, he said to the lad, if he went into
the fourth room he might give up all hope of saving his life.

Well, the lad stood out for two or three weeks, but then he couldn’t
holdout any longer; he must and would go into that room, and so in he
stole. There stood a great black horse tied up in a stall by himself,
with a manger of red-hot coals at his head, and a truss of hay at his
tail. Then the lad thought this all wrong, so he changed them about,
and put the hay at his head. Then said the Horse:

“Since you are so good at heart as to let me have some food, I’ll set
you free, that I will. For if the Troll comes back and finds you here,
he’ll kill you outright. But now you must go up to the room which lies
just over this, and take a coat of mail out of those that hang there;
and mind, whatever you do, don’t take any of the bright ones, but the
most rusty of all you see, that’s the one to take; and sword and saddle
you must choose for yourself just in the same way.”

So the lad did all that; but it was a heavy load for him to carry them
all down at once.

When he came back, the Horse told him to pull off his clothes and get
into the cauldron which stood and boiled in the other room, and bathe
himself there. “If I do”, thought the lad, “I shall look an awful
fright”; but for all that, he did as he was told. So when he had taken
his bath, he became so handsome and sleek, and as red and white as milk
and blood, and much stronger than he had been before.

“Do you feel any change?” asked the Horse.

“Yes”, said the lad.

“Try to lift me, then”, said the Horse.

Oh yes! he could do that, and as for the sword, he brandished it like a
feather.

“Now saddle me”, said the Horse, “and put on the coat of mail, and then
take the bramble-bush rod, and the stone, and the pitcher of water, and
the pot of ointment, and then we’ll be off as fast as we can.”

So when the lad had got on the horse, off they went at such a rate, he
couldn’t at all tell how they went. But when he had ridden awhile, the
Horse said,

“I think I hear a noise; look round! can you see anything?”

“Yes; there are ever so many coming after us, at least a score”, said
the lad.

“Aye, aye, that’s the Troll coming”, said the Horse; “now he’s after us
with his pack.”

So they rode on a while, until those who followed were close behind
them.

“Now throw your bramble-bush rod behind you, over your shoulder”, said
the Horse; “but mind you throw it a good way off my back.”

So the lad did that, and all at once a close, thick bramble-wood grew
up behind them. So the lad rode on a long, long time, while the Troll
and his crew had to go home to fetch something to hew their way through
the wood. But at last, the Horse said again.

“Look behind you! can you see anything now?”

“Yes, ever so many”, said the lad, “as many as would fill a large
church.”

“Aye, aye, that’s the Troll and his crew”, said the Horse; “now he’s
got more to back him; but now throw down the stone, and mind you throw
it far behind me.”

And as soon as the lad did what the Horse said, up rose a great black
hill of rock behind him. So the Troll had to be off home to fetch
something to mine his way through the rock; and while the Troll did
that, the lad rode a good bit further on. But still the Horse begged
him to look behind him, and then he saw a troop like a whole army
behind him, and they glistened in the sunbeams.

“Aye, aye”, said the Horse, “that’s the Troll, and now he’s got his
whole band with him, so throw the pitcher of water behind you, but mind
you don’t spill any of it upon me.”

So the lad did that; but in spite of all the pains he took, he still
spilt one drop on the horse’s flank. So it became a great deep lake;
and because of that one drop, the horse found himself far out in it,
but still he swam safe to land. But when the Trolls came to the lake,
they lay down to drink it dry; and so they swilled and swilled till
they burst.

“Now we’re rid of them”, said the Horse.

So when they had gone a long, long while, they came to a green patch in
a wood.

“Now, strip off all your arms”, said the Horse, “and only put on your
ragged clothes, and take the saddle off me, and let me loose, and hang
all my clothing and your arms up inside that great hollow lime-tree
yonder. Then make yourself a wig of fir-moss, and go up to the king’s
palace, which lies close here, and ask for a place. Whenever you need
me, only come here and shake the bridle, and I’ll come to you.”

Yes! the lad did all his Horse told him, and as soon as ever he put on
the wig of moss he became so ugly, and pale, and miserable to look at,
no one would have known him again. Then he went up to the king’s palace
and begged first for leave to be in the kitchen, and bring in wood and
water for the cook, but then the kitchen-maid asked him:

“Why do you wear that ugly wig? Off with it. I won’t have such a fright
in here.”

“No, I can’t do that”, said the lad; “for I’m not quite right in my
head.”

“Do you think then I’ll have you in here about the food”, cried the
cook. “Away with you to the coachman; you’re best fit to go and clean
the stable.”

But when the coachman begged him to take his wig off, he got the same
answer, and he wouldn’t have him either. “You’d best go down to the
gardener”, said he; “you’re best fit to go about and dig in the
garden.”

So he got leave to be with the gardener, but none of the other servants
would sleep with him, and so he had to sleep by himself under the steps
of the summerhouse. It stood upon beams, and had a high staircase.
Under that he got some turf for his bed, and there he lay as well as he
could.

So, when he had been some time at the palace, it happened one morning,
just as the sun rose, that the lad had taken off his wig, and stood and
washed himself, and then he was so handsome, it was a joy to look at
him.

So the Princess saw from her window the lovely gardener’s boy, and
thought she had never seen any one so handsome. Then she asked the
gardener why he lay out there under the steps.

“Oh”, said the gardener, “none of his fellow-servants will sleep with
him; that’s why.”

“Let him come up to-night, and lie at the door inside my bedroom, and
then they’ll not refuse to sleep with him any more”, said the Princess.

So the gardener told that to the lad.

“Do you think I’ll do any such thing?” said the lad. “Why they’d say
next there was something between me and the Princess.”

“Yes”, said the gardener, “you’ve good reason to fear any such thing,
you who are so handsome.”

“Well, well”, said the lad, “since it’s her will, I suppose I must go.”

So, when he was to go up the steps in the evening, he tramped and
stamped so on the way, that they had to beg him to tread softly lest
the King should come to know it. So he came into the Princess’ bedroom,
lay down, and began to snore at once. Then the Princess said to her
maid:

“Go gently, and just pull his wig off”; and she went up to him.

But just as she was going to whisk it off, he caught hold of it with
both hands, and said she should never have it. After that he lay down
again, and began to snore. Then the Princess gave her maid a wink, and
this time she whisked off the wig; and there lay the lad so lovely, and
white and red, just as the Princess had seen him in the morning sun.

After that the lad slept every night in the Princess’ bedroom.

But it wasn’t long before the King came to hear how the gardener’s lad
slept every night in the Princess’ bedroom; and he got so wroth he
almost took the lad’s life. He didn’t do that, however, but threw him
into the prison tower; and as for his daughter, he shut her up in her
own room, whence she never got leave to stir day or night. All that she
begged, and all that she prayed, for the lad and herself, was no good.
The King was only more wroth than ever.

Some time after came a war and uproar in the land, and the king had to
take up arms against another king who wished to take the kingdom from
him. So when the lad heard that, he begged the gaoler to go to the king
and ask for a coat of mail and a sword, and for leave to go to the war.
All the rest laughed when the gaoler told his errand, and begged the
king to let him have an old worn-out suit, that they might have the fun
of seeing such a wretch in battle. So he got that, and an old
broken-down hack besides, which went upon three legs and dragged the
fourth after it.

Then they went out to meet the foe; but they hadn’t got far from the
palace before the lad got stuck fast in a bog with his hack. There he
sat and dug his spurs in, and cried, “Gee up, gee up!” to his hack. And
all the rest had their fun out of this, and laughed, and made game of
the lad as they rode past him. But they were scarcely gone, before he
ran to the lime-tree, threw on his coat of mail, and shook the bridle,
and there came the horse in a trice, and said “Do now your best, and
I’ll do mine.”

But when the lad came up the battle had begun, and the king was in a
sad pinch; but no sooner had the lad rushed into the thick of it than
the foe was beaten back, and put to flight. The king and his men
wondered and wondered who it could be who had come to help them, but
none of them got so near him as to be able to talk to him, and as soon
as the fight was over he was gone. When they went back, there sat the
lad still in the bog, and dug his spurs into his three-legged hack, and
they all laughed again.

“No! only just look”, they said; “there the fool sits still.”

The next day when they went out to battle, they saw the lad sitting
there still, so they laughed again, and made game of him; but as soon
as ever they had ridden by, the lad ran again to the lime-tree, and all
happened as on the first day. Every one wondered what strange champion
it could be that had helped them, but no one got so near him as to say
a word to him; and no one guessed it could be the lad; that’s easy to
understand.

So when they went home at night, and saw the lad still sitting there on
his hack, they burst out laughing at him again, and one of them shot an
arrow at him and hit him in the leg. So he began to shriek and to
bewail; ’twas enough to break one’s heart; and so the king threw his
pocket-handkerchief to him to bind his wound.

When they went out to battle the third day, the lad still sat there.

“Gee up! gee up!” he said to his hack.

“Nay, nay”, said the king’s men; “if he won’t stick there till he’s
starved to death.”

And then they rode on, and laughed at him till they were fit to fall
from their horses. When they were gone, he ran again to the lime, and
came up to the battle just in the very nick of time. This day he slew
the enemy’s king, and then the war was over at once.

When the battle was over, the king caught sight of his handkerchief,
which the strange warrior had bound round his leg, and so it wasn’t
hard to find him out. So they took him with great joy between them to
the palace, and the Princess, who saw him from her window, got so glad,
no one can believe it.

“Here comes my own true love”, she said.

Then he took the pot of ointment and rubbed himself on the leg, and
after that he rubbed all the wounded, and so they all got well again in
a moment.

So he got the Princess to wife; but when he went down into the stable
where his horse was on the day the wedding was to be, there it stood so
dull and heavy, and hung its ears down, and wouldn’t eat its corn. So
when the young king—for he was now a king, and had got half the
kingdom—spoke to him, and asked what ailed him, the Horse said:

“Now I have helped you on, and now I won’t live any longer. So just
take the sword, and cut my head off.”

“No, I’ll do nothing of the kind”, said the young king; “but you shall
have all you want, and rest all your life.”

“Well”, said the Horse, “If you don’t do as I tell you, see if I don’t
take your life somehow.”

So the king had to do what he asked; but when he swung the sword and
was to cut his head off, he was so sorry he turned away his face, for
he would not see the stroke fall. But as soon as ever he had cut off
the head, there stood the loveliest Prince on the spot where the horse
had stood.

“Why, where in all the world did you come from?” asked the king.

“It was I who was a horse”, said the Prince; “for I was king of that
land whose king you slew yesterday. He it was who threw this Troll’s
shape over me, and sold me to the Troll. But now he is slain I get my
own again, and you and I will be neighbour kings, but war we will never
make on one another.”

And they didn’t either; for they were friends as long as they lived,
and each paid the other very many visits.




BUSHY BRIDE


Once on a time there was a widower, who had a son and a daughter by his
first marriage. Both were good children, and loved each other dearly.
Some time after the man married a widow, who had a daughter by her
first husband, and she was both ugly and bad, like her mother. So from
the day the new wife came into the house there was no peace for her
stepchildren in any corner; and at last the lad thought he’d best go
out into the world, and try to earn his own bread. And when he had
wandered a while he came to a king’s palace, and got a place under the
coachman, and quick and willing he was, and the horses he looked after
were so sleek and clean that their coats shone again.

But the sister who stayed at home was treated worse than badly; both
her stepmother and stepsister were always at her, and wherever she
went, and whatever she did, they scolded and snarled so, the poor
lassie hadn’t an hour’s peace. All the hard work she was forced to do,
and early and late she got nothing but bad words, and little food
besides.

So one day they had sent her to the burn to fetch water: and what do
you think? up popped an ugly, ugly head out of the pool, and said:

“Wash me, you lassie.”

“Yes, with all my heart I’ll wash you”, said the lassie. So she began
to wash and scrub the ugly head; but truth to say, she thought it nasty
work.

Well, as soon as she had done washing it, up popped another head out of
the pool, and this was uglier still.

“Brush me, you lassie”, said the head.

“Yes, with all my heart I’ll brush you.”

And with that she took in hand the matted locks, and you may fancy she
hadn’t very pleasant work with them. But when she had got over that, if
a third head didn’t pop up out of the pool, and this was far more ugly
and loathsome than both the others put together.

“Kiss me, you lassie!”

“Yes, I’ll kiss you”, said the lassie, and she did it too, though she
thought it the worst work she had ever had to do in her life.

Then the heads began to chatter together, and each asked what they
should do for the lassie who was so kind and gentle.

“That she be the prettiest lassie in the world, and as fair as the
bright day”, said the first head.

“That gold shall drop from her hair, every time she brushes it”, said
the second head.

“That gold shall fall from her mouth every time she speaks”, said the
third head.

So when the lassie came home looking so lovely, and beaming as the
bright day itself, her stepmother and her stepsister got more and more
cross, and they got worse still when she began to talk, and they saw
how golden guineas fell from her mouth. As for the stepmother, she got
so mad with rage, she chased the lassie into the pigsty. That was the
right place for all her gold stuff, but as for coming into the house,
she wouldn’t hear of it.

Well, it wasn’t long before the stepmother wished her own daughter to
go to the burn to fetch water. So when she came to the water’s edge
with her buckets, up popped the first head.

“Wash me, you lassie”, it said.

“The Deil wash you”, said the stepdaughter.

So the second head popped up.

“Brush me, you lassie”, it said.

“The Deil brush you”, said the stepdaughter.

So down it went to the bottom, and the third head popped up.

“Kiss me, you lassie”, said the head.

“The Deil kiss you, you pig’s-snout”, said the girl.

Then the heads chattered together again, and asked what they should do
to the girl who was so spiteful and cross-grained; and they all agreed
she should have a nose four ells long, and a snout three ells long, and
a pine bush right in the midst of her forehead, and every time she
spoke, ashes were to fall out of her mouth.

So when she got home with her buckets, she bawled out to her mother:

“Open the door.”

“Open it yourself, my darling child”, said the mother.

“I can’t reach it because of my nose”, said the daughter.

So, when the mother came out and saw her, you may fancy what a way she
was in, and how she screamed and groaned; but, for all that, there were
the nose and the snout and the pine bush, and they got no smaller for
all her grief.

Now the brother, who had got the place in the King’s stable, had taken
a little sketch of his sister, which he carried away with him, and
every morning and every evening he knelt down before the picture and
prayed to Our Lord for his sister, whom he loved so dearly. The other
grooms had heard him praying, so they peeped through the key-hole of
his room, and there they saw him on his knees before the picture. So
they went about saying how the lad every morning and every evening
knelt down and prayed to an idol which he had, and at last they went to
the king himself and begged him only to peep through the key-hole, and
then His Majesty would see the lad, and what things he did. At first
the King wouldn’t believe it, but at last they talked him over, and he
crept on tiptoe to the door and peeped in. Yes, there was the lad on
his knees before the picture, which hung on the wall, praying with
clasped hands.

“Open the door!” called out the King; but the lad didn’t hear him.

So the King called out in a louder voice, but the lad was so deep in
his prayers he couldn’t hear him this time either. “OPEN THE DOOR, I
SAY!” roared out the King; “It’s I, the King, who want to come in.”

Well, up jumped the lad and ran to the door, and unlocked it, but in
his hurry he forgot to hide the picture. But when the King came in and
saw the picture, he stood there as if he were fettered, and couldn’t
stir from the spot, so lovely he thought the picture.

“So lovely a woman there isn’t in all the wide world”, said the King.

But the lad told him she was his sister whom he had drawn, and if she
wasn’t prettier than that, at least she wasn’t uglier.

“Well, if she’s so lovely”, said the King, “I’ll have her for my
queen”; and then he ordered the lad to set off home that minute, and
not be long on the road either. So the lad promised to make as much
haste as he could, and started off from the King’s palace.

When the brother came home to fetch his sister, the step-mother and
stepsister said they must go too. So they all set out, and the good
lassie had a casket in which she kept her gold, and a little dog, whose
name was “Little Flo”; those two things were all her mother left her.
And when they had gone a while, they came to a lake which they had to
cross; so the brother sat down at the helm, and the stepmother and the
two girls sat in the bow foreward, and so they sailed a long, long way.

At last they caught sight of land.

“There”, said the brother, “where you see the white strand yonder,
there’s where we’re to land”; and as he said this he pointed across the
water.

“What is it my brother says?” asked the good lassie.

“He says you must throw your casket overboard”, said the stepmother.

“Well, when my brother says it, I must do it”, said the lassie, and
overboard went the casket.

When they had sailed a bit farther, the brother pointed again across
the lake.

“There you see the castle we’re going to.”

“What is it my brother says?” asked the lassie.

“He says now you must throw your little dog overboard”, said the
stepmother.

Then the lassie wept and was sore grieved, for Little Flo was the
dearest thing she had in the world, but at last she threw him
overboard.

“When my brother says it, I must do it, but heaven knows how it hurts
me to throw you over, Little Flo”, she said.

So they sailed on a good bit still.

“There you see the King coming down to meet us”, said the brother, and
pointed towards the strand.

“What is it my brother says”, asked the lassie.

“Now he says you must make haste and throw yourself overboard”, said
the stepmother.

Well, the lassie wept and moaned; but when her brother told her to do
that, she thought she ought to do it, and so she leapt down into the
lake.

But when they came to the palace, and the King saw the loathly bride,
with a nose four ells long, and a snout three ells long, and a
pine-bush in the midst of her forehead, he was quite scared out of his
wits; but the wedding was all ready, both in brewing and baking, and
there sat all the wedding guests, waiting for the bride; and so the
King couldn’t help himself, but was forced to take her for better for
worse. But angry he was, that any one can forgive him, and so he had
the brother thrown into a pit full of snakes.

Well, the first Thursday evening after the wedding, about midnight, in
came a lovely lady into the palace-kitchen, and begged the
kitchen-maid, who slept there, so prettily, to lend her a brush. That
she got, and then she brushed her hair, and as she brushed, down
dropped gold, A little dog was at her heel, and to him she said:

“Run out, Little Flo, and see if it will soon be day.”

This she said three times, and the third time she sent the dog it was
just about the time the dawn begins to peep. Then she had to go, but as
she went she sung:

Out on you, ugly Bushy Bride,
Lying so warm by the King’s left side;
While I on sand and gravel sleep,
And over my brother adders creep,
And all without a tear.


“Now I come twice more, and then never again.”

So next morning the kitchen-maid told what she had seen and heard, and
the King said he’d watch himself next Thursday night in the kitchen,
and see if it were true, and as soon as it got dark, out he went into
the kitchen to the kitchen-maid. But all he could do, and however much
he rubbed his eyes and tried to keep himself awake, it was no good; for
the Bushy Bride chaunted and sang till his eyes closed, and so when the
lovely lady came, there he slept and snored. This time, too, as before,
she borrowed a brush, and brushed her hair till the gold dropped, and
sent her dog out three times, and as soon as it was gray dawn, away she
went singing the same words, and adding:

“Now I come once more, and then never again.”

The third Thursday evening the King said he would watch again; and he
set two men to hold him, one under each arm, who were to shake and jog
him every time he wanted to fall asleep; and two men he set to watch
his Bushy Bride. But when the night wore on, the Bushy Bride began to
chaunt and sing, so that his eyes began to wink, and his head hung down
on his shoulders. Then in came the lovely lady, and got the brush and
brushed her hair, till the gold dropped from it; after that she sent
Little Flo out again to see if it would soon be day, and this she did
three times. The third time it began, to get gray in the east; then she
sang,

Out on you, ugly Bushy Bride,
Lying so warm by the King’s left side;
While I on sand and gravel sleep,
And over my brother adders creep,
And all without a tear.


“Now I come back never more”, she said, and went towards the door. But
the two men who held the King under the arms, clenched his hands
together, and put a knife into his grasp; and so, somehow or other,
they got him to cut her in her little finger, and drew blood. Then the
true bride was freed, and the King woke up, and she told him now the
whole story, and how her stepmother and sister had deceived her. So the
King sent at once and took her brother out of the pit of snakes, and
the adders hadn’t done him the least harm, but the stepmother and her
daughter were thrown into it in his stead.

And now no one can tell how glad the King was to be rid of that ugly
Bushy Bride, and to get a Queen who was as lovely and bright as the day
itself. So the true wedding was held, and every one talked of it over
seven kingdoms; and then the King and Queen drove to church in their
coach, and Little Flo went inside with them too, and when the blessing
was given they drove back again, and after that I saw nothing more of
them.




BOOTS AND HIS BROTHERS


Once on a time there was a man who had three sons, Peter, Paul, and
John. John was Boots, of course, because he was the youngest. I can’t
say the man had anything more than these three sons, for he hadn’t one
penny to rub against another; and so he told his sons over and over
again they must go out into the world and try to earn their bread, for
there at home there was nothing to be looked for but starving to death.

Now, a bit off the man’s cottage was the king’s palace, and you must
know, just against the king’s windows a great oak had sprung up, which
was so stout and big that it took away all the light from the king’s
palace. The King had said he would give many, many dollars to the man
who could fell the oak, but no one was man enough for that, for as soon
as ever one chip of the oak’s trunk flew off, two grew in its stead. A
well, too, the King had dug, which was to hold water for the whole
year; for all his neighbours had wells, but he hadn’t any, and that he
thought a shame. So the King said he would give any one who could dig
him such a well as would hold water for a whole year round, both money
and goods; but no one could do it, for the King’s palace lay high, high
up on a hill, and they hadn’t dug a few inches before they came upon
the living rock.

But as the King had set his heart on having these two things done, he
had it given out far and wide, in all the churches of his kingdom, that
he who could fell the big oak in the king’s court-yard, and get him a
well that would hold water the whole year round, should have the
Princess and half the kingdom. Well! you may easily know there was many
a man who came to try his luck; but for all their hacking and hewing,
and all their digging and delving, it was no good. The oak got bigger
and stouter at every stroke, and the rock didn’t get softer either. So
one day those three brothers thought they’d set off and try too, and
their father hadn’t a word against it; for even if they didn’t get the
Princess and half the kingdom, it might happen they might get a place
somewhere with a good master; and that was all he wanted. So when the
brothers said they thought of going to the palace, their father said
“yes” at once. So Peter, Paul, and Jack went off from their home.

Well! they hadn’t gone far before they came to a fir wood, and up along
one side of it rose a steep hill-side, and as they went, they heard
something hewing and hacking away up on-the hill among the trees.

“I wonder now what it is that is hewing away up yonder?” said Jack.

“You’re always so clever with your wonderings”, said Peter and Paul
both at once. “What wonder is it, pray, that a woodcutter should stand
and hack up on a hill-side?”

“Still, I’d like to see what it is, after all”, said Jack; and up he
went.

“Oh, if you’re such a child, ’twill do you good to go and take a
lesson”, bawled out his brothers after him.

But Jack didn’t care for what they said; he climbed the steep hill-side
towards where the noise came, and when he reached the place, what do
you think he saw? why, an axe that stood there hacking and hewing, all
of itself, at the trunk of a fir.

“Good day!” said Jack. “So you stand here all alone and hew, do you?”

“Yes; here I’ve stood and hewed and hacked a long long time, waiting
for you”, said the Axe.

“Well, here I am at last”, said Jack, as he took the axe, pulled it off
its haft, and stuffed both head and haft into his wallet.

So when he got down again to his brothers, they began to jeer and laugh
at him.

“And now, what funny thing was it you saw up yonder on the hill-side?”
they said.

“Oh, it was only an axe we heard”, said Jack.

So when they had gone a bit farther, they came under a steep spur of
rock, and up there they heard something digging and shovelling.

“I wonder now,” said Jack, “what it is digging and shovelling up yonder
at the top of the rock.”

“Ah, you’re always so clever with your wonderings”, said Peter and Paul
again, “as if you’d never heard a woodpecker hacking and pecking at a
hollow tree.”

“Well, well”, said Jack, “I think it would be a piece of fun just to
see what it really is.”

And so off he set to climb the rock, while the others laughed and made
game of him. But he didn’t care a bit for that; up he clomb, and when
he got near the top, what do you think he saw? Why, a spade that stood
there digging and delving.

“Good day!” said Jack. “So you stand here all alone, and dig and
delve!”

“Yes, that’s what I do”, said the Spade, “and that’s what I’ve done
this many a long day, waiting for you.”

“Well, here I am”, said Jack again, as he took the spade and knocked it
off its handle, and put it into his wallet, and then down again to his
brothers.

“Well, what was it, so rare and strange”, said Peter and Paul, “that
you saw up there at the top of the rock?”

“Oh,”, said Jack, “nothing more than a spade; that was what we heard.”

So they went on again a good bit, till they came to a brook. They were
thirsty, all three, after their long walk, and so they lay down beside
the brook to have a drink.

“I wonder now”, said Jack, “where all this water comes from.”

“I wonder if you’re right in your head”, said Peter and Paul, in one
breath. “If you’re not mad already, you’ll go mad very soon, with your
wonderings. Where the brook comes from, indeed! Have you never heard
how water rises from a spring in the earth?”

“Yes! but still I’ve a great fancy to see where this brook comes from”,
said Jack.

So up alongside the brook he went, in spite of all that his brothers
bawled after him. Nothing could stop him. On he went. So, as he went up
and up, the brook got smaller and smaller, and at last, a little way
farther on, what do you think he saw? Why, a great walnut, and out of
that the water trickled.

“Good-day!” said Jack again. “So you lie here, and trickle and run down
all alone?”

“Yes, I do,” said the Walnut; “and here have I trickled and run this
many a long day, waiting for you.”

“Well, here I am”, said Jack, as he took up a lump of moss and plugged
up the hole, that the water mightn’t run out. Then he put the walnut
into his wallet, and ran down to his brothers.

“Well now”, said Peter and Paul, “have you found out where the water
comes from? A rare sight it must have been!”

“Oh, after all, it was only a hole it ran out of”, said Jack; and so
the others laughed and made game of him again, but Jack didn’t mind
that a bit.

“After all, I had the fun of seeing it”, said he. So when they had gone
a bit farther, they came to the king’s palace; but as every one in the
kingdom had heard how they might win the Princess and half the realm,
if they could only fell the big oak and dig the king’s well, so many
had come to try their luck that the oak was now twice as stout and big
as it had been at first, for two chips grew for every one they hewed
out with their axes, as I daresay you all bear in mind. So the King had
now laid it down as a punishment, that if any one tried and couldn’t
fell the oak, he should be put on a barren island, and both his ears
were to be clipped off. But the two brothers didn’t let themselves be
scared by that; they were quite sure they could fell the oak, and
Peter, as he was eldest, was to try his hand first; but it went with
him as with all the rest who had hewn at the oak; for every chip he cut
out, two grew in its place. So the king’s men seized him, and clipped
off both his ears, and put him out on the island.

Now Paul, he was to try his luck, but he fared just the same; when he
had hewn two or three strokes, they began to see the oak grow, and so
the king’s men seized him too, and clipped his ears, and put him out on
the island; and his ears they clipped closer, because they said he
ought to have taken a lesson from his brother.

So now Jack was to try.

“If you _will_ look like a marked sheep, we’re quite ready to clip your
ears at once, and then you’ll save yourself some bother”, said the
King; for he was angry with him for his brothers’ sake.

“Well, I’d like just to try first”, said Jack, and so he got leave.
Then he took his axe out of his wallet and fitted it to its haft.

“Hew away!” said he to his axe; and away it hewed, making the chips fly
again, so that it wasn’t long before down came the oak.

When that was done, Jack pulled out his spade, and fitted it to its
handle.

“Dig away!” said he to the spade; and so the spade began to dig and
delve till the earth and rock flew out in splinters, and so he had the
well soon dug out, you may think.

And when he had got it as big and deep as he chose, Jack took out his
walnut and laid it in one corner of the well, and pulled the plug of
moss out.

“Trickle and run”, said Jack; and so the nut trickled and ran, till the
water gushed out of the hole in a stream, and in a short time the well
was brimfull.

Then Jack had felled the oak which shaded the king’s palace, and dug a
well in the palace-yard, and so he got the Princess and half the
kingdom, as the King had said; but it was lucky for Peter and Paul that
they had lost their ears, else they had heard each hour and day, how
every one said, “Well, after all, Jack wasn’t so much out of his mind
when he took to wondering.”




BIG PETER AND LITTLE PETER


Once on a time there were two brothers, both named Peter, and so the
elder was called Big Peter, and the younger Little Peter. When his
father was dead, Big Peter took him a wife with lots of money, but
Little Peter was at home with his mother, and lived on her means till
he grew up. So when he was of age he came into his heritage, and then
Big Peter said he mustn’t stay any longer in the old house, and eat up
his mother’s substance; ’twere better he should go out into the world
and do something for himself.

Yes; Little Peter thought that no bad plan; so he bought himself a fine
horse and a load of butter and cheese, and set off to the town; and
with the money he got for his goods he bought brandy, and wine, and
beer, and as soon as ever he got home again it was one round of
holiday-keeping and merry-making; he treated all his old friends and
neighbours, and they treated him again; and so he lived in fun and
frolic so long as his money lasted. But when his last shilling was
spent, and Little Peter hadn’t a penny in his purse, he went back home
again to his old mother, and brought nothing with him but a calf. When
the spring came he turned out the calf and let it graze on Big Peter’s
meadow. Then Big Peter got cross and killed the calf at one blow; but
Little Peter, he flayed the calf, and hung the skin up in the bath-room
till it was thoroughly dry; then he rolled it up, stuffed it into a
sack, and went about the country trying to sell it; but wherever he
came, they only laughed at him, and said they had no need of smoked
calfskin. So when he had walked on a long way, he came to a farm, and
there he turned in and asked for a night’s lodging.

“Nay, nay”, said the Goody, “I can’t give you lodging, for my husband
is up at the shieling on the hill, and I’m alone in the house. You must
just try to get shelter at our next neighbour’s; but still if they
won’t take you in, you may come back, for you must have a house over
your head, come what may.”

So as little Peter passed by the parlour window, he saw that there was
a priest in there, with whom the Goody was making merry, and she was
serving him up ale and brandy, and a great bowl of custard. But just as
the priest had sat down to eat and drink, back came the husband, and as
soon as ever the Goody heard him in the passage, she was not slow; she
took the bowl of custard, and put it under the kitchen grate, and the
ale and brandy into the cellar, and as for the priest, she locked him
up in a great chest which stood there. All this Little Peter stood
outside and saw, and as soon as the husband was well inside Little
Peter went up to the door and asked if he might have a night’s lodging.

“Yes, to be sure”, said the man, “we’ll take you in”; and so he begged
Little Peter to sit down at the table and eat. Yes, Little Peter sat
down, and took his calfskin with him, and laid it down at his feet.

So, when they had sat a while, Little Peter began to mutter to his
skin:

“What are you saying now? can’t you hold your tongue”, said Little
Peter.

“Who is it you’re talking with?” asked the man.

“Oh!” answered Little Peter, “it’s only a spae-maiden whom I’ve got in
my calfskin.”

“And pray what does she spae?” asked the man again.

“Why, she says that no one can say there isn’t a bowl of custard
standing under the grate”, said Little Peter.

“She may spae as much as she pleases”, answered the man, “but we
haven’t had custards in this house for a year and a day.”

But Peter begged him only to look, and he did so; and he found the
custard-bowl. So they began to make merry with it, but just as they sat
and took their ease, Peter muttered something again to the calfskin.

“Hush!” he said, “can’t you hold your jaw?”

“And pray what does the spae-maiden say now?” asked the man.

“Oh! she says no one can say there isn’t brandy and ale standing just
under the trap-door which goes down into the cellar”, answered Peter.

“Well! if she never spaed wrong in her life, she spaes wrong now”, said
the man. “Brandy and ale! why, I can’t call to mind the day when we had
such things in the house!”

“Just look”, said Peter; and the man did so, and there, sure enough, he
found the drink, and you may fancy how merry and jolly he was.

“What did you give for that spae-maiden?” said the man, “for I must
have her, whatever you ask for her.”

“She was left me by my father”, said Peter, “and so she didn’t cost me
much. To tell you the truth, I’ve no great mind to part with her, but,
all the same, you may have her, if you’ll let me have, instead of her,
that old chest that stands in the parlour yonder.”

“The chest’s locked and the key lost”, screamed the old dame.

“Then I’ll take it without the key, that I will”, said Peter. And so he
and the man soon struck the bargain. Peter got a rope instead of the
key, and the man helped him to get the chest up on his back, and then
off he stumped with it. So when he had walked a bit he came on to a
bridge, and under the bridge ran a river in such a headlong stream; it
leapt, and foamed, and made such a roar, that the bridge shook again.

“Ah!” said Peter, “that brandy-that brandy! Now I can feel I’ve had a
drop too much. What’s the good of my dragging this chest about? If I
hadn’t been drunk and mad, I shouldn’t have gone and swopped away my
spae-maiden for it. But now this chest shall go out into the river this
very minute.”

And with that he began to untie the rope.

“Au! Au! do for God’s sake set me free. The priest’s life is at stake;
he it is whom you have got in the chest”, screamed out some one inside.

“This must be the Deil himself”, said Peter, “who wants to make me
believe he has turned priest; but whether he makes himself priest or
clerk, out he goes into the river.” “Oh no! oh no! “roared out the
priest. “The parish priest is at stake. He was on a visit to the Goody
for her soul’s health, but her husband is rough and wild, and so she
had to hide me in the chest. Here I have a gold watch and a silver
watch in my fob; you shall have them both, and eight hundred dollars
beside, if you will only let me out.”

“Nay, nay”, said Peter; “is it really your reverence after all”; and
with that he took up a stone, and knocked the lid of the chest to
pieces. Then the priest got out, and off he set home to his parsonage
both fast and light, for he no longer had his watches and money to
weigh him down.

As for Little Peter, he went home again, and said to Big Peter, “There
was a good sale to-day for calfskins at the market.”

“Why, what did you get for your tattered one, now?” asked Big Peter.

“Quite as much as it was worth. I got eight hundred dollars for it, but
bigger and stouter calves-skins fetched twice as much”, said Little
Peter, and showed his dollars.

“’Twas well you told me this”, answered Big Peter, who went and
slaughtered all his kine and calves, and set off on the road to town
with their skins and hides. So when he got to the market, and the
tanners asked what he wanted for his hides, Big Peter said he must have
eight hundred dollars for the small ones, and so on, more and more for
the big ones. But all the folk only laughed and made game of him, and
said he oughtn’t to come there; he’d better turn into the madhouse for
a better bargain, and so he soon found out how things had gone, and
that Little Peter had played him a trick. But when he got home again,
he was not very soft-spoken, and he swore and cursed; so help him, if
he wouldn’t strike Little Peter dead that very night. All this Little
Peter stood and listened to; and so, when he had gone to bed with his
mother, and the night had worn on a little, he begged her to change
sides with him, for he was well-nigh frozen, he said, and might be
’twas warmer next the wall. Yes, she did that, and in a little while
came Big Peter with an axe in his hand, and crept up to the bedside,
and at one blow chopped off his mother’s head.

Next morning, in went Little Peter into Big Peter’s sitting-room.

“Heaven better and help you”, he said; “you who have chopped our
mother’s head off. The Sheriff will not be over-pleased to hear that
you pay mother’s dower in this way.”

Then Big Peter got so afraid, he begged Little Peter, for God’s sake,
to say nothing about what he knew. If he would only do that, he should
have eight hundred dollars.

Well, Little Peter swept up the money; set his mother’s head on her
body again; put her on a hand-sledge, and so drew her to market. There
he set her up with an apple-basket on each arm, and an apple in each
hand. By and by came a skipper walking along; he thought she was an
apple-woman, and asked if she had apples to sell, and how many he might
have for a penny. But the old woman made no answer. So the skipper
asked again. No! she hadn’t a word to say for herself.

“How many may I have for a penny”, he bawled the third time, but the
old dame sat bolt upright, as though she neither saw him, nor heard
what he said. Then the skipper flew into such a rage that he gave her
one under the ear, and so away rolled her head across the market-place.
At that moment, up came Little Peter with a bound; he fell a-weeping
and bewailing, and threatened to make the skipper smart for it, for
having dealt his old mother her death blow.

“Dear friend, only hold your tongue about what you know”, said the
skipper, “and you shall have eight hundred dollars.”

And so they made it up.

When Little Peter got home again, he said to Big Peter:

“Old women fetch a fine price at market to-day. I got eight hundred
dollars for mother; just look”, and so he showed him the money.

“’Twas well I came to know this”, said Big Peter.

Now, you must know he had an old stepmother, so he took and killed her
out of hand, and strode off to sell her. But when they heard how he
went about trying to sell dead bodies, the neighbours were all for
handing him over to the Sheriff, and it was as much as he could do to
get out of the scrape.

When Big Peter got home again, he was so wroth and mad against Little
Peter, he threatened to strike him dead there and then; he needn’t hope
for mercy, die he must.

“Well! well!” said Little Peter, “that’s the way we must all trudge,
and betwixt to-day and to-morrow, there’s only a night to come. But if
I must set off now, I’ve only one thing to ask; stuff me into that sack
that hangs yonder, and take and toss me into the river.”

Well! Big Peter had nothing to say against that, he stuffed him into
the sack and set off. But he hadn’t gone far on his way, before it came
into his mind that he had forgotten something which he must go back to
fetch; meanwhile, he set the sack down by the road side. Just then came
a man driving a fine fat flock of sheep.

To Kingdom-come, to Paradise.
To Kingdom-come, to Paradise.


roared out Little Peter, who lay inside the sack, and that he kept
bawling and bellowing out.

“Mayn’t I get leave to go with you”, asked the man who drove the sheep.

“Of course you may”, said Little Peter. “If you’ll only untie the sack,
and creep into it in my stead, you’ll soon get there. As for me, I
don’t mind biding here till next time, that I don’t. But you must keep
on calling out the words I bawled out, else you’ll not go to the right
place.”

Then the man untied the sack, and got into it in Little Peter’s place:
Peter tied the sack up again and the man began to bawl out:

To Kingdom-come, to Paradise.
To Kingdom-come, to Paradise.


and to that text he stuck.

When Peter had got him well into the sack, he wasn’t slow; off he went
with the flock of sheep, and soon put a good bit of the road behind
him. Meantime, back came Big Peter, took the sack on his shoulders, and
bore it across the country to the river, and all the while he went, the
drover sat inside bawling out:

To Kingdom-come, to Paradise.
To Kingdom-come, to Paradise.


“Aye, aye”, said Big Peter; “try now to find the way for yourself”; and
with that, he tossed him out into the stream.

So when Big Peter had done that, and was going back home, whom should
he overtake but his brother, who went along driving the flock of sheep
before him. Big Peter could scarce believe his eyes, and asked how
Little Peter had got out of the river, and whence the fine flock of
sheep came.

“Ah!” said Little Peter, “that just was a good brotherly turn you did
me, when you threw me into the river. I sank right down to the bottom
like a stone, and there I just did see flocks of sheep; you’d scarce
believe now, that they go about down there by thousands, one flock
bigger than the other. And just look here! here are fleeces for you!”

“Well”, said Big Peter, “I’m very glad you told me.”

So off he ran home to his old dame; made her come with him to the
river; crept into a sack, and bade her make haste to tie it up, and
toss him over the bridge.

“I’m going after a flock of sheep”, he said, “but if I stay too long,
and you think I can’t get along with the flock by myself, just jump
over and help me; do you hear?”

“Well, don’t stay too long”, said his wife, “for my heart is set on
seeing those sheep.”

There she stood and waited a while, but then she thought, perhaps her
husband couldn’t keep the flock well together, and so down she jumped
after him.

And so Little Peter was rid of them all, and the farm and fields came
to him as heir, and horses and cattle too; and, besides, he had money
in his pocket to buy milch kine to tether in his byre.




TATTERHOOD


Once on a time there was a king and a queen who had no children, and
that gave the queen much grief; she scarce had one happy hour. She was
always bewailing and bemoaning herself, and saying how dull and
lonesome it was in the palace.

“If we had children there’d be life enough”, she said.

Wherever she went in all her realm she found God’s blessing in
children, even in the vilest hut; and wherever she came she heard the
Goodies scolding the bairns, and saying how they had done that and that
wrong. All this the queen heard, and thought it would be so nice to do
as other women did. At last the king and queen took into their palace a
stranger lassie to rear up, that they might have her always with them,
to love her if she did well, and scold her if she did wrong, like their
own child.

So one day the little lassie whom they had taken as their own, ran down
into the palace yard, and was playing with a gold apple. Just then an
old beggar wife came by, who had a little girl with her, and it wasn’t
long before the little lassie and the beggar’s bairn were great
friends, and began to play together, and to toss the gold apple about
between them. When the Queen saw this, as she sat at a window in the
palace, she tapped on the pane for her foster-daughter to come up. She
went at once, but the beggar-girl went up too; and as they went into
the Queen’s bower, each held the other by the hand. Then the Queen
began to scold the little lady, and to say:

“You ought to be above running about and playing with a tattered
beggar’s brat.”

And so she wanted to drive the lassie downstairs.

“If the Queen only knew my mother’s power, she’d not drive me out”,
said the little lassie; and when the Queen asked what she meant more
plainly, she told her how her mother could get her children if she
chose. The Queen wouldn’t believe it, but the lassie held her own, and
said every word of it was true, and bade the Queen only to try and make
her mother do it. So the Queen sent the lassie down to fetch up her
mother.

“Do you know what your daughter says?” asked the Queen of the old
woman, as soon as ever she came into the room.

No; the beggar wife knew nothing about it.

“Well, she says you can get me children if you will”, answered the
Queen.

“Queens shouldn’t listen to beggar lassies’ silly stories”, said the
old wife, and strode out of the room.

Then the Queen got angry, and wanted again to drive out the little
lassie; but she declared it was true every word that she had said.

“Let the Queen only give my mother a drop to drink,” said the lassie;
“when she gets merry she’ll soon find out a way to help you.”

The Queen was ready to try this; so the beggar wife was fetched up
again once more, and treated both with wine and mead as much as she
chose; and so it was not long before her tongue began to wag. Then the
Queen came out again with the same question she had asked before.

“One way to help you perhaps I know”, said the beggar wife. “Your
Majesty must make them bring in two pails of water some evening before
you go to bed. In each of them you must wash yourself, and afterwards
throw away the water under the bed. When you look under the bed next
morning, two flowers will have sprung up, one fair and one ugly. The
fair one you must eat, the ugly one you must let stand; but mind you
don’t forget the last.”

That was what the beggar wife said.

Yes; the Queen did what the beggar wife advised her to do; she had the
water brought up in two pails, washed herself in them, and emptied them
under the bed; and lo! when she looked under the bed next morning,
there stood two flowers; one was ugly and foul, and had black leaves;
but the other was so bright, and fair, and lovely, she had never seen
its like; so she ate it up at once. But the pretty flower tasted so
sweet, that she couldn’t help herself. She ate the other up too, for,
she thought, “it can’t hurt or help one much either way, I’ll be
bound”.

Well, sure enough, after a while the Queen was brought to bed. First of
all, she had a girl who had a wooden spoon in her hand, and rode upon a
goat; loathly and ugly she was, and the very moment she came into the
world, she bawled out “Mamma”.

“If I’m your mamma”, said the Queen, “God give me grace to mend my
ways.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry”, said the girl, who rode on the goat, “for one
will soon come after me who is better looking.”

So, after a while, the Queen had another girl, who was so fair and
sweet, no one had ever set eyes on such a lovely child, and with her
you may fancy the Queen was very well pleased. The elder twin they
called “Tatterhood”, because she was always so ugly and ragged, and
because she had a hood which hung about her ears in tatters. The Queen
could scarce bear to look at her, and the nurses tried to shut her up
in a room by herself, but it was all no good; where the younger twin
was, there she must also be, and no one could ever keep them apart.

Well, one Christmas eve, when they were half grown up, there rose such
a frightful noise and clatter in the gallery outside the Queen’s bower.
So Tatterhood asked what it was that dashed and crashed so out in the
passage.

“Oh!” said the Queen, “it isn’t worth asking about.”

But Tatterhood wouldn’t give over till she found out all about it and
so the Queen told her it was a pack of Trolls and witches who had come
there to keep Christmas. So Tatterhood said she’d just go out and drive
them away; and in spite of all they could say, and however much they
begged and prayed her to let the Trolls alone, she must and would go
out to drive the witches off; but she begged the Queen to mind and keep
all the doors close shut, so that not one of them came so much as the
least bit ajar. Having said this, off she went with her wooden spoon,
and began to hunt and sweep away the hags; and all this while there was
such a pother out in the gallery, the like of it was never heard. The
whole Palace creaked and groaned as if every joint and beam were going
to be torn out of its place. Now, how it was, I’m sure I can’t tell;
but somehow or other one door did get the least bit ajar, then her twin
sister just peeped out to see how things were going with Tatterhood,
and put her head a tiny bit through the opening. But, POP! up came an
old witch, and whipped off her head, and stuck a calf’s head on her
shoulders instead; and so the Princess ran back into the room on
all-fours, and began to “moo” like a calf. When Tatterhood came back
and saw her sister, she scolded them all round, and was very angry
because they hadn’t kept better watch, and asked them what they thought
of their heedlessness now, when her sister was turned into a calf.

“But still I’ll see if I can’t set her free”, she said.

Then she asked the King for a ship in full trim, and well fitted with
stores; but captain and sailors she wouldn’t have. No; she would sail
away with her sister all alone; and as there was no holding her back,
at last they let her have her own way.

Then Tatterhood sailed off, and steered her ship right under the land
where the witches dwelt, and when she came to the landing-place, she
told her sister to stay quite still on board the ship; but she herself
rode on her goat up to the witches’ castle. When she got there, one of
the windows in the gallery was open, and there she saw her sister’s
head hung up on the window frame; so she leapt her goat through the
window into the gallery, snapped up the head, and set off with it.
After her came the witches to try to get the head again, and they
flocked about her as thick as a swarm of bees or a nest of ants; but
the goat snorted, and puffed, and butted with his horns, and Tatterhood
beat and banged them about with her wooden spoon; and so the pack of
witches had to give it up. So Tatterhood got back to her ship, took the
calf’s head off her sister, and put her own on again, and then she
became a girl as she had been before. After that she sailed a long,
long way, to a strange king’s realm.

Now the king of that land was a widower, and had an only son. So when
he saw the strange sail, he sent messengers down to the strand to find
out whence it came, and who owned it; but when the king’s men came down
there, they saw never a living soul on board but Tatterhood, and there
she was, riding round and round the deck on her goat at full speed,
till her elf locks streamed again in the wind. The folk from the palace
were all amazed at this sight, and asked, were there not more on board?
Yes, there were; she had a sister with her, said Tatterhood. Her, too,
they wanted to see, but Tatterhood said “No”:

“No one shall see her, unless the king comes himself”, she said; and so
she began to gallop about on her goat till the deck thundered again.

So when the servants got back to the palace, and told what they had
seen and heard down at the ship, the king was for setting out at once,
that he might see the lassie that rode on the goat. When he got down,
Tatterhood led out her sister, and she was so fair and gentle, the king
fell over head and ears in love with her as he stood. He brought them
both back with him to the Palace, and wanted to have the sister for his
queen; but Tatterhood said “No”; the king couldn’t have her in any way,
unless the king’s son chose to have Tatterhood. That you may fancy the
prince was very loath to do, such an ugly hussy as Tatterhood was; but
at last the king and all the others in the palace talked him over, and
he yielded, giving his word to take her for his queen; but it went sore
against the grain, and he was a doleful man.

Now they set about the wedding, both with brewing and baking; and when
all was ready, they were to go to church; but the prince thought it the
weariest churching he had ever had in all his life. First, the king
drove off with his bride, and she was so lovely and so grand, all the
people stopped to look after her all along the road, and they stared at
her till she was out of sight. After them came the prince on horseback
by the side of Tatterhood, who trotted along on her goat with her
wooden spoon in her fist, and to look at him, it was more like going to
a burial than a wedding, and that his own; so sorrowful he seemed, and
with never a word to say.

“Why don’t you talk?” asked Tatterhood, when they had ridden a bit.

“Why, what should I talk about?” answered the prince.

“Well, you might at least ask me why I ride upon this ugly goat”, said
Tatterhood.

“Why do you ride on that ugly goat?” asked the prince.

“Is it an ugly goat? why, it’s the grandest horse bride ever rode on”,
answered Tatterhood; and in a trice the goat became a horse, and that
the finest the prince had ever set eyes on.

Then they rode on again a bit, but the prince was just as woeful as
before, and couldn’t get a word out. So Tatterhood asked him again why
he didn’t talk, and when the Prince answered he didn’t know what to
talk about, she said:

“You can at least ask me why I ride with this ugly spoon in my fist.”

“Why do you ride with that ugly spoon? “asked the prince.

“Is it an ugly spoon? why, it’s the loveliest silver wand bride ever
bore”, said Tatterhood; and in a trice it became a silver wand, so
dazzling bright, the sunbeams glistened from it.

So they rode on another bit, but the Prince was just as sorrowful, and
said never a word. In a little while, Tatterhood asked him again why he
didn’t talk, and bade him ask why she wore that ugly grey hood on her
head.

“Why do you wear that ugly grey hood on your head?” asked the Prince.

“Is it an ugly hood? why, it’s the brightest golden crown bride ever
wore”, answered Tatterhood, and it became a crown on the spot.

Now, they rode on a long while again, and the Prince was so woeful,
that he sat without sound or speech just as before. So his bride asked
him again why he didn’t talk, and bade him ask now, why her face was so
ugly and ashen-grey?

“Ah!” asked the Prince, “why is your face so ugly and ashen-grey?”

“I ugly”, said the bride; “you think my sister pretty, but I am ten
times prettier”; and lo! when the Prince looked at her, she was so
lovely, he thought there never was so lovely a woman in all the world.
After that, I shouldn’t wonder if the Prince found his tongue, and no
longer rode along hanging down his head.

So they drank the bridal cup both deep and long, and, after that, both
Prince and King set out with their brides to the Princess’s father’s
palace, and there they had another bridal feast, and drank anew, both
deep and long. There was no end to the fun; and, if you make haste and
run to the King’s palace, I dare say you’ll find there’s still a drop
of the bridal ale left for you.




THE COCK AND HEN THAT WENT TO THE DOVREFELL


Once on a time there was a Hen that had flown up, and perched on an
oak-tree for the night. When the night came, she dreamed that unless
she got to the Dovrefell, the world would come to an end. So that very
minute she jumped down, and set out on her way. When she had walked a
bit she met a Cock.

“Good day, Cocky-Locky”, said the Hen.

“Good day, Henny-Penny”, said the Cock, “whither away so early.”

“Oh, I’m going to the Dovrefell, that the world mayn’t come to an end”,
said the Hen.

“Who told you that, Henny-Penny”, said the Cock.

“I sat in the oak and dreamt it last night”, said the Hen.

“I’ll go with you”, said the Cock.

Well! they walked on a good bit, and then they met a Duck.

“Good day, Ducky-Lucky”, said the Cock.

“Good day, Cocky-Locky”, said the Duck, “whither away so early?”

“Oh, I’m going to the Dovrefell, that the world mayn’t come to an end”,
said the Cock.

“Who told you that, Cocky-Locky?”

“Henny-Penny”, said the Cock.

“Who told you that, Henny-Penny?” said the Duck.

“I sat in the oak and dreamt it last night”, said the Hen.

“I’ll go with you”, said the Duck.

So they went off together, and after a bit they met a Goose.

“Good day, Goosey-Poosey”, said the Duck.

“Good day, Ducky-Lucky”, said the Goose, “whither away so early?”

“I’m going to the Dovrefell, that the world mayn’t come to an end”,
said the Duck.

“Who told you that, Ducky-Lucky?” asked the Goose.

“Cocky-Locky.”

“Who told you that, Cocky-Locky?”

“Henny-Penny.”

“How you do know that, Henny-Penny?” said the Goose.

“I sat in the oak and dreamt it last night, Goosey-Poosey”, said the
Hen.

“I’ll go with you”, said the Goose.

Now when they had all walked along for a bit, a Fox met them.

“Good day, Foxsy-Cocksy”, said the Goose.

“Good day, Goosey-Poosey.”

“Whither away, Foxy-Cocksy?”

“Whither away yourself, Goosey-Poosey?”

“I’m going to the Dovrefell that the world mayn’t come to an end”, said
the Goose.

“Who told you that, Goosey-Poosey?” asked the Fox.

“Ducky-Lucky.”

“Who told you that, Ducky-Lucky?”

“Cocky-Locky.”

“Who told you that, Cocky-Locky?”

“Henny-Penny.”

“How do you know that, Henny-Penny?”

“I sat in the oak and dreamt last night, that if we don’t get to the
Dovrefell, the world will come to an end”, said the Hen.

“Stuff and nonsense”, said the Fox; “the world won’t come to an end if
you don’t get thither. No! come home with me to my earth. That’s far
better, for it’s warm and jolly there.”

Well, they went home with the Fox to his earth, and when they got in,
the Fox laid on lots of fuel, so that they all got very sleepy.

The Duck and the Goose, they settled themselves down in a corner, but
the Cock and Hen flew up on a post. So when the Goose and Duck were
well asleep, the Fox, took the Goose and laid him on the embers, and
roasted him. The Hen smelt the strong roast meat, and sprang up to a
higher peg, and said, half asleep:

Faugh, what a nasty smell!
What a nasty smell!


“Oh, stuff”, said the Fox; “it’s only the smoke driven down the
chimney; go to sleep again, and hold your tongue.” So the Hen went off
to sleep again.

Now the Fox had hardly got the Goose well down his throat, before he
did the very same with the Duck. He took and laid him on the embers,
and roasted him for a dainty bit. Then the hen woke up again, and
sprung up to a higher peg still.

Faugh, what a nasty smell!
What a nasty smell!


She said again, and then she got her eyes open, and came to see how the
Fox had eaten both the twain, goose and duck; so she flew up to the
highest peg of all, and perched there, and peeped up through the
chimney.

“Nay, nay; just see what a lovely lot of geese flying yonder”, she said
to the Fox.

Out ran Reynard to fetch a fat roast. But while he was gone, the Hen
woke up the Cock, and told him how it had gone with Goosey-Poosey and
Ducky-Lucky; and so Cocky-Lucky and Henny-Penny flew out through the
chimney, and if they hadn’t got to the Dovrefell, it surely would have
been all over with the world.




KATIE WOODENCLOAK


Once on a time there was a King who had become a widower. By his Queen
he had one daughter, who was so clever and lovely, there wasn’t a
cleverer or lovelier Princess in all the world. So the King went on a
long time sorrowing for the Queen, whom he had loved so much, but at
last he got weary of living alone, and married another Queen, who was a
widow, and had, too, an only daughter; but this daughter was just as
bad and ugly as the other was kind, and clever, and lovely, The
stepmother and her daughter were jealous of the Princess, because she
was so lovely; but so long as the King was at home, they daredn’t do
her any harm, he was so fond of her.

Well, after a time, he fell into war with another King, and went out to
battle with his host, and then the stepmother thought she might do as
she pleased; and so she both starved and beat the Princess, and was
after her in every hole and corner of the house. At last she thought
everything too good for her, and turned her out to herd cattle. So
there she went about with the cattle, and herded them in the woods and
on the fells. As for food, she got little or none, and she grew thin
and wan, and was always sobbing and sorrowful. Now in the herd there
was a great dun bull, which always kept himself so neat and sleek, and
often and often he came up to the Princess, and let her pat him. So one
day when she sat there, sad, and sobbing, and sorrowful, he came up to
her and asked her outright why she was always in such grief. She
answered nothing, but went on weeping.

“Ah!” said the Bull, “I know all about it quite well, though you won’t
tell me; you weep because the Queen is bad to you, and because she is
ready to starve you to death. But food you’ve no need to fret about,
for in my left ear lies a cloth, and when you take and spread it out,
you may have as many dishes as you please.”

So she did that, took the cloth and spread it out on the grass, and lo!
it served up the nicest dishes one could wish to have; there was wine
too, and mead, and sweet cake. Well, she soon got up her flesh again,
and grew so plump, and rosy, and white, that the Queen and her scrawny
chip of a daughter turned blue and yellow for spite. The Queen couldn’t
at all make out how her stepdaughter got to look so well on such bad
fare, so she told one of her maids to go after her in the wood, and
watch and see how it all was, for she thought some of the servants in
the house must give her food. So the maid went after her, and watched
in the wood, and then she saw how the stepdaughter took the cloth out
of the Bull’s ear, and spread it out, and how it served up the nicest
dishes, which the stepdaughter ate and made good cheer over. All this
the maid told the Queen when she went home.

And now the King came home from war, and had won the fight against the
other king with whom he went out to battle. So there was great joy
throughout the palace, and no one was gladder than the King’s daughter.
But the Queen shammed sick, and took to her bed, and paid the doctor a
great fee to get him to say she could never be well again unless she
had some of the Dun Bull’s flesh to eat. Both the king’s daughter and
the folk in the palace asked the doctor if nothing else would help her,
and prayed hard for the Bull, for every one was fond of him, and they
all said there wasn’t that Bull’s match in all the land. But, no; he
must and should be slaughtered, nothing else would do. When the king’s
daughter heard that, she got very sorrowful, and went down into the
byre to the Bull. There, too, he stood and hung down his head, and
looked so downcast that she began to weep over him.

“What are you weeping for?” asked the Bull.

So she told him how the King had come home again, and how the Queen had
shammed sick and got the doctor to say she could never be well and
sound again unless she got some of the Dun Bull’s flesh to eat, and so
now he was to be slaughtered.

“If they get me killed first”, said the Bull, “they’ll soon take your
life too. Now, if you’re of my mind, we’ll just start off, and go away
to-night.”

Well, the Princess thought it bad, you may be sure, to go and leave her
father, but she thought it still worse to be in the house with the
Queen; and so she gave her word to the Bull to come to him.

At night, when all had gone to bed, the Princess stole down to the byre
to the Bull, and so he took her on his back, and set off from the
homestead as fast as ever he could. And when the folk got up at
cockcrow next morning to slaughter the Bull, why, he was gone; and when
the King got up and asked for his daughter, she was gone too. He sent
out messengers on all sides to hunt for them, and gave them out in all
the parish churches; but there was no one who had caught a glimpse of
them. Meanwhile, the Bull went through many lands with the King’s
daughter on his back, and so one day they came to a great copper-wood,
where both the trees, and branches, and leaves, and flowers, and
everything, were nothing but copper.

But before they went into the wood, the Bull said to the King’s
daughter:

“Now, when we get into this wood, mind you take care not to touch even
a leaf of it, else it’s all over both with me and you, for here dwells
a Troll with three heads who owns this wood.”

No, bless her, she’d be sure to take care not to touch anything. Well,
she was very careful, and leant this way and that to miss the boughs,
and put them gently aside with her hands; but it was such a thick wood,
’twas scarce possible to get through; and so, with all her pains,
somehow or other she tore off a leaf, which she held in her hand.

“AU! AU! what have you done now?” said the Bull; “there’s nothing for
it now but to fight for life or death; but mind you keep the leaf
safe.”

Soon after they got to the end of the wood, and a Troll with three
heads came running up:

“Who is this that touches my wood?” said the Troll.

“It’s just as much mine as yours”, said the Bull.

“Ah!” roared the Troll, “we’ll try a fall about that.”

“As you choose”, said the Bull.

So they rushed at one another, and fought; and the Bull he butted, and
gored, and kicked with all his might and main; but the Troll gave him
as good as he brought, and it lasted the whole day before the Bull got
the mastery; and then he was so full of wounds, and so worn out, he
could scarce lift a leg. Then they were forced to stay there a day to
rest, and then the Bull bade the King’s daughter to take the horn of
ointment which hung at the Troll’s belt, and rub him with it. Then he
came to himself again, and the day after they trudged on again. So they
travelled many, many days, until, after a long long time, they came to
a silver wood, where both the trees, and branches, and leaves, and
flowers, and everything, were silvern.

Before the Bull went into the wood, he said to the King’s daughter:

“Now, when we get into this wood, for heaven’s sake mind you take good
care; you mustn’t touch anything, and not pluck off so much as one
leaf, else it is all over both with me and you; for here is a Troll
with six heads who owns it, and him I don’t think I should be able to
master.”

“No”, said the King’s daughter; “I’ll take good care and not touch
anything you don’t wish me to touch.”

But when they got into the wood, it was so close and thick, they could
scarce get along. She was as careful as careful could be, and leant to
this side and that to miss the boughs, and put them on one side with
her hands, but every minute the branches struck her across the eyes,
and in spite of all her pains, it so happened she tore off a leaf.

“AU! AU! what have you done now?” said the Bull. “There’s nothing for
it now but to fight for life and death, for this Troll has six heads,
and is twice as strong as the other, but mind you keep the leaf safe,
and don’t lose it.”

Just as he said that, up came the Troll:

“Who is this”, he said, “that touches my wood?”

“It’s as much mine as yours”, said the Bull.

“That we’ll try a fall about”, roared the Troll.

“As you choose”, said the Bull, and rushed at the Troll, and gored out
his eyes, and drove his horns right through his body, so that the
entrails gushed out; but the Troll was almost a match for him, and it
lasted three whole days before the Bull got the life gored out of him.
But then he, too, was so weak and wretched, it was as much as he could
do to stir a limb, and so full of wounds, that the blood streamed from
him. So he said to the King’s daughter she must take the horn of
ointment that hung at the Troll’s belt, and rub him with it. Then she
did that, and he came to himself; but they were forced to stay there a
week to rest before the Bull had strength enough to go on.

At last they set off again, but the Bull was still poorly, and they
went rather slowly at first. So, to spare time, the King’s daughter
said, as she was young and light of foot, she could very well walk, but
she couldn’t get leave to do that. No; she must seat herself up on his
back again. So on they travelled through many lands a long time, and
the King’s daughter did not know in the least whither they went; but
after a long, long time they came to a gold wood. It was so grand, the
gold dropped from every twig, and all the trees, and boughs, and
flowers, and leaves, were of pure gold. Here, too, the same thing
happened as had happened in the silver wood and copper wood. The Bull
told the King’s daughter she mustn’t touch it for anything, for there
was a Troll with nine heads who owned it, and he was much bigger and
stouter than both the others put together; and he didn’t think he could
get the better of him. No; she’d be sure to take heed not to touch it;
that he might know very well. But when they got into the wood, it was
far thicker and closer than the silver wood, and the deeper they went
into it, the worse it got. The wood went on, getting thicker and
thicker, and closer and closer; and at last she thought there was no
way at all to get through it. She was in such an awful fright of
plucking off anything, that she sat, and twisted, and turned herself
this way and that, and hither and thither, to keep clear of the boughs,
and she put them on one side with her hands; but every moment the
branches struck her across the eyes, so that she couldn’t see what she
was clutching at; and lo! before she knew how it came about, she had a
gold apple in her hand. Then she was so bitterly sorry, she burst into
tears, and wanted to throw it away; but the Bull said, she must keep it
safe and watch it well, and comforted her as well as he could; but he
thought it would be a hard tussle, and he doubted how it would go.

Just then up came the Troll with the nine heads, and he was so ugly,
the King’s daughter scarcely dared to look at him.

“WHO IS THIS THAT TOUCHES MY WOOD?” he roared.

“It’s just as much mine as yours”, said the Bull.

“That we’ll try a fall about”, roared the Troll again.

“Just as you choose”, said the Bull; and so they rushed at one another,
and fought, and it was such a dreadful sight, the King’s daughter was
ready to swoon away. The Bull gored out the Troll’s eyes, and drove his
horns through and through his body, till the entrails came tumbling
out; but the Troll fought bravely; and when the Bull got one head gored
to death, the rest breathed life into it again, and so it lasted a
whole week before the Bull was able to get the life out of them all.
But then he was utterly worn out and wretched. He couldn’t stir a foot,
and his body was all one wound. He couldn’t so much as ask the King’s
daughter to take the horn of ointment which hung at the Troll’s belt,
and rub it over him. But she did it all the same, and then he came to
himself by little and little; but they had to lie there and rest three
weeks before he was fit to go on again.

Then they set off at a snail’s pace, for the Bull said they had still a
little further to go, and so they crossed over many high hills and
thick woods. So after awhile they got upon the fells.

“Do you see anything?” asked the Bull.

“No, I see nothing but the sky, and the wild fell”, said the King’s
daughter.

So when they clomb higher up, the fell got smoother, and they could see
further off.

“Do you see anything now?” asked the Bull.

“Yes, I see a little castle far, far away”, said the Princess.

“That’s not so little though”, said the Bull.

After a long, long time, they came to a great cairn, where there was a
spur of the fell that stood sheer across the way.

“Do you see anything now?” asked the Bull.

“Yes, now I see the castle close by”, said the King’s daughter, “and
now it is much, much bigger.”

“Thither you’re to go”, said the Bull. “Right underneath the castle is
a pig-sty, where you are to dwell. When you come thither you’ll find a
wooden cloak, all made of strips of lath; that you must put on, and go
up to the castle and say your name is ‘Katie Woodencloak’, and ask for
a place. But before you go, you must take your penknife and cut my head
off, and then you must flay me, and roll up the hide, and lay it under
the wall of rock yonder, and under the hide you must lay the copper
leaf, and the silver leaf, and the golden apple. Yonder, up against the
rock, stands a stick; and when you want anything, you’ve only got to
knock on the wall of rock with that stick.”

At first she wouldn’t do anything of the kind; but when the Bull said
it was the only thanks he would have for what he had done for her, she
couldn’t help herself. So, however much it grieved her heart, she
hacked and cut away with her knife at the big beast till she got both
his head and his hide off, and then she laid the hide up under the wall
of rock, and put the copper leaf, and the silvern leaf, and the golden
apple inside it.

So when she had done that, she went over to the pig-sty, but all the
while she went she sobbed and wept. There she put on the wooden cloak,
and so went up to the palace. When she came into the kitchen she begged
for a place, and told them her name was Katie Woodencloak. Yes, the
cook said she might have a place—she might have leave to be there in
the scullery, and wash up, for the lassie who did that work before had
just gone away.

“But as soon as you get weary of being here, you’ll go your way too,
I’ll be bound.”

No; she was sure she wouldn’t do that.

So there she was, behaving so well, and washing up so handily. The
Sunday after there were to be strange guests at the palace, so Katie
asked if she might have leave to carry up water for the Prince’s bath;
but all the rest laughed at her, and said:

“What should you do there? Do you think the Prince will care to look at
you, you who are such a fright!”

But she wouldn’t give it up, and kept on begging and praying; and at
last she got leave. So when she went up the stairs, her wooden cloak
made such a clatter, the Prince came out and asked:

“Pray who are you?”

“Oh! I was just going to bring up water for your Royal Highness’s
bath”, said Katie.

“Do you think now”, said the Prince, “I’d have anything to do with the
water you bring?” and with that he threw the water over her.

So she had to put up with that, but then she asked leave to go to
church; well, she got that leave too, for the church lay close by. But,
first of all, she went to the rock, and knocked on its face with the
stick which stood there, just as the Bull had said. And straightway out
came a man, who said:

“What’s your will?”

So the Princess said she had got leave to go to church and hear the
priest preach, but she had no clothes to go in. So he brought out a
kirtle, which was as bright as the copper wood, and she got a horse and
saddle beside. Now, when she got to the church she was so lovely and
grand, all wondered who she could be, and scarce one of them listened
to what the priest said, for they looked too much at her. As for the
Prince, he fell so deep in love with her, he didn’t take his eyes off
her for a single moment.

So, as she went out of church, the Prince ran after her, and held the
church door open for her; and so he got hold of one of her gloves,
which was caught in the door. When she went away and mounted her horse,
the Prince went up to her again, and asked whence she came.

“Oh! I’m from Bath”, said Katie; and while the Prince took out the
glove to give it to her, she said:

Bright before and dark behind,
Clouds come rolling on the wind;
That this Prince may never see
Where my good steed goes with me.


The Prince had never seen the like of that glove, and went about far
and wide asking after the land whence the proud lady, who rode off
without her glove, said she came; but there was no one who could tell
where “Bath” lay.

Next Sunday some one had to go up to the Prince with a towel.

“Oh! may I have leave to go up with it?” said Katie.

“What’s the good of your going?” said the others; “you saw how it fared
with you last time.”

But Katie wouldn’t give in; she kept on begging and praying, till she
got leave; and then she ran up the stairs, so that her wooden cloak
made a great clatter. Out came the Prince, and when he saw it was
Katie, he tore the towel out of her hand, and threw it into her face.

“Pack yourself off, you ugly Troll”, he cried; “do you think I’d have a
towel which you have touched with your smutty fingers?”

After that the Prince set off to church, and Katie begged for leave to
go too. They all asked what business she had at church—she who had
nothing to put on but that wooden cloak, which was so black and ugly.
But Katie said the priest was such a brave man to preach, what he said
did her so much good; and so she at last got leave. Now she went again
to the rock and knocked, and so out came the man, and gave her a kirtle
far finer than the first one; it was all covered with silver, and it
shone like the silver wood; and she got besides a noble steed, with a
saddle-cloth broidered with silver, and a silver bit.

So when the King’s daughter got to the church, the folk were still
standing about in the churchyard. And all wondered and wondered who she
could be, and the Prince was soon on the spot, and came and wished to
hold her horse for her while she got off. But she jumped down, and said
there was no need, for her horse was so well broke, it stood still when
she bid it, and came when she called it. So they all went into church;
but there was scarce a soul that listened to what the priest said, for
they looked at her a deal too much; and the Prince fell still deeper in
love than the first time.

When the sermon was over, and she went out of church and was going to
mount her horse, up came the Prince again, and asked her whence she
came.

“Oh! I’m from Towelland”, said the King’s daughter; and as she said
that, she dropped her riding-whip, and when the Prince stooped to pick
it up, she said:

Bright before and dark behind,
Clouds come rolling on the wind;
That this Prince may never see
Where my good steed goes with me.


So away she was again; and the Prince couldn’t tell what had become of
her. He went about far and wide asking after the land whence she said
she came, but there was no one who could tell him where it lay; and so
the Prince had to make the best he could of it.

Next Sunday some one had to go up to the Prince with a comb. Katie
begged for leave to go up with it, but the others put her in mind how
she had fared the last time, and scolded her for wishing to go before
the Prince—such a black and ugly fright as she was in her wooden cloak.
But she wouldn’t leave off asking till they let her go up to the Prince
with his comb. So, when she came clattering up the stairs again, out
came the Prince, and took the comb, and threw it at her, and bade her
be off as fast as she could. After that the Prince went to church, and
Katie begged for leave to go too. They asked again what business she
had there, she who was so foul and black, and who had no clothes to
show herself in. Might be the Prince or some one else would see her,
and then both she and all the others would smart for it; but Katie said
they had something else to do than to look at her; and she wouldn’t
leave off begging and praying till they gave her leave to go.

So the same thing happened now as had happened twice before. She went
to the rock and knocked with the stick, and then the man came out and
gave her a kirtle which was far grander than either of the others. It
was almost all pure gold, and studded with diamonds; and she got
besides a noble steed, with a gold broidered saddle-cloth and a golden
bit.

Now when the King’s daughter got to the church, there stood the priest
and all the people in the churchyard waiting for her. Up came the
Prince running, and wanted to hold her horse, but she jumped off, and
said:

“No; thanks—there’s no need, for my horse is so well broke, it stands
still when I bid him.”

So they all hastened into church, and the priest got into the pulpit,
but no one listened to a word he said; for they all looked too much at
her, and wondered whence she came; and the Prince, he was far deeper in
love than either of the former times. He had no eyes, or ears, or sense
for anything, but just to sit and stare at her.

So when the sermon was over, and the King’s daughter was to go out of
the church, the Prince had got a firkin of pitch poured out in the
porch, that he might come and help her over it; but she didn’t care a
bit—she just put her foot right down into the midst of the pitch, and
jumped across it; but then one of her golden shoes stuck fast in it,
and as she got on her horse, up came the Prince running out of the
church, and asked whence she came.

“I’m from Combland”, said Katie. But when the Prince wanted to reach
her the gold shoe, she said,

Bright before and dark behind,
Clouds come rolling on the wind;
That this Prince may never see
Where my good steed goes with me.


So the Prince couldn’t tell still what had become of her, and he went
about a weary time all over the world asking for “Combland”; but when
no one could tell him where it lay, he ordered it to be given out
everywhere that he would wed the woman whose foot could fit the gold
shoe.

So many came of all sorts from all sides, fair and ugly alike; but
there was no one who had so small a foot as to be able to get on the
gold shoe. And after a long, long time, who should come but Katie’s
wicked stepmother, and her daughter, too, and her the gold shoe fitted;
but ugly she was, and so loathly she looked, the Prince only kept his
word sore against his will. Still they got ready the wedding-feast, and
she was dressed up and decked out as a bride; but as they rode to
church, a little bird sat upon a tree and sang:

A bit off her heel,
And a bit off her toe;
Katie Woodencloak’s tiny shoe
Is full of blood—that’s all I know.


And, sure enough, when they looked to it the bird told the truth, for
blood gushed out of the shoe.

Then all the maids and women who were about the palace had to go up to
try on the shoe, but there was none of them whom it would fit at all.

“But where’s Katie Woodencloak?” asked the Prince, when all the rest
had tried the shoe, for he understood the song of birds very well, and
bore in mind what the little bird had said.

“Oh! she think of that!” said the rest; “it’s no good her coming
forward. Why, she’s legs like a horse.”

“Very true, I daresay”, said the Prince; “but since all the others have
tried, Katie may as well try too.”

“Katie”, he bawled out through the door; and Katie came trampling
upstairs, and her wooden cloak clattered as if a whole regiment of
dragoons were charging up.

“Now, you must try the shoe on, and be a Princess, you too,” said the
other maids, and laughed and made game of her.

So Katie took up the shoe, and put her foot into it like nothing, and
threw off her wooden cloak; and so there she stood in her gold kirtle,
and it shone so that the sunbeams glistened from her; and, lo! on her
other foot she had the fellow to the gold shoe.

So when the Prince knew her again, he grew so glad, he ran up to her
and threw his arms round her, and gave her a kiss; and when he heard
she was a King’s daughter, he got gladder still, and then came the
wedding feast; and so,

Snip, snip, snover,
This story’s over.




THUMBIKIN


Once on a time there was a woman who had an only son, and he was no
taller than your thumb; and so they called him Thumbikin.

Now, when he had come to be old enough to know right and wrong, his
mother told him to go out and woo him a bride, for now she said it was
high time he thought about getting a wife. When Thumbikin heard that,
he was very glad; so they got their driving gear in order and set off,
and his mother put him into her bosom. Now they were going to a palace
where there was an awfully big Princess, but when they had gone a bit
of the way, Thumbikin was lost and gone. His mother hunted for him
everywhere, and bawled to him, and wept because he was lost, and she
couldn’t find him again.

“_Pip, Pip_”, said Thumbikin, “here I am”; and he had hidden himself in
the horse’s mane.

So he came out, and had to give his word to his mother that he wouldn’t
do so any more. But when they had driven a bit further on, Thumbikin
was lost again. His mother hunted for him, and called him, and wept;
but gone he was, and gone he stayed.

“_Pip, Pip_”, said Thumbikin at last; and then she heard how he laughed
and tittered, but she couldn’t find him at all for the life of her.

“_Pip, Pip_, why, here I am now!” said Thumbikin, and came out of the
horse’s ear.

So he had to give his word that he wouldn’t hide himself again; but
they had scarce driven a bit further before he was gone again. He
couldn’t help it. As for his mother, she hunted, and wept, and called
him by name; but gone he was, and gone he stayed; and the more she
hunted, the less she could find him in any way.

“_Pip, Pip_, here I am then”, said Thumbikin.

But she couldn’t make out at all where he was, his voice sounded so
dull, and muffled.

So she hunted, and he kept on saying, “Pip, here I am”, and laughed and
chuckled, but she couldn’t find him; but all at once the horse snorted,
and it snorted Thumbikin out, for he had crept up one of his nostrils.

Then his mother took him and put him into a bag; she knew no other way,
for she saw well enough he couldn’t help hiding himself.

So, when they came to the palace, the match was soon made, for the
Princess thought him a pretty little chap, and it wasn’t long before
the wedding came on too.

Now, when they were going to sit down to the wedding-feast, Thumbikin
sat at the table by the Princess’s side; but he had worse than no seat,
for when he was to eat he couldn’t reach up to the table; and so if the
Princess hadn’t helped him up on to it, he wouldn’t have got a bit to
eat.

Now it went good and well so long as he had to eat off a plate, but
then there came a great bowl of porridge—that he couldn’t reach up to;
but Thumbikin soon found out a way to help himself; he climbed up and
sat on the lip of the bowl. But then there was a pat of melting butter
right in the middle of the bowl, and that he couldn’t reach to dip his
porridge into it, and so he went on and took his seat at the edge of
the melting butter; but just then who should come but the Princess,
with a great spoonful of porridge to dip it into the butter; and, alas!
she went too near to Thumbikin, and tipped him over; and so he fell
over head and ears, and was drowned in the melted butter.




DOLL I’ THE GRASS


Once on a time there was a King who had twelve sons. When they were
grown big he told them they must go out into the world and win
themselves wives, but these wives must each be able to spin, and weave,
and sew a shirt in one day, else he wouldn’t have them for
daughters-in-law.

To each he gave a horse and a new suit of mail, and they went out into
the world to look after their brides; but when they had gone a bit of
the way, they said they wouldn’t have Boots, their youngest brother,
with them—he wasn’t fit for anything.

Well, Boots had to stay behind, and he didn’t know what to do or
whither to turn; and so he grew so downcast, he got off his horse, and
sat down in the tall grass to weep. But when he had sat a little while,
one of the tufts in the grass began to stir and move, and out of it
came a little white thing, and when it came nearer, Boots saw it was a
charming little lassie, only such a tiny bit of a thing. So the lassie
went up to him, and asked if he would come down below and see “Doll i’
the Grass”.

Yes, he’d be very happy, and so he went.

Now, when he got down; there sat Doll i’ the Grass on a chair; she was
so lovely and so smart, and she asked Boots whither he was going, and
what was his business.

So he told her how there were twelve brothers of them, and how the King
had given them horses and mail, and said they must each go out into the
world and find them a wife who could spin, and weave, and sew a shirt
in a day.

“But if you’ll only say at once you’ll be my wife, I’ll not go a step
further”, said Boots to Doll i’ the Grass.

Well, she was willing enough, and so she made haste and span, and wove,
and sewed the shirt, but it was so tiny, tiny little. It wasn’t longer
than so————long.

So Boots set off home with it, but when he brought it out he was almost
ashamed, it was so small. Still the King said he should have her, and
so Boots set off, glad and happy to fetch his little sweetheart. So
when he got to Doll i’ the Grass, he wished to take her up before him
on his horse; but she wouldn’t have that, for she said she would sit
and drive along in a silver spoon, and that she had two small white
horses to draw her. So off they set, he on his horse and she on her
silver spoon, and the two horses that drew her were two tiny white
mice; but Boots always kept the other side of the road, he was so
afraid lest he should ride over her, she was so little. So, when they
had gone a bit of the way, they came to a great piece of water. Here
Boots’ horse got frightened, and shied across the road and upset the
spoon, and Doll i’ the Grass tumbled into the water. Then Boots got so
sorrowful because he didn’t know how to get her out again; but in a
little while up came a merman with her, and now she was as well and
full grown as other men and women, and far lovelier than she had been
before. So he took her up before him on his horse, and rode home.

When Boots got home all his brothers had come back each with his
sweetheart, but these were all so ugly, and foul, and wicked, that they
had done nothing but fight with one another on the way home, and on
their heads they had a kind of hat that was daubed over with tar and
soot, and so the rain had run down off the hats on to their faces, till
they got far uglier and nastier than they had been before. When his
brothers saw Boots and his sweetheart, they were all as jealous as
jealous could be of her; but the King was so overjoyed with them both,
that he drove all the others away, and so Boots held his wedding-feast
with Doll i’ the Grass, and after that they lived well and happily
together a long long time, and if they’re not dead, why they’re alive
still.




THE LAD AND THE DEIL


Once on a time there was a lad who was walking along a road cracking
nuts, so he found one that was worm-eaten, and just at that very moment
he met the Deil.

“Is it true, now”, said the lad, “what they say, that the Deil can make
himself as small as he chooses, and thrust himself in through a
pinhole?”

“Yes it is”, said the Deil.

“Oh! it is, is it? then let me see you do it, and just creep into this
nut”, said the lad.

So the Deil did it.

Now, when he had crept well in through the worm’s hole, the lad stopped
it up with a pin.

“Now, I’ve got you safe”, he said, and put the nut into his pocket.

So when he had walked on a bit, he came to a smithy, and he turned in
and asked the smith if he’d be good enough to crack that nut for him.

“Aye, that’ll be an easy job”, said the smith, and took his smallest
hammer, laid the nut on the anvil, and gave it a blow, but it wouldn’t
break.

So he took another hammer a little bigger, but that wasn’t heavy enough
either.

Then he took one bigger still, but it was still the same story; and so
the smith got wroth, and grasped his great sledge-hammer.

“Now, I’ll crack you to bits”, he said, and let drive at the nut with
all his might and main. And so the nut flew to pieces with a bang that
blew off half the roof of the smithy, and the whole house creaked and
groaned as though it were ready to fall.

“Why! if I don’t think the Deil must have been in that nut”, said the
smith.

“So he was; you’re quite right”, said the lad, as he went away
laughing.




THE COCK AND HEN A-NUTTING


Once on a time the cock and the hen went out into the hazel-wood to
pick nuts; and so the hen got a nutshell in her throat, and lay on her
back, flapping her wings.

Off went the cock to fetch water for her; so he came to the Spring and
said:

“Dear good friend Spring give me a drop of water, that I may give it to
Dame Partlet, my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

But the Spring answered:

“You’ll get no water from me until I get leaves from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Linden, and said:

“Dear good friend Linden, give me some of your leaves, the leaves I’ll
give to the Spring, and the Spring’ll give me water to give to Dame
Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no leaves from me”, said the Linden, “until I get a red
ribbon with a golden edge from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Virgin Mary.

“Dear good Virgin Mary, give me a red ribbon with a golden edge, and
I’ll give the red ribbon to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves,
the leaves I’ll give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, and
the water I’ll give to Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door,
in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no red ribbon from me”, answered the Virgin Mary, “until I
get shoes from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Shoemaker and said

“Dear good friend Shoemaker, give me shoes, and I’ll give the shoes to
the Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red
ribbon I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the
leaves I’ll give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water
I’ll give to Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the
hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no shoes from me”, said the Shoemaker, “until I get
bristles from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Sow and said:

“Dear good friend Sow, give me bristles, the bristles I’ll give to the
Shoemaker, the Shoemaker’ll give me shoes, the shoes I’ll give to the
Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red ribbon
I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the leaves I’ll
give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water I’ll give to
Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no bristles from me”, said the Sow, “until I get corn from
you.”

So the Cock ran to the Thresher and said:

“Dear good friend Thresher, give me corn, the corn I’ll give to the
Sow, the Sow’ll give me bristles, the bristles I’ll give to the
Shoemaker, the Shoemaker’ll give me shoes, the shoes I’ll give to the
Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red ribbon
I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the leaves I’ll
give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water I’ll give to
Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no corn from me”, said the Thresher, “until I get a bannock
from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Baker’s wife and said:

“Dear good friend Mrs. Baker, give me a bannock, the bannock I’ll give
to the Thresher, the Thresher’ll give me corn, the corn I’ll give to
the Sow, the Sow’ll give me bristles, the bristles I’ll give to the
Shoemaker, the Shoemaker’ll give me shoes, the shoes I’ll give to the
Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red ribbon
I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the leaves I’ll
give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water I’ll give to
Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no bannock from me”, said the Baker’s wife, until I get
wood from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Woodcutter and said:

“Dear good friend Woodcutter, give me wood, the wood I’ll give to the
Baker’s wife, the Baker’s wife’ll give me a bannock, the bannock I’ll
give to the Thresher, the Thresher’ll give me corn, the corn I’ll give
to the Sow, the Sow’ll give me bristles, the bristles I’ll give to the
Shoemaker, the Shoemaker’ll give me shoes, the shoes I’ll give to the
Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red ribbon
I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the leaves I’ll
give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water I’ll give to
Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no wood from me”, answered the Woodcutter, “until I get an
axe from you.”

So the Cock ran to the Smith and said:

“Dear good friend Smith, give me an axe, the axe I’ll give to the
Woodcutter, the Woodcutter’ll give me wood, the wood I’ll give to the
Baker’s wife, the Baker’s wife’ll give me a bannock, the bannock I’ll
give to the Thresher, the Thresher’ll give me corn, the corn I’ll give
to the Sow, the Sow’ll give me bristles, the bristles I’ll give to the
Shoemaker, the Shoemaker’ll give me shoes, the shoes I’ll give to the
Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red ribbon
I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the leaves I’ll
give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water I’ll give to
Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the hazel-wood.”

“You’ll get no axe from me”, answered the Smith, “until I get charcoal
of you.”

So the Cock ran to the Charcoal-burner and said

“Dear good friend Charcoal-burner, give me charcoal, the charcoal I’ll
give to the Smith, the Smith’ll give me an axe, the axe I’ll give to
the Woodcutter, the Woodcutter’ll give me wood, the wood I’ll give to
the Baker’s wife, the Baker’s wife’ll give me a bannock, the bannock
I’ll give to the Thresher, the Thresher’ll give me corn, the corn I’ll
give to the Sow, the Sow’ll give me bristles, the bristles I’ll give to
the Shoemaker, the Shoemaker’ll give me shoes, the shoes I’ll give to
the Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary’ll give me a red ribbon, the red
ribbon I’ll give to the Linden, the Linden’ll give me leaves, the
leaves I’ll give to the Spring, the Spring’ll give me water, the water
I’ll give to Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death’s door in the
hazel-wood.

So the Charcoal-burner took pity on the Cock, and gave him a bit of
charcoal, and then the Smith got his coal, and the Woodcutter his axe,
and the Baker’s wife her wood, and the Thresher his bannock, and the
Sow her corn, and the Shoemaker his bristles, and the Virgin Mary her
shoes, and the Linden its red ribbon with a golden edge, and the Spring
its leaves, and the Cock his drop of water, and he gave it to Dame
Partlet, his mate, who lay there at death’s door in the hazel-wood, and
so she got all right again.




THE BIG BIRD DAN


Once on a time there was a king who had twelve daughters, and he was so
fond of them they must always be at his side; but every day at noon,
while the king slept, the Princesses went out to take a walk. So once,
while the king was taking his noontide nap, and the Princesses had gone
to take their walk, all at once they were missing, and worse, they
never came home again. Then there was great grief and sorrow all over
the land, but the most sorry of all was the king. He sent messengers
out throughout his own and other realms, and gave out their names in
all the churches, and had the bells tolled for them in all the
steeples; but gone the Princesses were, and gone they stayed, and none
could tell what was become of them. So it was as clear as day that they
must have been carried off by some witchcraft.

Well, it wasn’t long before these tidings spread far and wide, over
land and town, aye, over many lands; and so the news came to a king
ever so many lands off, who had twelve sons. So when these Princes
heard of the twelve king’s daughters, they asked leave of their father
to go out and seek them. They had hard work to get his leave, for he
was afraid lest he should never see them again, but they all fell down
on their knees before the king, and begged so long, at last he was
forced to let them go after all.

He fitted out a ship for them, and gave them Ritter Red, who was quite
at home at sea, for a captain. So they sailed about a long, long time,
landed on every shore they came to, and hunted and asked after the
Princesses, but they could neither hear nor see anything of them. And
now, a few days only were wanting to make up seven years since they set
sail, when one day a strong storm rose, and such foul weather, they
thought they should never come to land again, and all had to work so
hard, they couldn’t get a wink of sleep so long as the storm lasted.
But when the third day was nearly over, the wind fell, and all at once
it got as still as still could be. Now, they were all so weary with
work and the rough weather, they fell fast asleep in the twinkling of
an eye; all but the youngest Prince, he could get no rest, and couldn’t
go off to sleep at all.

So as he was pacing up and down the deck, the ship came to a little
island, and on the island ran a little dog, and bayed and barked at the
ship as if it wanted to come on board. So the Prince went to that side
of the deck, and tried to coax the dog, and whistled and whistled to
him, but the more he whistled and coaxed, the more the dog barked and
snarled. Well, he thought it a shame the dog should run about there and
starve, for he made up his mind that it must have come thither from a
ship that had been cast away in the storm; but still he thought he
should never be able to help it after all, for he couldn’t put out the
boat by himself, and as for the others, they all slept so sound, he
wouldn’t wake them for the sake of a dog. But then the weather was so
calm and still; and at last he said to himself: “Come what may, you
must go on shore and save that dog”, and so he began to try to launch
the boat, and he found it far easier work than he thought. So he rowed
ashore, and went up to the dog; but every time he tried to catch it, it
jumped on one side, and so it went on till he found himself inside a
great grand castle, before he knew where he was. Then the dog, all at
once, was changed into a lovely Princess; and there, on the bench, sat
a man so big and ugly, the Prince almost lost his wits for fear.

“YOU’VE NO NEED TO BE AFRAID”, said the man—but the Prince, to tell you
the truth, got far more afraid when he heard his gruff voice—“for I
know well enough what you want. There are twelve Princes of you, and
you are looking for the twelve Princesses that are lost. I know, too,
very well whereabouts they are; they’re with my lord and master, and
there they sit, each of them on her chair, and comb his hair; for he
has twelve heads. And now you have sailed seven years, but you’ll have
to sail seven years more before you find them. As for you, you might
stay here and welcome, and have my daughter; but you must first slay
him, for he’s a hard master to all of us, and we’re all weary of him,
and when he’s dead I shall be King in his stead; but first try if you
can brandish this sword”.

Then the King’s son took hold of a rusty old sword which hung on the
wall, but he could scarce stir it.

“Now you must take a pull at this flask”, said the Troll; and when he
had done that he could stir it, and when he had taken another he could
lift it, and when he had taken a third he could brandish the sword as
easily as if it had been his own.

“Now, when you get on board”, said the Troll Prince, “you must hide the
sword well in your berth, that Ritter Red mayn’t set eyes on it; he’s
not man enough to wield it, but he’ll get spiteful against you, and try
to take your life. And when seven years are almost out all but three
days”, he went on to say, “everything will happen just as now; foul
weather will come on you, with a great storm, and when it is over
you’ll all be sleepy. Then you must take the sword and row ashore, and
so you’ll come to a castle where all sorts of guards will stand—wolves,
and bears, and lions; but you needn’t be afraid of them, for they’ll
all come and crouch at your feet. But when you come inside the castle,
you’ll soon see the Troll; he sits in a splendid chamber in grand
attire and array; twelve heads he has of his own, and the Princesses
sit round them, each on her chair, and comb his heads, and that’s a
work you may guess they don’t much like. Then you must make haste, and
hew off one head after the other as quick as you can; for if he wakes
and sets his eyes on you, he’ll swallow you alive”.

So the King’s son went on board with the sword, and he bore in mind
what he had come to know. The others still lay fast asleep and snored,
and he hid the sword in his berth, so that neither Ritter Red nor any
of the rest got sight of it. And now it began to blow again, so he woke
up the others and said he thought they oughtn’t to sleep any longer now
when there was such a good wind. And there was none of them that marked
he had been away. Well, after the seven years were all gone but three
days, all happened as the Troll had said. A great storm and foul
weather came on that lasted three days, and when it had blown itself
out, all the rest grew sleepy and went to rest; but the youngest King’s
son rowed ashore, and the guards fell at his feet, and so he came to
the castle. So when he got inside the chamber, there sat the King fast
asleep as the Troll Prince had said, and the twelve Princesses sat each
on her chair and combed one of his heads. The king’s son beckoned to
the Princesses to get out of the way; they pointed to the Troll, and
beckoned to him again to go his way as quick as ever he could, but he
kept on making signs to them to get out of the way, and then they
understood that he wanted to set them free, and stole away softly one
after the other, and as fast as they went, he hewed off the Troll
King’s heads, till at last the blood gushed out like a great brook.
When the Troll was slain he rowed on board and hid his sword. He
thought now he had done enough, and as he couldn’t get rid of the body
by himself, he thought it only fair they should help him a little. So
he woke them all up, and said it was a shame they should be snoring
there, when he had found the Princesses, and set them free from the
Troll. The others only laughed at him, and said he had been just as
sound asleep as they, and only dreamt that he was man enough to do what
he said; for if any one was to set the Princesses free, it was far more
likely it would be one of them. But the youngest King’s son told them
all about it, and when they followed him to the land and saw first of
all the brook of blood, and then the castle, and the Troll, and the
twelve heads, and the Princesses, they saw plain enough that he had
spoken the truth, and now the whole helped him to throw the body and
the heads into the sea. So all were glad and happy, but none more so
than the Princesses, who got rid of having to sit there and comb the
Troll’s hair all day. Of all the silver and gold and precious things
that were there, they took as much as the ship could hold, and so they
went on board altogether Princes and Princesses alike.

But when they had gone a bit out on the sea, the Princesses said they
had forgotten in their joy their gold crowns; they lay behind in a
press, and they would be so glad to have them. So when none of the
others was willing to fetch them, the youngest King’s son said:

“I have already dared so much, I can very well go back for the gold
crowns too, if you will only strike sail and wait till I come again.”

Yes, that they would do. But when he had gone back so far that they
couldn’t see him any longer, Ritter Red, who would have been glad
enough to have been their chief, and to have the youngest Princess,
said, “it was no use their lying there still waiting for him, for they
might know very well he would never come back; they all knew, too, how
the king had given him all power and authority to sail or not as he
chose; and now they must all say ’twas he that had saved the
Princesses, and if any one said anything else, he should lose his
life”.

The Princes didn’t dare to do anything else than what Ritter Red
willed, and so they sailed away.

Meanwhile the youngest King’s son rowed to land, went up to the castle,
found the press with gold crowns in it, and at last lugged it down to
the boat, and shoved off; but when he came where he ought to have seen
the ship, lo! it was gone. Well, as he couldn’t catch a glimpse of it
anywhere, he could very soon tell how matters stood. To row after them
was no good, and so he was forced to turn about and row back to land.
He was rather afraid to stay alone in the castle all night, but there
was no other house to be got, so he plucked up a heart, locked up all
the doors and gates fast, and lay down in a room where there was a bed
ready made. But fearful and woeful he was, and still more afraid he got
when he had lain a while and something began to creak and groan and
quake in wall and roof, as if the whole castle were being torn asunder.
Then all at once down something plunged close by the side of his bed,
as if it were a whole cartload of hay. Then all was still again; but
after a while he heard a voice, which bade him not to be afraid, and
said:

Here am I the Big Bird Dan
Come to help you all I can.


“but the first thing you must do when you wake in the morning, will be
to go to the barn and fetch four barrels of rye for me. I must fill my
crop with them for breakfast, else I can’t do anything”.

When he woke up, sure enough there he saw an awfully big bird, which
had a feather at the nape of his neck, as thick and long as a
half-grown spruce fir. So the King’s son went down to the barn to fetch
four barrels of rye for the Big Bird Dan, and when he had crammed them
into his crop he told the King’s son to hang the press with the gold
crowns on one side of his neck, and as much gold and silver as would
weigh it down on the other side, and after that to get on his back and
hold fast by the feather in the nape of his neck. So away they went
till the wind whistled after them, and so it wasn’t long before they
outstripped the ship. The King’s son wanted to go on board for his
sword, for he was afraid lest any one should get sight of it, for the
Troll had told him that mustn’t be; but Bird Dan said that mustn’t be
either.

“Ritter Red will never see it, never fear; but if you go on board,
he’ll try to take your life, for he has set his heart on having the
youngest Princess; but make your mind quite easy about her, for she
lays a naked sword by her side in bed every night.”

So after a long, long time, they came to the island where the Troll
Prince was; and there the King’s son was welcomed so heartily there was
no end to it. The Troll Prince didn’t know how to be good enough to him
for having slain his Lord and Master, and so made him King of the
Trolls, and if the King’s son had been willing he might easily have got
the Troll King’s daughter, and half the kingdom. But he had so set his
heart on the youngest of the twelve Princesses, he could take no rest,
but was all for going after their ship time after time. So the Troll
King begged him to be quiet a little longer, and said they had still
nearly seven years to sail before they got home. As for the Princess
the Troll said the same thing as the Big Bird Dan.

“You needn’t fret yourself about her, for she lays a naked sword by her
side every night in bed. And now if you don’t believe what I say”, said
the Troll, “you can go on board when they sail by here, and see for
yourself, and fetch the sword too, for I may just as well have it
again.”

So when they sailed by another great storm arose, and when the king’s
son went on board they all slept, and each Princess lay beside her
Prince; but the youngest lay alone with a naked sword beside her in the
bed, and on the floor by the bedside lay Ritter Red. Then the king’s
son took the sword and rowed ashore again, and none of them had seen
that he had been on board. But still the King’s son couldn’t rest, and
he often and often wanted to be off, and so at last when it got near
the end of the seven years, and only three weeks were left, the Troll
King said:

“Now you may get ready to go since you won’t stay with us; and you
shall have the loan of my iron boat, which sails of itself, if you only
say:

Boat, boat, go on!


“In that boat there is an iron club, and that club you must lift a
little when you see the ship straight a-head of you, and then they’ll
get such a rattling fair breeze, they’ll forget to look at you; but
when you get alongside them, you must lift the club a little again, and
then they’ll get such a foul wind and storm, they’ll have something
else to do than to stare at you; and when you have run past them, you
must lift the club a third time, but you must always be sure and lay it
down carefully again, else there’ll be such a storm both you and they
will be wrecked and lost. Now, when you have got to land, you’ve no
need to bother yourself at all about the boat; just turn it about, and
shove it off, and say:

Boat, boat, go back home!


When he set out they gave him so much gold and silver, and so many
other costly things, and clothes and linen which the Troll Princess had
sewn and woven for him all that long time, that he was far richer than
any of his brothers.

Well, he had no sooner seated himself in the boat, and said,

Boat, boat, go on!


than away went the boat, and when he saw the ship right ahead he lifted
up the club, and then they got such a fair breeze, they forgot to look
at him. When he was alongside the ship, he lifted the club again, and
then such a storm arose and such foul weather, that the white foam flew
about the ship, and the billows rolled over the deck, and they had
something else to do than to stare at him; and when he had run past
them he lifted the club the third time, and then the storm and the wind
rose so, they had still less time to look after him, and to make him
out. So he came to land long, long before the ship; and when he had got
all his goods out of the boat, he shoved it off again, and turned it
about and said:

Boat, boat, go back home!


And off went the boat.

Then he dressed himself up as a sailor—whether the Troll king had told
him that, or it was his own device, I’m sure I can’t say—and went up to
a wretched hut where an old wife lived, whom he got to believe that he
was a poor sailor who had been on board a great ship that was wrecked,
and that he was the only soul that had got ashore. After that he begged
for house-room for himself and the goods he had saved.

“Heaven mend me!” said the old wife, “how can I lend any one
house-room? look at me and mine, why, I’ve no bed to sleep on myself,
still less one for any one else to lie on.”

Well, well, it was all the same, said the sailor; if he only got a roof
over his head, it didn’t matter where he lay. So she couldn’t turn him
out of the house, when he was so thankful for what there was. That
afternoon he fetched up his things, and the old wife, who was very
eager to hear a bit of news to run about and tell, began at once to ask
who he was, whence he came, whither he was bound, what it was he had
with him, what his business was, and if he hadn’t heard anything of the
twelve Princesses who had been away the Lord knew how many years. All
this she asked and much more, which it would be waste of time to tell.
But he said he was so poorly and had such a bad headache after the
awful weather he had been out in, that he couldn’t answer any of her
questions; she must just leave him alone and let him rest a few days
till he came to himself after the hard work he’d had in the gale, and
then she’d know all she wanted.

The very next day the old wife began to stir him up and ask again, but
the sailor’s head was still so bad he hadn’t got his wits together, but
somehow he let drop a word or two to show that he did know something
about the Princesses. Off ran the old wife with what she had heard to
all the gossips and chatterboxes round about, and soon the one came
running after the other to ask about the Princesses, “if he had seen
them”, “if they would soon be there”, “if they were on the way”, and
much more of the same sort. He still went on groaning over his headache
after the storm, so that he couldn’t tell them all about it, but so
much he told them, unless they had been lost in the great storm they’d
make the land in about a fortnight or before perhaps; but he couldn’t
say for sure whether they were alive or no, for though he had seen
them, it might very well be that they had been cast away in the storm
since. So what did one of these old gossips do but run up to the Palace
with this story, and say that there was a sailor down in such and such
an old wife’s hut, who had seen the Princesses, and that they were
coming home in a fortnight or in a week’s time. When the King heard
that he sent a messenger down to the sailor to come up to him and tell
the news himself.

“I don’t see how it’s to be”, said the sailor, “for I haven’t any
clothes fit to stand in before the King.”

But the King said he must come; for the King must and would talk with
him, whether he were richly or poorly clad, for there was no one else
who could bring him any tidings of the Princesses. So he went up at
last to the Palace and went in before the King, who asked him if it
were true that he had seen anything of the Princesses.

“Aye, aye”, said the sailor, “I’ve seen them sure enough, but I don’t
know whether they’re still alive, for when I last caught sight of them,
the weather was so foul we in our ship were cast away; but if they’re
still alive they’ll come safe home in a fortnight or perhaps before.”

When the King heard that he was almost beside himself for joy; and when
the time came that the sailor had said they would come, the King drove
down to the strand to meet them in a great state; and there was joy and
gladness over the whole land, when the ship came sailing in with the
Princes and Princesses and Ritter Red. But no one was gladder than the
old King, who had got his daughters back again. The eleven eldest
Princesses too, were glad and merry, but the youngest who was to have
Ritter Red, who said that he had set them all free and slain the Troll,
she wept and was always sorrowful. The King took this ill, and asked
why she wasn’t cheerful and merry like the others; she hadn’t anything
to be sorry for now when she had got out of the Troll’s clutches, and
was to have such a husband as Ritter Red. But she daredn’t say
anything, for Ritter Red had said he would take the life of any one who
told the truth how things had gone.

But now one day, when they were hard at work sewing and stitching the
bridal array, in came a man in a great sailor’s cloak with a pedlar’s
pack on his back, and asked if the Princesses wouldn’t buy something
fine of him for the wedding; he had so many wares and costly things,
both gold and silver. Yes, they might do so perhaps, so they looked at
his wares and they looked at him, for they thought they had seen both
him and many of his costly things before.

“He who has so many fine things”, said the youngest Princess, “must
surely have something still more precious, and which suits us better
even than these.”

“Maybe I have”, said the Pedlar.

But now all the others cried “Hush”, and bade her bear in mind what
Ritter Red had said he would do.

Well, some time after the Princesses sat and looked out of the window,
and then the King’s son came again with the great sea-cloak thrown
about him, and the press with the gold crowns at his back; and when he
got into the palace hall he unlocked the press before the Princesses,
and when each of them knew her own gold crown again, the youngest said:

“I think it only right that he who set us free should get the meed that
is his due; and he is not Ritter Red, but this man who has brought us
our gold crowns. He it is that set us free.”

Then the King’s son cast off the sailor’s cloak, and stood there far
finer and grander than all the rest; and so the old King made them put
Ritter Red to death. And now there was real right down joy in the
palace; each took his own bride, and there just was a wedding! Why, it
was heard of and talked about over twelve kings’ realms.




SORIA MORIA CASTLE


Once on a time there was a poor couple who had a son whose name was
Halvor. Ever since he was a little boy he would turn his hand to
nothing, but just sat there and groped about in the ashes. His father
and mother often put him out to learn this trade or that, but Halvor
could stay nowhere; for, when he had been there a day or two, he ran
away from his master, and never stopped till he was sitting again in
the ingle, poking about in the cinders.

Well, one day a skipper came, and asked Halvor if he hadn’t a mind to
be with him, and go to sea, and see strange lands. Yes, Halvor would
like that very much; so he wasn’t long in getting himself ready.

How long they sailed I’m sure I can’t tell; but the end of it was, they
fell into a great storm, and when it was blown over, and it got still
again, they couldn’t tell where they were; for they had been driven
away to a strange coast, which none of them knew anything about.

Well, as there was just no wind at all, they stayed lying wind-bound
there, and Halvor asked the skipper’s leave to go on shore and look
about him; he would sooner go, he said, than lie there and sleep.

“Do you think now you’re fit to show yourself before folk”, said the
skipper, “why, you’ve no clothes but those rags you stand in?”

But Halvor stuck to his own, and so at last he got leave, but he was to
be sure and come back as soon as ever it began to blow. So off he went
and found a lovely land; wherever he came there were fine large flat
corn-fields and rich meads, but he couldn’t catch a glimpse of a living
soul. Well, it began to blow, but Halvor thought he hadn’t seen enough
yet, and he wanted to walk a little farther just to see if he couldn’t
meet any folk. So after a while he came to a broad high road, so smooth
and even, you might easily roll an egg along it. Halvor followed this,
and when evening drew on he saw a great castle ever so far off, from
which the sunbeams shone. So as he had now walked the whole day and
hadn’t taken a bit to eat with him, he was as hungry as a hunter, but
still the nearer he came to the castle, the more afraid he got. In the
castle kitchen a great fire was blazing, and Halvor went into it, but
such a kitchen he had never seen in all his born days. It was so grand
and fine; there were vessels of silver and vessels of gold, but still
never a living soul. So when Halvor had stood there a while and no one
came out, he went and opened a door, and there inside sat a Princess
who span upon a spinning-wheel.

“Nay, nay, now!” she called out, “dare Christian folk come hither? But
now you’d best be off about your business, if you don’t want the Troll
to gobble you up; for here lives a Troll with three heads.”

“All one to me”, said the lad, “I’d be just as glad to hear he had four
heads beside; I’d like to see what kind of fellow he is. As for going,
I won’t go at all. I’ve done no harm; but meat you must get me, for I’m
almost starved to death.”

When Halvor had eaten his fill, the Princess told him to try if he
could brandish the sword that hung against the wall; no, he couldn’t
brandish it, he couldn’t even lift it up.

“Oh!” said the Princess, “now you must go and take a pull of that flask
that hangs by its side; that’s what the Troll does every time he goes
out to use the sword.”

So Halvor took a pull, and in the twinkling of an eye he could brandish
the sword like nothing; and now he thought it high time the Troll came;
and lo! just then up came the Troll puffing and blowing. Halvor jumped
behind the door.

“HUTETU”, said the Troll, as he put his head in at the door, “what a
smell of Christian man’s blood!”

“Aye”, said Halvor, “you’ll soon know that to your cost”, and with that
he hewed off all his heads.

Now the Princess was so glad that she was free, she both danced and
sang, but then all at once she called her sisters to mind, and so she
said:

“Would my sisters were free too”

“Where are they?” asked Halvor.

Well, she told him all about it; one was taken away by a Troll to his
Castle which lay fifty miles off, and the other by another Troll to his
Castle which was fifty miles further still.

“But now”, she said, “you must first help me to get this ugly carcass
out of the house.”

Yes, Halvor was so strong he swept everything away, and made it all
clean and tidy in no time. So they had a good and happy time of it, and
next morning he set off at peep of grey dawn; he could take no rest by
the way, but ran and walked the whole day. When he first saw the Castle
he got a little afraid; it was far grander than the first, but here too
there wasn’t a living soul to be seen. So Halvor went into the kitchen,
and didn’t stop there either, but went strait further on into the
house.

“Nay, nay”, called out the Princess, “dare Christian folk come hither?
I don’t know I’m sure how long it is since I came here, but in all that
time I haven’t seen a Christian man. ’Twere best you saw how to get
away as fast as you came; for here lives a Troll, who has six heads.”

“I shan’t go”, said Halvor, “if he has six heads besides.”

“He’ll take you up and swallow you down alive”, said the Princess.

But it was no good, Halvor wouldn’t go; he wasn’t at all afraid of the
Troll, but meat and drink he must have, for he was half starved after
his long journey. Well, he got as much of that as he wished, but then
the Princess wanted him to be off again.

“No”, said Halvor, “I won’t go, I’ve done no harm, and I’ve nothing to
be afraid about.”

“He won’t stay to ask that”, said the Princess, “for he’ll take you
without law or leave; but as you won’t go, just try if you can brandish
that sword yonder, which the Troll wields in war.”

He couldn’t brandish it, and then the Princess said he must take a pull
at the flask which hung by its side, and when he had done that he could
brandish it.

Just then back came the Troll, and he was both stout and big, so that
he had to go sideways to get through the door. When the Troll got his
first head in he called out “HUTETU, what a smell of Christian man’s
blood!”

But that very moment Halvor hewed off his first head, and so on, all
the rest as they popped in. The Princess was overjoyed, but just then
she came to think of her sisters, and wished out loud they were free.
Halvor thought that might easily be done, and wanted to be off at once;
but first he had to help the Princess to get the Troll’s carcass out of
the way, and so he could only set out next morning.

It was a long way to the Castle, and he had to walk fast and run hard
to reach it in time; but about night-fall he saw the Castle, which was
far finer and grander than either of the others. This time he wasn’t
the least afraid, but walked straight through the kitchen, and into the
Castle. There sat a Princess who was so pretty, there was no end to her
loveliness. She too like the others told him there hadn’t been
Christian folk there ever since she came thither, and bade him go away
again, else the Troll would swallow him alive, and do you know, she
said, he has nine heads.

“Aye, aye”, said Halvor, “if he had nine other heads, and nine other
heads still, I won’t go away”, and so he stood fast before the stove.
The Princess kept on begging him so prettily to go away, lest the Troll
should gobble him up, but Halvor said:

“Let him come as soon as he likes.”

So she gave him the Troll’s sword, and bade him take a pull at the
flask, that he might be able to brandish and wield it.

Just then back came the Troll puffing and blowing and tearing along. He
was far stouter and bigger than the other two, and he too had to go on
one side to get through the door. So when he got his first head in, he
said as the others had said:

“HUTETU what a smell of Christian man’s blood!

That very moment Halvor hewed off the first head and then all the rest;
but the last was the toughest of them all, and it was the hardest bit
of work Halvor had to do, to get it hewn off, although he knew very
well he had strength enough to do it.

So all the Princesses came together to that Castle, which was called
_Soria Moria Castle_, and they were glad and happy as they had never
been in all their lives before, and they all were fond of Halvor and
Halvor of them, and he might choose the one he liked best for his
bride; but the youngest was fondest of him of all the three.

But there after a while, Halvor went about, and was so strange and dull
and silent. Then the Princesses asked him what he lacked, and if he
didn’t like to live with them any longer? Yes, he did, for they had
enough and to spare, and he was well off in every way, but still
somehow or other he did so long to go home, for his father and mother
were alive, and them he had such a great wish to see.

Well, they thought that might be done easily enough.

“You shall go thither and come back hither, safe and unscathed, if you
will only follow our advice”, said the Princesses.

Yes, he’d be sure to mind all they said. So they dressed him up till he
was as grand as a king’s son, and then they set a ring on his finger,
and that was such a ring, he could wish himself thither and hither with
it; but they told him to be sure not to take it off, and not to name
their names, for there would be an end of all his bravery, and then
he’d never see them more.

“If I only stood at home I’d be glad”, said Halvor; and it was done as
he had wished. Then stood Halvor at his father’s cottage door before he
knew a word about it. Now it was about dusk at even, and so, when they
saw such a grand stately lord walk in, the old couple got so afraid
they began to bow and scrape. Then Halvor asked if he couldn’t stay
there, and have a lodging there that night. No; that he couldn’t.

“We can’t do it at all”, they said, “for we haven’t this thing or that
thing which such a lord is used to have; ’twere best your lordship went
up to the farm, no long way off, for you can see the chimneys, and
there they have lots of everything.”

Halvor wouldn’t hear of it—he wanted to stop; but the old couple stuck
to their own, that he had better go to the farmer’s; there he would get
both meat and drink; as for them, they hadn’t even a chair to offer him
to sit down on.

“No”, said Halvor, “I won’t go up there till to-morrow early, but let
the just stay here to-night; worst come to the worst, I can sit in the
chimney-corner.”

Well, they couldn’t say anything against that; so Halvor sat down by
the ingle, and began to poke about in the ashes, just as he used to do
when he lay at home in old days, and stretched his lazy bones.

Well, they chattered and talked about many things; and they told Halvor
about this thing and that; and so he asked them if they had never had
any children.

“Yes, yes, they had once a lad whose name was Halvor, but they didn’t
know whither he had wandered; they couldn’t even tell whether he were
dead or alive.”

“Couldn’t it be me, now?” said Halvor.

“Let me see; I could tell him well enough”, said the old wife, and rose
up. “Our Halvor was so lazy and dull, he never did a thing; and
besides, he was so ragged, that one tatter took hold of the next tatter
on him. No; there never was the making of such a fine fellow in him as
you are, master.”

A little while after the old wife went to the hearth to poke up the
fire, and when the blaze fell on Halvor’s face, just as when he was at
home of old poking about in the ashes, she knew him at once.

“Ah! but is it you after all, Halvor?” she cried; and then there was
such joy for the old couple, there was no end to it; and he was forced
to tell how he had fared, and the old dame was so fond and proud of
him, nothing would do but he must go up at once to the farmer’s, and
show himself to the lassies, who had always looked down on him. And off
she went first, and Halvor followed after. So, when she got up there,
she told them all how her Halvor had come home again, and now they
should only just see how grand he was, for, said she, “he looks like
nothing but a king’s son”.

“All very fine”, said the lassies, and tossed up their heads. “We’ll be
bound he’s just the same beggarly ragged boy he always was.”

Just then in walked Halvor, and then the lassies were all so taken
aback, they forgot their sarks in the ingle, where they were sitting
darning their clothes, and ran out in their smocks. Well, when they
were got back again, they were so shamefaced they scarce dared look at
Halvor, towards whom they had always been proud and haughty.

“Aye, aye”, said Halvor, “you always thought yourselves so pretty and
neat, no one could come near you; but now you should just see the
eldest Princess I have set free; against her you look just like
milkmaids, and the midmost is prettier still; but the youngest, who is
my sweetheart, she’s fairer than both sun and moon. Would to Heaven she
were only here”, said Halvor, “then you’d see what you would see.”

He had scarce uttered these words before there they stood, but then he
felt so sorry, for now what they had said came into his mind. Up at the
farm there was a great feast got ready for the Princesses, and much was
made of them, but they wouldn’t stop there.

“No; we want to go down to your father and mother”, they said to
Halvor; “and so we’ll go out now and look about us.”

So he went down with them, and they came to a great lake just outside
the farm. Close by the water was such a lovely green bank; here the
Princesses said they would sit and rest a while; they thought it so
sweet to sit down and look over the water.

So they sat down there, and when they had sat a while, the youngest
Princess said:

“I may as well comb your hair a little, Halvor.”

Yes, Halvor laid his head on her lap, and so she combed his bonny
locks, and it wasn’t long before Halvor fell fast asleep. Then she took
the ring from his finger, and put another in its stead; and so she
said:

“Now hold me all together! and now would we were all in SORIA MORIA
CASTLE.”

So when Halvor woke up, he could very well tell that he had lost the
Princesses, and began to weep and wail; and he was so downcast, they
couldn’t comfort him at all. In spite of all his father and mother
said, he wouldn’t stop there, but took farewell of them, and said he
was safe not to see them again; for if he couldn’t find the Princesses
again, he thought it not worth while to live.

Well, he had still three hundred dollars left, so he put them into his
pocket, and set out on his way. So, when he had walked a while, he met
a man with a tidy horse, and he wanted to buy it, and began to chaffer
with the man.

“Aye”, said the man, “to tell the truth, I never thought of selling
him; but if we could strike a bargain, perhaps——”

“What do you want for him”, asked Halvor.

“I didn’t give much for him, nor is he worth much; he’s a brave horse
to ride, but he can’t draw at all; still he’s strong enough to carry
your knapsack and you too, turn and turn about”, said the man.

At last they agreed on the price, and Halvor laid the knapsack on him,
and so he walked a bit, and rode a bit, turn and turn about. At night
he came to a green plain where stood a great tree, at the roots of
which he sat down. There he let the horse loose, but he didn’t lie down
to sleep, but opened his knapsack and took a meal. At peep of day off
he set again, for he could take no rest. So he rode and walked and
walked and rode the whole day through the wide wood, where there were
so many green spots and glades that shone so bright and lovely between
the trees. He didn’t know at all where he was or whither he was going,
but he gave himself no more time to rest than when his horse cropped a
bit of grass, and he took a snack out of his knapsack when they came to
one of those green glades. So he went on walking and riding by turns,
and as for the wood there seemed to be no end to it.

But at dusk the next day he saw a light gleaming away through the
trees.

“Would there were folk hereaway”, thought Halvor, “that I might warm
myself a bit and get a morsel to keep body and soul together.”

When he got up to it, he saw the light came from a wretched little hut,
and through the window he saw an old old couple inside. They were as
grey-headed as a pair of doves, and the old wife had such a nose! why,
it was so long she used it for a poker to stir the fire as she sat in
the ingle.

“Good evening”, said Halvor.

“Good evening”, said the old wife.

“But what errand can you have in coming hither?” she went on, “for no
Christian folk have been here these hundred years and more.”

Well, Halvor told her all about himself, and how he wanted to get to
SORIA MORIA CASTLE, and asked if she knew the way thither.

“No”, said the old wife, “that I don’t, but see now, here comes the
Moon, I’ll ask her, she’ll know all about it, for doesn’t she shine on
everything?”

So when the Moon stood clear and bright over the tree-tops, the old
wife went out.

“THOU MOON, THOU MOON”, she screamed, “canst thou tell me the way to
SORIA MORIA CASTLE?”

“No”, said the Moon, “that I can’t, for the last time I shone there a
cloud stood before me.”

“Wait a bit still”, said the old wife to Halvor, “by and bye comes the
West Wind; he’s sure to know it, for he puffs and blows round every
corner.”

“Nay, nay”, said the old wife when she went out again, “you don’t mean
to say you’ve got a horse too; just turn the poor beastie loose in our
‘toun’, and don’t let him stand there and starve to death at the door.”

Then she ran on:

“But won’t you swop him away to me?—we’ve got an old pair of boots
here, with which you can take twenty miles at each stride; those you
shall have for your horse, and so you’ll get all the sooner to SORIA
MORIA CASTLE.”

That Halvor was willing to do at once; and the old wife was so glad at
having the horse, she was ready to dance and skip for joy.

“For now”, she said, “I shall be able to ride to church. I too, think
of that.”

As for Halvor, he had no rest, and wanted to be off at once, but the
old wife said there was no hurry.

“Lie down on the bench with you and sleep a bit, for we’ve no bed to
offer you, and I’ll watch and wake you when the West Wind comes.”

So after a while up came the West Wind, roaring and howling along till
the walls creaked and groaned again.

Out ran the old wife.

“THOU WEST WIND, THOU WEST WIND! Canst thou tell me the way to SORIA
MORIA CASTLE? Here’s one who wants to get thither.”

“Yes, I know it very well”, said the West Wind, and now I’m just off
thither to dry clothes for the wedding that’s to be; if he’s swift of
foot he can go along with me.”

Out ran Halvor.

“You’ll have to stretch your legs if you mean to keep up”, said the
West Wind.

So off he set over field and hedge, and hill and fell, and Halvor had
hard work to keep up.

“Well”, said the West Wind, “now I’ve no time to stay with you any
longer, for I’ve got to go away yonder and tear down a strip of spruce
wood first before I go to the bleaching-ground to dry the clothes; but
if you go alongside the hill you’ll come to a lot of lassies standing
washing clothes, and then you’ve not far to go to SORIA MORIA CASTLE.”

In a little while Halvor came upon the lassies who stood washing, and
they asked if he had seen anything of the West Wind who was to come and
dry the clothes for the wedding. “Aye, aye, that I have”, said Halvor,
“he’s only gone to tear down a strip of spruce wood. It’ll not be long
before he’s here”, and then he asked them the way to SORIA MORIA
CASTLE.

So they put him into the right way, and when he got to the Castle it
was full of folk and horses; so full it made one giddy to look at them.
But Halvor was so ragged and torn from having followed the West Wind
through bush and brier and bog, that he kept on one side, and wouldn’t
show himself till the last day when the bridal feast was to be.

So when all, as was then right and fitting, were to drink the bride and
bridegroom’s health and wish them luck, and when the cupbearer was to
drink to them all again, both knights and squires, last of all he came
in turn to Halvor. He drank their health, but let the ring which the
Princess had put upon his finger as he lay by the lake fall into the
glass, and bade the cupbearer go and greet the bride and hand her the
glass.

Then up rose the Princess from the board at once.

“Who is most worthy to have one of us”, she said, “he that has set us
free, or he that here sits by me as bridegroom?”

Well they all said there could be but one voice and will as to that,
and when Halvor heard that he wasn’t long in throwing off his beggar’s
rags, and arraying himself as bridegroom.

“Aye, aye, here is the right one after all”, said the youngest Princess
as soon as she saw him, and so she tossed the other one out of the
window, and held her wedding with Halvor.




BRUIN AND REYNARD


The Bear and the Fox had once bought a firkin of butter together; they
were to have it at Yule and hid it till then under a thick spruce bush.

After that they went a little way off and lay down on a sunny bank to
sleep. So when they had lain a while the Fox got up, shook himself, and
bawled out “yes”.

Then he ran off straight to the firkin and ate a good third part of it.
But when he came back, and the Bear asked him where he had been, since
he was so fat about the paunch, he said:

“Don’t you believe then that I was bidden to barsel, to a christening
feast.”

“So, so”, said the Bear, “and pray what was the bairn’s name.”

“Just-begun”, said the Fox.

So they lay down to sleep again. In a little while up jumped the Fox
again, bawled out “yes”, and ran off to the firkin.

This time too he ate a good lump. When he came back, and the Bear asked
him again where he had been, he said:

“Oh, wasn’t I bidden to barsel again, don’t you think.”

“And pray what was the bairn’s name this time”, asked the Bear.

“Half-eaten”, said the Fox.

The Bear thought that a very queer name, but he hadn’t wondered long
over it before he began to yawn and gape and fell asleep. Well, he
hadn’t lain long before the Fox jumped up as he had done twice before,
bawled out “yes” and ran off to the firkin, which this time he cleared
right out. When he got back he had been bidden to barsel again, and
when the Bear wanted to know the bairn’s name, he answered:

“Licked-to-the-bottom.”

After that they lay down again, and slept a long time; but then they
were to go to the firkin to look at the butter, and when they found it
eaten up, the Bear threw the blame on the Fox, and the Fox on the Bear;
and each said the one had been at the firkin while the other slept.

“Well, well”, said Reynard, “we’ll soon find this out, which of us has
eaten the butter. We’ll just lay down in the sunshine, and he whose
cheeks and chaps are greasiest when we wake, he is the thief.”

Yes, that trial Bruin was ready to stand; and as he knew in his heart
he had never so much as tasted the butter, he lay down without a care
to sleep in the sun.

Then Reynard stole off to the firkin for a morsel of butter, which
stuck there in a crack, and then he crept back to the Bear, and greased
his chaps and cheeks with it; and then he, too, lay down to sleep as if
nothing had happened.

So when they both woke, the sun had melted the butter, and the Bear’s
whiskers were all greasy; and so it was Bruin after all, and no one
else, who had eaten the butter.




TOM TOTHERHOUSE


Once on a time there was a Goody who had a deaf husband. A good, easy
man he was, but that was just why she thought more of the lad next
door, whom they called “Tom Totherhouse”. Now the lad that served the
deaf man saw very well that the two had something between them, and one
day he said to the Goody:

“Dare you wager ten dollars, mother, that I don’t make you lay bare
your own shame?”

“Yes I dare”, said she; and so they wagered ten dollars. So one day,
while the lad and the deaf man stood thrashing in the barn, the lad saw
that Tom Totherhouse came to see the Goody. He said nothing, but a good
while before dinnertime he turned toward the barn-door, and bawled out
“Halloa!”

“What! are we to go home already?” said the man, who hadn’t given any
heed to what the lad did.

“Yes, we must, since mother calls”, said the lad.

So when they got into the passage, the lad began to hem and cough, that
the Goody might get Tom Totherhouse out of the way. But when they came
into the room, there stood a whole bowl of custards on the table.

“Nay, nay, mother”, cried out the man; “shall we have custards to-day?”

“Yes, that you shall, dear”, said the Goody; but she was as sour as
verjuice, and as cross as two sticks.

So when they had eaten and drank all the good cheer up, off they went
again to their work, and the Goody said to Tom:

“Deil take that lad’s sharp nose, this was all his fault; but now you
must be off as fast as you can, and I’ll come down to you in the mead
with a snack between meals.”

This the lad stood outside in the passage and listened to.

“Do you know, father”, he said, “I think we’d best go down into the
hollow and put our fence to rights, which is blown down, before the
neighbours’ swine get in and root up our meadow.”

“Aye, aye, let’s go and do it”, said the man; for he did all he was
told, good, easy man.

So when the afternoon was half spent, down came the Goody sneaking
along into the mead, with something under her apron.

“Nay, nay, mother”, said the man, “it can’t be you any longer; are we
to have a snack between meals too?”

“Yes, yes, that you shall”, she said; but she was sourer and wilder
than ever.

So they made merry, and crammed themselves with bannocks and butter,
and had a drop of brandy into the bargain.

“I’ll go off to Tom Totherhouse with a snack—shan’t I, mother?” said
the lad. “He’s had nothing between meals, I’ll be bound.”

“Ah! do; there’s a good fellow”, said the Goody, who all at once got as
mild as milk.

As he went along the lad broke a bannock to bits, and dropped the
crumbs here and there as he walked. But when he got to Tom Totherhouse
he said:

“Now, just you take care, for our old cock has found out that you come
too often to see our Goody. He won’t stand it any longer, and has sworn
to drive his axe into you as soon as ever he can set eyes on you.”

As for Tom, he was so frightened he scarce knew which way to turn, and
the lad went back again to his master.

“There’s something wrong”, he said, “with Tom’s plough, and he begs you
to be so good as to take your axe, and go and see if you can’t set it
right.”

Yes, the man set off with his axe, but Tom Totherhouse had scarce
caught sight of him before he took to his heels as fast as he could.
The man turned and twisted the plough round and round, and looked at it
on every side, and when he couldn’t see anything wrong with it he went
off home again; but on the way he picked up the bits of broken bannock
which the lad had let fall. His old dame stood in the meadow and looked
at him as he did this for a while, and wondered and wondered what it
could be her husband was gathering up.

“Oh, I know”, said the lad, “master’s picking up stones, I’ll be bound;
for he has marked how often this Tom Totherhouse runs over here; and
the old fellow won’t stand it any longer; and now he has sworn to stone
mother to death.”

Off went the Goody as fast as her legs could carry her.

“What in the world is it that mother is running after now?” asked the
man, when he reached the spot where she had stood.

“Oh”, said the lad, “maybe the house at home is on fire!”

So there ran the husband behind and the Goody before; and as she ran
she screeched out:

“Ah! ah! don’t stone me to death; don’t stone me to death! and I’ll
give you my word never to let Tom Totherhouse come near me again.”

“Now the ten dollars are mine”, bawled out the lad; and so they were.




LITTLE ANNIE THE GOOSE-GIRL


Once on a time there was a King who had so many geese he was forced to
have a lassie to tend them and watch them; her name was Annie, and so
they called her “Annie the Goose-girl”. Now you must know there was a
King’s son from England who went out to woo; and as he came along Ann
sat herself down in his way.

“Sitting all alone there, you little Annie?” said the King’s son.

“Yes”, said little Annie, “here I sit and put stitch to stitch and
patch on patch. I’m waiting to-day for the King’s son from England.”

“Him you mustn’t look to have”, said the Prince.

“Nay, but if I’m to have him”, said little Annie, “have him I shall,
after all.”

And now limners were sent out into all lands and realms to take the
likenesses of the fairest Princesses, and the Prince was to chose
between them. So he thought so much of one of them, that he set out to
seek her, and wanted to wed her, and he was glad and happy when he got
her for his sweetheart.

But now I must tell you this Prince had a stone with him which he laid
by his bedside, and that stone knew everything, and when the Princess
came little Annie told her, if so be she’d had a sweetheart before, or
didn’t feel herself quite free from anything which she didn’t wish the
Prince to know, she’d better not step on that stone which lay by the
bedside.

“If you do, it will tell him all about you”, said little Annie.

So when the Princess heard that she was dreadfully downcast, and she
fell upon the thought to ask Annie if she would get into bed that night
in her stead and lie down by the Prince’s side; and then when he was
sound asleep, Annie should get out and the Princess should get in, and
so when he woke up in the morning he would find the right bride by his
side.

So they did that, and when Annie the goose-girl came and stepped upon
the stone the Prince asked:

“Who is this that steps into my bed?”

“A maid pure and bright”, said the stone, and so they lay down to
sleep; but when the night wore on the Princess came and lay down in
Annie’s stead.

But next morning, when they were to get up, the Prince asked the stone
again:

“Who is this that steps out of my bed?”

“One that has had three bairns”, said the stone. When the Prince heard
that he wouldn’t have her, you may know very well; and so he packed her
off home again, and took another sweetheart.

But as he went to see her, little Annie went and sat down in his way
again.

“Sitting all alone there, little Annie, the goose-girl”, said the
Prince.

“Yes, here I sit, and put stitch to stitch, and patch on patch; for I’m
waiting to-day for the king’s son from England”, said Annie.

“Oh! you mustn’t look to have him”, said the king’s son.

“Nay, but if I’m to have him, have him I shall, after all”; that was
what Annie thought.

Well, it was the same story over again with the Prince; only this time,
when his bride got up in the morning, the stone said she’d had six
bairns.

So the Prince wouldn’t have her either, but sent her about her
business; but still he thought he’d try once more if he couldn’t find
one who was pure and spotless; and he sought far and wide in many
lands, till at last he found one he thought he might trust. But when he
went to see her, little Annie the goose-girl had put herself in his way
again.

“Sitting all alone there, you little Annie, the goose-girl”, said the
Prince.

“Yes, here I sit, and put stitch to stitch, and patch on patch; for I’m
waiting to-day for the king’s son from England”, said Annie.

“Him you mustn’t look to have”, said the Prince.

“Nay, but if I’m to have him, have him I shall, after all”, said little
Annie.

So when the Princess came, little Annie the goose-girl told her the
same as she had told the other two, if she’d had any sweetheart before,
or if there was anything else she didn’t wish the Prince to know, she
mustn’t tread on the stone that the Prince had put at his bedside; for,
said she:

“It tells him everything.”

The Princess got very red and downcast when she heard that, for she was
just as naughty as the others, and asked Annie if she would go in her
stead and lie down with the Prince that night; and when he was sound
asleep, she would come and take her place, and then he would have the
right bride by his side when it was light next morning.

Yes! they did that. And when little Annie the goose-girl came and
stepped upon the stone, the Prince asked:

“Who is this that steps into my bed.”

“A maid pure and bright”, said the stone; and so they lay down to rest.

Farther on in the night the Prince put a ring on Annie’s finger, and it
fitted so tight she couldn’t get it off again; for the Prince saw well
enough there was something wrong, and so he wished to have a mark by
which he might know the right woman again.

Well, when the Prince had gone off to sleep, the Princess came and
drove Annie away to the pigsty, and lay down in her place. Next
morning, when they were to get up, the Prince asked:

“Who is this that steps out of my bed?”

“One that’s had nine bairns”, said the stone.

When the Prince heard that he drove her away at once, for he was in an
awful rage; and then he asked the stone how it all was with these
Princesses who had stepped on it, for he couldn’t understand it at all,
he said.

So the stone told him how they had cheated him, and sent little Annie
the goose-girl to him in their stead.

But as the Prince wished to have no mistake about it, he went down to
her where she sat tending her geese, for he wanted to see if she had
the ring too, and he thought, “if she has it, ’twere best to take her
at once for my queen”.

So when he got down he saw in a moment that she had tied a bit of rag
round one of her fingers, and so he asked her why it was tied up.

“Oh! I’ve cut myself so badly”, said little Annie the goose-girl.

So he must and would see the finger, but Annie wouldn’t take the rag
off. Then he caught hold of the finger; but Annie, she tried to pull it
from him, and so between them the rag came off, and then he knew his
ring.

So he took her up to the palace, and gave her much fine clothes and
attire, and after that they held their wedding feast; and so little
Annie the goose-girl came to have the king of England’s son for her
husband after all, just because it was written that she should have
him.




INTRODUCTION TO APPENDIX

ANANZI STORIES


The Negroes in the West Indies still retain the tales and traditions
which their fathers and grandfathers brought with them from Africa.
Some thirty years back these “Ananzi Stories”, as they are called, were
invariably told at the Negro wakes, which lasted for nine successive
nights. The reciters were always men. In those days when the slaves
were still half heathen, and when the awful _Obeah_ was universally
believed in, such of the Negroes as attended church or chapel kept
their children away from these funeral gatherings. The wakes are now,
it is believed, almost entirely discontinued, and with them have gone
the stories. The Negroes are very shy of telling them, and both the
clergyman of the Church of England, and the Dissenting Minister set
their faces against them, and call them foolishness. The translator,
whose early childhood was passed in those islands, remembers to have
heard such stories from his nurse, who was an African born; but beyond
a stray fragment here and there, the rich store which she possessed has
altogether escaped his memory. The following stories have been taken
down from the mouth of a West Indian nurse in his sister’s house, who,
born and bred in it, is rather regarded as a member of the family than
as a servant. They are printed just as she told them, and both their
genuineness and their affinity with the stories of other races will be
self-evident. Thus we have the “Wishing Tree” of the Hindoos, the
_Kalpa Vriksha_ of Somadeva, and of the German Fairy Tales in the
“Pumpkin Tree”, which throws down as many pumpkins as the poor widow
wishes. In one story we have “Boots” to the life, while the man whom he
outwits is own brother to the Norse Trolls. In another we find a
“speaking beast”, which reminds us at once of the Egyptian story of
Anessou and Satou, as well as of the “Machandelboom”, and “the
Milk-white Doo”. We find here the woman who washes the dirty head
rewarded, and the man who refuses to wash it punished, in the very
words used in “The Bushy Bride”. We find, too, in “Nancy Fairy”, the
same story, both in groundwork and incident, as we have in “the Lassie
and her Godmother”; and most surprising of all, in the story of “Ananzi
and Quanqua”, we find the very trait about a trick played with the tail
of an ox, which is met with in a variation to “Boots who ate a match
with the Troll”. Here is the variation: “Whilst he was with the Troll,
the lad was to go out to watch the swine, so he drove them home to his
father’s house, but first he cut their tails off, and stuck them into
the ground. Then he went home to the Troll, and begged him to come and
see how his swine were going down to Hell. But when the Troll saw the
swine’s tails sticking out of the ground he wanted to pull them back
again, so he caught hold of them and gave a great tug, and then down he
fell with his heels up in the air, and the tails in his fist.”

They are called “Ananzi Stories”, because so many of them turn on the
feats of Ananzi, whose character is a mixture of “the Master-thief”,
and of “Boots”; but the most curious thing about him, is that he
illustrates the Beast Epic in a remarkable way. In all the West Indian
Islands, “Ananzi” is the name of spiders[1] in general, and of a very
beautiful spider with yellow stripes in particular. The Negroes think
that this spider is the “Ananzi” of their stories, but that his
superior cunning enables him to take any shape he pleases. In fact, he
is the example which the African tribes from which these stories came,
have chosen to take as pointing out the superiority of wit over brute
strength. In this way they have matched the cleverness and dexterity of
the Spider, against the bone and muscle of the Lion, invariably to the
disadvantage of the latter.

 [1] Compare Crowther’s _Yoruba Glossary_, where _Alansasa_ is given as
 the Yoruban for _spider_. The change of _n_ into _l_ is not uncommon,
 even supposing the West Indian word to be uncorrupt.


After this introduction, we let the Tales speak for themselves, only
premising that the “Jack-Spaniard” in the first story is a very pretty
fly of the wasp kind, and, like his European brother, very small in the
waist; that the “Cush-cush”, is a little red yam which imparts a strong
red dye to everything with which it is boiled; and that the “Doukana”
is a forest tree which bears a fruit, though of what kind it is hard to
say.




APPENDIX




WHY THE JACK-SPANIARD’S WAIST IS SMALL


Ananzi and Mosquito were talking together one day, and boasting of
their fathers’ crops. Ananzi said his father had never had such a crop
in his life before; and Mosquito said, he was sure his father’s was
bigger, for one yam they dug was as big as his leg. This tickled
Jack-Spaniard so much, that he laughed till he broke his waist in two.
That’s why the Jack-Spaniard’s waist is so small.




ANANZI AND THE LION


Once on a time Ananzi planned a scheme. He went to town and bought ever
so many firkins of fat, and ever so many sacks, and ever so many balls
of string, and a very big frying pan, then he went to the bay and blew
a shell, and called the Head-fish in the sea, “Green Eel”, to him. Then
he said to the fish, “The King sends me to tell you that you must bring
all the fish on shore, for he wants to give them new life.”

So “Green Eel” said he would, and went to call them. Meanwhile Ananzi
lighted a fire, and took out some of the fat, and got his frying pan
ready, and as fast as the fish came out of the water he caught them and
put them into the frying pan, and so he did with all of them until he
got to the Head-fish, who was so slippery that he couldn’t hold him,
and he got back again into the water.

When Ananzi had fried all, the fish, he put them into the sacks, and
took the sacks on his back and set off to the mountains. He had not
gone very far when he met Lion, and Lion said to him”:

“Well, brother Ananzi, where have you been? I have not seen you a long
time.”

Ananzi said, “I have been travelling about.”

“But what have you got there?” said the Lion.

“Oh! I have got my mother’s bones—she has been dead these forty-eleven
years, and they say I must not keep her here, so I am taking her up
into the middle of the mountains to bury her.”

Then they parted. After he had gone a little way, the Lion said, “I
know that Ananzi is a great rogue; I daresay he has got something there
that he doesn’t want me to see, and I will just follow him”; but he
took care not to let Ananzi see him.

Now, when Ananzi got into the wood he set his sacks down, and took one
fish out and began to eat; then a fly came, and Ananzi said, “I cannot
eat any more, for there is some one near”; so he tied the sack up, and
went on further into the mountains, where he set his sacks down, and
took out two fish, which he ate; and no fly came, he said, “There’s no
one near”; so he took out more fish. But when he had eaten about
half-a-dozen, the Lion came up, and said:

“Well, brother Ananzi, a pretty tale you have told me.”

“Oh! brother Lion, I am so glad you have come; never mind what tale I
have told you, but come and sit down—it was only my fun.”

So Lion sat down and began to eat; but before Ananzi had eaten two
fish, Lion had emptied one of the sacks. Then said Ananzi to himself:

“Greedy fellow, eating up all my fish.”

“What do you say, sir?”

“I only said you do not eat half fast enough”, for he was afraid the
Lion would eat him up.

Then they went on eating, but Ananzi wanted to revenge himself, and he
said to the Lion, “Which of us do you think is the strongest?”

The Lion said, “Why, I am, of course.”

Then Ananzi said, “We will tie one another to the tree and we shall see
which is the stronger.”

Now they agreed that the Lion should tie Ananzi first, and he tied him
with some very fine string, and did not tie him tight. Ananzi twisted
himself about two or three times, and the string broke.

Then it was Ananzi’s turn to tie the Lion, and he took some very strong
cord. The Lion said, “You must not tie me tight, for I did not tie you
tight.” And Ananzi said, “Oh! no, to be sure I will not.” But he tied
him as tight as ever he could, and then told him to try and get loose.

The Lion tried and tried in vain—he could not get loose. Then Ananzi
thought, now is my chance; so he got a big stick and beat him, and then
went away and left him, for he was afraid to loose him lest he should
kill him.

Now there was a woman called Miss Nancy, who was going out one morning
to get some “callalou” (spinach) in the wood, and as she was going, she
heard some one say, “Good morning, Miss Nancy!” She could not tell who
spoke to her, but she looked where the voice came from, and saw the
Lion tied to the tree.

“Good morning, Mr Lion, what are you doing there?”

He said, “It is all that fellow Ananzi who has tied me to the tree, but
will you loose me?”

But she said, “No, for I am afraid, if I do, you will kill me.” But he
gave, her his word he would not; still she could not trust him; but he
begged her again and again, and said:

“Well, if I do try to eat you, I hope all the trees will cry out shame
upon me.”

So at last she consented; but she had no sooner loosed him, than he
came up to her to eat her, for he had been so many days without food
that he was quite ravenous, but the trees immediately cried out
“shame”, and so he could not eat her. Then she went away as fast as she
could, and the Lion found his way home.

When Lion got home he told his wife and children all that happened to
him, and how Miss Nancy had saved his life, so they said they would
have a great dinner, and ask Miss Nancy. Now when Ananzi heard of it,
he wanted to go to the dinner, so he went to Miss Nancy, and said she
must take him with her as her child, but she said “No”. Then he said, I
can turn myself into quite a little child, and then you can take me,
and at last she said “Yes”; and he told her, when she was asked what
pap her baby ate, she must be sure to tell them it did not eat pap, but
the same food as every one else; and so they went, and had a very good
dinner, and set off home again—but somehow one of the lion’s sons
fancied that all was not right, and he told his father he was sure it
was Ananzi, and the Lion set out after him.

Now as they were going along, before the Lion got up to them, Ananzi
begged Miss Nancy to put him down, that he might run, which she did,
and he got away and ran along the wood, and the Lion ran after him.
When he found the Lion was overtaking him, he turned himself into an
old man with a bundle of wood on his head—and when the Lion got up to
him, he said, “Good-morning, Mr Lion”, and the Lion said “Good-morning,
old gentleman.”

Then the old man said, “What are you after now? “and the Lion asked if
he had seen Ananzi pass that way, but the old man said “No, that fellow
Ananzi is always meddling with some one; what mischief has he been up
to now?”

Then the Lion told him, but the old man said it was no use to follow
him any more, for he would never catch him, and so the Lion wished him
good day, and turned and went home again.




ANANZI AND QUANQUA


Quanqua was a very clever fellow, and he had a large house full of all
sorts of meat. But you must know he had a way of saying _Quan? qua?_
(how? what?) when any one asked him anything and so they called him
“Quanqua”. One day when he was out, he met Atoukama, Ananzi’s wife, who
was going along driving an ox, but the ox would not walk, so Atoukama
asked Quanqua to help her; and they got on pretty well, till they came
to a river, when the ox would not cross through the water. Then
Atoukama called to Quanqua to drive the ox across, but all she could
get out of him was, “QUAN? QUA? _Quan? qua?_” At last she said, “Oh!
you stupid fellow, you’re no good; stop here and mind the ox while I go
and get help to drive him across.” So off she went to fetch Ananzi. As
soon as Atoukama was gone away, Quanqua killed the ox, and hid it all
away, where Ananzi should not see it; but first he cut off the tail,
then he dug a hole near the river side and stuck the tail partly in,
leaving out the tip. When he saw Ananzi coming, he caught hold of the
tail, pretending to tug at it as if he were pulling the ox out of the
hole. Ananzi seeing this, ran up as fast as he could, and tugging at
the tail with all his might, fell over into the river, but he still had
hold of the tail, and contrived to get across the water, when he called
out to Quanqua, “You idle fellow, you couldn’t take care of the ox, so
you shan’t have a bit of the tail”, and then on he went. When he was
gone quite out of sight, Quanqua took the ox home, and made a very good
dinner.

Next day he went to Ananzi’s house, and said, Ananzi must give him some
of the tail, for he had got plenty of yams, but he had no meat. Then
they agreed to cook their pot together. Quanqua was to put in white
yams, and Ananzi the tail, and red yams. When they came to put the yams
in, Quanqua put in a great many white yams, but Ananzi only put in one
little red cush-cush yam. Quanqua asked him if that little yam would be
enough, he said, “Oh! plenty”, for I don’t eat much.

When the pot boiled, they uncovered it, and sat down to eat their
shares, but they couldn’t find any white yams at all; the little red
one had turned them all red. So Ananzi claimed them all, and Quanqua
was glad to take what Ananzi would give him.

Now, when they had done eating, they said they would try which could
bear heat best, so they heated two irons, and Ananzi was to try first
on Quanqua, but he made so many attempts, that the iron got cold before
he got near him; then it was Quanqua’s turn, and he pulled the iron out
of the fire, and poked it right down Ananzi’s throat.




THE EAR OF CORN AND THE TWELVE MEN


[This tale is imperfect at the beginning.]

Ananzi said to the King, that if he would give him an ear of corn, he
would bring him twelve strong men. The King gave him the ear of corn,
and he went away. At last he got to a house, where he asked for a
night’s lodging which was given him; the next morning he got up very
early, and threw the ear of corn out of the door to the fowls, and went
back to bed. When he got up in the morning, he looked for his ear of
corn, and could not find it anywhere, so he told them he was sure the
fowls had eaten it, and he would not be satisfied unless they gave him
the best cock they had. So they were obliged to give him the cock, and
he went away with it, all day, until night, when he came to another
house, and asked again for a night’s lodging, which he got; but when
they wanted to put the cock into the fowl-house, he said no, the cock
must sleep in the pen with the sheep, so they put the cock with the
sheep. At midnight he got up, killed the cock, threw it back into the
pen, and went back to bed. Next morning when it was time for him to go
away, his cock was dead, and he would not take anything for it but one
of the best sheep, so they gave it to him, and he went off with it all
that day, until night-fall, when he got to a village, where he again
asked for a night’s lodging, which was given to him, and when they
wanted to put his sheep with the other sheep, he said, no, the sheep
must sleep with the cattle; so they put the sheep with the cattle. In
the middle of the night he got up and killed the sheep, and went back
to bed. Next morning he went for his sheep, which was dead, so he told
them they must give him the best heifer for his sheep, and if they
would not do so, he would go back and tell the King, who would come and
make war on them.

So to get rid of him, they were glad to give him the heifer, and let
him go; and away he went, and walked nearly all day with the heifer.
Towards evening he met a funeral, and asked whose it was? one of the
men said, it was his sister, so he asked the men if they would let him
have her; they said no, but after a while, he begged so hard, saying he
would give them the heifer, that they consented, and he took the dead
body and walked away, carrying it until it was dark, when he came to a
large town, where he went to a house and begged hard for a night’s
lodging for himself and his sister, who was so tired he was obliged to
carry her, and they would be thankful if they would let them rest there
that night. So they let them in, and he asked them to let them sit in
the dark, as his sister could not bear the light. So they took them
into a room, and left them in the dark; and when they were alone, he
seated himself on a bench near the table, and put his sister close by
his side, with his arm round her to keep her up. Presently they brought
them in some supper; one plate he set before his sister, and put her
hand in it, and the other plate for himself, but he ate out of both
plates. When it was time to go to bed, he asked if they would allow his
sister to sleep in a room where there were twelve strong men sleeping,
for she had fits, and if she had one in the night, they would be able
to hold her, and would not disturb the rest of the house. So they
agreed to this, and he carried her in his arms, because, he said she
was so tired, she was asleep, and laid her in a bed; he charged the men
not to disturb her, and went himself to sleep in the next room. In the
middle of the night he heard the men calling out, for they smelt a
horrid smell, and tried to wake the woman-first one man gave her a
blow, and then another, until all the men had struck her, but Ananzi
took no notice of the noise. In the morning when he went in for his
sister and found her dead, he declared they had killed her, and that he
must have the twelve men; to this the townsmen said no, not supposing
that all the men had killed her, but the men confessed that they had
each given her a blow-so he would not be satisfied with less than the
twelve, and he carried them off to the King, and delivered them up.




THE KING AND THE ANT’S TREE


There was a King who had a very beautiful daughter, and he said,
whoever would cut down an Ant’s tree, which he had in his kingdom,
without brushing off the ants, should marry his daughter. Now a great
many came and tried, but no one could do it, for the ants fell out upon
them and stung them, and they were forced to brush them off. There was
always someone watching to see if they brushed the ants off.

Then Ananzi went, and the King’s son was set to watch him. When they
showed him the tree, he said, “Why, that’s nothing, I know I can do
that.” So they gave him the axe, and he began to hew, but each blow he
gave the tree, he shook himself and brushed himself, saying all the
while, “Did you see me do that? I suppose you think I’m brushing
myself, but I am not.” And so he went, on until he had cut down the
tree. But the boy thought he was only pretending to brush himself all
the time, and the King was obliged to give him his daughter.




THE LITTLE CHILD AND THE PUMPKIN TREE


There was once a poor widow who had six children. One day when she was
going out to look for something to eat, for she was very poor, she met
an old man sitting by the river side. He said to her “Good morning.”

And she answered, “Good morning, father.”

He said to her, “Will you wash my head?”

She said she would, so she washed it, and when she was going away, he
gave her a “stampee,”[1] and told her to go a certain distance, and she
would see a large tree full of pumpkins; she was then to dig a hole at
the root of the tree and bury the money, and when she had done so, she
was to call for as many pumpkins as she liked, and she should have
them.

 [1] A small coin.


So the woman went, and did as she was told, and she called for six
pumpkins, one for each child, and six came down, and she carried them
home; and now they always had pumpkins enough to eat, for whenever they
wanted any, the woman had only to go to the tree and call, and they had
as many as they liked. One morning when she got up, she found a little
baby before the door, so she took it up and carried it in, and took
care of it. Every day she went out, but in the morning she boiled
enough pumpkins to serve the children all day. One day when she came
back she found the food was all gone, so she scolded her children, and
beat them for eating it all up. They told her they had not taken
any—that it was the baby—but she would not believe them, and said, “How
could a little baby get up and help itself”; but the children still
persisted it was the baby. So one day when she was going out, she put
some pumpkin in a calabash, and set a trap over it. When she was gone
the baby got up as usual to eat the food, and got its head fastened in
the trap, so that it could not get out, and began knocking its head
about and crying out, “Oh! do loose me, for that woman will kill me
when she comes back.” When the woman came in, she found the baby
fastened in the trap, so she beat it well, and turned it out of doors,
and begged her children’s pardon for having wronged them.

Then after she turned the baby out, he changed into a great big man,
and went to the river, where he saw the old man sitting by the river
side, who asked him to wash his head, as he had asked the poor woman,
but the man said:

“No, he would not wash his dirty head”, and so he wished the old man
“good bye”.

Then the old man asked him if he would like to have a pumpkin, to which
he said “yes”, and the old man told him to go on till he saw a large
tree with plenty of pumpkins on it, and then he must ask for one. So he
went on till he got to the tree, and the pumpkins looked so nice he
could not be satisfied with one, so he called out, “Ten pumpkins come
down”, and the ten pumpkins fell and crushed him.




THE BROTHER AND HIS SISTERS


There were once upon a time three sisters and a brother. The sisters
were all proud, and one was very beautiful, and she did not like her
little brother, “because”, she said, “he was dirty”. Now, this
beautiful sister was to be married, and the brother begged their mother
not to let her marry, as he was sure the man would kill her, for he
knew his house was full of bones. So the mother told her daughter, but
she would not believe it, and said, “she wouldn’t listen to anything
that such a dirty little scrub said”, and so she was married.

Now, it was agreed that one sister was to remain with their mother and
the other was to go with the bride, and so they set out on their way.
When they got to the beach, the husband picked up a beautiful
tortoise-shell comb, which he gave to his bride. Then they got into his
boat and rowed away over the sea, and when they reached their home,
they were so surprised to see their little brother, for the comb had
turned into their brother. They were not at all glad to see him, and
the husband thought to himself he would kill him without telling his
wife. When night came the boy told the husband that at home his mother
always put him to sleep in the blacksmith’s shop, and so the husband
said he should sleep in the smithy.

In the middle of the night the man got up, intending to kill them all,
and went to his shop to get his irons ready, but the boy jumped up as
soon as he went in, and he said, “Boy, what is the matter with you?” So
the boy said, when he was at home his mother always gave him two bags
of gold to put his head on. Then the man said, he should have them, and
went and fetched him two bags of gold, and told him to go to sleep.

But the boy said, “Now mind, when you hear me snore I’m not asleep, but
when I am not snoring, then I’m asleep.” Then the boy went to sleep and
began to snore, and as long as the man heard the snoring, he blew his
bellows; but as soon as the snoring stopped, the man took his irons out
of the fire, and the boy jumped up.

Then the man said, “Why, what’s the matter? why, can’t you sleep?”

The boy said “No; for at home my mother always gave me four bags of
money to lie upon.

Well, the man said he should have them, and brought him four bags of
money. Then the boy told him again the same thing about his snoring and
the man bade him go to sleep, and he began to snore, and the man to
blow his bellows until the snoring stopped. Then the man took out his
irons again, and the boy jumped up, and the man dropped the irons,
saying, “Why, what’s the matter now that you can’t sleep?”

The boy said, “At home my mother always gave me two bushels of corn.”

So the man said he should have the corn, and went and brought it, and
told him to go to sleep. Then the boy snored, and the man blew his
bellows till the snoring stopped, when he again took out his irons, and
the boy jumped up, and the man said, “Why, what’s it now?”

The boy said, “At home my mother always goes to the river with a sieve
to bring me some water.”

So the man said “Very well, I will go, but I have a cock here, and
before I go, I must speak to it.”

Then the man told the cock if he saw any one moving in the house, he
must crow; that the cock promised to do, and the man set off.

Now when the boy thought the man was gone far away, he got up, and gave
the cock some of the corn; then he woke up his sisters and showed them
all the bones the man had in the house, and they were very frightened.
Then he took the two bags of gold on his shoulders, and told his
sisters to follow him. He took them to the bay, and put them into the
boat with the bags of gold, and left them whilst he went back for the
four bags of money. When he was leaving the house he emptied the bags
of corn to the cock, who was so busy eating, he forget to crow, until
they had got quite away.

When the man returned home and could not find them in the house, he
went to the river, where he found his boat gone, and so he had no way
of going after them. When they landed at their own place, the boy
turned the boat over and stove it in, so that it was of no use any
more; and he took his sisters home, and told their mother all that had
happened, and his sisters loved him, and they lived very happily
together ever afterwards, and do so still if they are not dead.




THE GIRL AND THE FISH


There was once a girl who used to go to the river to fetch water, but
when she went she was never in a hurry to come back, but staid so long,
that they made up their minds to watch her. So one day they followed
her to the river, and found when she got there, she said something (the
reciter forgets the words), and a fish came up and talked to her; and
she did not like to leave it, for it was her sweetheart. So next day
they went to the river to see if the fish would come up, for they
remembered what the girl said and used the same words. Then up came the
fish immediately, and they caught it, and took it home, and cooked it
for dinner—and a part they set by, and gave to the girl when she came
in. Whilst she was eating, a voice said, “Do you know what you are
eating? I am he you have so often talked with. If you look in the pig’s
tub, you will see my heart.” Then the voice told her to take the heart,
and wrap it up in a handkerchief, and carry it to the river. When she
got to the river she would see three stones in the water, she was to
stand on the middle stone, and dip the handkerchief three times into
the water. All this she did, and then she sank suddenly, and was
carried down to a beautiful place, where she found her lover changed
from a fish into his proper form, and there she lived happily with him
for ever. And this is the reason why there are mermaids in the water.




THE LION, THE GOAT, AND THE BABOON


A Lion had a Goat for his wife. One day Goat went out to market, and
while she was gone, Lion went out in the wood, where he met with
Baboon, who made friends with Lion, for fear he would eat him, and
asked him to go home with him; but the Lion thought it would be a good
chance, so he asked the Baboon to go home with him and see his little
ones. When they got home, the Baboon said to the Lion.

“Why, you have got plenty of little goats here.”

The Lion said, “Yes, they are my children.”

So the Baboon said, “If they are, they are little goats, and they are
very good meat.”

So the Lion said, “Don’t make a noise; their mother will come
presently, and we will see.”

So these little goats took no notice, but went out to meet their
mother, and told her what had passed.

Their mother said to them, “Go back, take no notice, and I shall come
home presently, and shall do for him.”

So she went and bought some molasses, and took it home with her. The
Lion said, “Are you come; what news?”

“Oh!” she said, “good news, taste here.” He tasted, and said, “It’s
very good, it’s honey.”

And she said, “It’s baboon’s blood; they have been killing one to-day,
the blood is running in the street, and every one is carrying it away.”

The Lion said, “Hush, there’s one in the house, and we shall have him.”

At this the Baboon rushed off, and when they looked for him, he was
gone, and never came near them again, which saved the little goats’
lives.




ANANZI AND BABOON


Ananzi and Baboon were disputing one day which was fattest. Ananzi said
he was sure he was fat, but Baboon declared he was fatter. Then Ananzi
proposed that they should prove it; so they made a fire, and agreed
that they should hang up before it, and see which would drop most fat.

Then Baboon hung up Ananzi first, but no fat dropped.

Then Ananzi hung up Baboon, and very soon the fat began to drop, which
smelt so good that Ananzi cut a slice out of Baboon, and said,

“Oh! brother Baboon, you’re fat for true.”

But Baboon didn’t speak.

So Ananzi said, “Well, speak or not speak, I’ll eat you every bit
to-day”, which he really did. But when he had eaten up all Baboon, the
bits joined themselves together in his stomach, and began to pull him
about so much that he had no rest, and was obliged to go to a doctor.

The doctor told him not to eat anything for some days, then he was to
get a ripe banana, and hold it to his mouth; when the Baboon, who would
be hungry, smelt the banana, he would be sure to run up to eat it, and
so he would run out of his mouth.

So Ananzi starved himself, and got the banana, and did as the doctor
told him; but when he put the banana to his mouth, he was so hungry he
couldn’t help eating it. So he didn’t get rid of the Baboon, which went
on pulling him about till he was obliged to go back to the doctor, who
told him he would soon cure him; and he took the banana, and held it to
Ananzi’s mouth, and very soon the Baboon jumped up to catch it, and ran
out of his mouth; and Ananzi was very glad to get rid of him. And
Baboons to this very day like bananas.




THE MAN AND THE DOUKANA TREE


There was once a man and his wife, who were very poor, and they had a
great many children. The man was very lazy, and would do nothing to
help his family. The poor mother did all she could. In the wood close
by grew a Doukana Tree, which was full of fruit. Every day the man went
and ate some of the fruit, but never took any home, so he ate and he
ate, until there were only two Doukanas left on the Tree. One he ate,
and left the other. Next day, when he went for that one, he was obliged
to climb up the tree to reach it; but when he got up, the Doukana fell
down; when he got down the Doukana jumped up; and so it went on until
he was quite tired.

Then he asked all the animals that passed by to help him, but they all
made some excuse. They all had something to do. The horse had his work
to do, or he would have no grass to eat. The donkey brayed. Last came a
dog, and the man begged him hard to help him; so the dog said he would.
Then the man climbed up the tree, and the Doukana jumped to the ground
again, when the dog picked it up and ran off with it The man was very
vexed, and ran after the dog, but it ran all the faster, so that the
man could not overtake him. The dog, seeing the man after him, ran to
the sea shore, and scratching a hole in the ground, buried himself all
but his nose, which he left sticking out.

Soon after the man came up, and seeing the nose, cried out that he had
“never seen ground have nose”; and catching hold of it he tugged till
he pulled out the dog, when he squeezed him with all his might to make
him give up the Doukana. And that’s why dogs are so small in their
bodies to this very day.




NANCY FAIRY


There was once an old woman called “Nancy Fairy”. She was a witch, and
used to steal all the little babies as soon as they were born, and eat
them. One day she stole a little baby, who was so beautiful that she
had not the heart to eat her; but she took her home and brought her up.
She called her “daughter”, named her “Nancy Fairy”, after herself, and
the girl called the old woman “Granny”.

So the girl grew up, and the more she grew the more beautiful she got.

The old woman never let her daughter know of her doings; but one day
when she had brought a baby home, and had locked herself in a room, her
daughter peeped through a chink to see what she was about, and the old
woman saw her shadow, and thought her daughter had seen what she was
doing, and the daughter thought her granny had seen her, and was very
much afraid.

So the old woman asked her, “Nancy Fairy, did you see what I was
doing?”

“No, Granny.”

She asked the girl several times, “Nancy Fairy, did you see what I was
doing?” and the girl always said, “No, Granny.”

So the old woman took her up to a hut in a wood, and left her there as
a punishment; and she took her food every day.

One day it happened that the king’s servant, going that way, saw the
beautiful girl come out of the hut. Next day he went again and saw the
same beautiful girl again. So he went home and told the prince that he
could show him in the wood a girl more beautiful than he had ever seen.
The prince went and saw the girl, and then sent a band of soldiers to
fetch her home, and took her for his bride.

A year after she had a baby. Soldiers were set to keep guard at the
gate, and the room was full of nurses; but in the middle of the night
the old woman came in a whirlwind and put them all to sleep. She stole
the child, and on going away gave the mother a slap on the mouth which
made her dumb.

Next morning there was a great stir, and they said the mother had eaten
the child. There was a trial, but the mother was let off that time.

Next year she had another baby, and the same thing happened again. The
old woman came in the middle of the night in a whirlwind, and put them
all to sleep. She stole the child, and struck the mother on the mouth,
which made it bleed.

In the morning there was a stir; and the servant maid, who was jealous,
said the mother had eaten the child. All believed it, as her mouth was
covered with blood; and, besides, what would be expected of a girl
brought out of the wood? So she was tried again, and condemned to be
hanged.

Invitations were sent out to all the grand folk to come and see her
hanged; so many fine carriages came driving up. At last, just before
the time, there came a very grand carriage, all of gold, which
glistened in the sun. In it were the old woman and two children,
dressed in fine clothes, with the king’s star on them. When the queen
saw this grand carriage she got her speech and sung,

“Do spare me till I see that grand carriage.”

The old woman came into the courtyard, and asked the people if they saw
any likeness to any one in the children. They said, “they were like the
prince”, and asked her how she came by them, and told her she had
stolen them. She said she had not stolen them; she had taken them, for
they were her own; the prince had taken away her daughter without her
leave, and so she had taken his children; but she was willing to give
them back, if they would allow that she was right.

So they consented, and the old woman made the prince and his queen a
present of the grand carriage, and so they lived happily. The old woman
was allowed to come and see the children whenever she liked. But the
servant girl, who said the queen had eaten her babies, was hanged.




“THE DANCING GANG”


A water carrier once went to the river to fetch water. She dipped in
her calabash, and brought out a cray-fish. The cray-fish began beating
his claws on the calabash, and played such a beautiful tune, that the
girl began dancing, and could not stop.

The driver of the gang wondered why she did not come, and sent another
to see after her. When she came, she too began to dance. So the driver
sent another, who also began to dance when she heard the music and the
cray-fish singing:

Vaitsi, Vaitsi, O sulli Van.
Stay for us, stay for us, how long will you stay for us?


Then the driver sent another and another, till he had sent the whole
gang.

At last he went himself, and when he found the whole gang dancing, he
too began to dance; and they all danced till night, when the cray-fish
went back into the water; and if they haven’t done dancing, they are
dancing still.




FOOTNOTES TO INTRODUCTION

 [1] How strange is the terror of Natural Science, which seems to
 possess, with a religious possession, so many good and pious people!
 How rigidly do they bind themselves hand and foot with the mere letter
 of the law, forgetting Him who came to teach us, that “the letter
 killeth, but the Spirit giveth life!” What are we to say of those who,
 when the old crust which clogs and hampers human knowledge is cracking
 and breaking all around them, when the shell is too narrow an abode
 for the life within it, which is preparing to cast it off, still cling
 to the crust and shell, looking, like the disciples by the sepulchre,
 at the linen clothes lying, and know not that He has risen in glory?
 These are they who obstinately refuse to believe in the “Testimony of
 the Rocks”, who deny Geology the thousands, nay millions, of years
 which she requires to make her deposits in Nature’s great saving-bank.
 These are they for whom the Nile, as he brings down year by year his
 tribute to the sea from Central Africa, lays down in vain layer after
 layer of alluvial deposit, which can be measured to an inch for tens
 of thousands of years. These are they to whom the comparatively
 younger growth of trees, the dragon tree of Orotava, and the cedars of
 California, plead in vain when they show, year after year, ring on
 ring of wood for thousands of years. “No; the world is only five or
 six thousands of years old, or thereabouts. The Old Testament”—the
 dates in which have been confessedly tampered with, and in some cases
 forged and fabricated by Hebrew scribes—“says so. We believe in it—we
 will believe in nothing else, not even in our senses. We will believe
 literally in the first chapter of Genesis, in working days and nights
 of twenty-four hours, even before the sun and moon were made, on the
 fourth day, ‘to divide the day from the night’, and to be ‘for signs
 and for seasons, and for days and years’. We will not hear of ages or
 periods, but ‘days’, because the ‘letter’ says so”. This is what our
 Western Brahmins say; but if they remembered that He who set sun and
 moon also planted the eye and ear, that he gave sense, and speech, and
 mind; if they considered that faith is a lively thing, elastic and
 expansive; that it embraces a thousand or a million years as easily as
 a moment of time; that bonds cannot fetter it, nor distance darken and
 dismay it; that it is given to man to grow with his growth and
 strengthen with his strength; that it rises at doubts and
 difficulties, and surmounts them; they would cease to condemn all the
 world to wear their own strait-waistcoat, cut and sewn by rabbis and
 doctors some thousand years ago; a garment which the human intellect
 has altogether outgrown, which it is ridiculous to wear, which
 careless and impious men laugh at when it is seen in the streets; and
 might begin to see that spirit is spirit, and flesh is flesh; that
 while one lives for ever, the other is corruptible and passes away;
 that there are developments in faith as in every thing else; that as
 man’s intellect and human knowledge have grown and expanded, so his
 faith must grow and expand too; that it really matters nothing at all,
 as an act of faith, whether the world is six thousand or six million
 years old; that it must have had a beginning; that there must be one
 great first cause, God. Surely there is no better way to bring His
 goodness into question, to throw doubt on His revelation, and to make
 it the laughing stock of the irreligious, than thus to clip the wings
 of faith, to throw her into a dungeon, to keep her from the light of
 day, to make her read through. Hebrew spectacles, and to force her to
 be a laggard and dullard, instead of a bright and volatile spirit,
 forward and foremost in the race of life.

 [2] But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be
 sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after _ear_ so barren a
 land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest”—SHAKESPEARE,
 _Dedication to Venus and Adonis_.

 [3] As a specimen of their thoughtful turn of mind, even in the
 _Vedas_, at a time before the monstrous avatars of the Hindoo Pantheon
 were imagined, and when their system of philosophy, properly so
 called, had no existence, the following metrical translation of the
 129th hymn of the 10th book of the _Rig-Veda_ may be quoted, which
 Professor Müller assures us is of a very early date:


Nor aught nor naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor Heaven’s broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was it the water’s fathomless abyss?
There was not death—yet was there nought immortal.
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound—an ocean without light—
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth,
Piercing and all pervading, or from Heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose—
Nature below, and power and will above—
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here,
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The Gods themselves came later into being—
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this great creation came,
Whether His will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it—or perchance even he knows not.


If we reflect that this hymn was composed centuries before the time of
Hesiod, we shall be better able to appreciate the speculative character
of the Indian mind in its earliest stage.

 [4] “A Brahmin, who had vowed a sacrifice, went to the market to buy a
 goat. Three thieves saw him, and wanted to get hold of the goat. They
 stationed themselves at intervals on the high road. When the Brahmin,
 who carried the goat on his back, approached the first thief, the
 thief said, ‘Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?’ The
 Brahmin replied: ‘It is not a dog, it is a goat.’ A little while
 after, he was accosted by the second thief, who said, ‘Brahmin, why do
 you carry a dog on your back?’ The Brahmin felt perplexed, put the
 goat down, examined it, and walked on. Soon after he was stopped by
 the third thief, who said, ‘Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your
 back?’ Then the Brahmin was frightened, threw down the goat, and
 walked home to perform his ablutions for having touched an unclean
 animal. The thieves took the goat and ate it.” See the notice of the
 Norse Tales in _The Saturday Review_, January 15. In Max Müller’s
 translation of the _Hitopadesa_, the story has a different ending. See
 also _Le Piacevoli Notti_, di M. Giovan Francesco Straparola da
 Caravaggio (Venice, 1567), Notte Prima, Favola III: “Pre Scarpacifico
 da tre malandrini una sol volta gabbato, tre fiate gabba loro,
 finalmente vittorioso con la sua Nina lietamente rimane”. In which
 tale the beginning is a parallel to the first part of “The Master
 Thief”, while the end answers exactly to the Norse tale added in this
 edition, and called Big Peter and Little Peter.”

 [5] Fornm. Sög., 2, 272.

 [6] Müller’s Saga Bibl., 3, 359.

 [7] See the ballad in Percy’s Reliques.

 [8] The following are translations from Saxo, the _Wilkina Saga_, and
 the _Malleus Maleficarum_. The question is completely set at rest by
 Grimm, _D. M._ p. 353 fol. and p. 1214.
    “Nor is the following story to be wrapped in silence. A certain
    Palnatoki, for some time among King Harold’s bodyguard, had made
    his bravery odious to very many of his fellow-soldiers by the zeal
    with which he surpassed them in the discharge of his duty. This man
    once, when talking tipsily over his cups, had boasted that he was
    so skilled an archer, that he could hit the smallest apple placed a
    long way off on a wand at the first shot; which talk, caught up at
    first by the ears of backbiters, soon came to the hearing of the
    king. Now, mark how the wickedness of the king turned the
    confidence of the sire to the peril of the son, by commanding that
    this dearest pledge of his life should be placed instead of the
    wand, with a threat that, unless the author of this promise could
    strike off the apple at the first flight of the arrow, he should
    pay the penalty of his empty boasting by the loss of his head. The
    king’s command forced the soldier to perform more than he had
    promised, and what he _had_ said, reported by the tongues of
    slanderers, bound him to accomplish what he had _not_ said”…“Nor
    did his sterling courage, though caught in the snare of slander,
    suffer him to lay aside his firmness of heart; nay, he accepted the
    trial the more readily because it was hard. So Palnatoki warned the
    boy urgently when he took his stand to await the coming of the
    hurtling arrow with calm ears and unbent head, lest by a slight
    turn of his body he should defeat the practised skill of the
    bowman; and, taking further counsel to prevent his fear, he turned
    away his face lest he should be scared at the sight of the weapon.
    Then taking three arrows from the quiver, he struck the mark given
    him with the first he fitted to the string. But, if chance had
    brought the head of the boy before the shaft, no doubt the penalty
    of the son would have recoiled to the peril of the father, and the
    swerving of the shaft that struck the boy would have linked them
    both in common ruin. I am in doubt, then, whether to admire most
    the courage of the father or the temper of the son, of whom the one
    by skill in his art avoided being the slayer of his child, while
    the other by patience of mind and quietness of body saved himself
    alive, and spared the natural affection of his father. Nay, the
    youthful frame strengthened the aged heart, and showed as much
    courage in awaiting the arrow as the father, skill in launching it.
    But Palnatoki, when asked by the king why he had taken more arrows
    from the quiver, when it had been settled that he should only try
    the fortune of the bow _once_, made answer ‘That I might avenge on
    thee the swerving of the first by the points of the rest, lest
    perchance my innocence might have been punished, while your
    violence escaped scot-free’”.— _Saxo Gram._, Book X, (p. 166, ed.
    Frankf.)
    “About that time the young Egill, Wayland’s brother, came to the
    court of King Nidung, because Wayland (Smith) had sent him word.
    Egill was the fairest of men and one thing he had before all other
    men—he shot better with the bow than any other man. The king took
    to him well, and Egill was there a long time. Now, the king wished
    to try whether Egill shot so well as was said or not, so he let
    Egill’s son, a boy of three years old, be taken, and made them put
    an apple on his head, and bade Egill shoot so that the shaft struck
    neither above the head nor to the left nor to the right; the apple
    only was he to split. But it was not forbidden him to shoot the
    boy, for the king thought it certain that he would do that on no
    account if he could at all help it. And he was to shoot one arrow
    only, no more. So Egill takes three, and strokes their feathers
    smooth, and fits one to his string, and shoots and hits the apple
    in the middle, so that the arrow took along with it half the apple,
    and then fell to the ground. This master-shot has long been talked
    about, and the king made much of him, and he was the most famous of
    men. Now, King Nidung asked Egill why he took out _three_ arrows,
    when it was settled that one only was to be shot with. Then Egill
    answered ‘Lord’, said he, ‘I will not lie to you; had I stricken
    the lad with that one arrow, then I had meant these two for you.’
    But the king took that well from him, and all thought it was boldly
    spoken”.—_Wilkina Saga_, ch. 27 (ed. Pering).
    “It is related of him (Puncher) that a certain lord, who wished to
    obtain a sure trial of his skill, set up his little son as a butt,
    and for a mark a shilling on the boy’s cap, commanding him to carry
    off the shilling without the cap with his arrow. But when the
    wizard said he could do it, though he would rather abstain, lest
    the Devil should decoy him to destruction; still, being led on by
    the words of the chief, he thrust one arrow through his collar,
    and, fitting the other to his crossbow, struck off the coin from
    the boy’s cap without doing him any harm; seeing which, when the
    lord asked the wizard why he had placed the arrow in his collar? he
    answered ‘If by the Devil’s deceit I had slain the boy, when I
    needs must die, I would have transfixed you suddenly with the other
    arrow, that even so I might have avenged my death.’”—_Malleus
    Malef._, p. ii, ch. 16.

 [9] See _Pantcha-Tantra_, v. ii of Wilson’s _Analysis_, quoted by
 Loiseleur Deslongchamps, _Essai sur les Fables Indiennes_ (Paris,
 Techener, 1838, p. 54), where the animal that protects the child is a
 mangouste (Viverra Mungo). See also _Hitopadesa_, (Max Müller’s
 Translation, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 178) where the guardian is an
 otter. In both the foe is a snake.

 [10] Moe Introd. xxxii.-iii

 [11] The account in the _Nibelungen_ respecting the _Tarnhut_ is
 confused, and the text probably corrupt; but so much is plain, that
 Siegfried got it from Elberich in the struggle which ensued with
 Schilbung and Niblung, after he had shared the Hoard.

 [12] Thus we find it in the originals or the parallels of Grendel in
 _Beowulf_, of Rumpelstiltskin, of the recovery of the Bride by the
 ring dropped into the cup, as related in “Soria Moria Castle,” and
 other tales; of the “wishing ram”, which in the Indian story becomes a
 “wishing cow”, and thus reminds us of the bull in one of these Norse
 Tales, out of whose ear came a “wishing cloth”; of the lucky child,
 who finds a purse of gold under his pillow every morning; and of the
 red lappet sown on the sleeping lover, as on Siegfried in the
 _Nibelungen_. The devices of Upakosa, the faithful wife, remind us at
 once of “the Master-maid”, and the whole of the stories of Saktideva
 and the Golden City, and of Viduschaka, King Adityasena’s daughter,
 are the same in groundwork and in many of their incidents as “East o’
 the Sun, and West o’ the Moon”, “the Three Princesses of Whiteland”,
 and “Soria Moria Castle”.

 [13] J. Grimm, _Reinhart Fuchs_, cclxiii, Intr.

 [14] _Kinder and Hausmärchen_, vol. 3, _3d_ edition (Göttingen, 1856)
 a volume worthy of the utmost attention.

 [15] note Kölle, _Kanuri Proverbs and Fables_ (London Church
 Missionary House, 1854), a book of great philological interest, and
 one which reflects great credit on the religious society by which it
 was published.

 [16] _Kanuri Proverbs_, p. 167.

 [17] Notte Duodecima. Favola terza. “Pederigo da Pozzuolo che
 intendeva il linguaggio de gli animali, astretto dalla moglie dirle un
 segreto, quella stranamente battè.”

 [18] The story of the Two Brothers Anesou and Satou, from the
 _D’Orbiney Papyrus_, by De Ronge, Paris, 1852.

 [19] See the Ananzi Stories in the Appendix, which have been taken
 down from the mouth of a West Indian nurse.

 [20] _The Deeds of Bogda Gesser Chan_, by I. J. Schmidt (Petersburg
 and Leipzig, 1839).

 [21] _Oxford Essays for_ 1858: “The Norsemen in Iceland”.

 [22] See _Anecd. and Trad._, Camd. Soc. 1839, pp. 92 fol. See also the
 passages from Anglo-Saxon laws against “well-waking”, which Grimm has
 collected: _D. M._, p. 550.

 [23] D. M., p. 900: _Wütendes Heer_

 [24] Heb., xiii, 1: “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to
 entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels
 unawares.”

 [25] One of Odin’s names, when on these adventures, was Gangradr, or
 Gangleri. Both mean “the _Ganger_, or way-farer”. We have the latter
 epithet in the “_Gangrel_ carle”, and “_Gangrel loon_”, of the early
 Scotch ballads.

 [26] So also Orion’s Belt was called by the Norsemen, Frigga’s spindle
 or _rock, Friggjar rock_. In modern Swedish, _Friggerock_, where the
 old goddess holds her own; but in Danish, _Mariaerock_, Our Lady’s
 rock or spindle. Thus, too, _Karlavagn_, the “car of men”, or heroes,
 who rode with Odin, which we call “Charles’ Wain”, thus keeping
 something, at least, of the old name, though none of its meaning,
 became in Scotland “Peter’s-pleugh”, from the Christian saint, just as
 Orion’s sword became “Peter’s-staff”. But what do “Lady Landers” and
 “Lady Ellison” mean, as applied to the “Lady-Bird” in Scotland?

 [27] D. M., p. 126 fol., where they are cited at length.

 [28] Snorro’s _Edda_, Stockholm, 1842, translated by the writer.

 [29] See the well-known story of “The Luck of Eden Hall”.

 [30] Hist., ii, 16.

 [31] Snor. _Ed. Skaldsk._, ch. 43.

 [32] St Luke, x, 18.

 [33] Snor. _Edda,_ ch. 34, Engl. Transl.

 [34] Here are a few of these passages which might be much extended:
 Burchard of Worms, p. 194, a. “credidisti ut aliqua femina sit quae
 hoc facere possit quod quaedam a diabolo deceptae se affirmant
 necessario et ex praecepto facere debere; id est cum daemonum turba in
 similitudinem mulierum transformata, quam vulgaris stultitia _Holdam_
 vocat, certis noctibus equitare debere super quasdam bestias, et in
 eorum se consortio annumeratam esse.”
    “Illud etiam non omittendum, quod quasdam sceleratae mulieres retro
    post Sathanam conversae, daemonum illusionibus et phantasmatibus
    seductae credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum _Diana_
    paganorum dea, vel cum _Herodiade_ et innumera multitudine mulierum
    equitare super quasdam bestias, et multa terrarum spatia
    intempestae noctis silentio pertransire, ejusque jussionibus velut
    _Dominae_ obedire et certis noctibus ad ejus servitium evocari.”
    —Burchard of Worms, 10, I.
    “Quale est, quod noctilucam quandam, vel _Herodiadem_, vel
    praesidem noctis Dominam concilia et conventus de nocte asserunt
    convocare, varia celebrari convivia, etc.”—Joh. Sarisberiensis
    Polycrat. 2, 17 (died 1182).
    “_Herodiam_ illam baptistae Christi interfectricem, quasi reginam,
    immo deam proponant, asserentes tertiam totius mundi partem illi
    traditam.”—Rather. Cambrens. (died 974).
    “Sic et daemon qui praetextu mulieris cum aliis de nocte, domos et
    cellaria dicitur frequentare, et vocant eam _Satiam_ a satietate,
    et _Dominam Abundiam_ pro abundantia, quam eam praestare dicunt
    domibus quas frequentaverit; hujusmodi etiam daemones quas _dominas
    vocant_, vetulae penes quas error iste remansit et a quibus solis
    creditur et somniatur.”—Guilielmus Alvernus, 1, 1036 (died 1248).
    So also the Roman de la Rose (Meon line 18, 622.)


Qui les cinc sens ainsinc deçoit
Par les fantosmes, qu’il reçoit,
Don maintes gens par lor folie
Cuident estre par nuit estries,
_Errans_ aveques _Dame Habonde;_
Et dient, que par tout le monde
_Li tiers enfant_ de nacion
_Sunt de ceste condicion._


And again, line 18,686:


Dautre part, _que li tiers du monde_
_Aille_ ainsinc _eavec Dame Habonde_.

 [35] See the derivation of _pagan_ from paganus, one who lived in the
 country, as opposed to urbanus, a townsman.

 [36] Snorro’s _Edda_, Dasent’s Translation, pp. 29 (Stockholm 1842).

 [37] Keisersberg Omeiss, 46 b., quoted by Grimm, _D.M._ pp. 991, says:
    “Wen man ein man verbrent, so brent man wol zehen frauen.”

 [38] See the passage from Vincent, _Bellov. Spec. Mor._, iii, 2, 27,
 quoted in Grimm, _D. M._ pp. 1,012-3.

 [39] The following passage from _The Fortalice of Faith_ of Alphonso
 Spina, written about the year 1458, will suffice to show how
 disgustingly the Devil, in the form of a goat, had supplanted the
 “Good Lady”: Quia nimium abundant tales perversae mulieres ine
 Delphinatu et Guasconia, ubi se asserunt concurrere de nocte in quâdam
 planitie deserta ubi est _caper quidam in rupe_, qui vulgariter
 dicitur _el boch de Biterne_ et clued ibi _conveniunt cum candelis
 accensis et adorant illum caprum osculpntes eum in ano suo_. Ideo
 captae plures earum, ab inquisitoribus fidei et convictae
 comburuntur.”
    About the same time, too, began to spread the notion of formal
    written agreements between the Fiend and men who were to be his
    after a certain time, during which he was to help them to all
    earthly goods. This, too, came with Christianity from the East. The
    first instance was Theophilus, vicedominus of the Bishop of Adana,
    whose fall and conversion form the original of all the Faust
    Legends. See Grimm, D. M. 969, and “Theophilus in Icelandic, Low
    German, and other tongues, by G. W. Dasent, Stockholm, 1845.” There
    a complete account of the literature of the legend may be found. In
    almost all these early cases the Fiend is outwitted by the help of
    the Virgin or some other saint, and in this way the reader is
    reminded of the Norse Devil, the successor of the Giants, who
    always makes bad bargains. When the story was applied to Faust in
    the sixteenth century, the terrible Middle Age Devil was paramount,
    and knew how to exact his due.

 [40] How strangely full of common sense sounds the following article
 from the Capitularies of Charlemagne, _De part. Sax._, 5:
    “Si quis a diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem. Paganorum,
    virum aliquem aut faeminam strigam esse et homines comedere, et
    propter hoc ipsum incenderit, vel carnem eius ad comedendum
    dederit, capitis sententia punietur.” And this of Rotharius, Lex.
    Roth., 379: “Nullus praesumat aldiam alienam aut ancillam quasi
    strigam occidere, quod Christianis mentibus nullatenus est
    credendum nec possible est, ut hominem mulier vivum intrinsecus
    possit comedere.”
    Here the law warns the common people from believing in witches, and
    from taking its functions into their own hands, and reasons with
    them against the absurdity of such delusions. So, too, that
    reasonable parish priest who thrashed the witch, though earlier in
    time, was far in advance of Gregory and his inquisitors, and even
    of our wise King James.

 [41] The following is the title of this strange tract, _Newes from
 Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable
 Sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough, in Januarie last 1591, which
 Doctor was register to the devil, that sundrie times preached at North
 Baricke Kirke to a number of notorious Witches. With the true
 examinations of the said Doctor and witches, as they uttered them in
 the presence of the Scottish king. Discovering how they pretended to
 bewitch and drowne his Majestic in the sea, comming from Denmarke,
 with such other wonderfull matters as the like, hath not bin heard at
 anie time_. Published according to the Scottish copie. Printed for
 William Wright. It was reprinted in 1816 for the Roxburghe Club by Mr
 H. Freeling, and is very scarce even in the reprint, which, all things
 considered, is perhaps just as well.

 [42] The following specimens of the tortures and confessions may
 suffice; but most of the crimes and confessions are unutterable. One
 Geillis Duncane was tortured by her master, David Seaton, dwelling
 within the town of Tranent, who, “with the help of others, did torment
 her with the torture of the Pilliwinkes (thumbscrews), upon her
 fingers, and binding and wrinching her head with a cord or roape,
 which is a most cruel torment also.” So also Agnes Sampson, “the
 eldest witch of them all, dwelling in Haddington, being brought to
 Haleriud House before the kinge’s majestie and sundry other of the
 nobilitie of Scotland, had her head thrawne with a rope according to
 the custom of that countrie, beeing a payne most greevous.” After the
 Devil’s mark is found on her she confesses that she went to sea with
 two hundred others in sieves to the kirk of North Berwick in East
 Lothian, and after they had landed they “took handes on the lande and
 daunted, this reill or short daunce, saying all with one voice:


Commer goe ye before, Commer goe ye,
Gif ye will not goe before, Commer let me.


“At which time she confessed that this Geillis Duncane did goe before
them playing this reill or daunce upon a small trumpe called a Jew’s
trump, until they entered into the kirk of North Barrick.” “As touching
the aforesaid Doctor Fian”, he “was taken and imprisoned, and used with
the accustomed paine provided for these offences, inflicted upon the
rest, as is aforesaid. First by thrawing of his head with a rope,
whereat he would confesse nothing! Secondly, he was persuaded by faire
means to confesse his follies, but that would prevaile as little.
Lastly, he was put to the most severe and cruell paine in the world,
called the Bootes, who, after he had received three strokes, being
inquired if he would confesse his damnable actes and wicked life, his
toong would not serve him to spaake.” This inability, produced no doubt
by pain, the other witches explain by saying that the Devil’s mark had
not been found, which, being found, “the charm” was “stinted”, and the
Doctor, in dread probably of a fourth stroke, confessed unutterably
shameful things. Having escaped from prison, of course by the aid of
the Devil, he was pursued, and brought back and re-examined before the
king. “But this Doctor, notwithstanding that his own confession
appeareth remaining in recorde, under his owne handewriting, and the
same thereunto fixed in the presence of the King’s majestie and sundrie
of his councell, yet did he utterly deny the same, whereupon the King’s
majestie, perceiving his stubborne wilfulness…he was commanded to have
a most strange torment, which was done in this manner following: His
nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off with an
instrument called in Scottish a Turkas, which in England wee call a
payre of pincars, and under everie nayle there was thrust in two
needels over even up to the heads. At all which torments,
notwithstanding the Doctor never shronke anie whit; neither would he
then confesse it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him.
    “Then was he with all convenient speed, by commandement convaied
    againe to the torment of the Bootes, wherein hee continued a long
    time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that his legges were
    crusht and beaten together as small as might bee, and the bones and
    flesh so brused that the blond and marrow spouted forth in great
    abundance, wherby they were made unserviceable for ever. And
    notwithstanding all these grievous panes and cruel torments, he
    would not confesse aniething, so deepely had the Devil entered into
    his heart, that hee utterly denied all that which he had before
    avouched, and would saie nothing thereunto but this, that what he
    had done and sayde before, was onely done and saide for fear of
    paynes which he had endured.” Thereupon as “a due execution of
    justice” “and “for example sake”, he was tried, sentenced, put into
    a cart, strangled and immediately put into a great fire, being
    readie provided for that purpose, and there burned in the Castle
    Hill of Edenbrough on a saterdaie, in the ende of Januaire last
    past, 1591.” The tract ends significantly: “The rest of the witches
    which are not yet executed remayne in prison till further triall
    and knowledge of his majestie’s pleasure.”

 [43] Od., iii, 372; and xxii, 239

 [44] _Ecl._, viii, 97:
    His ego sæpe lupum fieri et se condere silvis
    Mærin—vidi.

 [45] See Grimm’s _D.M._, 1,047 fol.; and for this translation from
 Petronius, a very interesting letter prefixed to Madden’s Ed. of the
 old English Romance of _William and the Werewolf_, 1832, one of the
 Roxburghe Club Publications. This letter, which was by the hand of Mr
 Herbert of Petworth, contains all that was known on this subject
 before Grimm; but when Grimm came he was, compared with all who had
 treated the subject, as a sober man amongst drunkards.

 [46] _Bisclavaret_ in the _Lais_ of Marie de France, 1, 178 seems to
 be a corruption of Bleizgarou, as the Norman _garwal_ is of _garwolf_.
 See also Jamieson Dict., under _warwolf_.

 [47] _Fornald Sög_, i, 130, 131.

 [48] See Landnama in many places. _Egil’s Sag., Hrolf Krak. Sag._

 [49] _Troldham, at kaste ham paa._ Comp. the old Norse _hamr, hamför,
 hammadr, hamrammr_, which occur repeatedly in the same sense.

 [50] Reinhart Fuchs, Introduction

 [51] Grimm, _Irisch. Elfenm._, 114-9, and _D. M._, 447.

 [52] Comp. Vict. Hugo, _Nôtre-Dame de Paris_, where he tells us that
 the gipsies called the wolf _piedgris_. See also Grimm, _D. M._, 633
 and _Reinhart_, lv, ccvii, and 446.

 [53] Douce, _Illust. to Shakspeare_, ii, 33, 344, quoted in _Reinhart
 Fuchs_, ccxxi.

 [54] _Germania_, 9, 10.

 [55] Snorro’s _Edda_, ch. vi, English translation.

 [56] Thus from the earliest times “dog”, “hound”, has been a term of
 reproach. Great instances of fidelity, such as “Gellert” or the “Dog
 of Montargis”, both of which are Eastern and primeval, have scarcely
 redeemed the cringing currish nature of the race in general from
 disgrace. M. Francisque Michel, in his _Histoire des Races Maudites de
 da France et de l’Espagne_, thinks it probable that _Cagot_, the
 nickname by which the heretical Goths who fled into Aquitaine in the
 time of Charles Martel, and received protection from that king and his
 successors, were called by the Franks, was derived from the term
 _Canis Gothicus_ or _Canes Gothi_. In modern French the word means
 hypocrite, and this would come from the notion of the outward
 conformity to the Catholic formularies imposed on the Arian Goths by
 their orthodox protectors. Etymologically, the derivation is good
 enough, according to Diez, _Romanisches Wörterbuch_ ; Provençal _ca_,
 dog; _Get_, Gothic. Before quitting _Cagot_, we may observe that the
 derivation of _bigot_, our bigot, another word of the same kind, is
 not so clear. Michel says it comes from _Vizigothus, Bizigothus_. Diez
 says this is too far-fetched, especially as “Bigot”, “Bigod”, was a
 term applied to the Normans, and not to the population of the South of
 France. There is, besides another derivation given by Ducange from a
 Latin chronicle of the twelfth century. In speaking of the homage done
 by Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, to the King of France, he says:
    Hic non dignatus pedem Caroli osculari nisi ad os suum levaret,
    cumque sui comites illum admonerent ut pedem Regis in acceptione
    tanti muneris, Neustriae provinciae, oscularetur, Anglica lingua
    respondit “_ne se bi got_”, quod interpretatur “ne per deum”. Rex
    vero et sui illum deridentes, et sermonem ejus corrupte referentes,
    illum vocaverunt Bigottum; unde Normanni adhuc Bigothi vocantur.
    Wace, too, says, in the _Roman de Rou_, that the French had abused
    the Normans in many ways, calling them Bigos. It is also termed, in
    a French record of the year 1429, “_un mot très injurieux_”. Diez
    says it was not used in its present sense before the sixteenth
    century.

 [57] The most common word for a giant in the Eddas was Jötunn (A. S.
 _coten_ ), which, strange to say, survives in the Scotch Etin. In one
 or two places the word _ogre_ has been used, which is properly a
 Romance word, and comes from the French _ogre_, Ital. _orco_, Lat.
 _orcus_. Here, too, we have an old Roman god of the nether world
 degraded.

 [58] These paroxysms were called in Old Norse _Jötunmodr_, the _Etin
 mood_, as opposed to _Asmodr, the mood of the Aesir_, that diviner
 wrath which, though burning hot, was still under the control of
 reason.

 [59] It may be worth while here to shew how old and widespread this
 custom or notion of the “naked sword” was. In the North, besides being
 told of Sigurd and Brynhildr, we hear it of Hrólf and Ingigerd, who
 took rest at night in a hut of leaves in the wood, and lay together,
 “but laid a naked sword between them”. So also Saxo Grammaticus says
 of King Gorm, “Caeterum ne inconcessum virginis amorem libidinoso
 complexu praeripere videretur, vicina latera non solum alterius
 complexibus exult, sed etiam _districto mucrone_ secrevit. Lib. 9,
 p.179. So also Tristan and Isolt in Gottfried of Strasburg’s poem,
 line 17,407-17.


Hierüber vant Tristan einen sin,
Si giengen an ir bette wider,
Und leiten sich dâ wider nider,
Von einander wol pin dan,
Reht als man and man,
Niht als man and wîp;
Dâ lac lîp and lîp,
In fremder gelegenheit,
Ouch hât Tristan geleit
Sîn _swert bar_ enzwischen si.


And the old French Tristan in the same way:


Et qant il vit la nue _espee_
Qui entre eus deus les deseurout.


So the old English Tristrem, line 2,002-3:


His sword he drough titly
And laid it _hem bitvene_.


And the old German ballad in _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, 2, 276:


Der Herzog zog aus sein goldiges schwert,
Er leit es zwischen beide hert
Das schwert soll weder hauen noch schneiden,
Das Annelein soll ein megedli bleiben.


So Fonzo and Fenizia in the _Pentamerone_, I, 9:
    Ma segnenno havere fatto vuto a Diana, de non toccare la mogliere
    la notte, mese la spata arranata comme staccione “miezo ad isso ed
    a Fenizia.
    And in Grimm’s story of “The Two Brothers” where the second brother
    lays “a double-edged sword” at night between himself and his
    brother’s wife, who has mistaken him for his twin brother. In fact
    the custom as William Wackernagel has shewn in _Haupt’s Zeitschrift
    für Deutsches Alterthum_ was one recognized by the law; and so late
    as 1477, when Lewis, County Palatine of Veldenz represented
    Maximilian of Austria as his proxy at the betrothal of Mary of
    Burgundy, he got into the bed of state, booted and spurred, and
    laid a naked sword between him and the bride. Comp. Birkens
    Ehrenspiegel, p. 885. See also as a proof that the custom was known
    in England as late as the seventeenth century, _The Jovial Crew_, a
    comedy first acted in 1641, and quoted by Sir W. Scott in his
    _Tristrem_, p. 345, where it is said (Act V, sc. 2): “He told him
    that he would be his proxy, and marry her for him, and lie with her
    the first night with a naked cudgel betwixt them.” And see for the
    whole subject, J. Grimm’s _Deutsche Rechts-Alterthümer_, Göttingen,
    1828, p. 168-70.

 [60] M. Moe, _Introd. Norsk. Event_ (Christiania, 1851, 2d Ed.), to
 which the writer is largely indebted.

 [61] _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_ (Ed. 1847).

 [62] The following list, which only selects the more prominent
 collections, will suffice to show that Popular Tales have a literature
 of their own:—Sanscrit. The _Pantcha Tantra_, “The Five Books”, a
 collection of fables of which only extracts have as yet been
 published, but of which Professor Wilson has given an analysis in the
 Transactions of the Asiatic Society, vol. I, sect. 2. The
 _Hitopadesa_, or “Wholesome Instruction”, a selection of tales and
 fables from the Pantcha Tantra, first edited by Carey at Serampore in
 1804; again by Hamilton in London in 1810; again in Germany by A. W.
 von Schlegel in 1829, an edition which was followed in 1831 by a
 critical commentary by Lassen; and again in 1830 at Calcutta with a
 Bengali and English translation. The work had been translated into
 English by Wilkins so early as 1787, when it was published in London,
 and again by Sir William Jones, whose rendering, which is not so good
 as that by Wilkins, appeared after his death in the collected edition
 of his works. Into German it has been translated in a masterly way by
 Max Müller, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844. Versions of these Sanscrit
 collections, the date of the latter of which is ascribed to the end of
 the second century of the Christian era, varying in many respects, but
 all possessing sufficient resemblance to identify them with their
 Sanscrit originals, are found in almost every Indian dialect, and in
 Zend, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish. We are happy to be
 able to state here that the eminent Sanscrit scholar, Professor Benfey
 of Göttingen, is now publishing a German translation of the _Pantcha
 Tantra_, which will be accompanied by translations of numerous
 compositions of the same kind, drawn from unpublished Sanscrit works,
 and from the legends current amongst the Mongolian tribes. The work
 will be preceded by an introduction embracing the whole question of
 the origin and diffusion of fables and popular tales. The following
 will be the title of Prof. Benfey’s work: “_Pantcha Tantra. Erster
 Theil, Fünf Bücher Indischer Fabeln, Märchen, and Erzählungen_. Aus
 dem Sanskrit übersetzt, mit Anmerkungen and Einleitung über das
 Indische Grundwerk und dessen Ausflüsse, so wie über die Quellen und
 Verbreitung des Inhalts derselben. Zweiter Theil, Übersetzungen und
 Anmerkungen.” Most interesting of all for our purpose is the
 collection of Sanscrit Tales, collected in the twelfth century of our
 era, by Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmere. This has been published in
 Sanscrit, and translated into German by Hermann Brockhaus, and the
 nature of its contents has already been sufficiently indicated. We may
 add, however, that Somadeva’s collection exhibits the Hindoo mind in
 the twelfth century in a condition, as regards popular tales, which
 the mind of Europe has not yet reached. How old these stories and
 fables must have been in the East, we see both from the _Pantcha
 Tantra_ and the _Hitopadesa_, which are strictly didactic works, and
 only employ tales and fables to illustrate and inculcate a moral
 lesson. We in the West have got beyond fables and apologues, but we
 are only now collecting our popular tales. In Somadeva’s time the
 simple tale no longer sufficed; it had to be fitted into and arranged
 with others, with an art and dexterity which is really marvellous; and
 so cleverly is this done, that it requires a mind of no little
 cultivation, and a head of more than ordinary clearness, to carry
 without confusion all the wheels within wheels, and fables within
 fables, which spring out of the original story as it proceeds. In
 other respects the popular tale loses in simplicity what it gains in
 intricacy by this artificial arrangement; and it is evident that in
 the twelfth century the Hindoo tales had been long since collected out
 of the mouths of the people, and reduced to writing; in a word, that
 the popular element had disappeared, and that they had passed into the
 written literature of the race. We may take this opportunity, too, to
 mention that a most curious collection of tales and fables, translated
 from Sanscrit, has recently been discovered in Chinese. They are on
 the eve of publication by M. Stanislas Julien, the first of Chinese
 scholars; and from the information on the matter which Professor Max
 Müller has kindly furnished to the translator, it appears that they
 passed with Buddhism from India into China. The work from which M.
 Julien has taken these fables, which are all the more precious because
 the Sanscrit originals have in all probability perished,—is called
 _Yu-lin_, or “The Forest of Comparisons”. It was the work of
 Youen-thai, a great Chinese scholar, who was President of the Ministry
 of justice at Pekin in the year 1565 of our era. He collected in
 twenty-four volumes, after the labour of twenty years, during which he
 read upwards of four hundred works, all the fables and comparisons he
 could find in ancient books. Of those works, two hundred were
 translations from the Sanscrit made by Buddhist monks, and it is from
 eleven of these that M. Julien has translated his Chinese Fables. We
 need hardly say that this work is most anxiously expected by all who
 take an interest in such matters. Let it be allowed to add here, that
 it was through no want of respect towards the memory of M. de Sacy
 that the translator has given so much prominence to the views and
 labours of the Brothers Grimm in this Introduction. To M. de Sacy
 belongs all the merit of exploring what may be called the old written
 world of fable. He, and Warton, and Dunlop, and Price, too, did the
 day’s work of Giants, in tracing out and classifying those tales and
 fables which had passed into the literature of the Aryan race. But,
 besides this old region, there is another new hemisphere of fiction
 which lies in the mouths and in the minds of the people. This new
 world of fable the Grimms discovered, and to them belongs the glory of
 having brought all its fruits and flowers to the light of day. This is
 why their names must ever be foremost in a work on Popular Tales,
 shining, as their names must ever shine, a bright double star in that
 new hemisphere. In more modern times, the earliest collection of
 popular tales is to be found in the _Piacevoli Notte_ of John Francis
 Straparola of Caravaggio, near Milan, the first edition of which
 appeared at Venice in 1550. The book, which is shamefully indecent,
 even for that age, and which at last, in 1606, was placed in the
 _Index Expurgatorius_, contains stories from all sources, and amongst
 them nineteen genuine popular tales, which are not disfigured by the
 filth with which the rest of the volume is full. Straparola’s work has
 been twice translated into German, once at Vienna, 1791, and again by
 Schmidt in a more complete form, _Märchen-Saal_, Berlin, 1817. But a
 much more interesting Italian collection appeared at Naples in the
 next century. This was the _Pentamerone_ of Giambattista Basile, who
 wrote in the Neapolitan dialect, and whose book appeared in 1637. This
 collection contains forty-eight tales, and is in tone, and keeping,
 and diction, one of the best that has ever appeared in any language.
 It has been repeatedly reprinted at Naples. It has been translated
 into German, and a portion of it, a year or two back, by Mr. Taylor,
 into English. In France the first collection of this kind was made by
 Charles Perrault, who, in 1697, published eight tales, under a title
 taken from an old _Fabliau_, _Contes de ma mère L’Oye_, whence comes
 our “Mother Goose”. To these eight, three more tales were added in
 later editions. Perrault was shortly followed by Madame D’Aulnoy (born
 in 1650, died 1705), whose manner of treating her tales is far less
 true to nature than Perrault’s, and who inserts at will, verses,
 alterations, additions, and moral reflections. Her style is
 sentimental and over-refined; the courtly airs of the age of Louis XIV
 predominate, and nature suffers by the change from the cottage to the
 palace. Madame d’Aulnoy was followed by a host of imitators; the
 Countess Mürat, who died in 1710; Countess d’Auneuil, who died in
 1700; M. de Preschac, born 1676, who composed tales of utter
 worthlessness, which may be read as examples of what popular tales are
 not, in the collection called _Le Cabinet des Fées_, which was
 published in Paris in 1785. Not much better are the attempts of Count
 Hamilton, who died in 1720; of M. de Moncrif, who died in 1770; of
 Mademoiselle de la Force, died 1724; of Mademoiselle l’Heritier died
 1737; of Count Caylus, who wrote his _Féeries Nouvelles_ in the first
 half of the 18th century, for the popular element fails almost
 entirely in their works. Such as they are, they may also be read in
 the _Cabinet des Fées_, a collection which ran to no fewer than
 forty-one volumes, and with which no lover of popular tradition need
 trouble himself much. To the playwright and the story-teller it has
 been a great repository, which has supplied the lack of original
 invention. In Germany we need trouble ourselves with none of the
 collections before the time of the Grimms, except to say that they are
 nearly worthless. In 1812-14 the two brothers, Jacob and William,
 brought out the first edition of their _Kinder-und Haus-Märchen_,
 which was followed by a second and more complete one in 1822: 3 vols.,
 Berlin, Reimer. The two first volumes have been repeatedly
 republished, but few readers in England are aware of the existence of
 the third, a third edition of which appeared in 1856 at Göttingen,
 which contains the literature of these traditions, and is a monument
 of the care and pains with which the brothers, or rather William, for
 it is his work, even so far back as 1820, had traced out parallel
 traditions in other tribes and lands. This work formed an era in
 popular literature, and has been adopted as a model by all true
 collectors ever since. It proceeded on the principle of faithfully
 collecting these traditions from the mouths of the people, without
 adding one jot or tittle, or in any way interfering with them, except
 to select this or that variation as most apt or beautiful. To the
 adoption of this principle we owe the excellent Swedish collection of
 George Stephens and Hylten Cavallius, _Svenska Folk-Sagor og
 Aefventyr_, 2 vols. Stockholm 1844, and following years; and also this
 beautiful Norse one, to which Jacob Grimm awards the palm over all
 collections, except perhaps the Scottish, of MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe.
 To it also we owe many most excellent collections in Germany, over
 nearly the whole of which an active band of the Grimm’s pupils have
 gone gathering up as gleaners the ears which their great masters had
 let fall or let lie. In Denmark the collection of M. Winther, _Danske
 Folkeeventyr_, Copenhagen, 1823, is a praiseworthy attempt in the same
 direction; nor does it at all detract from the merit of H. C. Andersen
 as an original writer, to observe how often his creative mind has
 fastened on one of these national stories, and worked out of that
 piece of native rock a finished work of art. Though last not least,
 are to be reckoned the Scottish stories collected by Mr. Robert
 Chambers, of the merit of which we have already expressed our opinion
 in the text.

 [63] After all, there is, it seems, a Scottish word which answers to
 _Askepot_ to a hair. See Jamieson’s _Dictionary_, where the reader
 will find _Ashiepattle_ as used in Shetland for a “neglected child”;
 and not in Shetland alone, but in Ayrshire, _Ashypet_, an adjective,
 or rather a substantive degraded to do the dirty work of an adjective,
 “one employed in the lowest kitchen work”. See too the quotation,
 “when I reached Mrs. Damask’s house she was gone to bed, and nobody to
 let me in, dripping wet as I was, but an _ashypet_ lassy, that helps
 her for a servant.”—_Steamboat_, p. 259. So again _Assiepet_,
 substantive “a dirty little creature, one that is constantly soiled
 with _ass_ or ashes”.

 [64] The Sagas contain many instances of Norsemen who sat thus idly
 over the fire, and were thence called _Kolbitr_, _coalbiters_, but who
 afterwards became mighty men.

 [65] Moe, _Introd. Norsk. Event._




*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POPULAR TALES FROM THE NORSE ***

***** This file should be named 8933-0.txt or 8933-0.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
    https://www.gutenberg.org/8/9/3/8933/

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
  you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
  Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
  works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
  receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:

    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
    Chief Executive and Director
    gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.


Project Gutenberg's Fairy Tales from the German Forests, by Margaret Arndt

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: Fairy Tales from the German Forests

Author: Margaret Arndt

Release Date: January 2, 2010 [EBook #30834]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY TALES ***




Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









FAIRY TALES FROM THE
GERMAN FORESTS


_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

"The Meadows of Play"

(With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton;
Illustrated by Edith Calvert.)

London, ELKIN MATTHEWS, Vigo Street
2s. 6d. net

[Illustration: "The Dwarf."]


[Illustration:
FAIRY TALES _from the_
GERMAN FORESTS

FRAU ARNDT]


LONDON: EVERETT & CO. LTD. 42 Essex Street, W.C.




 TO MY DAUGHTERS
 MARGARET AND BARBARA,
 AND TO MY NEPHEWS
 CHARLES AND STEPHEN JOHNSON,
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED


INTRODUCTORY POEM

 "The stories that the fairies told
  I learnt in English lanes of old,
  Where honeysuckle, wreathing high,
  Twined with the wild rose towards the sky,
  Or where pink-tinged anemones
  Grew thousand starred beneath the trees.

  I saw them, too, in London town,
  But sly and cautious, glancing down,
  Where in the grass the crocus grow
  And ladies ride in Rotten Row,
  St James's Park's a garden meet
  For tiny babes and fairy feet.

  But since I came to Germany,
  The good folk oftener talk to me;
  I find them in their native home
  When through the forest depths I roam,
  When through the trees blue mountains shine,
  The heart of fairyland is mine."




WHAT'S THE USE OF IT?

A CHRISTMAS STORY


In a village that was close to the great forest, though it had already
become the suburb of a large town, lived a little girl named Hansi
Herzchen. She was the seventh child of a family of seven, and she lived
at No 7 ---- Street. So you see she was a lucky child, for seven is
always a lucky number; but nothing had happened to prove her luck as
yet.

Her father was a clerk in the post office at the neighbouring town. He
would have found it hard to make two ends meet with seven little mouths
to fill, but that his wife had brought him substantial help. She was the
daughter of a well-to-do farmer peasant and had a considerable dowry
when she married. Moreover she was extremely thrifty and industrious.
She never spent a halfpenny without carefully considering if a farthing
would not do as well. Better £1 in the pocket than 19s. 11-1/2d., she
used to say. She drove wonderful bargains at the market. She had no
eyes for the artistic and ornamental, though her house was so spick and
span, that it was good to look at in its cleanliness and order. She had
stored up everything she had possessed since her early youth, and was
said to use pins that were at least twenty years old. She managed to put
everything to use, and the boys' knickers were sometimes made of queer
materials.

One expression little Hansi often heard at home and that was the word
"_useful_." When she brought in a fresh bunch of darling, pink-tipped
daisies and wanted to find a corner for them and a tiny drop of water to
put them in, the whole family would exclaim: "Throw them away, what do
you want with those half-dead weeds; they're of no use." If one of the
neighbours gave her a ball or toy, it was the same story: "We've no room
for such rubbish here." Each child possessed a money-box, and every coin
was immediately put in. They had never had a penny to _spend_ in their
lives.

The garden was planted solely with vegetables and potatoes and herbs of
the most useful character. The scarlet beans in summer, however, would
brighten it up, and field poppies and dandelions sprang up in a quite
miraculous way to Hansi's delight. For in each flower was a jolly little
fairy, who talked to her and told her stories, because of her being a
seventh child and living at No. 7. Perhaps, too, because Hansi's natural
disposition made her look out for wonders, and her loving heart included
the field flowers among her friends.

Christmas was coming on; a pig had been killed. Hansi's father and
mother and big brother Paul stayed up all night making sausages, and the
children had sausage soup for dinner during the next week.

In preparation for Christmas, Hansi's mother baked large cakes (called
Stollen) of a plain quality, with currants few and far between. Food had
become very expensive during the last few years, and no one could deny
that seven children were a handful.

She went in to town and returned by electric tram, with the useful
things that were intended for Christmas presents for the children,
namely:

 A pair of boots for Paul,
 A school-cape for Marie,
 Handkerchiefs for Fritz with his name embroidered
     on them in red cotton,
 Stockings for Emma,
 A warm hood for Gretchen,
 An oilcloth pinafore for Karlchen, who had a special
     talent for getting dirty,
 And lastly a new pinafore for Hansi.

"Now we might be said to have everything ready for Christmas," said Mrs
Herzchen, on her return home, "if it were not for the Christmas tree. I
suppose we shall have to pay at least one and six for it, and then there
are the candles and apples, balls and sweets. It does seem absurd to
waste good money on such rubbish. What can be the use of it?"

She talked away in this manner, until she made up her mind to do without
the tree for once.

"Your father has no time to see about it," she said to the children. "He
is taken up with looking after other people's rubbishing letters and
parcels, and I can't be bothered--so put the idea out of your heads, you
won't get a tree this year."

The seven children felt very indignant; for it is almost a disgrace in
Germany to have no tree; it is worse than going without a pudding on
Christmas Day in England. The very poorest families manage somehow to
have their tree to light on Christmas Eve. Still they were trained to
implicit obedience and respect for their mother, and did not dare
grumble much openly.

Mrs Herzchen did not consult her husband about it; so he expected his
tree as usual. The good woman felt rather uncomfortable, as if she had
either done something wrong, or omitted doing what was right; but she
justified herself by saying continually to herself "What's the use of
it?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Hansi dreamt that night of a beautiful Christmas tree that reached up to
the sky and was covered with shining silver, like cobwebs in the frost,
and lit by real stars. She determined that somehow or other they should
have their Christmas tree as usual.

When she came out of school at eleven o'clock, she trotted along in the
opposite way to home, along the wide high road leading to the woods,
with the twisted apple-trees on either side. She made a little bobbing
curtsy, and said "good day" to everyone she met who noticed her at all;
for she had been taught to be polite and friendly.

The ground was frozen and sparkled brightly; the air brought the fresh
colour into her cheeks. She had on a warm hood and cape and a woollen
scarf--for her mother was kind-hearted at the bottom and looked well
after their material comforts. Hansi's pretty fair curls peeped out from
under the red hood, her blue eyes with their dark lashes were more
starry than usual from excitement.

The fir woods looked purple-black against the white fields, and as she
came near, she saw the fir-trees covered with silver hoar frost "almost
like the tree in my dream," she thought. Her heart beat faster for a
moment as she entered the shade of the solemn evergreen trees, but she
did not feel naughty to be running away from home. She felt rather as
if she were fulfilling a mission that had been laid upon her.

Meanwhile her mother was worrying and wondering what could have happened
that her little girl did not return at the usual time. Then she
remembered that Hansi often went home with her friend Barbara Arndt, and
then they did their lessons together before dinner. That doubtless
accounted for her non-appearance.

Hansi wandered on and on, and the woods seemed deserted. She picked up
fir cones and beech nuts and acorns and filled her pinafore with them,
also frosted fern leaves and dry grasses exquisitely outlined with hoar
frost went into her apron.

At last she stopped before a little fir-tree. This was just the
beautiful little tree she wanted. It spread out its branches
symmetrically on all sides, and was slender and straight at the top.
"That will just do for me! If only I could get it home," she thought.
She tugged at it with her little hands, dropping some of her treasures,
but of course it would not move. Just then she heard something stir, and
looking round she saw a squirrel peeping at her from behind a big
oak-tree near by. This was a wonder in itself if she had known; for
squirrels are usually fast asleep in the cold weather, and only wake
once or twice to eat some of their store of nuts.

"O, Mr Squirrel, can't you help me," Hansi said. Off he went, round and
round the trunk, and then suddenly, with a great spring and his tail
spread out for a sail, he alighted on Hansi's tree. He stared at her in
a friendly way, and then stretched out one of his dear little paws and
offered her a nut, politely cracking it for her first with his sharp
teeth which had grown very long whilst he was asleep. She ate it at
once, but looked anxious. "O, Mr Squirrel, do cut down this tree for me,
and help me to carry it home," she said, "or else we shall have no
Christmas tree, and that would be _dreadful_!"

Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke. Mr Squirrel looked at her with
his bright eyes, twisted round suddenly, like a cat trying to catch its
own tail, and offered her another nut.

"O, Mr Squirrel, _do_," she said again.

He offered her a third nut, and then he whistled shrilly; it sounded
more like a baby crying than a whistle. Then to her surprise, as she
looked down the wood path, Hansi saw a troop of little men, such as you
see on Christmas cards in Germany, with red caps and green jackets and
wooden shoes turned up at the toes. "Real Heinzelmen and no mistake,"
thought Hansi delightedly, "they can help me, if anyone can." She
counted them, they were seven in number, like Snowdrop's dwarfs. They
made quite a noise as they marched up in order, whistling a merry tune.
When they saw Hansi, they took off their red caps, and their white hair
flew about them like a mist, till Hansi could hardly see them any more.
The squirrel screamed and shouted at them, and they answered him; but
Hansi could not understand at first what it was all about. She thought
they must be talking English; she knew a lady who lived near them, and
who could only talk English, poor thing. All of a sudden the earth
trembled--was it an earthquake? Hansi held tight on to the fir-tree,
though its needles hurt her hands. All she saw was the seven little men
disappearing into the ground down a long slide such as firemen use, when
they are called suddenly from sleep, and are carried by a new mechanical
apparatus direct from one floor to the other. The earth closed up again,
and Hansi thought it must be all a dream; but in two seconds they were
back again with silver hatchets and silver pails. With the hatchets they
immediately began to hack away at the tree. They made tremendous
efforts, and became quite red in the face. The last moment before it was
finally felled, the squirrel bounded off, and tossed a nut to Hansi, who
caught it cleverly in her pinafore.

"Dear little men," she said, "may I have the tree? Will you bring it
home for me, and I will give you all my Christmas cake? But I have
nothing to hang on it, and make it pretty," she continued. The dwarfs
began to chatter again like so many girls, all trying to say the same
thing at once. Then they marched along, dragging the tree with them.

"O, Mr Dwarf, that's the wrong way home, I'm sure," said Hansi. But she
followed them all the same. They came to where a crystal stream leapt
over a little group of rocks. The dwarfs held their buckets under the
cascade, and caught some drops. The drops turned into silver fish, each
with a little loop on the end of its tail, all ready to hang on the
tree.

They then took Hansi's pine cones and ferns and grasses, and even
collected the frozen cobwebs from the bushes and let the spray from the
waters fall on them, and lo and behold the most exquisite gems were
ready for the decoration of the Christmas tree.

"You live at No 7, and you are seven years old," said the eldest of the
dwarfs, addressing Hansi. ("However _could_ he have known that?" she
thought.) "Perhaps you can tell me what seven times seven makes?"

Hansi considered a moment. "No, we have not got so far as that in our
arithmetic," she replied. "_Twice_ seven is fourteen, that I know."

"Seven times seven is forty-nine and is the square of seven," said the
dwarf. "Always remember that, for it is a most important fact in
magic!"

Rummaging in his pocket, he took out a note-book and handed a leaf to
her with this diagram and inscription on it

                 To Hansi
               . . . . . . .
               . . . . . . .
  well-wisher  . . . . . . .  from her
               . . . . . . .
               . . . . . . .
               . . . . . . .
               . . . . . . .
                friend and

                     _Signed_--HIMSELF!

"Thank you _very_ much," said Hansi, feeling duly impressed, and she
never forgot this difficult fact in the multiplication table again,
although she didn't quite understand the diagram, and in fact lost it on
the way home.

The dwarfs set up the tree on a clear part of the path, and made a
little stand for it of boughs cleverly intertwined and moss between.
With many a hop, skip and jump of delight, they hung the silver fish and
cones and nuts on it; the cobwebs spread themselves out all over the
tree. Then they took red holly berries, and stuck them on the boughs
where they turned into red candles. All red and silver was this
loveliest of Christmas trees!

When it was finished, there was a momentary thrill, and they all cried
"Ah!" in tones of wonder.

Then Hansi noticed that a noble herd of deer had approached; the gentle
creatures were looking on with the deepest interest.

The woodbirds came flying from all directions, and sang as if it were
summer.

"Dear little men, I think I really ought to be going home," said Hansi
anxiously.

"Come along then," said Himself. "_You_ must go back along the high road
as you came; we are going to play hide-and-seek; but don't be afraid,
you shall have your tree all right, even if it disappears sometimes."

They now marched along in the homeward direction; but as soon as they
came to the road leading out of the woods they vanished without a word
of leave-taking. However, Hansi had not gone far down the road, when she
saw a Christmas tree that appeared to be walking by itself across the
fields. Other people noticed it too, from the road, and thought how
queer it looked. "But _of course_, there is someone behind carrying it,"
they said to themselves, and thought no more of the matter. People
expect the usual before the unusual, naturally enough, and yet sometimes
the unusual is the most probable, as in this case.

Hansi was late for dinner, and had a fine scolding.

"At all events, I suppose you have done your lessons," said her mother.

"No, mother, I'm afraid not."

"Well, I never, playing again, I suppose? Now, what _can_ be the use of
playing, I should like to know?"

This was an exceptionally stupid question; for most people know that
little folk cannot grow mentally without play, any more than flowers can
grow without sunshine. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," is
not only a proverb, but it is true as well.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was Christmas Eve. Hansi trembled with excitement. "What's the use of
getting so lively, Hansi?" said her big brother Paul despondently. "You
know quite well that we are not to have any tree this year. I shall get
a new pair of boots, and you a pinafore; these we should have to have
anyway. That's not what I call a merry Christmas."

"But the bells are ringing, don't you hear them? and don't you think you
can see just a glimmer of silver through the door?" said Hansi.

The children looked--well, really, perhaps there was a tree there after
all.

Just then their father came in tired, but jolly. "Is everything ready?
It is late, I have been detained so long," he said. "Can we go in at
once?"

"I haven't got a tree this year," whispered his wife in an anxious
voice. "I thought we couldn't afford it. What's the use of a Christmas
tree? We can spend our money in a more practical way!"

"What nonsense. No Christmas tree! but of course you are joking," said
her husband. "I will slip in, and light the candles." And with these
words he disappeared into the inner room, now so mysterious to the
waiting children.

Poor Mrs Herzchen nearly began to cry. If only she had not been so
silly! Never, never would she neglect to get a tree again! She ought to
have considered other people's prejudices, and Christmas--O well,
Christmas only comes once a year.

"I've got a surprise for mother," whispered Gretel, aged ten. "I am
going to recite a Christmas poem." "And I am going to tell the Christmas
story from the Bible," said Hansi. "I have made a letter-box for
father," said Fritz.

"Hush, hush! the bells are ringing--don't you hear them across the
snow?" the children whispered to one another. "But what is that other
bell, so soft, so musical and clear!" "That is the summons for us all to
enter," said Paul.

The door flew open, and there stood the most lovely Christmas tree they
had ever seen or imagined, all dazzling with silver; silver cones,
silver fish, silver nuts and acorns, and red candles, and over all an
exquisitely spun cobweb of frost. "That's my surprise for you all," said
Hansi, who could hardly contain herself for joy. "I found the tree, and
the dear, darling Heinzelmen brought it home for me."

Mrs Herzchen was speechless with astonishment, and her husband not less
so. "How very extravagant," they said, "but how elegant and beautiful!
Who can have given it to us?"

But now the children began to sing the sweet German carol sung in every
house on Christmas Eve: "O peaceful night, O holy night," and then, in
her earnest, childish way, Hansi told the story of the birth of the
Christ-child in the Manger of Bethlehem.

Gretel then stood up eagerly to recite the carol she had learnt at
school.

  THE CHILDREN'S KING.

 "Dear children come
    On Christmas night,
  Put on your gowns
    Of purest white.

  Speak not a word
    Until you see
  The sweet Christ child
    On Mary's knee.

  There lies the Babe
    An Infant frail.
  Is this the King
    Whom nations hail?

  A helpless King!
    His mother's arm
  Must hold him safe
    From threatened harm.

  A tender King,
    Most young and sweet,
  With dimpled hands
    And tiny feet!

  A Baby King:
    Yet cherubim
  Veil their bright eyes
    To look on Him.

  A mighty King!
    For God above
  Has crowned Him Lord
    And King of Love.

  Come kneel and pray,
    Ye children dear,
  The children's King
    Is lying here!"

A glow of warmth and happiness illumined the whole family, and they felt
nearer to one another than ever before. The tears actually came into
their mother's eyes, when she realised that they had so nearly missed
this moment of supreme joy.

She felt a little ashamed of her presents, and for once in a way
suspected herself of having been _too_ sensible. "We are not so very
poor after all," she thought. "I might have bought a few toys that would
have delighted the children's hearts, and not have cost much money. But
now it is too late!"

But to her surprise, she did not see her presents at all. For each child
there was a gingerbread cake with his or her name on it, and then the
most lovely surprises--a beautiful doll for Hansi with real eyelashes,
fretwork tools for Paul, a doll's kitchen for Gretel, and so on. For
every one of the family there was some delightful gift.

"Thank you, thank you, dear Heinzelmen," said Hansi, clasping her hands
in ecstasy.

There was a big paper parcel addressed to Mrs Herzchen in a very queer
handwriting. She opened it with much excitement, thinking it would
contain a silk dress, at least. But lo and behold, all the presents that
she had intended for her children, tied together with red tape and a
card between, on which this verse was written:

 "Useful things
    For little folk
  Are sensible,
    But not a joke."
            _Signed_ HIMSELF!

How the children laughed! and even Mrs Herzchen laughed too, though she
felt silly and a little disappointed. "It is all very well to play
tricks on me," she said. "Just look at the Müller children next door.
They have plenty of toys and are always sucking sweets; but they never
have comfortable, warm clothes on, and they look half fed."

"Of course, mother, you are right," said the children, "and you were
really joking about the tree. We have never had one _half_ so lovely!"

Mrs Herzchen felt rather embarrassed at this praise. She called her
husband's attention to the things on the tree. "They can't be made of
chocolate," she said, trying to bite off the corner of a fir cone. It
was quite hard. "I do believe they are all solid silver!" she said.

On closer examination, they found a little lion imprinted on each which
proved them without doubt to be of real silver.

"I shall sell them at once, or they may vanish away," she said.

"I should strongly advise you not to do so," her husband replied, and
the children said, "Oh Mother, do let us keep them always, they are so
beautiful?"

"But of what use are they?" said the incorrigible mother who, you see,
was not yet quite cured.

Meanwhile the story was noised abroad that Hansi had found a treasure in
the forest.

The very next day, Christmas Day, as they were eating their goose,
stuffed with apples, there was a ring at the bell--in walked a very
pompous Prussian policeman with fierce moustaches.

"Mrs Herzchen here?" he asked abruptly.

"What do _you_ want?" asked that lady, much indignant at being disturbed
during her Christmas dinner.

"Young person answering to the name of Hansi Herzchen here?"

"Yes, sir. Please, sir, that's me," said Hansi, rising and curtsying,
and growing very red.

The policeman produced a paper in which he entered all sorts of
memoranda.

"_Age and date of birth?_" he demanded of Hansi.

"Seven years old, _of course_," answered Hansi. "My birthday is on
February 27th, if you want to know. It was on a Sunday last year."

"That's beside the question." He looked severe.

"February 27th, 1897," said Hansi, prompted by her mother.

_Residence--temporary or otherwise ----._

_Baptism ---- date of ----._

_Vaccinated ----._

All these facts Hansi's mother supplied at once. They are so constantly
demanded in Germany that she had them always ready at hand, tied up in
seven different packets for each child.

_Married or single?_

Here Hansi giggled, and he entered solemnly the word "_spinster_."

"Is that something _horrid_?" asked Hansi anxiously.

"No, it only means unmarried," said Paul laughing. "_What_ a fool he
is!"

_Occupation?_

"Please sir, I go to school and learn my lessons, but I play a good deal
too."

"We will write 'spinster,'" he said, frowning fiercely.

"Now listen to me, child, if you do not wish to go to prison." The whole
family shuddered with horror.

"Take all those silver things off the tree. They are 'found treasure,'
and belong to the State. You ought to have declared them at once, and
saved me all this trouble," he said.

Hansi began to cry.

Mrs Herzchen was very angry, "Why don't you mind your own business?" she
said. "These things are our property. You will come and demand the
clothes off our backs next."

"Be thankful that I do not accuse you of _stealing_ these valuables,"
answered the fellow in a terrible voice.

"But are you sure they are not chocolate after all?" he said. "They look
remarkably like it, covered with silver paper, you know."

He examined them carefully and ejaculating, "Well, I never," tossed them
all into a leather wallet that he had brought with him.

Mrs Herzchen poured forth such a storm of abuse, that he threatened her
with an action for libel; but she literally turned him out of doors. Her
parting words were: "Get out! Go along and make a fool of yourself if
you like."

Some days afterwards, the man took his treasures to the office and gave
them up with a self-important flourish, only to be laughed at for his
pains. The cones were just common, ordinary fir cones, and the silver
fish had turned into little dead trout, smelling very unpleasant.

He chucked them all away in the street, and this was an episode in his
dignified career that he did not like to be reminded of.

       *       *       *       *       *

Although Hansi's mother still always preferred useful things to artistic
and ornamental ones, still she realised that the useful and ornamental
may often be combined, and as she dearly loved her children, and saved
up money merely on their account, she determined that they should have a
merry Christmas every year, without any special help from the kind
little Heinzelmen.

And did Hansi give the cake to her dwarf friends as she had promised to
do? Why, of course, she did. The children went all together to the
forest on New Year's Eve, and found the actual spot where the tree had
stood. They placed a large piece of cake on the old stump. But they did
not see the Heinzelmen or even the squirrel, although they repeated
seven times seven is forty-nine in the hope of attracting them.

Now a dear little Heinzelman, whom I met out for a walk, told me this
story "himself"; but he vanished at this point, and so must I. I wish
Hansi and all her brothers and sisters a very merry Christmas, and so, I
am sure, do you.




THE ENGINEER AND THE DWARFS


A tunnel had been dug through a crag which had hitherto been considered
as a serious obstacle in the railway route; the light now shone through
at the farther end. There was a shout of joy from the tired workmen. The
air had been stifling in the tunnel; the work was hard and dangerous;
several men had been killed in detaching portions of rock that had been
loosened by dynamite. It was a great relief to have got through. Now
the walls would have to be made smooth with cement--indeed the men had
already begun this work at the other end--and the tunnel tested for
greater security. Then the express train could run through directly,
instead of being obliged to shunt backwards and forwards in a way that
made it very uncomfortable for people who did not like sitting with
their backs to the engine.

The young engineer, Karl Hammerstein, who had been supervising the
men's work, was glad enough to find himself in the fresh air. His head
ached violently, the oppression of the atmosphere had well-nigh
overpowered him.

The mountain was clothed on this side with tall forest trees; the
drooping firs offered an inviting shade. It was seven o'clock in the
evening, the men were packing up their tools to go home. They would be
obliged to march back through the tunnel; for there was no way round,
except through the wildest forest with a tangled undergrowth of brambles
and ferns. But they had their lamps, and did not mind the tunnel; it was
familiar enough to them, who had worked in it for months.

Meanwhile Karl, who was dead-beat, stretched himself out under the
trees, covered himself with his cloak, and fell fast asleep, meaning
only to rest a minute or two, before he also set off home.

It was late when he awoke; the full moon was shining. He felt quite
dazed. Where could he be?

He had slept in many queer little rooms when he was travelling; but they
always had a window and a door. Where was the window? Ugh--he
shivered--it was cold. Then an unreasoning terror took hold of him: he
was only half-awake as yet. What could that dreadful gap be in the wall
of his room, blacker than the darkness? Surely it was a bogey hole
leading down to the bottomless pit? The next minute he laughed at his
fears, as we usually do when we come safely out of nightmare land and
feel the earth--or bed beneath us again.

He saw that it was the mouth of the tunnel, and glancing up he saw the
giant fir-tree under which he had been sleeping with outstretched arms
above him in the light of the moon.

"Well--I never! what a dunderhead I am!" he said to himself--"fancy
sleeping like that, why such a thing has never happened to me before! I
had meant to go to have supper and stay the night at the new hotel in
Elm. I have heard the landlord's daughter is an uncommonly pretty girl!"

"Heigho!" he went on, stretching himself, "there's nothing for it, but
to walk home. I might wait a long time before a motor-car came to pick
me up here!"

Then he remembered with a sudden start that there was only one possible
way back to Elm, and that was through the tunnel. It was not a very
pleasant idea to walk back alone through the dark, oppressive tunnel at
midnight; luckily he had his lantern with him.

"How could I have been such an idiot!" he muttered to himself again. He
found some bread and cheese in his pocket, which he ate with a good
appetite. His headache had gone, and he felt much refreshed after his
sleep. Then he put on his cloak, lighted the lantern, and set out
cheerfully to walk through the tunnel.

He had not gone far into the black darkness, when he thought he heard
voices whispering and talking not far away from him; then he distinctly
felt something or somebody brush past him.

"Hullo, who's there?" he called out. Complete silence. He was not easily
frightened; but his heart began to beat quicker than usual. "Well, if
it's robbers or tramps, they won't find much to rob on me," he thought;
for he had only a few shillings in his pocket for his night's lodging.

It was probably a bat that had strayed in at the opening, he decided.
Suddenly he came to a standstill. Right across the way was a mass of
freshly fallen earth and rock that quite obstructed his further
progress. "Well this is a pretty fix to be in. How aggravating!" he said
to himself, and leant for a moment against the wall of the tunnel, to
consider what would be best to do. The wall instantly gave way, he
stumbled, bruised his arm against a sharp corner of the rock, and his
lantern went out. At the same time he heard a sound resembling the
slamming of a door. "Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed--a mild German swear
which means literally "thunder-weather!"--"whatever shall I do now?" He
had a box of matches in his pocket and soon succeeded in relighting the
lantern.

"There is nothing for it, but to go back again to where I started from,
and wait for daybreak," he thought.

By this time he had become confused, and had lost the sense of
direction; but there _could_ be only one way back. So he tramped along a
long winding passage that he took to be the excavated tunnel. "How
curious, I could have been certain that the tunnel was much wider, and
more direct than this. Can I be still dreaming?" he thought.

Suddenly he was startled and astonished to come on a flight of steps
leading downwards. There had certainly been no stairs in the tunnel! He
saw too that the walls were painted in a decorative way like some of the
Catacombs in Rome; only these were far more elaborate. "I'm in for an
adventure, I must be lost in the heart of the mountain," he thought.
"Perhaps I shall come upon a robber's cave, or gipsies may be hiding in
these rocks; it is a good thing that I have this pretty little fellow
with me," and he touched the revolver in his breast pocket. He then
observed in front of him a faint light, other than that of his lantern
and whistled softly with astonishment, as he saw that the way opened out
into a cave or vault. A few steps more, and he found himself in an
exquisite, though tiny hall, with an arched ceiling supported by pillars
of red granite. The walls and ceiling were beautifully inlaid with
mosaic work in gold and coloured stones, like the interior of St Mark's,
Venice, and seemed to be of great antiquity, though of this he could not
be certain.

The light was so dim that what might have been the brilliant effect of
the whole, was lost, and the young engineer thought to himself
involuntarily: "This ought to be lit up by electric light--it would look
quite different then!" As he was deliberating how electric light might
be laid on, a door in the wall opened, and a number of little dwarf men
trooped in. They did not see him at first; for he was standing behind a
pillar. They settled themselves down on benches that were arranged in a
semicircle, and one of them with an important air mounted a raised dais
facing them. He was just beginning to speak with the words: "Gentlemen
of the Committee," when they caught sight of the stranger standing in
the centre of the hall, lantern in hand. They gave a cry of alarm, and
were just going to scuttle away like frightened rabbits, when Karl
called out, "Hi--Ho there--Gentlemen of the Committee--good Sirs--don't
run away. I won't harm you--_Christmas Tree_."

Now Christmas Tree is the most solemn oath among the dwarfs--it is
equivalent to swearing on the Bible with us. How Karl knew this, he did
not know; it came to him on the inspiration of the minute. Perhaps his
grandmother had told him stories in his childhood about the dwarf men,
in which it occurred.

It had an instantaneous effect on the dwarfs who stood still at once.
"But you are one of the bad men who are building the tunnel," they cried
out. "Aha--we can spoil your little game, my good fellow, we can smash
you and your snorting old dragon who is coming here to devour us, into
pieces. We can throw rocks on the line--Aha!"

"We have often watched you--though you were not aware of our presence,"
said the chairman. "We had just called a committee meeting to decide
what is to be done about this matter of the tunnel."

"Now you know it is all nonsense about the dragon," said Karl
persuasively, as if he were talking to children. "You have heard of
trains, haven't you? You are not so behind the times as all that!"

"_Some_ of us have seen the dragon and even ridden in him," said Mr
Chairman. "There is a famous story about that; but the majority still
look upon the railway with suspicion and even distrust. We only ask to
be let alone, and not be interfered with by meddling mortals," he said
in a gruff voice. "What do we need with you? Our civilization and our
history are more ancient even than that of India or Egypt, and from us
the human race is descended."

"I tell you what," said Karl, "I could put you up to a thing or two for
all that. We live in Modern Europe, you know, and not in ancient Egypt.
Now, for instance, why is this beautiful hall, a perfect work of art in
its way, so badly illuminated!"

"Badly illuminated! Why, what do you mean?" cried the little men
indignantly. "Do you not see our glow-worms hanging in festoons on the
walls?"

"O, I say, _glow-worms_! in the twentieth century, that's rather strong,
you know! what you want, is electric light."

"What's that?" said the dwarfs curiously.

"You have only to press a little button on the wall, like this," he
pressed his thumb on the wall--"and the whole place is lit up almost as
if it were day."

"We don't believe it--we don't believe it," said the little men.

"But it's true, I assure you, _Christmas Tree_," said Karl.

"Wouldn't it make our eyes blink?" said one thin little fellow.

Karl noticed that the dwarfs' eyes were small and their faces pale. Most
of them had quite white beards and hair.

"That comes of living so long underground, it is a loss of pigment,"
thought Karl. "Like a geranium that has been kept in the cellar! Now I
could fix it up for you," said the young engineer, always keenly on the
look-out for a job. "We are going to have it laid on in the tunnel."

"How much would it cost?" inquired the dwarfs.

"O, a thousand pounds or so!" said Karl carelessly. He had heard that
dwarfs were very rich, and he was a good man of business, and had his
eyes open to his interests.

"That's a great deal of money, a great deal of money!" said the little
men in chorus.

"O, as for that I am sure we could come to an agreement," said Karl. "By
the way," he went on--"do you happen to have a telephone here? I should
like to 'phone to a friend of mine and tell him where I am. It would be
such a joke."

"What's a telephone?" asked the dwarfs.

"You don't know what a telephone is! Himmel! you _are_ old-fashioned
down here--you are only half civilised!"

"Half civilised, half civilised!" repeated the dwarfs angrily, "let us
repeat our civilisation----"

"I'll tell you what a telephone is," said Karl, interrupting this burst
of eloquence. "It is a little tube connected with a wire, you put one
part of it to your ear, and then you put your mouth to the tube and say:
'No. 1280,' and then listen, and your friend will speak to you from
miles and miles away, and you can answer him."

"We don't believe it, we don't believe it!" said the unbelieving dwarfs.

"It's true for all that, _Christmas Tree_," said Karl. "I could fix that
up for you too, if you have any connection with the outer air. You must
have," he continued, sniffing, "for the air is nice and fresh here,
quite different to that in the tunnel. Have you a ventilating shaft?"

"O yes," said the little men, "we can show you that!" And they led him
out of the hall. In the passage outside was a great cleft or crevice in
the rocks such as we call in England a chine. Above it the moon shone
full and bright. A waterfall rushed down on one side; he saw ferns and
dear little plants leaning over the water, growing between the cracks of
the rocks. There were also glow-worms cunningly arranged in groups that
looked like fairy stars. On the other side, he observed to his joy rough
steps leading upwards cut in the solid rock. He sighed a sigh of relief,
here at least was the way out.

He regarded the pretty sight with the eye of the professional engineer,
rather than that of the artist. "That must be a stiff climb for you
little men up there," he said. "Now if you had a lift!"

"What's that?" asked the dwarfs eagerly.

"It's a little room that goes up and down when you pull a wire rope."

"We don't believe it, we don't believe it," said the sceptical gnomes
again.

"It's true nevertheless; now wouldn't it be fun to have a ride in it? I
could fix that up too, you know, if you gave me time and helped a bit
yourselves," said Karl.

"Really you poor things," he went on, "You do not seem to have heard
much of modern technical progress down here in this rabbit-burrow. I beg
your pardon I'm sure"--as they looked displeased again--"Now I am really
curious to know--have you heard of Zeppelin?"

"Zeppelin, no!--is he the King of Germany?" said the dwarf who had been
in the chair.

"Ha! ha!--King of Germany--well he _is_ nearly, in some people's eyes,"
said Karl. "He has built an airship; it is the most wonderful of all new
inventions, it floats in the air like a boat does in the water."

 "Close by it passes, by soft breezes fanned,
  Like a great steamboat straight from fairyland."

he went on in an enthusiastic way. "You can go for a ride in it any day
in Frankfurt, providing the weather is fine and you can afford to pay
£15!"

"Just listen to him, just listen to him!" said the dwarfs. "We don't
believe a word you have said. You are imposing on our credulity, you bad
man," and thereupon they flew at him and began to beat him with their
clubs, which were heavily weighted, and to pinch him with their long
fingers.

It might have gone hardly with him, but quick as thought Karl flashed
out the little revolver from his pocket. They seemed to know the meaning
of that modern toy; for they crouched back trembling, and not daring to
move.

"Now stop it, will you," he said, "or I shall have to shoot you, and
take you home with me to be stuffed or put into the National
Anthropological Museum. They would give me a good price for you," he
said musingly--"they would think you were The Missing Link."

"O please, Mr Hammerstein, don't shoot us--("however did the little
chaps find out my name!" thought Karl) we will believe all you say, even
if it seems the greatest nonsense to us. After all birds fly, bats fly
and fairies fly, why should not ships and trains fly?" said the
spokesman, who, I must tell you, was a relation of King Reinhold in the
Taunus Mountains and was proud of belonging to a royal family.

Karl called him Mr Query, because he was so fond of asking questions,
but so slow to take in a new fact, as indeed were all the dwarfs.

"You promised us _Christmas Tree_ not to harm us," said Mr Query,
reproachfully.

"Well, I didn't hurt anyone, did I, but how about your treatment of me?
That wasn't in the contract either," said Karl.

Meanwhile Karl looked about him curiously. He had never been to
dwarfland before, and might never have the chance of visiting it again,
and he did not wish to lose the opportunity of seeing all he could.

"Are there any more of you?" he asked the dwarfs.

"I should think so," they answered. "Hundreds and thousands of us live
under this mountain."

Karl noticed passages running in all directions, and low caves which
seemed to be dwellings, many of them richly ornamented and furnished. In
one of these caves he observed a looking-glass, and wondered which of
the dwarf men trimmed his beard before it. He met a great many little
men scurrying about, who cast anxious glances at the giant who had
strayed among them. Karl had frequently to stoop; the ceilings seemed
very low to him, although they were high enough compared to the dwarf
men.

"Where are the female dwarfs?" he asked abruptly.

"Dwarfs have no womenfolk," Mr Query replied. "We did away with them
long, long ago!"

"That was rather rough on them, eh?" said Karl.

"Well it happened so many centuries ago that we have forgotten all about
it, and so are unable to gratify your curiosity. Perhaps if you care for
antiquities and were to study the pictures on the walls, you might find
out."

"Not my line," said Karl shortly.

"As we have no women," Mr Query continued, "we never quarrel and have no
differences of opinion."

"I expect no lady would care to live down here with you in this dark
hole," said Karl, thoughtfully. "But to whom does the looking-glass
belong?"

"A fairy comes to visit us occasionally; she makes herself useful and
tidies up the place a bit for us," said the dwarf. "She's here
now--would you like to see her?"

"Of course I should," said Karl, his heart beating fast at the thought
of meeting a real fairy--perhaps she was a princess in disguise, and he
might be chosen to win her.

The dwarf drew back the curtain that hung before a beautifully furnished
cave, and there Karl saw a young girl who was busy dusting and arranging
handsome gold vases on a carved bracket. Even by the pale light of the
glow-worms and the lantern which he had not yet extinguished, he could
see that she was very beautiful. She had a mass of red-brown hair, that
waved in tiny curls about her forehead, and hazel eyes with dark
eyelashes. As to her figure, she was small and slight, so that she did
not look quite so monstrous in that little world as Karl did. She had a
big holland apron on, with a gaily embroidered border. When she saw
Karl, she laughed. "To think of meeting a young man in this old
hole--how funny," she exclaimed.

"Are you a fairy?" said Karl, bewildered by her beauty.

"Do I look like one?" she answered with a toss of her bronze curls.

"Not exactly," said Karl, "but then I have never seen a fairy; you are
pretty enough for one!"

She made a little curtsy in acknowledgment of the compliment. "I'll have
finished my work soon," she said, "and then we will go home together."

"That will be delightful," said Karl.

The dwarfs were looking on.

"You may go," said Mr Query. "You have worked enough for to-day." He
handed her several pieces of gold. Her eyes sparkled with glee as she
pocketed the coins; she was proud of having earned some money.

"Follow me," she said to Karl, "and I will show you the way home. You
would never be able to find it alone."

"The dwarfs have burrowed here like moles," said Karl aside to the girl,
"and I believe they are almost as blind and ignorant."

"Do not speak disrespectfully of moles," said a dwarf who had overheard
the last part of this remark. "They belong to the most intelligent of
all creatures; who can build a fortress like the mole?"

"Norah," said the dwarfs, "Norah, when are you coming again?"

"Very soon," she said, "I'll bring some metal polish with me, and make
your vases shine!"

"Norah," thought Karl, "so that is her name. I wonder where she lives?"

Norah led the way back through intricate passages until they came to the
open space where there was the staircase leading up to the outside
world. "Good morning," she said to the dwarfs.

Karl pulled out his watch--yes--the night was already past, it was four
o'clock.

"I'll drop in again soon, and see about your little commissions," he
said to the dwarfs. "Electric light you want, telephone and lift, it
will be rather a big job."

"And what about the airship?" asked Mr Query.

"O I can't rig that up for you; you must go to Frankfurt and see that
for yourselves. Good morning," and he turned to follow Norah, who was
already some way up the stone staircase. From a distance she really
looked like a fairy. The light of dawn shone on her wonderful hair; she
had taken off her apron, and had on a white dress trimmed with gold,
that fluttered as she mounted the steps. At the top she waited to take
breath, and Karl easily caught her up. They gazed down into the depths
beneath them, but no trace of dwarfland could they see. Even the
glow-worms had vanished, and the rough steps looked like natural niches
in the rock. They were on the top of the mountain. Near by stood a grove
of firs, the trees were so gnarled and stunted from their exposed
position that they looked like a dwarf forest, and seemed appropriate
growing there.

"Your name is 'Norah'," said Karl boldly, "but that is all I know about
you!"

"I am no fairy princess, alas," said Norah, "but only a poor landlord's
daughter. My father and I have the new hotel in Elm!"

"O you must be the pretty innkeeper's daughter then of whom I have heard
so much," said Karl. "Now isn't it funny, I had meant to stay the night
at your hotel on the chance of seeing you, and now we meet under the
earth in dwarfland--romantic I call that! Why do you work for those
little beggars?" he continued.

"For the same reason that you have proposed doing so," she answered, "to
earn money. I was picking bilberries on the mountains and strayed into
their land by chance one day. I found them busy at work spring cleaning,
and helped them a bit, and that was my first introduction to the dwarfs.
They pay me well for little work, and starting an hotel costs a great
deal of money you must know. I am glad to be able to help my father."

"You do not come from this part of Germany, you speak quite differently
to us," said the young man inquiringly.

"My home is over the seas," said Norah. "My father is an Irishman; but
we found it hard to get on there, and meant to emigrate to America. Then
father changed his mind, and we came to Germany. My mother died some
years ago," she said sadly.

"Poor child," said Karl in a deep, sympathetic voice, "there must be a
good deal of responsibility on your young shoulders."

"I should just think so," said Norah with a sigh, "but our hotel is
going to be a tremendous success!" As she spoke, she led the way
through a little narrow path, that crossed a heath where heather grew,
and great masses of yellow starred ragwort. "Ah! me beloved golden
flower," she cried, pointing the plant out to Karl, who had passed it by
a thousand times as a common weed, but to whom it seemed from this day
forth to be alive and full of meaning. "We call it fairy-horses in
Ireland," she said, with a rapt look on her face, "sure and I can see my
native mountains when I pluck it"--and her eyes filled with tears.

She wanted no consoling however, her mood changed quickly enough. "Do
come here," she called out to Karl, "and see what I've found now!" She
showed him a clump of pure white heather; "it is tremendously lucky,"
she said, "and you shall have a bit too." So saying she stuck a piece of
white heather in his buttonhole--real white heather, not the faded
flowers which children sometimes mistake for it. Karl treasured the
spray carefully.

"And how did you come to be among the dwarfs?" said Norah. But their
further conversation was checked by a little brook that ran straight
across the path. Now Norah usually took off her shoes and stockings and
waded over this stream; but she did not like to do so with Karl looking
on. Karl would have liked to pick her up in his arms and carry her
across like a true hero of romance; but he was shy of proposing it. So
he fetched some large flat stones, placed them dexterously in the
stream, and sprang across himself, then he held out a hand to Norah who
stepped over as quickly and gracefully as a young deer.

"Now I will tell you how it was you found me in dwarfland," said Karl as
they walked on together. "I was at work on the new tunnel----"

"You'll not be telling me that you are a working man?" said Norah.

"No I am an engineer. I was on duty looking after the men, then, somehow
or other I fell against the wall of the tunnel and hurt my arm"; he
showed her his torn coat as a proof of the story.

"Poor thing," she interrupted, "did you bind it up properly?"

"O, it was a mere nothing," said Karl. "Well--I found myself in a
strange winding passage that led right down into the central hall of the
dwarfs." He did not wish to say that he had been asleep; he thought that
would sound so silly. "Queer little fellows they are, those dwarfs," he
continued, "awfully ignorant too. Now will you believe it they had never
heard of the Zeppelin airship?"

"We'll really have to give them lessons," said Norah, laughing, "but
perhaps they are not so stupid as they make themselves out to be!"

Climbing over boulders and stones, laughing and talking the while like
two children just out of school, they reached the bottom of the mountain
and saw the village. It could hardly be called a town as yet, though
Norah's father hoped that the new railway station would speedily convert
it into one.

"Do you know where our hotel is?" said Norah. "It is at the other end of
the village; we will go round through the fields; the village folk stare
so; they are up at five o'clock to do their field-work.

"There it is!" she called out proudly, pointing to a large white house
with green shutters on which the words "Hôtel Fancy" were written in
large gold letters.

"What a queer name for an hotel!" said Karl.

"Yes, don't you think it is original and attractive?" said Norah. "There
are so many hotels called Hôtel Hohenzollern'--or 'The German Emperor'
and so I thought we would have a change."

"It is a splendid idea," said Karl, who was over head and ears in love
with Norah by this time and thought that everything she did and said,
was perfect. Still, like a prudent German, he wondered to himself if she
would make a good housewife. He knew she must be good at cleaning or
the dwarfs would hardly have employed her, but her dainty little hands
did not look like cooking.

"What would it matter, if the dinner were burnt sometimes," he thought,
"if I could have such a pretty, fascinating little girl to marry me?"

"Will you come in and have some breakfast?" said Norah as they
approached Hôtel Fancy.

"Rather," he said, "I must own that I am famished. I only had a dry bit
of bread and cheese for supper, and that is a long while ago."

It was early still, Norah's father was not yet up; so she set to work
and lit the fire, and soon had the water boiling for coffee. She set a
fine breakfast before him, ham and eggs and sausage and rolls. I am
bound in strict veracity to say that love did not prevent his consuming
a large amount. He changed his mind about her cooking, and thought that
she could do everything well and was a model of perfection.

"Do have some, too, yourself," he said, and Norah soon joined him with a
hearty appetite.

Mr O'Brian, for that was the name of Norah's father, was astonished to
find them at breakfast when he entered the comfortably furnished
parlour.

"An early guest, father," said Norah. "He is going to put up here for
the present; he is an engineer at work on the tunnel; good thing for
us"; she whispered the last sentence. "I will see about getting your
room ready," she said, turning to Karl.

"Please do not trouble," said he. "I'm due at the tunnel again at 7 a.m.
and it is 6 o'clock now. I hope to return to-night about 8 o'clock; then
I shall be glad of a room," he said, with a hardly suppressed yawn.
"Pray excuse me, I had rather a bad night," he added with a twinkle in
his eyes that only Norah perceived.

As soon as he was gone, Norah handed some gold pieces to her father.

"And do you think that I am doing right in taking this money from you,
Norah?" he asked.

"Why of course father! I'm telling you that it's fairy gold, and will
bring us luck," she replied.

The Irish have a great respect for luck and omens; many of them still
believe in the good folk, and Mr O'Brian, who was of a very easygoing
disposition, was quite satisfied with this explanation.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some weeks passed. Karl and Norah became better friends every day. All
Karl's previous notions of the universe had been knocked on the head by
his visit to dwarfland. He had thought that he knew almost everything
that there was to be known, but now he was always on the look-out for
surprises. Moreover his love for Norah had opened his eyes. Every bush
seemed ablaze with fire, and the roses and pinks in the gardens smelt as
they had never smelt before.

Norah was like a fairy princess; she was not easy to win, she loved her
freedom, and wished to call no man lord and master. Because she was such
a wild bird and of a poetic and dreamy temperament, Karl's practical
mind appealed to her. He possessed that which she and her father lacked.
She was tired of her father's promises and castles in the air, which
usually ended in bitter disappointment. How many guests had they had
since Hôtel Fancy had been opened? She could almost count them on her
fingers. The peasants frequented the old inn that they were accustomed
to in the village, and very few strangers came their way.

"I will play waiter on Sunday and help you," said Karl one Saturday
evening when he had returned from his work.

"Indeed and you'll not need to," said Norah with a pretty Irish lilt in
her voice, "it's not many people that will be coming! It will be
different of course when the new station is built; then we shall be
flourishing," she continued.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a fine Sunday afternoon. Karl and Norah sat in the garden under
the plane-trees which made a chequered pattern in shadow on the ground,
and sipped glasses of Apfelwein or cider in German fashion.

"It was a queer thing that we two should meet in the little people's
land. It seems as if we were meant to pull together, doesn't it?" said
Karl with an effort.

Norah jumped up immediately, saying that she must see if the water was
boiling for coffee.

"No, no," said Karl catching her by the hand; "you are not going to run
away like that; you've just got to listen to me, Norah; for I can't keep
it in any longer. You are my fairy princess--I love you with all my
heart, and I want you to promise me to be my little wife--will you?"

"You don't know me yet," said Norah blushing like a rose. "I've got a
most awful temper!"

"I'll risk it," said Karl laughing, and they plighted their troth under
the trees in the garden with no one but the empty chairs and tables
looking on, that were spread in anticipation of the guests who had not
arrived.

So Karl and Norah were engaged to be married and were as happy as ever
it is possible to be in this world! They did not celebrate the event in
the usual ceremonious German fashion; for Norah's friends and relations
were in Ireland and she had only a few acquaintances in Germany as yet.
Karl's mother was a widow, and lived with her married daughter in
Pomerania; so she could not come so far south for anything less than a
wedding or a funeral.

Now Karl began to consider the material side of the question. "Will the
love that we are rich in, light the fire in the kitchen, and the little
god of love turn the spit O!" What had they to live on? He was a young
man, and his income was very small; it takes many years in Germany to
make a career as engineer, unless you are exceptionally lucky and have
influential friends.

Hôtel Fancy was rather like its name and did not pay at all as yet. Now
Karl had not forgotten the dwarfs, and Norah began to miss the gold
pieces which had disappeared fast enough in the last few weeks.

"I tell you what," she said, "we will go together to dwarfland. You can
arrange about the electric light, and I will do some metal polishing; we
will meet afterwards and come home again together, it will be splendid
fun!"

"How can we get there?" asked Karl somewhat dubiously.

"Why, the same way as we came out--through the rocky gap; I know the way
as well as anything, I have been there frequently," said Norah.

It was early autumn; the evenings had begun to close in. Karl had
managed to get off earlier than usual; still it was almost dusk as the
two set out to go to dwarfland. The sun was setting and threw a
wonderful golden glow over the world that was reflected in the hearts of
the young lovers.

"My stones must be there still," said Karl as they came to the little
brook, "for who could have taken them away?" Yet to his surprise there
were no stones there; neither were any to be found in the neighbourhood.
There was nothing for it, but to carry Norah over. He did not feel so
shy and embarrassed this time, as he picked up his little sweetheart
laughing and struggling in his arms.

"You are as light as a feather," he said as he set her down again.

"A feather bed, you mean," she said, "and they are a pretty fair weight.
I shall never get used to German feather beds," she continued. "I can't
even get them to look right when I make them and shake them!"

"You need to be born and brought up to them to appreciate them," he
replied, "but never mind, what does it matter, what is a feather bed in
comparison with our love?" They laughed for pure joy and good humour as
they walked along; ah how quickly time passes when one is so happy! The
sunlight gilded the rocks before them, till they looked as if they
contained streaks of gold ore. They crossed the little moor, and
clambered over the rocks till they reached the stunted fir-grove.

Looking back they saw that the sky had become a glowing red as it often
does just before the light dies out; seen through the dark, twisted
trees the wood appeared to be on fire. The lovers sat down and gazed for
a few moments in silence till the glory faded from the sky.

"Now for it, Norah," said Karl getting up and offering her a hand, "the
way down into dwarfland must be quite near here!"

"Of course I know, I can find it at once," she answered.

They searched carefully around for the great crack in the rocks, but
could find nothing in the least resembling it.

"How absurd; how _can_ we miss it when it is certainly not more than a
yard or two away," said Norah.

"The steps were not so easily recognisable, if I remember rightly," said
Karl, "but we are sure to find them in a minute."

It grew darker and darker; the mountain was covered with boulders of
stone, juniper bushes and stunted trees; but no trace of the great rent
in the mountain-side could they discover.

"Did we dream it all?" said Karl.

"Impossible, why I have been down there many times," said Norah
beginning to feel bitterly disappointed.

"Supposing I were to fetch some of my men here and blow up the rocks
with dynamite; we must be able to get in then, for the mountain is as
full of dwarfs as bees in a hive," said Karl, who was getting in a
temper.

"And do you think they would reward you handsomely for your services,"
said Norah sarcastically, "and O the poor little men, they always
treated me with the utmost kindness and politeness, and gave me far more
money than ever I bargained for!"

"They nearly pinched me black and blue, till I frightened them with my
revolver," said Karl.

"The wretches!" said Norah, "but why?"

"Because I was silly enough to tell them about the airship, and they
thought I was humbugging them."

"How absurd!" Norah exclaimed. "But what are we to do now, Karl?" she
continued in a doleful voice. "I _must_ have some money; we are still in
debt for the greater part of our furniture; and the house is heavily
mortgaged."

"If I could only get a good post!" said Karl sighing deeply. "I had
reckoned on those dwarf chaps!"

"We shall never be able to marry," said Norah, now in the depths of
despair; "our house will have to be given up, and our things sold by
auction, and I, O I shall have to marry a horrid, rich old peasant who
will treat me as a servant, and father will be obliged to work in the
fields." With this she burst into tears.

It was quite dark now save for the new moon whose pale crescent shone in
the sky. Norah observed it in spite of her tears.

"The new moon!" she exclaimed. "O do let us turn all the money that we
have in our pockets. How much have you got Karl?"

"About 10 shillings," he replied.

"O you are richer than I am; I have only 8d. in my purse; nevertheless
let us turn what we have, and it will be sure to bring us a fortune."

Karl laughed. "You little fairy," he said, and looked at her with
admiration; then involuntarily his eyes strayed in the direction of the
fir-grove. He thought he could see something moving there. Norah looked
too. "Karl," she said excitedly, "I do believe it is the dwarf men after
all; who else could it be?"

At the same moment they caught sight of a queer form with a turned-up
nose and peaked cap clearly outlined against the sky, and recognised Mr
Query.

"Hullo!" said Karl.

"[text missing in original] to you," he said in a droll manner.

"Now, Mr Dwarf," said Karl, anxious to proceed to business, "what about
our little agreement as to electric light, etc.?"

"The committee has decided against it," said Mr Query emphatically.
"What do we want with your new-fangled inventions; you would bring your
workmen with you; they would discover our treasures, and turn the whole
place into a mine, and of course we should be obliged to decamp."

"Well, there is something in what you say," said Karl to whom this idea
had already occurred, "but we could avoid that catastrophe!"

"As for you," continued the dwarf turning to Norah, "we have discovered
that you are a human being also, and no fairy; therefore we shall not
require your services any longer."

"What a horrid way to give me notice, as if I could help not being a
fairy!" said poor Norah weeping bitterly.

The little fellow was much distressed; he could not make out what was
the matter with her.

"Don't cry, little Fräuleinchen," he said, "I am sure we never thought
you were so fond of us as all that; it is very gratifying, but it is
too late now to alter our decision; the way down into our kingdom is
sealed for ever!"

"I could soon open it again," said Karl wrathfully.

"As for that, it would not be quite such an easy matter as you think,"
said Mr Query mockingly. "However we are willing to offer you terms," he
continued, "if you will leave us alone and protect our secrets."

"What terms?" said Karl and Norah eagerly.

"You shall see," said the dwarf, "follow me to the fir-trees." So saying
he sprang down from the stone on which he had been sitting and came up
and shook hands with them.

"We are going to be married! what do you think of that?" they informed
him.

"Humph! Your taste, not mine," said Mr Query. "However Norah will be
able to clean your gold and silver dishes capitally; that's a comfort
for you."

"We haven't got any gold and silver dishes to clean, alas!" said Norah.

"Poor things," said Mr Query, "well we'll see." He proceeded to the
fir-trees where the Gentlemen of the Committee were again assembled,
standing in a solemn semicircle. "If you will sign this contract, we are
willing to give you a reward. I speak in the name of the Gentlemen of
the Committee," said Mr Query, and the little men nodded their heads in
assent. He drew out a roll of parchment from a bag he carried with him
and handed it to Karl. Norah looked over his shoulder.

On the parchment was written the following:

     WE,
                     KARL HAMMERSTEIN,
                     NORAH O'BRIAN,

     pledge our solemn oath _Christmas Tree_, that we will not attempt
     to visit dwarfland again, or molest the dwarfs in any way, by
     offering them modern inventions for which they have no use, etc.,
     etc., or by revealing their secret chambers to the glaring light
     of day.
                             _Signed_..............................
                                     ..............................

"We are willing enough to sign," said Karl, "but what are your terms,
old man; we want to know that first. You offered us a bribe, you know."

"All in good time," said Mr Query. "Gentlemen of the Committee, display
the treasure!" The dwarf men formed themselves into a ring, in the
centre of which Norah and Karl could see masses of what looked like
solid gold. "You may take as much of this as you like," they said, "and
we warrant you on our solemn word of honour _Christmas Tree_ that it is
pure, unalloyed gold."

"We'll sign anything you like, dear little men," said Norah, joyfully,
"and I invite you all to my wedding!"

"Three weeks from to-day," said Karl.

But Norah was too excited to notice what he was saying.

"I shall always believe in the new moon," she repeated again and again.
"How shall we carry it?" she exclaimed suddenly. "I have not even got a
basket with me."

"My men shall trundle it along for you in wheelbarrows," said Mr Query.
"No please, do not say 'thank you.' I have a great objection to being
thanked."

Karl and Norah now signed the document with joyful hearts. Norah
professed herself very sorry not to see her dwarf friends again. She had
a real affection for the droll little men.

"You may come across us sometime again, who knows," said Mr Query. "We
make excursions into your world from time to time. It is improbable but
not impossible that we may meet again. Good-bye!" A brilliant flash as
of lightning shot from under the ground; the earth trembled and shook.
Norah clung to Karl in terror; for she thought that the earth would
swallow them up too. Then Mr Query and the dwarfs disappeared
underground calling out as they did so: "You see we have our lift and
our electric light too, Mr Engineer--ha! ha!--we are not quite so behind
the times as you thought us--ha! ha!"

Norah and Karl stood still in speechless astonishment; then they looked
anxiously for their gold, fearing that the dwarfs might have played them
a trick after all. But no, there were two jolly strong-looking little
fellows with wheelbarrows. "We've got the gold all right," they said.
"Don't you be afraid. We've put some dirty old potatoes at the top,"
they continued with a cunning expression on their faces, "just in case
we meet anyone on the way you know--we should have to hop skip and
jump--one, two, three and off, and it might look awkward for you."

"I am sure it's very kind of you," said Norah, "and we can never thank
you enough," and off they all set down the mountain. It was a
troublesome job to get the heavy wheelbarrow over the stream. Norah
declared afterwards that some of the gold was lost there; but they found
no trace of it again if it were so. They did not feel safe until they
reached the gate of Hôtel Fancy.

"Shall we put it in the back yard or in the stable?" said the little
fellows in a hoarse whisper.

"Put it in the corner of the stable," said Norah, "as we have not got a
horse no one goes in there. We will manage the rest, _thank you_ so
much."

"_Please_ don't thank us," said the little men, "dwarfs are not used to
that, and it hurts their feelings."

"Well, here is something for your labours," said Karl, and he gave the
little men a handful of silver. They turned it over and over and seemed
to regard it as a great curiosity. Then they heard a movement in the
house, and quick as lightning they were off before Karl and Norah could
say good-bye.

Mr O'Brian was pacing up and down in a great state of agitation; it was
nearly midnight and he feared they might have met with an accident.
"There's no depending on the fairies," he said to himself, "and dwarfs
are said to be treacherous," so you see he knew something of what Norah
was up to.

His joy was the greater when Norah and Karl rushed in and dragging him
to the stables showed him the pile of gold. "I'll be for taking it to
the bank at once," he said, "you never know but what it may melt away,
or turn into a heap of leaves, I've read stories like that."

"Our wedding shall be next week," said Karl, joyfully.

"And aren't you going to give me any time to get my trousseau?" said
Norah with a dancing light in her eyes that made her look more
enchanting than ever. "Sure and I'll be wanting the finest trousseau
that ever a princess had."

"We'll turn Hôtel Fancy into a palace," said Mr O'Brian.

The wedding was celebrated three weeks from this date, as they had
agreed. Norah wore an exquisitely soft cream silk gown, embroidered with
real gold; it was said that the embroidery was a present from the
dwarfs. Certain it is too that she wore an old pearl necklace of such
marvellous workmanship that the like was never seen before.

The tale was whispered that a little deformed man had been seen to slip
a parcel containing the necklace into the letter-box.

Norah's relations came over from Ireland to be present at the wedding,
and you may be sure that Karl's mother arrived too all the way from
Pomerania to share the festivities and the cake. Hôtel Fancy was crammed
with guests; every available room was occupied; there was some talk
already of enlarging the house.

One of the presents that the bride had from her husband, was a
looking-glass, set with precious stones. People thought that it was a
curious wedding-present, and wondered if Norah were exceptionally vain.
But Karl declared that if it had not been for a looking-glass he might
never have known his wife, a remark which sounded more mysterious than
ever.

Many conjectures were made concerning it, but none of them were half so
strange as the truth. Another present was a brooch set in diamonds in
the shape of a crescent moon.

As they were now wealthy, Karl was able to indulge his passion for
mechanical inventions, and Hôtel Fancy was full of the most delightful
surprises: fountains in unexpected places in the spray of which little
balls danced up and down, a rare gramophone that played the most soft
and pleasant music, every variety of electric light and so on.

Norah was a little disappointed that her friends the dwarfs did not come
to the wedding; but what could she expect if her mother-in-law and
uncles and aunts and cousins were all asked as well! Could she expect
that the dignified Mr Query would condescend to become an object of
general curiosity? I have heard that the little men called and left
their cards some days after the wedding, when Norah and Karl were away
on their honeymoon, and that Mr O'Brian treated them as royal visitors,
and that they left charmed with his hospitality, and astounded at the
many entertaining and marvellous things that were to be seen in Hôtel
Fancy.




KÄTHCHEN AND THE KOBOLD


Half-way up the long steep hill that leads from Soden to Königstein, a
rough road branches off to the left, plunging suddenly into a valley,
and passing through the little village of Altenhain. As you walk down
this steep rocky incline, the Taunus Mountains rise up grand and high in
ever-changing panorama.

At the bottom of the hill lies Altenhain, an ordinary enough Taunus
village, save for the beautiful shrine that stands on the high road.
There a Crucifix hangs between two enormous poplar trees, one of the
most beautiful natural altars in the world. The trees are tall and
pointed like church spires, the trunks venerable with age. May the
lightning spare these grand old trees, and the winds play gently through
their boughs!

In this village lived a schoolmaster with his wife and family consisting
of a daughter, twelve years old, and a baby boy. They were not really
poor; for, besides their income, they had a piece of land to grow
potatoes and vegetables; also a strip of vineyard and fine strawberry
fields on the Dachberg, the produce of which they sold in Frankfurt for
a good price. Moreover, they kept pigs and chickens and geese, and two
dear little goats that gave them milk.

On a fine September day Käthchen (that was the daughter's name) was on
the Dachberg, helping her parents to gather up the potatoes for the
winter. Two sacks stood already full, looking from a distance like funny
old peasants. Käthe liked to watch the potato fires that are lit to burn
the refuse of the plants, smouldering and crackling in the dry autumn
air, and the smoke curling up in the clear sky.

It was now about five o'clock, and as she had worked all day, she was
tired and began to groan and grumble. So her mother said: "Hurry up and
go home now, child, before it gets dark. Fetch the baby (the neighbours
had taken charge of it for the day), light the fire, put on the kettle,
and peel and boil the potatoes for supper."

Käthe was only too glad to be let off; her tiredness soon vanished as
she flew down the steep, grassy slope of the Dachberg, slipping and
tumbling every minute. The sun was low, and glowed through the pines and
larches, which stand here together, making a wonderful contrast.

Käthe found her way across the wet emerald field coloured with patches
of exquisite lilac from the autumn crocuses growing there in thousands,
hanging out their cheeky little orange tongues. She sang and shouted for
joy, and a feeling half sadness, half exhilaration, that comes to us
often at the twilight, came over her. She wore a little red skirt and
loose cotton blouse, and a tidy pinafore put on in order to cover her
soiled frock on the way home. Her hair was ash blonde, and braided in
two plaits round her head. Her eyes were dark and deep-set, and were a
strange contrast to her hair. She passed over the tiny bridge where the
brook crosses the field, and gathered a bunch of wild flowers,
meadowsweet and harebells, water forget-me-nots and ragged robin, and
made a pretty nosegay. She also picked a graceful spray of hops, the
leaves slightly tinged with red, and wound it in and out of her hair.
She had forgotten the baby and the supper and all the things for which
she was responsible, and was just a little maiden living in her own
enchanted land.

Now the path wound close by the pine woods, and the air seemed to grow
chillier and more solemn. She saw great white clouds resting on the
Dachberg above her. She seemed so far away, down in this valley and so
alone. But she knew that her father and mother were near, probably
watching her from the hill-top; it was silly to be frightened, she knew
the way so well.

Suddenly something sprang out of the bushes on to the path in front of
her. She gave a great jump, but then so did he and she saw that it was
only an old green frog. He cheered her up at once, and she began to poke
at him with a stick and to sing:

 "The frog sits in the rushes,
     The funny fat old man,
  And sings his evening ditties
     As sweetly as he can,
  Quark--Quark--Quark."

But as suddenly as he had appeared on the scene, the frog vanished again
with a leap and a bound into the dark waters of the little brook that
ran along by the side of the way.

Then she heard a rustling of the bushes and saw a little red squirrel
peering at her with his bright, inquisitive eyes. Round and round the
tree-trunk he went, enjoying himself thoroughly, and making fun of
Käthchen, playing peep-bo like a baby.

The sun glowed through the tree trunks. It must be about six o'clock. "I
must hurry up or supper will not be ready when my father and mother come
home," she thought.

She then became aware of the sound of footsteps coming towards her along
the path.

"Probably a peasant from Altenhain," she thought, and was pleased to
think of meeting a friend. But the footsteps sounded strange and light,
more like the pattering of raindrops through leaves, and then for a
moment, she turned giddy; it seemed to her as if the trees were really
rushing past her, as they seem to do when we look at them out of a
railway carriage. One of the young oak trees seemed to be running
towards her down the path; but as she looked more closely, and her head
became steadier, she saw that it was a boy a little older than herself,
who came running towards her, and very queer he looked.

He had a great mass of brown curly hair tumbling about his head; green
ears--it seemed to her, _could_ it be possible? No, it must be that he
had stuck oak leaves into his curly locks for ornament, pretty oak
leaves tinged with soft red. Moreover he had the bluest and strangest
eyes she had ever seen. They shone like wonderful jewels at one moment,
and then turned dull and opaque and looked almost dead. He had on rough
green trousers, and a white shirt with yellow embroidered braces; his
feet were bare and very brown. When he saw Käthe, he gave a wild kind of
Indian whoop, and danced round and round her, much to the poor child's
dismay, his eyes flashing all sorts of colours. Her heart beat fast, but
not a word or sound would come out of her mouth.

The boy then made a deep bow, and took her by the hand. Soon he had his
long arms round her waist and was trying to kiss her.

Käthe began to cry with fear and indignation, "You rude, naughty boy,"
she said, "I will tell my mother of you."

The imp seemed much surprised, caught one of her tears on his finger,
held it up to the light and then sucked it, making funny faces all the
time. Käthe could not help laughing, and then she dried her tears with a
corner of her apron. She sat down on a tree-trunk for a moment and tried
to think.

Immediately the boy sat by her, and begged her to give him a kiss. He
looked quite nice and pretty for the moment, and Käthe thought she had
better do as he wished, or he might begin his antics again. So she gave
him a motherly kiss, just as she would give to her baby brother, smack!
on the cheek. Immediately the queer look went out of his eyes, and a
more human expression took its place.

"Käthe," he said, "Käthe, I am but a lonely little imp of the forest,
but I love you, Käthe, and I want you to marry me, and live with me
always, and be my own little wife. Will you, O will you? O _do, do_,
do," he said, dancing up and down in wild excitement.

"O goodness gracious me, you are certainly quite crazy," said Käthe, "I
will tell my mother of you!" She began to cry again, and smacked him
whenever he tried to come near her.

Then he seized her by the hand and dragged her after him into the wild
woods, till they were lost in the forest.

"O dear, O dear, whatever _shall_ I do? what will mother say when she
finds no Käthe, no supper, and no baby. Boo-o-o-o!"

"Never mind," said our imp consolingly, "you can't help it now, you have
run away with me you see."

"I didn't, indeed I didn't," interrupted Käthe indignantly.

"I will send a moonshine Käthchen to take your place for the night. You
_are_ fond of dreaming, aren't you?"

"O yes, mother often calls me 'Träum Lies' (Dreaming Liese)."

"Well then, it's all right, she will not notice anything, and you and I
will have fine times together. If you won't marry me, at least, we can
get _engaged_ you know, that will be fine fun."

"Hum----" said Käthe, "that _would_ be amusing. We might _play_ at being
engaged! that would not matter."

"Have you a gold ring for me?"

"O we will go and buy one at the flower shop," said he.

"At the _flower_ shop, that is a funny place to buy rings at," said
Käthe.

"Buttercups and dandelions melted to a yellow heat make splendid fairy
gold," he replied.

"Ah, then you really _are_ a fairy!" said the little girl.

"Why of course, did you think I was a human child like you? What _did_
they teach you at school?"

"Reading, writing and arithmetic, history and geography and scripture
and sewing," said Käthe.

"But not how to know a fairy when you see one, O my stars!" said our
hero.

 "What is the good of learning
    To read and write and sew,
  To count and do addition
    If fairies you don't know?

  How do you know a fairy?
    O by his glittering eye,
  And by his light, light footsteps
    You know when he goes by.

  O what are school and lessons,
    My little maiden, pray,
  If to the land of fairy
   They do not show the way?"

So he sang, and Käthchen thought to herself: "I've always suspected that
we did not learn _everything_ at school."

By this time her little head was completely turned; she thought no more
of supper or mother or baby, but only wondered with round eyes what
would happen next.

The moon shone brilliantly through the branches, and she noticed that
the trees began to move, and some of them quickly changed places.

"Have you ever seen the trees dance?" said our hero. We will call him
Green Ears; for I had forgotten to say that being a tree-imp, his ears
were shaped like oak leaves, and were green tinged with pinky red. It
was peculiar of course, but not so very noticeable on account of his
thick curly hair. He was able to move them if anything startled him, to
prick up his ears in very truth; then you saw that they really
_belonged_ to him.

The trees did not wait for Käthe to reply; they formed themselves in
long avenues and began a stately dance, something like a quadrille.

A soft fairy music was played by an invisible band. Squirrels sprang at
intervals from one tree to another, spreading out their bushy tails and
uttering strange cries like new-born babies.

Birds flew in and out singing and keeping time to the music and rhythm
of the dance. It was a strange sight, grotesque yet beautiful; the trees
took half human forms and faces; it was funny to see how they joined
hands (or branches) from time to time in the dance. After they had
watched for some time and the sport had become monotonous, Green Ears
took Käthe to the top of the hill, and there they saw the beautiful
peaked mountain called the Rossert, bathed in the moonlight.

"Well, children, enjoying yourselves on this fine night, I hope?" said a
woman of tall and commanding presence. "Will you come home and have
supper with me? I am sure Green Ears has forgotten to offer you anything
to eat."

Here she chucked him under his pointed chin.

The two children, fairy and human, turned and followed her, they felt
that she was a person of authority and must be obeyed. Her fair hair
fell in waving masses almost to her feet, it was covered with soft
feathers, as if she had recently been filling feather beds.

The children saw a lighted cottage before them, with red roof and
black-beamed walls like so many in the Taunus. A strong smell of
honeysuckle was wafted towards them.

"This is my wood cottage, it is quite close to the Rossert, as you see.
Some people call me the wood-woman, others Frau Holle," she said. "The
Old King (the mountain called Altkönig) is my brother; Olle (slang in
German for _old_) or Holle, it is all the same, we are all relations in
the Taunus, you must know!"

In front of the house was a dear little garden. The moonlight shone
brightly on the flower-beds. The fairies were awake and peeped out with
the greatest interest as the children entered.

Over the door was written in letters made of light, like those beautiful
advertisements of beer and chocolate which so adorn the city of London
by night:

 THIS WAY TO FAIRYLAND.

Käthe felt that she was learning more in one night than in all her life
before of that strange dream-world on the borders of which we live.

The house was so neat and tidy, that it looked as if it had just been
spring-cleaned; the windows stood wide open, the moonlight streamed in.
A little table was laid for supper.

Frau Holle invited them to sit down and they did so at once.

Green Ears sat opposite to Käthe staring at her with a wistful
expression of adoration and love in his eyes.

A chocolate pudding with cream and sugar and a bilberry jelly stood on
the table, also rolls which were thickly buttered and spread with
various kinds of fairy sausage purely vegetarian in character. Mugs of
delicious-looking milk were ready for each child.

But the supper reminded Käthe of her home and she felt a little uneasy.

However she had _at the bottom of all_ a comfortable feeling that all
was right. This is the way with many of our self-imposed troubles, big
people's as well as little people's. We groan and grumble, and express
our views that everything is very wrong, and the world is soon going to
the dogs, but _at the bottom of all_, we know that it is all right, and
that all things work together for good.

Green Ears began to fidget; he was like a little girl I know, and
_could_ not sit still for more than one minute.

"Frau Holle," he said, "Frau Holle, Gracious Lady, we want to get
engaged."

Frau Holle burst out laughing: "A mortal child and a Kobold of the
forest! nonsense, it's impossible!"

Käthchen lifted up her brown eyes. "We might play at it," she said. "It
would be a beautiful game."

Frau Holle chuckled so much at this that she nearly upset the milk jug.

"How _do_ people get engaged?" said Käthe. "I have often thought about
it, but I never could imagine how they do it?"

"Didn't they teach you that at school either?" said Green Ears. "My
stars! What _did_ they teach you at school?"

"Children," said the wood-woman, "children, do you mean it?"

"Certainly," said Green Ears.

"I think so," said Käthe.

"Do you wish to buy rings?"

"O yes," decidedly from both children.

"Now listen; there is a passage from my house leading to the shops, most
convenient I assure you," said Frau Holle. "Everything delivered
punctually on the premises within one minute of purchasing it. No lifts
or motor-cars necessary. You see I know the ways of the world." So
saying she opened the back door, and they passed into a lane lighted by
many lamp-posts. These lamp-posts gave a very bright light and had queer
faces like the man in the moon. They grinned and winked as Green Ears
and Käthchen went by.

It was a lovely fair; a fair in fairyland you may imagine how gorgeous
that must be!

There were stalls on which lay all sorts of tempting things, cakes,
sweet and toys. Käthe felt sorry that she had no money.

At the flower stall they paused; the flowers were exquisitely arranged,
and out of each peeped a little Fee.

In big gold letters was written:

 CONDENSED FLOWERS FOR SALE.

As Green Ears asked boldly for engagement rings, a fairy who stood
behind the stall, handed him two little gold rings made to fit any
finger; they were a new patent and self-adapting, the fairy said.

Green Ears was so pleased that he turned head over heels again and again
for joy, a funny proceeding for a would-be husband.

"Do you know _how_ to get engaged," he said to the fairy.

"Why no, not exactly, but I have heard it is very simple," said she.
"Mother Holle (here she made a deep curtsy), Mother Holle knows all
about it."

Käthe looked out of the corner of her eyes at her lover, and wished he
would behave with more dignity. Now he was cramming his mouth with
sweeties.

"Aren't you going to give me _any_?" she said.

"O my stars!" he said again, surprised; it had never struck him. Imps
are usually egoists; that is to say they think _first_ of themselves.
There are exceptions, but this is the rule.

He went rapidly from stall to stall and returned with his arms full of
parcels done up in pink paper which he presented to Käthchen with a low
bow. She accepted them with much delight and they fell to munching
chocolate together; it was a real bond of union, and they were not the
first sweethearts who discovered it.

They reached the end of the street and suddenly found themselves alone
once more on the slopes of the Altenhainer Thal or Valley.

Green Ears sat down by Käthchen, and squeezed himself up closely to her.

"Give me your pretty little hand," he said. "_Do_ you know which is the
right finger?"

"O yes!" Käthchen knew that quite well, though I have heard that it is a
disputed point in Germany.

She stuck out her little hard-worked fingers, and he put the gold ring
on the third finger of the left hand. It fitted exactly and with a cry
of joy Käthchen put the other on his long brown finger.

Then both the children laughed and clapped their hands, and danced
merrily about. "Now we are engaged," they cried, "really engaged to be
married!"

They made such a noise that the squirrels were cross and threw sticks at
them for disturbing their early-morning sleep.

Then, goodness knows why--let us call it reaction--Käthe began to cry
again, great, big drops.

Green Ears was much puzzled.

"You _are_ clever, now I can't do that," he said. "You must stay with
me always, and live with me in the woods, and be my own little
sweetheart."

"O no," said Käthe, "I should never be allowed to do that; I must go to
school every day, and then I have my exercises to do, and to help mother
with the housework; the baby to mind; and--O I am always so busy."

"I will come and help you," said Green Ears.

"But you _can't_, you are not _real_, you know," said Käthe and began to
cry again.

"Käthchen," said Green Ears, and he looked quite serious and thinky all
at once. "Listen to me. I will go to the Old King; he is the ruler of
all the fairies here, and I will beg him to teach me how to become
human. It may be years before we meet again, for the way into your world
is very hard for me to find. Yes it is easier for you to find the way
into our world, than for us to enter yours; but cheer up, I will dare it
and do it for your sake! but O sweetheart wait for me; O wait for me!"

 "Wait for me, my little sweetheart,
    Till I come to you again,
  Win the world for you, my sweetheart,
    With its joy and with its pain.

  Wait for me, my little sweetheart,
    For when falling on the ground
  I beheld those curious dewdrops
    To your heart my heart was bound.

  All my fairy life is nothing,
    All my fairy joy I give,
  Just to hold your hands, my sweetheart,
    In your world with you to live.

  Wait for me, my little sweetheart:
    I will find the way to you,
  As a grown man I will seek you,
    Seek and find you ever true."

So singing they walked arm in arm through the long winding valley, till
the dawn approached like a golden bird opening its great wings to fly.

Käthchen reached her cottage door. All was silent within. "Good-bye,"
she said, and their eyes met in one last farewell.

"Auf Wiedersehen!" said Green Ears (that pretty German farewell greeting
which means so much more than good-bye), and then he stole back down the
stony street, kissing his hands again and again to the little girl.

In some strange way Käthchen passed _through_ the door of her little
cottage; she had become for the time incorporeal; through the touch of a
fairy her body and soul had become _loose_, that is to say, and she was
able to enter the house as silently as a person in a dream. She went
through the kitchen and up the steep wooden stairs. It seemed to her as
if her feet did not touch the ground, she floated rather than walked.
She reached her own little attic, and saw the room as if it were a
picture, the square window-frame, the branches of the trees outside,
the old pictures on the walls that she was so fond of.

But what was her surprise to see _herself_ curled up asleep in her big
wooden bed!

The horror of it made her faint, and she remembered no more until she
found herself in her own bed under her own big feather sack. In order
that she should not forget her night's adventures, or think it was all
merely a dream, she found a ring of yellow grass wound tightly round her
third finger. From that hour, though the ring fell to pieces, the mark
of it was clearly to be seen on her finger. It _was_ a fairy ring, you
see.

Her mother apparently had not missed her, and the baby was as jolly as
ever.

"What _was_ the matter with you last night, Käthe?" said her mother.
"You were dreamier than ever; not a word could we get out of you. You
_must_ have been tired out, you poor child!"

"But everything was all right, wasn't it, mother, the potatoes were
boiled and the supper ready?"

"Why of course you managed very nicely. Now hurry up and let us have
breakfast."

Now I feel sure that all the children who read this story will want to
know what happened to Käthchen and Green Ears later on.

Did he really come back to visit her as a grown man?

Did they marry and live happy ever after?

Had he green ears as a mortal?

But alas the fairies who told me this story, have left these questions
unanswered, at all events for the present, so I can only guess at the
conclusion.

I think myself that Green Ears was pretty sure to succeed in his quest,
because if you want a thing intensely enough, you can usually get it.

They would make a rather funny married couple, that is true, and we will
hope that Green Ears did not turn head over heels on his marriage day.

But the fairies assure me that the trials necessary to pass through in
order to become a mortal, have a very sobering effect on the character,
and so we can think of Green Ears as quite different, though still
fascinating and charming.

I would have liked to be present at their wedding, wouldn't you?

 "O joy when on this solid earth
  Is heard the sound of fairy mirth!
  O joy, when under earthly things
  Is heard the sound of fairy wings,
  When the impossible is true,
  When I come back and marry you!"




THE OLD KING


Walter had been playing with his kite in the garden. Somehow or other it
would never mount properly, unless his father was there to help him. It
was apt to fly up a little way, and then to fall into a bush or fence,
and there to perch like a big bird, until Walter and his friends rescued
it with difficulty. But on a windy day when his father took him into the
open fields, away the kite would sail, until Walter grew anxious lest it
should disappear altogether in cloudland.

It was a fine afternoon, about three o'clock, a lazy, sleepy time of
day. A queer jumble of all the fairy stories that the boy knew, passed
through his head as he sat on the lawn, day-dreaming, while his kite
flapped its wings on the ground beside him.

Now you must know that it happened to be Midsummer Eve, the summer fête
day of the fairies. Walter stared at the mountains whose great purple
heads he could see in the far distance across the green plain. How they
changed from moment to moment, as the clouds cast their shadows on them,
till the sun shone out bright again and chased away the shadows. As
Walter looked intently at his favourite peak, a mountain called the Old
King, he saw a shining cloud on the summit against the sky, that he had
never noticed there before. As he gazed and gazed, the cloud seemed to
form itself into a wonderful castle. Each turret and tower was of an
exquisite hue like the clouds at sunset. Grey mists wreathed round it,
and made a soft, mysterious background: the castle became more vivid and
shone like gold.

How should Walter reach this fairy palace? For reach it he felt that he
must! His kite had an answer ready. It jumped up from the ground, and
looked at him with a queerly human expression, and seemed to say: "Sail
me!"

Walter gave but one touch to unwind the string, and up, up it mounted
like the Parzival airship, bearing the little boy with it, who held
tight to the end of the cord. He felt rather giddy and frightened at
first, but soon found out that by holding the cord in his hands to give
him confidence, and making movements in the air, similar to those of
swimming, he could fly quite easily.

Most of us have experienced this delightful sensation in our dreams, and
I have heard children declare that when they were small, they used to
fly downstairs without even touching the banisters. Perhaps flying may
be a forgotten art: or perhaps we have not yet learned to discover, and
to use our wings.

To Walter it came quite naturally; on, on they flew over the trees, and
over the houses, over the windings of the Nidda. Walter could hear the
tinkle tinkle of sheep bells below, or was it possible that he could
already hear the bells of fairyland ringing? Over the church spire of a
little village they soared, and all the children shouted: "Zeppelin!
Zeppelin!" because you see all this happened in modern times, when even
the children no longer believe in the supernatural.

As the kite flew nearer to the mountains Walter could see the well-known
tower of the Feldberg, and the inns kept by the landlords Storm and
Monster; he could see the castle of Cronberg, and the interesting
village of Falkenstein.

But where was the beautiful palace on the Altkönig? Here was nothing to
be seen but trees, trees, trees. He would have thought it all a dream,
were it not for his wonderful flight through the air. The kite now
dropped gradually, and set Walter on the ground. Then it began to flap
about undecidedly, and behave queerly, like a dog seeking for a trail.
At last it set off again up a narrow path leading straight into the
green woods.

Walter followed, still holding tight by its tail, no longer soaring but
skimming the ground. Once or twice the poor kite was entangled in the
branches, Walter freed it, and off it set again at a fine pace up the
mountain-side.

Walter began to feel hungry; for there is nothing like flying to give
you an appetite, as Mr Euler would surely tell you, but the kite allowed
him no time even to gather a few raspberries on the way. At last they
came to a place where several paths crossed. Here the woods took another
character: dark firs grew in the place of beeches and oaks. These firs
were covered with a silver lichen that looked like hoar frost.

A little hut made of rough logs of woods stood at this crossing. At the
door stood a little old woman. She had neither red eyes nor a hooked
nose; so Walter thought to himself: "She cannot be a wicked old witch
like the one who caught Hänsel and Gretel." She had a friendly,
grandmotherly face, and invited Walter to come into her hut.

"You must be so hungry, you poor little man," she said. "Come in, come
in, the coffee is all hot and waiting for you!" Then she turned to the
kite which was turning head over heels, and making grimaces on the
ground. "Be off with you," she said, "we shall not need you any more!"

"Good-bye, good-bye, dear kite," said Walter, "thank you very much for
bringing me here."

The kite grinned and made a funny bow; then he mounted up of his own
accord, and sailed away home over the tree-tops.

On a rough wooden table was spread a delicious repast. Rolls and butter,
coffee and milk, Streuselkuchen and Butterkuchen such as German children
love, and also cakes called Bubenschenkel--or little boy's legs. Walter
did not quite like the name of these cakes; it made him think of witches
again; but they tasted quite harmless.

Whilst he was eating his cake, there was a knock at the door of the hut,
and in came a smart fox, wearing a red cap with green feather, and a
jaunty coat and waistcoat.

"Heigho! How fine you are, Mr Fox," said the old woman, "I suppose you
are going to the ball to-night?"

"O yes, of course, I am going to be there early. Miss Bushy Tail has
promised to be my partner for the Polonaise," he said. "I hope you have
a cup of coffee ready for me." He then sat down, and peered at Walter
with his bright, inquisitive eyes. Now everyone knows that the foxes
dance on the Feldberg on May Day. On one of the biggest fir-trees there
hangs a picture of two foxes dancing, and these cross-roads have thence
derived their name Fuchstanz. But they do not only dance on May Day, but
on many other occasions such as the present. Walter had often wished
that he could see them at their sports.

Presently there was a scratching at the window, and in came a squirrel
in a great hurry with a bag of nuts slung over his shoulder. He
disturbed the great black cat who was asleep on the window-sill, and she
bristled with rage, and swore at him; but he took no notice, and was off
again in a jiffy, after having drunk a tiny little glass of milk which
stood all ready for him on the table. The squirrels were very busy; for
a great many nuts were required for the feast, and they had been turning
out their store cupboards.

A little hare peeped shyly in at the door. "Hullo!" he said. "Fine
doings at the castle to-night. I am carrying up a basket or so of Easter
Eggs. They are sure to please the Old King," and off he went.

"Is he really the Easter Hare?" asked Walter; but no one answered his
question.

The old woman smiled mysteriously. When Walter had finished his coffee,
she said: "Now my little dear, you must be off as well, or you will be
late at the castle. It is a great privilege for you to be invited; it is
long since the Old King has sent for a mortal child."

"But did he send for me?" said Walter, astonished.

"Why of course, or how could you have got here alone," said the fairy.
"But be very polite and answer nicely when spoken to, or the Old King
might be angry, and when he is angry the whole mountain shakes, and I
crouch and tremble in my little hut. But now let us see if I have not
got something fine for you," so speaking she pulled out a sack of toys
that stood in a dark corner and gave Walter a cart and horse. At first
it was quite small; but when she set it on the floor, it grew and grew
until it was large enough for a seven year's old boy to ride in. And O
marvel, the wooden horse began to prance as if it were alive!

Walter sprang into the cart; the door of the hut stood wide open, and
out he drove.

"Good-bye, good-bye," said the fairy of Fuchstanz. She gave him a bag of
gingerbread nuts, beautifully ornamented, as the peasants in the
Odenwald know how to make them. One had on it:

  "For a good boy."

It was an invitation from the Old King and was worded as follows:

  AUDIENCE WITH HIS MAJESTY,  10-11.
    AMUSEMENTS VARIED.
  SUPPER AND DANCING,            12.
    CRYING FORBIDDEN.
                           OLD KING

"Good-bye, I will come to see you again very soon," said Walter, and he
drove up the mountain in fine style.

It was now getting quite dark; for he had stayed longer than he was
aware of in the little hut; the firs stood black and deep on either
hand; he would have been frightened perhaps, but he was tired; he closed
his eyes and played at being asleep in his little bed at home. When he
opened his eyes again, he saw bright lights flitting through the gloomy
fir-trees like so many luminous butterflies. One flew towards him, and
settled on the side of his cart, and he saw that it was a lovely elf
with a crown of gold on his head. "King Oberon himself," thought Walter,
and the elf answered, as all fairies do, to his _thought_:

"Yes I am Oberon, King of the fairies," he said in a voice in a high key
like the hum of insects. "I have come to look at you, it is so long
since I have spoken to a mortal child. Mortals care no longer for us;
they like true stories--that is stories about their own stupid little
lives; 'fairies do not exist,' they say, Ha, ha, ha! we pinch their
silly little toes, and send them bad dreams, and hide their toys, and
blot their copy-books, and then we do not exist, Ha, ha, ha!"

"But I care very much," said Walter eagerly. "O won't you come home with
me and live with me always and sleep in my bed, you beautiful little
Elf-man." And he put out his hand to catch the fairy as a child might
grasp at a butterfly. But--puff!--he was off like a seed of the
thistledown, and a peal of fairy laughter sounded in his ears. Then all
was still and dark again.

Suddenly a sound of bells broke the stillness ling, lang, ding dong.
These were the foxgloves, and the balsams popped like tiny pistols, and
from the tall mosses came sudden explosions and the scattering of
illuminated spores. All this in honour of the night.

Suddenly Walter became aware of a huge rock in front of him. Towering up
black and high on its summit was the wonderful castle that he had seen
from the distant plain. White and grey were its cloudy walls, rose and
lemon and emerald its towers and turrets; its roof was the sky studded
with a thousand diamond-rayed stars.

The horse could go no farther; his mission was accomplished. The boy
bade his dear steed farewell with many fond regrets, and set out with a
brave heart to scale the rock alone. It was a difficult and dangerous
climb in the dark night; but, however, he managed with the help of
bushes and shrubs to reach nearly to the top. But alas the last step was
too steep for the little boy; it was a sheer, perpendicular wall. Our
hero looked round in despair; big drops gathered in his eyes; but he
_would_ not let them fall. He stood quite still, clinging to the rock
and unable to move either forward or backward. It seemed like the climax
of a bad dream. Suddenly he saw a bright cloud approaching him, and the
air was full of a multitude of tiny elves. They seized hold of him by
his coat and knickers and boots and even by his curly hair, and bore him
upwards singing:

 "Fairies seek and fairies save
  Children who are bold and brave."

So they supported him up the last step and they floated off as they had
come, looking in the distance like a cloud of bright fireflies.

Walter now found himself in a dark, mysterious garden. The bushes and
trees took strange forms and seemed alive. One shrub that looked like a
big black bear gave a low growl, as he passed by. He was really
frightened and his little heart beat fast, in spite of all the fairies
had said in praise of his bravery. But he soon reached a lovely lighted
avenue leading straight up to the entrance of the castle. The doors
were open wide. Two large white owls stood on either side as sentinels.
A stream of light poured out of the hall and dazzled Walter's eyes, so
that he could not see distinctly at first. Graceful wood nymphs stood
chatting in groups. A statue of Siegfried slaying the dragon was in the
centre of the hall. Small fountains played round it. It seemed as if he
were expected at the castle as his arrival created no surprise. Two
fairies advanced and took him by the hand. Walter thought they were the
loveliest ladies he had ever seen. One was fair and dressed in cloudy
gauze which changed in colour from blue to green and mauve like
opalescent waters; the other was dark and wore a dress of rose colour
that changed into orange and red like leaping flames of fire. These were
the geniuses of water and fire. Walter did not know this at the time; at
least he only guessed it; he was too young to speculate as to the nature
of the strange sights he saw. He found himself suddenly in a Court suit
of white woollen material, beautifully embroidered and lined with
silver.

"Now you are a cloud with a silver lining," his fairy friends said to
him smiling. "You are sure to please the Old King."

Wonderful fairy creatures, nixies and gnomes and goblins arrived every
minute as guests for the castle. The hare came in quite breathless with
a basket which he delivered up to an attendant, saying: "Eggs for His
Majesty."

The fox from Fuchstanz seemed to feel himself very important; he
swaggered about, knocking people with his bushy tail. He stuck out a paw
condescendingly for Walter to shake as he went by, and stared at him
more inquisitively than ever.

An elderly woman who would have been very neat and tidy, save that her
hair was white with snowflakes (no, it could not be snow, it was little
feathers as soft as down) came in smiling with a pot of bilberry jam
under her arm. She had come from the Rossert Mountain, and the jam had
been cooked as was her custom on the Holle Stone, that mysterious stone
on the slopes of the Rossert, so neatly marked on the Taunus map, but so
impossible for the curious mortal to find.

Gradually all these strange guests began to form into a long procession,
and to march round the hall to the sound of fairy music.

One side of the wall was draped with a green curtain; this began to sway
and draw itself aside. A fresh, invigorating mountain air blew in their
faces; they marched on to a larger and loftier room. The ceiling was the
sky; the light was the light of thousands of stars, the same stars that
we know, but shining with greater brilliancy for the fairies on
Midsummer Eve. The floor was carpeted with the softest moss. Walter's
feet sank into it. They marched through green arches made by skilfully
interlaced trees. Pines and larches were arranged as pillars, and were
adorned by festoons of wild roses, forming garlands from one to the
other.

At the far end of the room stood two tall poplar trees, and between them
seated on a cloudy throne was a majestic being with flowing white beard,
and a crown of gold on his head. As Walter approached the throne, the
poplar leaves shook and shivered as before a thunderstorm. Then a great
wind arose, a mist rose up, the fairy procession bowed down before the
Old King--the Ruler of the Mountain. Then there was a sound like the
rumbling of thunder, and the Old King spoke. Walter had some difficulty
at first in catching the words, but by nudges, pinches, and pokes, the
company gave him to understand that they were addressed to him.

"What is your name? mortal child," said the Old King.

"Walter, please Your Majesty," said Walter with a deep bow, feeling his
courage going into his boots.

"Walter--a good old German name," said the Old King. "Doubtless you are
a poet?"

"Oh!" said our hero valiantly, "when I am a man I mean to write story
poems like Schiller and Uhland."

"That is right," said the Old King. "Real poets are rare in these days.
Even if I appear to them in all my splendour the stupid people merely
remark 'a curious cloud formation,' and think they know all about it.
You are young"--he went on--"you will forget all that you have seen
here; but the feeling will remain that the heavens are near you. Who
knows but what you may be a real poet in the future, a poet who shall
open men's eyes once more to the invisible world which lies so near
them. Remember your beautiful costume and show always the cloud with the
silver lining in your poems."

"Which do you like best, work or play?" continued His Majesty in a voice
like distant rolls of thunder.

"Play, please Your Majesty," said Walter, tremulously.

"Quite right, quite right, play play all the day--good folk say--good
folk say! Do you cry much? My children are all such cry babies, and
though I scold them and lecture them every day, they will not learn to
behave better."

Walter had no time to answer; for clouds came rolling up and almost hid
him from view.

"These are my troublesome children," said the Old King.

Some of the clouds were dear little cuddly babies, others looked like
great white poodles, others like huge black bears or crocodiles. With
outstretched arms and wingèd helmets strange forms rode by on swift
horses with floating manes resembling the Walküre of old; the lightning
played across the sky as they passed. Truly they were a strange family
with much originality.

"Now, children, be off with you, and whatever you do, _don't cry_," said
the Old King. But even as he spoke, one little cloud dissolved in
raindrops and wetted the fine clothes of the company.

Presently a push and a bustle began. Long, narrow tables were brought
into the hall, and in a short space of time they were covered with the
most wonderful dainties in the way of sweets and cakes, jellies,
puddings and fruit.

Walter sat down hastily: a fine plate of Easter eggs and nuts was before
him. He helped himself plentifully, and even filled his pockets, which
was not quite good manners you know, but seemed to excite no notice.

A venerable water-sprite rose presently and proposed the health of the
Old King. Wine-glasses were filled to the brim with golden or crimson
wine; as the glasses clinked together, the vibrations sounded sweet yet
sad like some high violin note, as it dies on the string. Then a wind
arose, summer lightning played round the room, illuminating vividly the
faces of that strange company; a roar of thunder shook the castle.
Brunhilde's fire sprang up suddenly round the outer walls, so that the
scene was brighter than daylight. The tables were cleared away, and the
wildest revels began. The Old King faded into the distance like a
mountain-peak. A goblin seized hold of Walter and tore him round in the
maddest fashion.

The foxes had a corner to themselves; their dancing was evidently much
admired. Especially our friend and his sweetheart Miss Bushy Tail
distinguished themselves by the elegance of their steps.

Mother Holle seemed to keep a certain amount of order, but the revels
became wilder and wilder and Walter grew strangely sleepy and tired; he
felt himself a part of some mad dream. As he dreamed, great clouds came
rolling up, and all was lost in mist. When the mist cleared, Walter
stood once more before the throne of the Old King.

"Come my little fleecy," the Old King was saying to a little girl cloud
who came tumbling down before him. "Be the best of daughters and take
this little boy home; you know the way. But mind, no tears!"

"Adieu," he said to Walter. Walter murmured adieu, and, in another
moment, he was flying with his arm round the neck of the baby cloud,
flying, flying, flying.

       *       *       *       *       *

He knew no more till he found himself in his garden at home, feeling
rather queer and sleepy. He got up, and stretched himself, and found
that he was quite wet; for the little cloud had dissolved in tears at
parting from him. On the ground lay his kite looking quite innocent.

He went indoors, and found it was tea-time, and everything was just as
usual.

"Why, child, you are quite wet! Why did you not come in during the
shower?" he heard his mother's voice saying to him.

He found a huge walnut in his pocket and when he cracked it out crawled
a wonderful beetle with green body streaked with gold. As Walter put out
his hand to secure his treasure, it flew away from him looking very much
like King Oberon himself. Walter thought that he heard a peal of fairy
laughter, but it might have been only his fancy.

The next day was his birthday, and what do you think he had as a
present? Why the very same cart and horse that had carried him to the
castle, big enough to ride in. But he never told anyone--even his
mother--the whole story of his adventures. Perhaps he did not remember
them clearly himself; for the fairies protect their secrets well, and
draw in sleep the veil of forgetfulness over much that we have seen in
our dreams.

And did Walter become a great poet? He is a friend of mine, so I can
tell you. The world has not heard of him as yet. He tells me that he
often hears a little voice near him, singing, singing; sometimes he can
distinguish the words and the melodies. They make him feel sad at times,
he says, with longing for a world that is more beautiful than ours, but
oftener they make him feel exhilarated and happy.

He thinks that he knows many secret things that would make the world
happier if he could only get people to believe them. But these secrets
are not about high explosives or torpedoes or aeroplanes, or motor-cars
that can do the distance between Paris and Berlin at the very shortest
record. They are secrets that can only be breathed in music and poetry.

Be on the look-out for him, children; for the songs he sings will be
full of wonder, like Kubla Khan, and the melodies will be those of
fairyland. Did he not hear them himself on the Old King's Mountain, when
he attended the Midsummer fête of the fairies?




THE DRAGON'S TAIL


I wonder if the girls and boys who read these stories, have heard of the
charming and romantic town of Eisenach? I suppose not, for it is a
curious fact that few English people visit the place, though very many
Americans go there. Americans are well known to have a special interest
in old places with historical associations, because they have nothing of
the sort in America; moreover many of them are Germans by birth, and
have heard stories of the Wartburg, that beautiful old castle, which
from the summit of a hill, surrounded by woods, overlooks the town of
Eisenach.

The Wartburg is quaintly built with dear little turrets and gables, and
high towers, a long curving wall with dark beams like the peasant
cottages, and windows looking out into the forest. It belongs at present
to the Grand duke of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach.

Every stone and corner of the Wartburg is connected with some old story
or legend.

For instance there is the hall with the raised dais at one end and
beautiful pillars supporting the roof where minnesingers of old times
used to hold their great "musical festivals" as we should say nowadays.
There was keen competition for the prizes that were offered in reward
for the best music and songs.

In the castle are also the rooms of St Elizabeth, that sweet saint who
was so good to the poor, and who suffered so terribly herself in parting
from her husband and children.

Then there is the lion on the roof who could tell a fine tale if he
chose; the great banqueting hall and the little chapel.

On the top of the tower is a beautiful cross that is lit up at night by
electric light and can be seen from a great distance in the country
round. This is of course a modern addition.

But the most interesting room in the castle is that where Dr Martin
Luther spent his time translating the Bible. A reward had been offered
to anyone who should kill this arch-heretic; so his friends brought him
disguised as a knight to the Wartburg, and very few people knew of his
whereabouts.

As you look through the latticed windows of that little room, the
exquisite blue and purple hills of the Thüringen-Wald stretch away in
the distance, and no human habitation is to be seen. There too you may
see the famous spot on the wall where Luther threw the inkpot at the
devil. To be correct you can see the hole where the ink-stain used to
be; for visitors have cut away every trace of the ink, and even portions
of the old wooden bedstead. There is the writing-desk with the
translation of the Bible, and the remarkable footstool that consisted of
the bone of a mammoth.

Those were the days in which a man risked his life for his faith; but
they were the days also, we must remember, of witchcraft and magic.

One other story of the Wartburg I must narrate in order to give you some
idea of the interest that still surrounds the place, and influences the
children who grow up there. It was in the days of the old Emperor
Barbarossa (Redbeard).

The sister of the Emperor whose name was Jutta, was married to the
Landgraf Ludwig of Thüringen, and they lived at the Wartburg.

One day when Barbarossa came to visit them, he observed that the castle
had no outer walls round it, as was usual in those days.

"What a pity," he said, "that such a fine castle should be unprotected
by walls and ramparts, it ought to be more strongly fortified."

"Oh," said Landgraf Ludwig, "if that is all the castle needs, it can
soon have them."

"How soon?" said the Emperor, mockingly.

"In the space of three days," answered his brother-in-law.

"That could only be possible with the aid of the devil," said
Barbarossa, "otherwise it could not be done."

"Wait and see for yourself," said the Landgraf.

On the third day of his visit, Ludwig said to the Emperor: "Would you
care to see the walls? They are finished now."

Barbarossa crossed himself several times, and prepared for some fearful
manifestation of black magic; but what was his surprise to see a living
wall round the castle of stout peasants and burghers, ready armed, with
weapons in their hands; the banners of well-known knights and lords
waved their pennants in the wind where battlements should have been.

The Emperor was much astonished, and called out: "Many thanks,
brother-in-law, for your lesson; stronger walls I have never seen, nor
better fitted together."

"Rough stones they may some of them be," said the Landgraf, "yet I can
rely on them, as you see."

Now as you may imagine, the children who grow up in this town, must have
their heads full of these tales, and many poets and artists have been
inspired by the beauties of Eisenach. The natural surroundings of the
town are so wonderful, that they also provide rich material for the
imagination.

Helmut was a boy who lived in Eisenach. He was eight years old, and went
to a day school. He lived outside the town, not far from the entrance to
the forest. He was a pale, fair-haired little boy, and did not look the
tremendous hero he fancied himself in his dreams; not even when he
buckled on helmet, breast-plate and sword, and marched out into the
street to take his part in the warfare that went on constantly there,
between the boys of this neighbourhood, and the boys who belonged to
another part of the town.

Now the Dragon's Gorge is a most marvellous place; it is surrounded on
all sides by thick forests, and you come on it suddenly when walking in
the woods. It is a group of huge green rocks like cliffs that stand
picturesquely piled close together, towering up to the sky. There is
only a very narrow pathway between them.

Helmut had often been there with his father and mother or with other
boys. After heavy rain or thawing snow it became impassable; at the best
of times it was advisable for a lady not to put on her Sunday hat,
especially if it were large and had feathers; for the rocks are
constantly dripping with water. The great boulders are covered with
green moss or tiny ferns; and in the spring time, wood sorrel grows on
them in great patches, the under side of the leaves tinged an exquisite
violet or pink colour. The entrance to the Dragon's Gorge is through
these rocks; they narrow and almost meet overhead, obscuring the sky,
till it seems as if one were walking under the sea. Two persons cannot
walk side by side here. In some parts, indeed, one can only just squeeze
through; the way winds in and out in the most curious manner; there are
little side passages too, that you could hardly get into at all.

In some places you can hear the water roaring under your feet; then the
rocks end abruptly and you come out into the forest again, and hear the
birds singing and see the little brook dancing along by the side of the
way. Altogether it is the most fascinating, wet and delightful walk that
you could imagine.

Helmut had long been planning an expedition to these rocks in company
with other boy friends, in order to slay the dragon. He dreamt of it day
and night, until he brought home a bad mark for "attention" in his
school report. He told his mother about it; she laughed and said he
might leave the poor old fellow alone; there were plenty of dragons to
slay at home, self-will, disobedience, inattention, and so on! She made
a momentary impression on the little boy, who always wanted to be good
but found it difficult at times, curious to say, to carry out his
intention.

He looked thoughtful and answered: "Of course, mother, I know; but this
time I want to slay a 'really and truly' dragon, may I? Will you let me
go with the other boys, it would be such fun?"

The Dragon's Gorge was not far off, and mother did not think that Helmut
could do himself any harm, except by getting wet and dirty, and that he
might do as well in the garden at home.

"If you put on your old suit and your thick boots, I think you may go.
Keep with the other boys and promise me not to get lost!"

"Oh, I say, won't it be fine fun! I'll run off and tell the other
fellows. Hurrah!" and Helmut ran off into the street. Soon four heads
were to be seen close together making plans for the next day.

"We'll start quite early at six o'clock," they said, "and take our
second breakfast with us." (In Germany eleven o'clock lunch is called
_second_ breakfast.) However it was seven o'clock a.m. before the boys
had had their first breakfast, and met outside the house.

How mother and father laughed to see the little fellows, all dressed in
the most warlike costumes like miniature soldiers, armed with guns and
swords.

Mother was a little anxious and hoped they would come to no harm; but
she liked her boy to be independent, and knew how happy children are if
left to play their pretence games alone. She watched the four set off at
a swinging march down the street. Soon they had recruits, for it was a
holiday, and there were plenty of boys about.

Helmut was commanding officer; the boys shouldered their guns, or
presented arms as he directed. They passed the pond and followed the
stream through the woods, until they came to the Dragon's Gorge, where
the rocks rise up suddenly high and imposing looking. Here they could
only proceed in single file. Helmut headed the band feeling as
courageous as in his dreams; his head swam with elation. Huge walls
towered above them; the rocks dropped water on their heads. As yet they
had seen or heard nothing of the dragon. Yet as they held their breath
to listen, they could hear something roaring under their feet.

"Don't you tell me that that is only water," said Helmut, "A little
brook can't make such a row as that--that's the dragon."

The other boys laughed, they were sceptical as to the dragon, and were
only pretending, whereas Helmut was in earnest.

"I'm hungry," said one boy, "supposing we find a dry place and have our
lunch!"

They came to where the path wound out again into the open air, and sat
down on some stones, which could hardly be described as dry. Here they
ate bread and sausage, oranges and bananas.

"Give me the orange peel, you fellows. Mother hates us to throw it
about; it makes the place so untidy." So saying Helmut pushed his orange
peel right into a crevice of the rock and covered it with old leaves.
But the other boys laughed at him, and chucked theirs into the little
stream, which made Helmut very angry.

"I won't be your officer any more, if you do not do as I say," he said,
and they began to quarrel.

"We're not going to fight your old dragon, we're going home again to
play football, that will be far better fun," said the boys who had
joined as recruits, and they went off home, till only Helmut's chums
were left. They were glad enough to get rid of the other boys.

"We have more chance of seeing the dragon without those stupid fellows,"
they said.

They finished their lunch, shouldered their guns again, and entered the
second gorge, which is even more picturesque and narrow than the first.

Suddenly Helmut espied something round, and slimy, and long lying on
the path before him like a blind worm, but much thicker than blind worms
generally are. He became fearfully excited, "Come along you fellows,
hurry up," he said, "I do believe it is the dragon's tail!"

They came up close behind him and looked over his shoulders; the gorge
was so narrow here that they could not pass one another.

"Good gracious!" they said, "whatever shall we do now?"

They all felt frightened at the idea of a real dragon, but they stood to
their guns like men, all but the youngest, Adolf, who wanted to run away
home; but the others would not let him.

"Helmut catch hold of it, quick now," whispered Werner and Wolf, the
other two boys.

Helmut stretched out his hand courageously; perhaps it was only a huge,
blind worm after all; but as he tried to catch it, the thing slipped
swiftly away. They all followed it, running as fast as they could
through the narrow gorge, bumping themselves against the walls,
scratching themselves and tearing their clothes, but all the time Helmut
never let that tail (if it was a tail) out of his sight.

"If we had some salt to put on it," said he, "we might catch it like a
dicky bird."

"It would be a fine thing to present to a museum," said Wolf.

Well, that thing led them a fine dance. It would stop short, and then
when they thought they had got it, it started off again, until they were
all puffing and blowing.

"We've got to catch it somehow," said Helmut, who thought the chase fine
sport. At that moment the gorge opened out again into the woods, and the
tail gave them the slip; for it disappeared in a crevice of the rock
where there was no room for a boy to follow it.

"It _was_ a blind worm you see," said Werner.

Presently, however, they heard a noise as of thunder, and looking down
the path they saw a head glaring at them out of the rocks, undeniably a
dragon's head, with a huge jaw, red tongue, and rows of jagged teeth.

The boys stared aghast: they were in for an adventure this time, and no
mistake. Slowly the dragon raised himself out of the rocks, so that they
saw his whole scaly length, like a huge crocodile. Then he began to move
along the path away from them. He moved quite slowly now, so there was
no difficulty in keeping up with him; but his tail was so slimy and
slippery that they could not keep hold of it; moreover it wriggled
dreadfully whenever they tried to seize it. But Helmut had inherited
the cool courage of the Wartburg knights, and he was not going to be
overcome by difficulties.

With a wild Indian whoop he sprang on the dragon's back, and all the
other boys followed his example, except little Adolf who was timid and
began to set up a howl for his mother, I'm sorry to say. No sooner were
the boys on his back than the dragon set off at a fine trot up and down
the Dragon's Gorge, they had to hold on tight and to duck whenever the
rock projected overhead, or when they went sharply round a corner.

"Hurrah," cried Helmut waving a flag, "this is better than a motor ride.
Isn't he a jolly old fellow?"

At this remark the jolly old fellow stopped dead and began to snort out
fire and smoke, that made the boys cough and choke.

"Now stop that, will you!" said Helmut imperatively, "or we shall have
to slay you after all, that's what we came out for you know." He pointed
his gun at the head of the dragon as he spoke like a real hero.

The dragon began to tremble, and though they could only see his profile,
they thought he turned pale.

"Where's that other little boy?" he asked in a hollow voice. "If you
will give him to me for my dinner, I will spare you all."

Helmut laughed scornfully, "Thanks, old fellow," he said--"you're very
kind, I'm sure Adolf would be much obliged to you. I expect he's run
home to his mother long ago; he's a bit of a funk, we shan't take him
with us another time."

"He looked so sweet and juicy and tender," said the dragon sighing, "I
never get a child for dinner nowadays! Woe is me," he sniffed.

"You are an old cannibal," said the boys horrified, and mistaking the
meaning of the word cannibal. "Hurry up now and give us another ride,
it's first-rate fun this!"

The dragon groaned and seemed disinclined to stir, but the boys kicked
him with their heels, and there was nothing for it but to gee-up.

After he had been up and down several times, and the boys' clothes were
nearly torn to pieces, he suddenly turned into a great crevice in the
rocks that led down into a dark passage, and the boys felt really
frightened for the first time. Daylight has a wonderfully bracing effect
on the nerves.

In a moment, however, a few rays of sunshine penetrated the black
darkness, and they saw that they were in a small cave. The next thing
they experienced was that the dragon shook himself violently, and the
small boys fell off his back like apples from a tree on to the wet and
sloppy floor. They picked themselves up again in a second, and there
they saw the dragon before them, panting after his exertions and filling
the cavern with a poisonous-smelling smoke. Helmut and Wolf and Werner
stood near the cracks which did the duty of windows, and held their
pistols pointed at him. Luckily he was too stupid to know that they were
only toy guns, and when they fired them off crack-crack, they soon
discovered that he was in a terrible fright.

"What have I done to you, young sirs?" he gasped out. "What have I done
to you, that you should want to shoot me? Yet shoot me! yes, destroy me
if you will and end my miserable existence!" He began to groan until the
cavern reverberated with his cries.

"What's the matter now, old chappie?" said Helmut, who, observing the
weakness of the enemy, had regained his courage.

"I am an anachronism," said the dragon, "don't you know what that
is?--well, I am one born out of my age. I am a survival of anything but
the fittest. _You_ are the masters now, you miserable floppy-looking
race of mankind. _You_ can shoot me, you can blow me up with dynamite,
you can poison me, you can stuff me--Oh, oh--you can put me into a cage
in the Zoological Gardens, you have flying dragons in the sky who could
drop on me suddenly and crush me. You have the power. We great creatures
of bygone ages have only been able to creep into the rocks and caves to
hide from your superior cleverness and your wily machinations. We must
perish while you go on like the brook for ever." So saying he began to
shed great tears, that dropped on the floor splash, splash, like the
water from the rocks.

The boys felt embarrassed: this was not their idea of manly conduct, and
considerably lowered their opinion of dragons in general.

"Do not betray me, young sirs," went on the dragon in a pathetic and
weepy voice, "I have managed so far to lie here concealed though
multitudes of people have passed this way and never perceived me."

"I tell you what," said Helmut touched by the dragon's evident terror,
"let's make friends with him, boys; he's given us a nice ride for
nothing; we will present him with the flag of truce."

Turning to the dragon he said: "Allow us to give you a banana and a roll
in token of our friendship and esteem."

"O," said the dragon brightening up, "I like bananas. People often throw
the skins away here. I prefer them to orange peel. I live on such
things, you must know, the cast-off refuse of humanity," he said,
becoming tragic again.

They presented him with the banana, and he ate it skin and all, it
seemed to give him an appetite. He appeared to recover his spirits, and
the boys thought it would be better to look for the way out. The cavern
seemed quite smooth and round, except for the cracks through which the
daylight came; they could not discover the passage by which they had
entered. The dragon's eyes were beginning to look bloodthirsty;
remembrances of his former strength shot across his dulled brains. He
could crush and eat these little boys after all and nobody would be the
wiser. Little boys tasted nicer than bananas even.

Meanwhile Wolf and Werner had stuck their flags through the holes in the
rocks, so that they were visible from the outside.

Now little Adolf had gone straight home, and had told awful tales of the
games the others were up to, and he conducted the four mothers to the
Dragon's Gorge where they wandered up and down looking for their boys.
Adolf observed the flags sticking up on the rocks, and drew attention to
them. The Dragon's Gorge resounded with the cries of "Helmut! Wolf!
Werner!"

The dragon heard the voices as well; his evil intentions died away; the
chronic fear of discovery came upon him again. He grew paler and paler;
clouds of smoke came from his nostrils, until he became invisible. At
the same moment Helmut groping against the wall that lay in shadow,
found the opening of the passage through which they had come. Through
this the three boys now crawled, hardly daring to breathe, for fear of
exciting the dragon again. Soon a gleam of light at the other end told
of their deliverance. Their tender mothers fell on their necks, and
scolded them at the same time. Truly, never did boys look dirtier or
more disreputable.

"We feel positively ashamed to go home with you," their mothers said to
them.

"Well, for once I was jolly glad you did come, mother," said Helmut.
"That treacherous old dragon wanted to turn on us after all; he might
have devoured us, if you had not turned up in the nick of time. Not that
I believe that he _really_ would have done anything of the sort, he was
a coward you know, and when we levelled our guns at him he was awfully
frightened. Still he _might_ have found out that our guns were not
properly loaded, and then it would have been unpleasant."

Mother smiled, she did not seem to take the story quite so seriously as
Helmut wished.

"We had a gorgeous ride on his back, mother dear; would you like to see
him? You have only to lie down flat and squeeze yourself through that
crack in the rocks till you come to his cave."

"No thank you," said mother, "I think I can do without seeing your
dragon."

"Oh, we have forgotten our flags!" called out Wolf and Werner, "wait a
minute for us," and they climbed up over the rocks and rescued the
flags. "He's still in there," they whispered to Helmut in a mysterious
whisper.

"Mother," said Helmut that evening when she came to wish him good night,
"do you know, if you stand up to a dragon like a man, and are not afraid
of him, he is not so difficult to vanquish after all."

"I'm glad you think so," said mother, "'Volo cum Deo'--there is a Latin
proverb for you; it means, that with God's help, will-power is the chief
thing necessary; this even dragons know. Thus a little boy can conquer
even greater dragons than the monsters vast of ages past."

"Hum!" said Helmut musingly, "mother, dear, I was a real hero to-day, I
think you would have been proud of me; but I must confess between
ourselves, that the old dragon was a bit of a fool!"




THE EASTER HARE


It is curious how little children of one country know about the lives
and interests of the children of another. Perhaps if English people
would send their children over to Germany, instead of their journalists,
singers, etc., the danger of an International war would be lessened. The
children would be sure to fall in love with Germany; for it is the land
above all others that appeals to children. Women are said to come first
in America, children are certainly the first consideration in Germany.
Froebel's motto: "Come let us live with our children," is nowhere better
carried out.

A little English girl, named Patsie, came over to visit her German
friends, Gretel and Barbara, shortly before Easter this year; and she
was much surprised to find all the shop-windows filled with hares; hares
made of chocolate, toy hares, hares with fine red coats on, hares
trundling wheelbarrows or carrying baskets full of Easter eggs. Moreover
there was no end to the picture post cards representing the hare in
various costumes, and in some connection with Easter eggs. One of these
post cards represented a hare crawling out of a large broken egg just
like a chicken.

Patsie asked her little friends eagerly what this all meant.

"Who is the Hare?" she said. "I do so want to know all about him."

"Why, _of course_, it is the Easter Hare," they replied.

"Is it possible that you have not heard of him? O, you _poor_ English
children! Why, he brings us the eggs on Easter Sunday morning!" said
Gretel.

"O don't you know," said Barbara, "he hides them in the garden, unless
it rains or is very wet; then we have to stay in our bedrooms for fear
of frightening him, and he lays them downstairs in the dining-room or
drawing-room. However, this has only happened once since I was born, and
I am nine years old; it _must_ be always fine at Easter."

"We have to let all the blinds down before he will come into our garden,
he is so dreadfully nervous," said Gretel. "Then he hides the eggs in
the most unexpected places, we have to hunt and hunt a long time before
we have found them all. Last year we discovered an egg some weeks
afterwards; luckily it was a glass one filled with sweeties; for if it
had been of chocolate, we could not have eaten it, after it had lain on
the damp mould, where the snails and worms would have crawled over it.
Some of the eggs are made of chocolate or marzipan or sugar, and some
are real eggs coloured blue or red or brown, or even sometimes with
pictures on them."

"We had two dear little baskets with dollies in them, and a big Easter
Hare made of gingerbread, as well as the eggs this year," said Barbara.
"We hunt and hunt in every corner of the garden, and then we divide our
treasures afterwards on two plates, so that is quite fair."

"You are lucky children, why does not the Hare come to England?" said
Patsie. "I am sure little English children would appreciate him too!"

"Well," said Gretel answering in verse:

 "My dear mother says to me,
  That he will not cross the sea;
  That he fears his eggs would break
  And his precious goods might shake.

  He's a fairy you must know,
  Little Barbara tells you so;
  When he cocks his ears and blinks,
  Then of Easter eggs he thinks."

"Yes," interrupted Barbara, "we really and truly saw him one Easter
Sunday morning when we came back from church, just at the end of our
street, where the gardens join the fields. He had a friend with him, or
perhaps it was Mrs Easter Hare. They both looked very alarmed when they
saw us, and tore off as fast as they could scuttle, and hid in the
corn-fields. I can't remember if he had his red coat on, can you,
Gretel?"

"No I don't think he had, he was quietly dressed in his brown fur suit,
with a white tail to the coat," said Gretel.

Now mother had been puzzled for some time to think whatever connection
there could be between Easter Day and the Hare, and she could not find
out. But the other day a kind friend told her: she could never have been
able to think of it herself, it is such a queer reason. The legend is
that as the Hare always sleeps with its eyes open, it was the only
living creature that witnessed the Resurrection of our Blessed Lord, and
therefore for ever afterwards it has become associated with Easter.

The Easter egg is easier to account for; the idea there is, that as the
little chicken breaks through the hard shell, and awakes to new life, so
Christ broke the bars of death on the first glorious Easter morning. So
the simple egg has become a symbol or sign of a great heavenly truth.
Even little children can understand this if they think about it, and
they will be able to find out other things too that are symbols in the
same way.

"One year," said Barbara to Patsie, "we spent Easter Sunday at a farm in
the country. We made beautiful nests of moss all ready for the Easter
Hare. And just when father had called to us to come out and look for the
eggs, we saw to our disgust that the great pigs with their dirty old
snouts were already hunting for them, so we rushed down and had to drive
them away first. The geese too seemed to want to join in the game; it
was fine fun, I can tell you. We filled our pinafores with the eggs."

"When we got home again, we found the Easter Hare had been there too; so
we were finely spoilt that year," said Gretel.

       *       *       *       *       *

Several weeks before Easter this year, before Patsie came to stay with
them, Gretel and Barbara went for an afternoon walk in the fields with
their father and mother. It was getting late when they returned; white
mists were rising over the River Nidda, until the trees in the distance
looked like ghosts. There was a strange feeling in the air, as if
something were going to happen; the children felt excited without
knowing why. Then they suddenly saw a bright light not far off from
them, along the path by the river. It seemed to revolve, then to change
its position, then it went out altogether. They thought they saw the
crouching form of a man beside the light; indeed father said that it was
probably a labourer lighting his pipe; but, when they looked again, it
was unmistakably a bush that had taken a human form in the twilight. The
children instinctively fell back nearer the grown-ups. There was
something creepy about that bush.

Suddenly a weird cry, shrill and piercing, broke the silence. It seemed
to come from just in front of them, and sounded awful; as if a baby were
being murdered. The children clutched hold of father's hand. "It was all
right as long as father and mother were there," they thought with the
touching confidence of children.

No one could imagine what it was. The stretching, ploughed fields on one
side could hide nothing, the little path along the river-bank was
clearly visible. As they approached the spot whence the crying had
seemed to proceed, all was silent again. Gretel had heard of the magic
flower Moly which screamed when it was pulled up by the roots; could
there be screaming bushes as well? But the cries had seemed to come from
the ploughed field, not from the river.

The sun had gone down, the air became darker and chillier. Suddenly the
cry began again; this time it seemed to proceed directly from an empty
tin lying near them on the ploughed field, broken and upside down. The
children stared with wide-open eyes at this mysterious old tin: they
could not make head or tail of it, of the tin I mean.

Then mother stooped and picked up a piece of egg-shell coloured a
beautiful red, that lay on the path, and held it up triumphantly. "What
do you say to that?" she asked the children.

"Why, it is a piece of a broken Easter egg, how queer," said the
children, "such a long time before Easter too."

"Do you know what I think?" said mother, almost in a whisper. "I think
the Easter Hare has been along here, perhaps he lives here, and that tin
hides the entrance to his house."

"Let's go and see," said the children. But at this moment the cries
broke out again, coming just from their very feet it seemed. They
sounded so uncanny that the children did not dare to move, or to
investigate the tin.

"If you disturb him now, you certainly will not get any Easter eggs this
year," said mother. "He's sure to be very busy painting them just now, I
dare say he cries like that to frighten you away from his home."

"I don't think so," said father, "he can hide and hold his tongue if he
wants to; it is the little baby hares who make that noise; but just as
we pass by, the mother hare manages to keep them quiet for a few minutes
by giving them something to put in their little mouths, I expect."

"I _would_ like to see them," said Barbara.

"No, come along, Barbara," said Gretel, "leave them alone, it would be
horrid to get no Easter eggs wouldn't it?"

       *       *       *       *       *

For many nights Barbara dreamt of the Easter Hare, and at last she made
up the following story about him, which she wrote out beautifully in
flowing German handwriting in an exercise-book. I thought little English
girls and boys would like to hear a story written by a little German
girl of nine years. So I have translated it for them here. It will give
them a good idea too of how the Easter Hare is regarded by German
children.


THE EASTER HARE FAMILY

_Story by_ BARBARA ARNDT

Two children, Paulchen and Luischen, were wandering about in the country
on Easter Day, they said sorrowfully to one another. "Has the Easter
Hare quite forgotten us this year?" For three hours they tramped about,
and hunted for eggs in every corner of the fields near the big forest.
Suddenly Paulchen found a huge egg; he called to Luischen to come at
once to see it, and she trotted along towards him, carrying a pretty
little nest filled with Easter eggs in her hands, which she had also
found.

The children were very happy; it was such a lovely sunny day, and they
were so delighted with their treasures. However they did not give up
hunting, and soon each of them found an Easter Hare made of the most
delicious chocolate. Then Luischen discovered an egg which she called an
April-fool's egg; for when she tried to lick it to see what it tasted
like, she found that it was made of soap.

"O, do come and see what a heap of eggs I've got," said Paulchen, in
tones of ecstasy.

Then little Luischen jumped up, calling out: "Look, look--O do come
here, quick, quick, and see those two beautiful big nests filled with
Easter eggs, and two lovely silver baskets beside them! O how exquisite!
The Easter Hare is too good, he is a darling, did you ever see such
beautiful things as he has given us. I can hardly hold mine!"

"Neither can I," said Paul, "but look over there, Luischen, there are
two large baskets. I expect they are meant for us, how very convenient!
We can put all our things into them."

"Let's go and fetch them at once," said Luischen. "Do you see that
pretty bush with silver palm-buds on it over there?" she continued, "we
will go and pick a few twigs from it and tie them on to our baskets with
some grass; then they will look more 'Eastery.'"

"If only we knew where the Easter Hare lives," they said somewhat sadly,
"we would go and call on him at once and thank him for all his kindness
to us."

"O but just look, Paulchen," said Luischen excitedly, "there is
something written on the rocks over there; perhaps the Easter Hare lives
there. Paulchen, you can read a little, do see if you can make out what
is written."

Paulchen read:

 "I am the Master Easter Hare
  Lay eggs, in plenty, everywhere."

"Come along, run, we will knock at the door," said Luischen joyfully. So
they went up to the rock and knocked.

"Come in," said a clear voice.

They went in and turned to the door on the right from which the voice
had come. They entered a comfortable room, and there on a cosy
easy-chair, there sat father Easter Hare, who had just put on his
spectacles to examine the eggs which his son, who was about seven years
old, had painted.

"Good morning, dear Mr Easter Hare, we have come to thank you for the
lovely eggs," said the children.

"_Dear, dear_," said Mr Easter Hare, "you found them of course in your
garden, or----?"

"Alas, no, we have no home, we are orphans; the people in the orphanage
did not treat us kindly, so we ran away, and meant to seek our fortune
in the wide world," said the children. "Then we were so lucky as to find
these beautiful eggs in the fields over there!"

"Dear me, so you are orphans!--well then perhaps you would like to stay
here with us and learn painting and housekeeping," said Mr Easter Hare.

"Oh yes indeed, we should simply love to!" answered the children, "but
where is your wife? Perhaps she will be able to teach us to be of some
use in the household."

"Well, well, my wife is in the kitchen cooking cabbage, and carrots, and
making a famous salad."

"Oh!" said both the children, "may we help her dress the salad?"

"Certainly, my wife will be very pleased to find that you can be so
useful; there, just opposite in the passage, is a door that leads into
the kitchen where my wife is busy."

The children followed his directions and went into the kitchen, and
there sat Mrs Easter Hare.

"Good morning, Mrs Easter Hare," said the children politely, curtsying
and bowing, "we have come to help you in the household, and to stay with
you till we are grown up; but now please let us make the salad."

"Well, that is very kind of you, I'm sure, to want to help me," said Mrs
Easter Hare, and the children set to work at once.

After this the children helped her every day in the kitchen in the
morning, and in the afternoon they learnt from father Easter Hare how to
paint the eggs smoothly and prettily, and how to read and write; for the
Easter Hare is educated, you must know, and far more intelligent than
ordinary hares. When they grew up and went out into the world again,
Paulchen became a celebrated artist and lived in the artist colony at
Cronberg, and little Luischen married, and became an exemplary
housewife; but their best friends throughout their lives were always

MR AND MRS EASTER HARE.




THE NIXY LAKE


In one of the wildest and most romantic parts of Germany, there is a
high mountain which is as renowned for the strange stories that are told
about it, as for its many natural peculiarities. It is flat on the top,
falling off precipitously on every side. In recent times a high tower
has been built on the very edge of the rock. Curious to say, the ground
on the summit of this mountain is a bog or morass; flat slabs of stone
have been placed on it to enable bold tourists to reach the tower
without sinking in unawares. There is a bronze ring on a balcony
surrounding the tower, with darts pointing in different directions,
showing where London, Paris, and St Petersburg, for instance, are
situated. I need hardly say that these towns are not visible, but that
if a straight line could be drawn from this spot, it would reach them.

Not far below the summit there is a mysterious-looking lake, which it is
strange indeed to find at so high a level. A huge cliff formed of
boulders of rock rises on the one side of the lake; it falls like a
great wall straight into the water; only daring little ferns and plants
have a foothold on it; the lake is inaccessible from this direction. A
narrow pathway winding in and out edged with water-reeds leads by it on
the other side. This lake is said to be so deep that it is unfathomable;
it is dark brown in colour, bitter and brackish to the taste. No fish
can live in it. Learned men, called geologists, who study the crust of
the earth, have decided that this region is not volcanic in origin as it
would appear at first sight, but that the lake is fed by water from the
morass.

This mountain is constantly visited by sudden violent atmospheric
disturbances, great winds and heavy thunderstorms, that spring up at a
moment's notice, striking terror into the hearts of any travellers who
may be caught in them.

Now several centuries ago, before the time of railways and steamboats, a
mighty king of the water-sprites lived in this lake with his three
beautiful daughters, the famed nixies of the lake.

The King was a majestic old man with long white beard and hair; his eyes
were black and sinister, and when he drew his eyebrows together in a
straight line over his eyes, his frown was terrible to behold. The
thunderstorms which devastated the country round, were attributed to
him. In his fits of rage, the village folk declared, he would hurl
stones and thunderbolts down from the mountain, heedless of what or whom
he might destroy.

The day would be fine, the sky blue, and in a moment a storm wind would
arise, clouds would cover the heavens, and lightning shoot forth; how
could this be accounted for by natural agency?

The nixies were much to be pitied, if the truth were known, for their
father was a stern old tyrant, and interfered constantly with their
harmless amusements, also prohibiting their leaving the lake to frolic
at midnight with the wood-spirits, whom he considered as beneath them in
rank.

On a warm day in the lovely month of June (which is the favourite month
of all the year for the water-nixies, for then the white and yellow
water lilies are in flower, and the yellow irises shine among the
water-reeds) the three sisters were swimming lazily to and fro, plunging
under the water like seals, to reappear like seals on the look-out for
something to happen. But nothing ever did happen but one of their
father's tempers, and of these they were tired enough as you may
imagine. They had not fishes' tails like their cousins the mermaids, but
slender limbs of dazzling whiteness. Their hair resembled beautiful
seaweed as they dived under the water, or when it spread out like a fan
on the surface.

The eldest, Clothilde, was dark; she was beautiful, but haughty, and
looked as if she had inherited her father's temper.

The youngest was very fair; she had the golden hair of a fairy, her eyes
were blue, but meaningless; there was little sense in their depths. Her
name was Elfrida.

The second sister, Lenore, was of a different type, and might have been
mistaken for a mortal maiden. Her hair was neither dark nor fair,
neither red nor brown, it was of a pale hazel colour and fell in
straight masses nearly to her feet. Her eyes were of a deep grey fringed
with dark lashes; they had a mysterious and pathetic look--a look caused
by longing after something indefinite and yet desired, or by a
prescience perhaps of coming disaster.

Lenore rose to the surface of the water. "Sisters," she called,
"sisters, listen to me," and she swam towards the shade of the rock, and
seated herself on a stony seat, half in half out of the water. "I can
bear the monotony of our existence no longer. I tire of this life of
ceaseless dancing, swimming, drifting. I want to visit the homes of men
who live in the village that lies below us at the foot of the mountain,
to hear stories of the world from which we are shut out, to share as far
as it is possible for us in the simple and homely amusements of
mortals."

"I am willing to go with you," said Clothilde, frowning discontentedly.
"I am tired too of this melancholy lake; the eternal nothingness of our
life oppresses me too." She tore a water-lily to pieces as she spoke.

"O do not do that!" said Lenore, almost as if in pain, "the flowers can
feel too!"

"What if they can!" said Clothilde scornfully; for the cruelty of the
nixies coursed through her veins.

"And you Elfrida," said Lenore, turning to her fairer sister, "will you
come with us?"

"Ah!" said Elfrida, "I prefer to stay here among the water-lilies. I
have no aspirations, I could live here for ever sleeping through the
winter months, dreaming through the summer ones, yet if you go, I will
go too; for we three have never been separated, and I should be afraid
if I were left alone with my father." As she spoke she placed a
water-lily in her golden hair; the sunbeams struck through the fir-trees
by the lake and fell on her, till she looked like some wonderful fairy
princess, too exquisite to be real.

A young man happened to be passing the lake just at this moment; he
caught the entrancing picture as if it were a vision from Heaven; his
brain reeled, his breath failed him, he would have fallen in a swoon;
but then he met Lenore's eyes, grave, calm, and searching. A wild
longing and deep melancholy seized on him. He rushed towards the lake,
and clutched hold of the branches of a young willow, only just in time
to prevent himself from falling into those treacherous depths.

With a weird cry and their white arms raised over their heads, the
nixies disappeared in the lake. The young man gazed as one bewitched;
crossed himself in fear; and gazed again. All was silent: no living
creature stirred; only the sunbeams fell athwart the lake, and little
cascades of water fell over the surface of the rock.

"I have seen the nixies of the pool," thought the young man, who was the
son of a rich peasant farmer in the village. "Surely that means that I
shall die ere long. I should not fear death," he continued, "if I were
to die in battle in honourable and open conflict; but to die young,
stricken by some awful and unaccountable fate, that would be terrible."

As he turned homewards, a wind arose that nearly hurled him into the
lake; so violent was the gust, and a storm burst forth, the like of
which he had never experienced before. Branches were torn from the
trees, and hurled in his path; the lightning was continuous and nearly
blinded him. Glancing fearfully back at the lake, the waters seemed to
have arisen in great waves, and he thought he saw the nixy King himself
raging and roaring like a wild creature, casting the storm winds forth
from their fortresses in the rocks, holding the lightning like fireworks
in his long fingers, and hurling it across the land. Terrified,
half-stunned by the thunder, and stupefied by the hail and rain, he at
last reached home, where his mother awaited him in great anxiety.
However he soon had off his wet, torn clothes, and casting himself on
his bed fell into a profound slumber. He slept for nearly a night and a
day, and when he awoke his adventures seemed to him a wild dream, and
like a dream were half-forgotten although they exerted a subtle
influence on his waking thoughts that he was unaware of.

Meanwhile the nixies, and especially Lenore, had been anxious as to his
fate. Not until she had sent their dwarf messenger into the village to
make inquiries as to his welfare, could she be at rest. Her wish to
visit the homes of men became a passion, a burning desire that could not
be quenched. She called on her dread father; three times she cried out
to him, and her sisters echoed the call. Then he arose from the depths,
majestic and so terrible to behold that Lenore almost lost the courage
to address him. But he listened to her request in silence, brooding,
while great ravens whirled and swooped in the sky above their heads.
Then he spoke:

"It is decreed that no one can alter the path of fate, or avoid the doom
that is written in the stars. The hour has come: I have foreseen this
day; go, my daughters, go. But remember there is one condition which you
must strictly obey. One night in the week you may be absent from the
lake; but as the hour strikes twelve, you must be back again in these
waters. I shall send a messenger to fetch you, the dwarf Hunold, beware
lest you keep him waiting! If you disobey, destruction will overtake
you, and your home will know you no more." He sank gloomily into the
lake; the day was oppressive; no rain fell and the evening brought no
relief. Strange and uneasy were the dreams of many that night in the
little village.

Some young people returning late from a social gathering, reported that
they had seen a bright, uncanny light in the sky, like a fire, or some
said like a golden hand, at midnight over the ill-omened mountain.

In those days when it was so difficult to travel from place to place,
the villagers were obliged to depend on themselves for amusement and
entertainment. In the villages round about the mountain it was the
custom for the young people to meet together at each other's houses on
Saturday evenings. Those who had rooms large enough, took it in turns to
invite all the rest; the girls brought their spinning-wheels, and the
room where they met was called the spinning-room. The girls were busy
and merry at the same time. Stories were told, and songs were sung, the
young men smoked and drank wine, and not infrequently the
spinning-wheels were cleared away and there was dancing. Strangers were
welcome; for the peasants were renowned for their hospitality; but
seldom did it happen that travellers passed that way; some young fellow
perhaps might drop in who was wandering about for a year or so before
settling down to the work of his life as the German custom is; but
tourists were few when roads were bad and money scarce.

One lovely summer's evening at the end of June the full moon was shining
in the sky, the latticed windows of the peasant's house where the young
folk were assembled, were wide open; the air was laden with the scent of
the white lilies and roses that grew in the garden at the back of the
cottage. There was no light as yet but that of the moon in the parlour;
the spinning-wheels too were silent; for stories were being told; one
more marvellous than the other, of ghosts and goblins, of dwarfs and
mountain-spirits, and naturally enough awful tales of the neighbouring
nixy King, and of his three daughters who lived in the enchanted lake.

Hermann, the young man who had been overtaken by the thunderstorm, was
present this evening; he was silent and glum, though the most charming
village maidens chaffed him and tried to captivate him, and the peasant
girls in this part of Germany are renowned for their beauty and their
grace. The melancholy which was not so much part of his natural
disposition as due to the adventures of that evening, fell on him again
like a dark cloud oppressing his brain. The girls who had been listening
to the stories, were by this time worked up to a state of feeling which
can only be described by the words creepy, or eerie. Most of them
experienced that unaccountable sensation which Germans call Gänsehaut
(goose-flesh). So that a sudden knock at the door caused them to cry out
in fear and clutch hold of their sweethearts. The knock was repeated
three times before anyone summoned up courage to open the door. Then the
assembled company fell back in astonishment as three beautiful young
girls entered the room, each holding a spinning-wheel under her arm.
They walked erect like princesses, everyone was sure they must be of
high rank. They wore dresses of some shimmering material such as the
village folk had never seen before, and necklaces of pearls, silken hose
and silver shoes.

Hermann's heart beat to bursting as he beheld them: where had he seen
them before? Surely they were the nixies of the magic pool, and his doom
had fallen upon him. Never, never, had he been able to forget Lenore's
eyes. Their mournful beauty haunted his dreams. He met them now, as his
breath came and went in great gasps; and there was a flash of
recognition between them. "What heavenly beauty, what a noble air she
has," he thought, hardly regarding her sisters who were strictly
speaking far more beautiful.

The three nixies, for of course it was they, put forth all their
fascinating arts to ingratiate themselves with the young people
assembled there.

"You are pleased to see us, are you not?" they said. "We have heard of
the fame of your spinning-evenings, and have come from a far country to
take part in them. You shall see how we can spin."

"Very gratifying for us, I am sure," murmured the officiating president
of the club.

"Now do not let us disturb you, you were telling stories I believe as
we entered," said Lenore, who, being the most human, took the lead in
the conversation.

But no one dared to open his mouth, even those who had been the most
eager to narrate wild tales before, seemed stricken with dumbness now.

"You could tell us a story, I believe," she said, turning to Hermann,
who could only shake his head. "Then I must tell one myself," she said
with a little sigh. She poured forth an extraordinary story to which the
peasants listened open-mouthed, the tale of a terrible doom that
overtook a faithless lover.

"A mortal man," she said, "had made love to a beautiful nixy, and won
her affection in return. But because she was not human, he did not think
of marrying her, but became engaged to a village maiden who was good and
sweet, if not so beautiful as the nixy. But the nixy had her revenge.
She swam under the bridge where the little river ran through the fields,
and one day as the two were walking in the dewy meadows, she caused the
waters to rise suddenly in a great flood, and tore her lover away from
his human bride down with her in the stream, choking him under the water
till he was dead. Then she sat with his head on her lap, and stroked his
beautiful dark curls, and wept until she dissolved in tears, and became
part of the water, which has been slightly salt from that day. The
village maiden was married to a rich old peasant not long afterwards; so
much for human fidelity," said Lenore, fixing her sad eyes on Hermann.

"He well-deserved his fate," said Hermann, "who chose the lesser when he
might have had the greater love."

"I think the nixy was a mean, wicked thing," said a young girl, almost a
child, called Brigitte, with soft, dark eyes, and a sweet expression on
her face. "She could not really have cared for her lover, or she would
have wanted him to be happy with the village girl, as she knew she could
not marry him herself."

"Never," said Hermann, excitedly, whose blood was coursing like fire in
his veins, "better death in the arms of the beloved, than a contented
life with lower aims!"

The men laughed.

"Now who would have thought that Hermann was so romantic!" they said.
"And he has the fattest pigs and the biggest casks of wine in the
village!"

Songs were proposed; everyone joined in; the voices of the nixies were
heard above all, clear and beautiful as a bell. They began with one of
the best-known songs in the German language which is always sung on
especially jovial occasions, it begins:

 "I cannot tell why or wherefore
    A legend of olden times
  Deep in my heart is singing,
    In mournful rhythmic rhymes."

After several songs had been sung in unison, Hermann begged the young
man who was the host that evening to ask the beautiful strangers to sing
a song alone and of their own choosing, he longed to hear their voices,
unspoilt by those of others.

The nixy maidens readily complied: was not singing their most natural
mode of expressing themselves? They sang these verses to a weird,
haunting melody:

 "The wild-fowl are calling: come back to the lake!
  O nixies come back, or your proud hearts must break;
  The moonbeams are glancing, the fairies are dancing,
  Come back.

  The grey mists are rising! Beware, O beware!
  For though you are slender and though you are fair,
  Your treacherous waters, O nixy king's daughters,
  Can slay.

  Beware the king's anger--O tempt not your fate,
  The white water-lilies your coming still wait;
  Wide open each flower until the twelfth hour--
  Beware!"

The old pendulum clock on the wall struck eleven. How fast the time had
flown! The three beautiful maidens rose up hastily and departed, wishing
a courteous "good night" and "good luck to you" to the company.

As Hermann opened the door for them, he saw a little dwarf with a
lighted lantern waiting for them outside the door, and much as he wished
to accompany them home, he did not dare to do so.

When they had left the room, a storm of conjecture burst forth; at last
everyone agreed that they must be the nixies of the lake.

"We did not like the look of their eyes; they were so cold and
treacherous," said some of the girls who were jealous of a beauty that
they felt they could never attain to.

"You are ill-natured things, not fit to sweep the floor for such
exquisite creatures," said Hermann angrily; and the whole company began
to jeer and to laugh at him, saying:

"Hermann has fallen in love with the nixies. Many a wet kiss will he
have from them--ha--ha!--but cold water will be his bridal bed, and
death the groomsman--ha, ha!"

"Do not be so cruel," said kind little Brigitte, who had blamed the nixy
in the story. "See how pale Hermann looks, he will faint in another
minute; he has never been strong since he was out in that awful storm."

Hermann could bear the conversation no longer; hastily saying good night
he went home with wild thoughts in his head, and, alas! wild,
ungovernable love in his heart.

For the next few weeks on Saturday evenings the same thing happened.
There was the usual social gathering, no one was absent; the little room
could hardly hold the thronging guests. Then there was the eagerly
looked for knock at the door, and the three lovely maidens entered and
shared so naturally in what was going on that the young people gradually
lost somewhat of their awe of them. Who could spin so fast and so finely
as the three strangers; who could sing such entrancing songs; who could
tell more wonderful stories!

Hermann generally managed to sit by Lenore, and to hold her hand, and he
knew his love was returned.

Naturally the exquisite Elfrida, and the stately Clothilde had their
admirers as well.

"Soon they will have taken all our sweethearts away from us, the nasty
creatures," whispered some of the village girls under their breath, "and
they cannot marry all the lads in the country round. The men are
bewitched, that is certain--no good can come of it. Most of the men
realise it, however, and will come back to us in time; all except
Hermann. He is so far gone that it is quite hopeless to try and
influence him."

"I am sorry for Lenore," said little Brigitte, "I would do anything I
could to help her; she looks so _very_ unhappy!"

On the night of the 9th of September the spinning evening was to be at
Hermann's house, which was a splendid building in its way, like a great
wooden castle. He was feverish with excitement. He bought and gathered
all the flowers he could get together, and decked the house as for a
wedding-feast. His mother could not bake cakes that were fine enough to
suit his taste; the furniture seemed to him clumsy and old-fashioned. He
would gladly have strewn rose-leaves, instead of rushes, on the floor
for his lady-love to tread on. All the time a voice was telling him to
desist: that such love could never be hallowed; that his bride was but a
myth, a dream that would vanish away. His mother was terribly troubled
about him, and feared that the boy had lost his wits in the
thunderstorm.

"You shall see my bride to-night, mother," he said. "Ah, there is no one
like her!"

But the old woman trembled and shook and crossed herself, she knew not
why. She felt a presentiment of coming evil.

"She shall not escape from me so soon to-night," thought Hermann to
himself. "I know what I will do: I shall put the clock an hour back, so
that when it is really twelve o'clock, they will think it is only
eleven. One hour, one blessed hour more in her company, snatched in
defiance of fate!"

Never had Hermann been more charming as a host than he was to-night. He
bade his guests heartily welcome and shook them warmly by the hand.
True, he was somewhat distracted and gave strange answers to questions
that were put to him. His eyes were constantly on the door. It opened at
last, and the three entered; they looked lovelier than ever; they had on
golden shoes and wore golden girdles. Their dresses were white edged
with pale green like water-lilies with a green calyx. There was to be no
spinning to-night. Hermann had provided for music and dancing; he became
giddy and his senses failed him almost at the thought of dancing with
the lovely Lenore.

Ah what light little feet! They hardly seemed to touch the ground as
they flew round; but the time too sped by with great rushing wings,
though Hermann had striven to check its headlong course. They paid no
heed to the dwarf and his constant warning taps on the door; the three
sisters were too engrossed in the delights of the dance. But suddenly
Lenore glanced at the clock; it pointed to eleven.

"A few moments more, my belovèd," she said, "and then we must part. But
why are you so pale?" she asked of Hermann, whose heart was beating fast
enough to suffocate him; for he was afraid now of the consequences of
his deed.

"Lenore," he said chokingly, "it is midnight; I hope I have not done
wrong. I put back the clock. I wanted to keep you all longer at my
house."

Lenore turned deadly pale, then she told her sisters of the fatal trick
that Hermann had played on them, and they too turned white as the chalk
on the walls; well they knew their father and what his revenge might be!

Murmuring a sad farewell Lenore gazed for the last time in Hermann's
eyes, and then the dark night swallowed her up for ever.

The dwarf's lantern could be seen from time to time among the forest
trees like a will-o'-the-wisp; then that too vanished.

The dancing and feasting went on for some time; but Hermann's heart was
sick within him; he had no spirit left for the revelry. An indescribable
feeling of terror and anxiety possessed him. The clock struck twelve;
the guests dispersed. They had hardly left the house when a terrific
storm broke forth, appalling in its awful violence; the house shook,
trees were uprooted, lightning blazed continually. The tempest was
nothing, however, compared to that in Hermann's breast; he could not
rest or sleep; fearful visions assailed him: he seemed to hear his
beloved Lenore calling him, or begging for mercy from her cruel father.

Towards morning the storm had somewhat abated though it was by no means
over. Hermann rushed out of the house, taking a wild pleasure in
battling with the fierce elements. Up and up with a certain step he went
towards that lake where all his anguish had begun, and yet where all his
hopes and desires were centred. As he approached the lake through the
fir-wood, the sky over the great cliff was rosy in the early dawn, the
birds were singing, the harebells raised their dew-drenched heads and
looked at him. No motion--no sound--the lake was cruel it seemed to him
in its indifference to his grief. "Lenore," he cried, "Lenore!"

Then the waters of the lake stirred and three waves arose, each one
greater than the last, and in the third was the nixy king with a cruel
expression on his face.

"Ah, call for Lenore," he said mockingly, "but you will never see her
again!--Behold, the doom of the disobedient daughters is fulfilled." As
he spoke the lake stirred again, the waters whirled round, three
exquisite rose-leaves rose from the depths of the lake and floated on
the surface of the water. "Never again will you or any mortal man behold
the nixies of the pool; they are changed into rose-leaves; this was
their punishment," he said, "a poetical punishment--ha, ha!" and he
vanished with a tremendous clap of thunder.

More than half-mad Hermann stumbled home; for weeks he lingered between
life and death.

The kind little Brigitte would have liked to have taken care of him, and
would have made him a good wife; but because of his consuming love for
Lenore, he slowly pined away, until one day he was found lying dead
beside the fatal lake.




KING REINHOLD


There are villages in the heart of the Taunus Mountains that are little
altered by this progressive age; no railway, not even the post-chaise
reaches them, and motor-cars are only to be seen as they whirr past
occasionally on the high road.

Such a village is Elhalten; it lies in a green valley, rich with many
flowers; a lovely little brook runs through it, disappearing suddenly
under houses to reappear again triumphant farther down the road. This
brook is called the Silber Bach or Silver Brook, on account of the
clearness of its water. On either side of the valley rise up steep
mountain-slopes with wild woods and rough pathways. One good road joins
the village with Vockenhausen, and so with the well-known town of
Eppstein.

On the farther side of the Küppel (the steep peak that rises behind
Elhalten) is a forester's cottage, a lonely and deserted-looking
dwelling in the middle of the forest. There I once nursed a huge
friendly cat who was so delighted to see a stranger that she quite
persecuted me with her affection.

On the top of the Küppel is an airy tower; anyone who wishes to try what
flying is like, and cannot afford to go in the Zeppelin airship, can
form an idea of it here. There is a most expansive view of the Taunus
Range, and very little underneath the feet.

In the forester's hut lived a little boy named Hugo. He was the son of
the forester, a fine little fellow of nearly six years. Hugo had few
story-books; but he did not need them; for he lived in the forest, and
the forest tells its own tales to the children who live there. The birds
would chatter to him, and tell him their family histories; the silent,
sweet-eyed deer came to the forestry to be fed in the cold winter, and
so he learnt to know their ways. The little flowers would whisper tales
of the strange sights they had seen in the forest, when they had by
chance forgotten to close their petals for the night.

Hugo had seen much for a five year's old boy; but he longed to see more.
He had heard stories of wood-goblins, of fairies and nixies, and of the
busy dwarfs who live underground. He thirsted for adventure.

Now I must tell you that just about this time the news had come from
Elhalten that a child had been lost from the village, a dear little
girl of four years. She had strayed by herself in the woods of the
Küppel, and though her parents and Hugo's father, indeed all the
villagers had sought for her, no trace could they find, save strips of
her little blue pinafore, and a hair ribbon on the brambles in a remote
spot near an old quarry. You can imagine what a stir this made in the
quiet life of the neighbourhood.

Some people spoke of gipsies, some of deep holes or pools in the woods;
others did not say much, but they thought of the wood-spirits and
fairies and shook their heads. Hugo had many a time played with pretty
baby Elsa; her father and the forester were friends, and she had spent
the day sometimes in the forestry on the Küppel. You may imagine that
the children were more strictly watched over than usual. Hugo's mother
kept a sharp eye on him; for she knew that his little head was full of
all sorts of queer notions.

It happened that, about a fortnight after these events, Hugo's father
went out for a night's hunting. His mother had been busy all the
afternoon; the weather was hot and sultry. At last drowsiness overcame
her and she fell asleep with her head on the kitchen table. Now she was
certainly not given to falling asleep in the afternoon, she was
generally much too busy for that; so I really think she must have been
bewitched. The fairies sometimes put sleeping draughts into people's
coffee; then it is all up with them.

Now was Hugo's opportunity. He hastily took up the brown (or grey as it
is called in Germany) rye-bread and sausage that stood ready for his
supper, packed it into a beautiful green case, with two May-bugs painted
on it, snatched up his toy gun in case of accidents, and set out with a
brave heart to look for little Elsa.

I must tell you that he had dreamt of her repeatedly since her
disappearance. She seemed to look at him with her wistful blue eyes, and
to implore his help. A rhyme rang constantly in his head that seemed to
have reference to her; but he could not quite make out what it meant:

 "King Reinhold found a little maid
  Alone within the forest glade;
  She wept and cried in sore distress,
  All torn and tattered was her dress;
  He set her on a golden throne,
  He gave her playthings for her own.
  But still she wept the livelong day,
  She would not laugh, and would not play.
  'This is most tiresome to behold;
  What shall I do?' said King Reinhold."

The little maid was probably Elsa; but where was she? Who was King
Reinhold? How could Hugo deliver her? He could not answer these
questions. "I must trust to luck, and hope that the fairies will help
me. Heigho for adventures!"

It was the twilight hour; the sky was of a delicate grey-green tint, the
birds called to their roving mates to come home to bed, a few faint
stars appeared in the sky; mystery hung in the air.

On Hugo went--following a circle of green and gold that was marked on
the trees and seemed to show him the way. He sang and shouted merrily to
keep up his spirits; it was supper-time, and the night air had made him
hungry; so he unpacked his bread and sausage and made a good meal. The
moon had risen, and threw a glimmer of light through the trees; the
lingering shades of twilight vanished. On one side of the little path
was the dark fir-wood, impenetrable in its gloom, on the other, beeches
and oaks. Little harebells, and pink centaury bordered the pathway.
There was a lovely woody smell in the late summer night, a smell of damp
earth, and fungi and flowers, or rather a combined perfume still more
subtle and indescribable.

The stillness and loneliness began to oppress our hero a little for the
first time. If he had been a town child he would have been horribly
frightened long before this; but he was as used to the silence of the
woods, as you may be to the noise and bustle of the street.

Suddenly a muffled sound broke the silence: knock, knock, knock, like
the blow of hammers when the workmen are busy at some distance. Hugo's
brave little heart began to beat; for he knew that the noise must be
made by the Kobolds at work on their anvils deep underground.

Then he was aware of footsteps behind him: tramp, tramp, tramp. Was it
his father come to fetch him home? He rather hoped that it might be so;
but when he plucked up courage to turn round, there was no one there! An
owl screeched; a bush rustled near him; he turned round sharply, and
there he saw a little old man with a huge key in his hand sitting on a
felled tree-trunk. His bright blue eyes gleamed strangely in the
moonshine, and his shaggy grey hair stood up on either side of his
red-peaked cap. He wore a jacket of green, lined with scarlet, and had
on heavy wooden shoes such as the peasants wear in some parts of
Germany. He plucked a dandelion clock that grew by the way and held it
up to the moon.

"One, two, three," up to nine the little man counted.

"Nine o'clock! Come along hurry up," said he, and he took Hugo by the
hand.

Instantly the child was able to see many things in the forest which he
had not observed before; strange fairy forms came floating by and gazed
at him with sad, sweet eyes; then a stream of laughing elves passed him
in wild frolic. Yes, once he thought that through the trees he saw the
gigantic form of the Old King himself, throned on his mountain.

Down, down a narrow bypath they clambered, over stones and through
brambles, and interlaced branches. Then they crossed a trout stream
silver clear in the moonlight. The trout were asleep; but when the dwarf
leant over the little stone bridge and whispered a few words--flash and
they were off, far far down the stream; they hid under the rushes and
tree-roots by the banks and quaked for fear. They dreaded the dwarfs and
with reason.

"Boiled trout with a fine butter sauce, that is my favourite dish," said
the little man to Hugo and smacked his lips greedily.

They walked along the beautifully overshadowed pathway by the trout
stream, watching the moonlight on the rippling water, till they left the
brook behind, and came to a green meadow in the centre of which stood a
venerable oak-tree, which still bore green leaves though its trunk was
completely hollow.

The tree was lit from within by a brilliant glow of rosy light. The
dwarf approached on tiptoe, taking off his clumsy shoes, and beckoning
to Hugo to follow him quietly. They peeped through the holes in the
trunk of the tree, and O what a sight they saw!

Twenty or more of the tiniest children, scarcely bigger than my finger,
sat or danced or rolled on the green mossy carpet of the tree-room.
These were the fairy babies, and this was the fairies' nursery. Each
little girl had a dolly made of the loveliest flowers, and a cradle of
green oak leaves, sewed together by grass blades.

The tiny Fee babies lay on their backs and kicked and crowed for joy,
and the biggest of all the fairies present gave them their bottles,
filled with moonshine and honey-dew on which the babies thrive. The boy
elves made the most noise; they had captured a field mouse, a huge
creature it seemed in comparison with them, and they were all trying to
ride on its back at once.

Hugo was so delighted with the lovely sight that he could not resist
calling out "Oh!" in tones of ecstasy. In an instant, puff! the light
went out; a cold fog arose; Hugo saw his dwarf companion change into a
big black bear terrible to behold. Just as our hero thought he was going
to be eaten up, the Kobold resumed his natural form.

"Be silent if you would be wise," he said, and that was all.

They followed the little pathway further through the meadow and into the
woods again, until they came suddenly on a great pile of rocks,
picturesquely heaped up amongst the trees, such as are so common in the
Taunus Mountains. The dwarf went up to the rock, key in hand, and
searched about until he had found a secret door. Then he fitted the key
into the lock and turned it, then tugged and tugged to open the door.
Suddenly it swung open, creaking noisily, and the dwarf lay on his back.
Up he got grumbling and scolding. "They ought to have oiled the hinges,
the lazy louts," he said.

As the door opened, Hugo saw a long corridor before him, lit by stars of
light, and countless mirrors reflected the stars in every direction. The
effect was rather too dazzling after the dark night, and Hugo's eyes
blinked. Down, down, down, the corridor gradually descended and seemed
never-ending. "However shall I get out again?" thought Hugo anxiously.
He did not know you see that there are many ways out of magic land.

At last they came to another door, made of crystal glass, and entered a
large hall with a sparkling roof of rock crystal. In the centre was a
fountain, a more wonderful creation fairyland does not contain. Hugo
held his breath for fear of saying "Oh!" again. Strange gnomes and
fairies seemed to be alive in it, and the element it contained, was not
water, but fire. The most marvellous display of fireworks that you have
ever seen, would be nothing in comparison.

Sometimes it illustrated well-known fairy tales: Snowdrop in her glass
coffin, Cinderella trying on the shoe and so on. Hugo could have watched
it for ages, and left it reluctantly, looking back all the time. Then
they passed through an arched doorway, and a new scene met their view.

Multitudes of little dwarf men dressed in Court attire stood round the
room. Facing them, on a throne of gold, with a tiny crown of gold
starred with bright-eyed diamonds on her head sat a real little human
girl, with a shabby old dolly in her arms. She was a very pretty little
girl, grandly dressed in a frock of blue silk embroidered with white
daisies, little blue socks and shoes with diamond buckles. But her face
was sad and pale, and her eyes red from crying, and her fair hair hung
in tangled locks over her shoulders. She held her dolly clasped tight in
her arms and repeated over and over again: "I want my mamma, I want to
go home to my mamma."

As the dwarf, followed by Hugo, entered the room the dwarfs or Kobolds,
as they are also called, bowed down with their heads to the ground, and
sang in a gruff chorus:

 "Hail, thrice hail, to King Reinhold,
  We his subjects true and bold
  Bow in homage to our king,
  Each his cap on high must fling!"

With that each Kobold threw his peaked cap up to the roof and caught it
again on his head, or his foot, or on his nose as the case might be.
Then they all shouted "Hurrah!" and it was as if a mighty flock of
ravens were to croak all together. The little girl put her hands up to
her ears, and was about to cry again when she saw Hugo. Then she jumped
up eagerly with a cry of joy and sprang down the golden steps.

"O you dear, good Hugo," she said, "have you come to fetch me home? I
knew you would come," she continued, "for I have dreamt of you so
often."

Hugo looked into the sweet little face before him and, in spite of her
fine clothes and diamond crown, he recognised little Elsa, his lost
playmate. He remembered his dreams, and all seemed to grow clear. He
felt himself very big and strong and important all at once. Putting his
arms protectingly round the little girl, he said facing the whole
assembly: "I have come to take this little girl, Miss Elsa, home to her
mamma."

King Reinhold (for it was the king of the dwarfs himself who had
accompanied Hugo) took up a heavy crown that lay on a cushion beside
him, put it on, and then took it off again, grumbling that it was too
heavy and did not fit him properly.

Then he cleared his throat and addressed his courtiers in these words:
"Hum! Hum! Hum! My esteemed subjects! I found this little girl some
weeks ago in the woods, within the magic circle of my domain. She was
crying bitterly, and seemed very frightened. I comforted her as best I
could. I gave her strings of pretty beads and a tiny fan of blue jay's
feathers. I promised to take her with me, and give her a crown of gold,
to set her on a golden throne, and make her Queen of all the dwarfs. I
even condescended to offer her a kiss; but I am sorry to say the
ungrateful child smacked me in the face (cries of "shame.") There she
sits, look at her! how has she repaid me for all my kindness and for all
the honours I have conferred on her?" (Here Elsa began to cry again and
to clutch tight hold of Hugo's hand.) "She does nothing but blubber all
day, and cuddle her dolly, and say she wants to go home to her mamma! I
appeal to you, my Kobolds, is such a baby worthy to be Queen of our
realm, of a people more ancient than the mountains, older indeed than
mankind; for we were the first inhabitants of the earth, we are
Primitive Man!"

A roar of applause met this speech and cries of "She is not worthy, let
her be deposed," were heard. "She is really too young, she is but a baby
still," said one kindly looking old grandpapa Kobold.

King Reinhold raised his hand to command silence, and continued in a
loud, harsh voice: "When she is older, she will become too big for us;
mortals have the strange habit of growing. No, I have thought the matter
over. Young birds are after all safest in the nest. But this baby would
never be able to find the way home, not even down her own street. So I
have chosen this brave young man to take her home." Here he gave Hugo a
slap on the back that nearly knocked him down, for dwarfs are very
strong in spite of their smallness, you know.

Elsa's face began to beam, and she would have danced for joy; but the
King's uncomplimentary remarks hurt her a little. _She_ was quite sure
that she could find her way home, a big girl of four years ought
certainly to know her own house. She knew exactly where it stood. Near
the rushing silver brook, a low, red-roofed house, and a barn with black
beams, also cocks and hens and geese strutting about in the little yard.
It was quite near the water-mill; she could hear the rushing of the
water as she lay in her little bed under her big feather sack, with only
her little nose and ears peeping out. A fir-tree with a very tall stem
and a thick bushy head stood at the back of the house.

Yes, she was sure that she could find it.

Meanwhile some of the dwarfs were marshalled off to get the carriage
ready for the children. Then Hugo summoned up courage to address the
King.

"O King!" he said, "I have heard of the wonders of your kingdom and of
the marvellous skill of you workmen"--here he stammered a little and his
oratory gave way--"I should so much like to see something of it," he
said shyly.

"Certainly, certainly, with the greatest pleasure," said King Reinhold,
and looked much gratified. "Intelligent child," he muttered. "Ho,
Dickkopf, bring me a torch, and lead the way to the workshop," he said.

Off he marched with majestic tread, and Hugo followed with Elsa, her
little warm hand clasped tight in his own; through dark passages and
caves lit by a pale light; through store-rooms where masses of minerals
were piled up gleaming in wonderful colours; through the treasure-houses
containing gold and silver and precious stones in huge quantities.

The children's eyes grew round in their heads as they saw all this
wealth; but they did not understand much about the value of these
treasures; toys or sweeties would have been more to their taste.

At last they reached a long, narrow hall where thousands of little men,
with leather aprons on, sat busy at work. Each was employed in adorning
and completing some work of art: costly goblets, beautiful chain rings,
and necklaces were there, such as were never seen in the finest shops of
Paris, Berlin or London.

The "joy of the making" was written on every countenance; for the artist
is always happy when at work.

One dwarf was illuminating a book, and a beautiful design of grasses and
butterflies grew up under his clever fingers.

"Take the book," said King Reinhold to Hugo. "It is only a tiny chapter
from the great book of Nature that has neither beginning nor end. But if
you study it carefully and earnestly, it will always bring you hope and
happiness, whatever your learned men may say to the contrary. Hold the
pages to the light, and you will see that they are transparent."

As Hugo did so with the deepest interest, behold! the pictures became
alive; the butterflies changed into fairies and laughed, and nodded at
him in a friendly way.

"Look _through_ the book of Nature till you find the soul of things,"
said King Reinhold.

Although this sounded very deep and mysterious, Hugo seemed to
understand. Do you, I wonder, little children, who read this story? Or
are you like the boy in the kindergarten to whom I was telling a fairy
story and who interrupted me contemptuously with the remark: "Fairies
don't exist!"

"O don't they my little man!" said I. "Well _you_ think so."

Presently we read of a ball that grew, and he spoke again with great
energy: "Balls don't grow."

"Oh, Oh!" said I, "Have you ever seen a little green apple." Then I
tried to show him what wonderful things are always happening in this
world of ours, if only we have eyes to see them. I do not think I
convinced him; for he was very pig-headed and had a great opinion of
himself; and such people big or little are very difficult to argue with.

To Elsa, Reinhold gave a handful of exquisite roses. "In fairyland roses
mean love and happiness," he said. "Little girls should be happy all the
day long, and not wet the world with their tears. There are tears enough
already"--he said ponderingly--"tears in the centre of the earth."

Opening out of the hall on either side were huge furnaces. Here the
Kobolds were busy smelting the ore, and preparing the materials for the
more skilled workmen. Here too were little cupboards with shelves into
which the costly vases were put, in order to be burnt hard like china.

The heat was so intense that Hugo and Elsa could only just peep in. It
seemed to them as if the little men must be roasted alive; but the
Kobolds were used to it, and found it quite cool and pleasant. They
swung their hammers and chattered away at the same time, the busier the
merrier; they were never idle or tired of their work.

A young dwarf page entered the hall and announced that the carriage was
ready. In another moment Hugo and Elsa found themselves standing in the
forest in the moonlight. A carriage stood ready for them drawn by six
stags. King Reinhold had dispensed with the ceremony of leave-taking; he
hated fusses, and wanted to smoke his pipe in peace.

Hugo recognised the stags; he had fed them in the winter from the
windows of the forestry; they knew him too, and nodded their gentle
heads.

O what a ride that was home through the warm September night! They saw
neither spirit nor goblin; no fairy marvel was revealed to them; only
the strong, sweet scent of the firs, the dark, weird shape of the trees,
and the stars that shone through the branches!

They held one another tight by the hand, and leaned back on the soft
cushions; they said nothing, they felt as if they were in a dream.

Presently they heard the noise of a little brook that was hidden in the
dark trees, and shortly afterwards they turned a corner and saw the
little village of Elhalten before them, peaceful and still in the early
morning light.

Elsa recognised her home after all, and called to the stags to stop.
Then she kissed Hugo and laid her little cheek against his and said:
"Good-bye, darling," and then she slipped into her house, and it all
seemed quite natural. You may imagine _how_ delighted Elsa's mother was
to have her baby girl in her arms again. There was such a kissing and
hugging as never was before!

Meanwhile Hugo drove up the steep side of the Küppel in the rosy light
of the early morning; luckily he met no one on that lonely way. Once he
thought he saw a white form standing at the end of the path, like a tall
woman who waved her arms and beckoned. But when he looked more closely,
it was but the growing light of day through the trees, and not Mother
Holle, or the Wood-woman, as he had imagined. The stags galloped along
swiftly in spite of the rough road, and soon stopped before the door of
the forestry. There everyone seemed still asleep; not a sound was to be
heard. Hugo stroked the gentle heads of the stags and bade them
good-bye, and they vanished suddenly in the thicket of the Küppel.

With the first rays of the sun Hugo's mother awoke, and was most
astonished to find that she had slept all night in the kitchen.

"That's what happens, when one's husband is away," she said stretching
herself and shaking her clothes. "What has become of Hugo?" she thought
suddenly, and felt anxious. She went quickly upstairs to the bedroom,
but there lay Hugo snugly curled up in bed with rosy cheeks and tumbled
curls, his nose buried deeply in his pillow.

As she came in, he roused himself and said: "Mother, I have been to
fetch little Elsa. She is home again"--then he turned round and fell
fast asleep.

The next day the news reached them that little Elsa had really been
found.

"Why, how curious, my boy dreamt it last night," said Mrs Forester.

"She was left at her parents' house at about four in the morning, so I
heard," said her husband, who had just come home.

Elsa's parents always believed that she had been stolen by the gipsies;
it was strange that they should have sent her back so soon, without
asking for a reward. Moreover the child was richly dressed; that was
also a queer thing; her clothes were the wonder and admiration of the
whole village. A blue silk frock, and shoes with shining buckles; never
had such a finely dressed child been seen in Elhalten before.

The simple folk never dreamt that the buckles were real diamonds and
worth a large sum of money.

When Hugo and Elsa met again on the following Sunday, you may be sure
that they had much to talk about, at least when they were left alone
undisturbed by grown-ups!

Although the fairy gifts were invisible to all save the children
themselves, it seems that they had an influence on them as they grew
older.

Elsa became a sweet, loving little person, the sunshine of her home--so
she was called--and very, very seldom did anyone see her crying.

Hugo was a quiet, shy boy; but he seemed to observe everything and
people said of him: "Hugo has his eyes open; he will make his mark in
the world some day." So the children grew up happy and good, and what
can you want to know more about them than that?




THE WITCH'S GRANDDAUGHTER


PART I

In a green valley between two mountain-slopes lay a little village
crowned by the Castle of Eppenhain, that stood on the mountain-side,
built on projecting slabs of rock.

The quaint old houses of the village with their red, slanting roofs, and
black-beamed walls, made a pretty picture in the May sunshine as Count
Karl of Eppenhain rode through the stone-paved highway, mounted on his
white steed decked with scarlet fringes. The lilac bushes were in
flower, the air was sweet with their scent, the laburnums hung out their
"gold rain" between the houses, the cherry-trees in the little gardens
shed their blossoms like snow.

At the farther end of the village was a house somewhat larger than the
peasant's cottages, with many gables and corners. This house was
surrounded on all sides by a thick briar hedge. The Count knew that it
had belonged to an old woman who was said to be a witch. There she had
lived all alone, save for her seven cats, her seven ravens, her
poultry--famous for the remarkable size of the eggs--and her little
granddaughter, Babette.

Count Karl had heard that the old woman was dead; for there had been a
great fuss about her burial. The villagers had said that as she was a
notorious witch, she ought not to be buried in consecrated ground; but
as the old lady had left money to the church, her tombstone was erected
after all in the little churchyard. The village boys declared that they
had seen her riding on a broomstick over the church spire; but the Count
did not believe such tales. He wondered what had become of the child;
she was the prettiest, as well as the most mischievous and ill-behaved
child in the village.

As the Count came up to the house, he heard voices shouting and
scolding. Then he saw a strange hunting scene. The hunters were not men,
but women with sticks and brooms, and the creature pursued was neither a
hare nor a fox, but just a little girl.

Yes, it was little Babette, the witch's granddaughter. She was leading
the fat peasant women a fine dance. They were quite unused to running,
and were obliged to stop every few minutes to pant; then Babette danced
just before them, made naughty faces, and (oh, fie!) stuck out her
little red tongue. Her hair blew over her head in the fresh breeze, till
she looked like some tall flower with curling petals. Sometimes she
stopped and shook her little fist at her pursuers; then off she flew
again. She knew every nook and corner of the garden, and that was to her
advantage.

The Count paused, laughed, then blew a blast from his horn.

Instantly everyone stood still as if they were living pictures.

"Hi! Ho! Come here, good folk!" he cried.

The women came at once, wiping their hot faces with the corner of their
aprons, puffing and blowing like so many fat seals. Babette stood at a
safe distance, but near enough to hear all that went on.

"Please sir," said one of the women with a curtsy, "as your Lordship
knows, the child's granny is dead and buried. Four days has the child
lived here all alone, never a bite or sup has she had; she will die of
starvation. (Here Babette laughed.) She hides in the bushes like the
wild cat that she is!"

"Babette, little Babette, come here, child," he called, interrupting the
old woman's narrative.

She came at once in obedience to his gentle command. She gave him one
glance out of her deep brown eyes, lifting up her long black lashes, and
his heart was captured at once. He was very fond of children, but he had
none of his own. Here was a beautiful child that seemed ready made for
him. Not one of the women before him really wished to keep her; for they
feared her, and the supposed power of her dead grandmother.

Meanwhile the child stood by the Count, and began to stroke his fine
embroidered sleeve; finally she slipped her little hand into his. This
settled the matter.

"Well, well, we must see what is to be done for the child. Meanwhile I
shall take her up with me to the Castle. She seems to have made you all
rather hot," he remarked mischievously to the reddest and stoutest of
the women.

"A devil's brat, I call her!" she muttered in return, between her teeth.

"Hush," said my Lord indignantly, "she looks more like a little angel,"
and, indeed, at his kind words her small face had become very sweet.

As he mounted his horse again and lifted Babette to place her before
him, she began to cry bitterly.

"Why, little one, what ails you?" he said. "Are you frightened?"

"No-o-o-o-o-o," said Babette, "but I don't want to go away from my
_beau-ti_-ful home!"

"You shall have a far more beautiful home, and everything that you can
want, shall be yours," he said. "Why, you would have starved there
alone, you poor little thing!"

"Oh no!" said Babette, "for Lucky--she is my pet hen you know--always
laid the biggest eggs for me; then I make a little hole and suck them
so. (She tossed back her curly head.) Then I am never hungry or thirsty.
O, who will feed Lucky, and all the baby chickens; and my cats?" she
continued, and began to cry again.

"We will fetch them all up to the Castle," said his Lordship
consolingly.

The road wound upwards and upwards, until they reached at length the
gateway of the Castle. The heavy gates stood open to receive them. There
was a pretty terraced garden in the front, where peacocks strutted up
and down, who nodded their heads as if they knew Babette.

A dog sprang out barking to meet his master. Count Karl patted his head;
then he lifted Babette from his horse, and led her by the hand into the
Castle. "Welcome to Eppenhain, my little maid," he said, formally, but
kindly.

Her little heart beat fast; for she was timid, like all wild, untamed
creatures, and did not know what might happen to her next. The Count
drew back the heavy curtain that hung before the entrance to a room; and
there in a deep window niche sat a lady dressed in a rich green velvet
dress with puffed sleeves, and a gold chain round her neck. She was
working at embroidery on a frame. She sprang up at once, as her husband
(for it was the Countess herself) entered the room, and uttered a cry of
surprise as she saw the child.

"Why, what dirty little thing have you picked up? Send her away again at
once," she said imperiously. "Don't touch me, child," as Babette
attempted to stroke her grand dress.

Now the Count had not noticed that Babette was very dirty, that her red
pinafore hung in rags, and her hair had not been combed for many a day.
He was somewhat taken aback, and saw that he had been rash.

"She shall be washed and properly dressed, and _then_ you will see," he
said. He dared not tell her his plans at once. He sent for his old
nurse, who had brought him up as a boy, and gave the child into her
care.

The poor woman soon had her hands full, I can tell you! You might as
well have tried to dress a hare as Babette! She _would_ not stand still
for a second, and as for a bath, she seemed to be quite afraid of it.
However, several maids were called, and Babette was bathed in spite of
kicks and screams. She was no sooner in the water than she began to
splash about like a baby, and to enjoy herself finely. It was almost as
difficult to get her out as to put her in! Some old clothes that had
belonged to the Count's sister, were produced. Babette thought them very
fine, and seemed quite pleased, she stroked the old nurse's cheek,
chucked her under the chin, and sprang up and down violently on her
knee, "nearly cracking my old bones," as nurse related afterwards. Her
curls were the most trouble; it would take more than one day's brushing
to set them in order.

Meanwhile Count Karl had been explaining to his wife that he meant to
adopt Babette, and bring her up as his own daughter.

"A witch's offspring without a family pedigree," exclaimed his wife,
"must I be mother to a witch's brat?"

Just then the "witch's brat" entered the room, making a funny bobbing
curtsy, as nurse had taught her to do, just outside the door. Very
pretty she looked in her low-necked, white-embroidered frock, with the
cherry-coloured sash, her face flushed after the bath. Even her Ladyship
was bound to acknowledge that she was quite a lovely child.

"What is your name, child?" she said condescendingly.

"I don't love you," said Babette, and stuck out her tongue.

"Babette," said the Count sternly, "if you are a _good_ little girl, and
do as you are told, you may stay here with us, and this lady will be
your mother, and I your father. Then you will be brought up as a lady
instead of becoming a little heathen and wild girl of the woods."

Babette stood still a moment, as if she were considering the matter;
then she gravely kissed his Lordship's hand. The Countess extended her
lily-white fingers, and Babette kissed them as well, but timidly; for
she feared a rebuff.

Just at this moment a noise of scratching and miewing was heard at the
window.

Babette flew to open it, and in walked--what do you think?--seven cats
with their tails in the air rubbing themselves comfortably against the
window-pane.

"O my dear Fotchen, dear Silverpaws, how glad I am to see you!"
exclaimed Babette, and she kissed them all.

"_What next?_" said the poor Countess, holding up her hands in horror!

In a few minutes there came a rap at the window, seven times repeated.
These were the ravens. However, they did not venture into the room; they
were afraid of the big gun that stood in the corner. They flew straight
up into a tall fir-tree, and there they chattered away as usual, hidden
by the dark branches.

The funniest sight of all was the arrival of the poultry. The cocks
walked first with an air of importance and authority; the baby bantams
sat on their mothers' backs; the whole procession toiled up the hill to
the Castle and entered by the yard gate. The servants watched them with
astonishment; they too said: "What next?" However, no one grumbled, not
even the Countess when she heard of it; for such guests were welcome.
The old witch's hens were renowned for the size of their eggs; they had
often been bought for use at the Castle.

Now the clock struck seven.

"High time for little girls to have their supper and go to bed," said
her Ladyship, and nurse was called, and carried Babette off again.

A beautiful wooden cot, painted white and gold, stood in the room where
Babette was to sleep. It was still called the nursery; for the Count and
his sister had slept there as children.

Nurse persuaded her to let five of the cats sleep outside in the barn;
but she begged so hard to have Fotchen and Silverpaws that nurse sent
for a bundle of hay, and the two pussies slept in a corner of the room
to keep her from feeling homesick.

Babette stole out of her bed at six o'clock the next morning. She
dressed herself in haste; she was so anxious to see her new
surroundings. It seemed to her like a wonderful dream, or like one of
the fairy stories that her old grandmother had so often narrated to her.

Yesterday, little, wild Babette, whom no one cared for, and everyone
scorned; to-day, the Count's own daughter. She would try and be _so_
good, never naughty any more. She smoothed her hair a little with her
fingers; washing she did not think necessary. Then she went down the big
oak staircase followed by her two pussies. When the young servants saw
her, they began to tease her unmercifully and to pull the cats' tails.

Then Babette grew very angry. "Leave my cats alone, will you?" she said.
She stamped her little foot, made ugly faces, and used bad words.
Finally she escaped from her persecutors into the garden. Here she was
alone. She sat down and cried with rage and sorrow. She had meant to be
so good; but it was very hard when people were so horrid!

However she heard a cock-a-doodle-do from the hen-house, and ran off
there, forgetting her troubles. She was greeted by a chorus of melodious
voices. They made such a noise that they woke my Lady out of her
comfortable early-morning doze. Lucky had laid an immense egg. She
rolled it with pride to the feet of her young mistress, who promptly
began to suck its contents. The ravens flew down to greet her, and she
stroked their glossy plumage.

The five cats were still shut up and miewed bitterly. Babette luckily
met one of the gardeners who opened the door of the barn and freed the
captives. They followed her into the big kitchen with the shining copper
pans, purring and rubbing themselves against her legs. Babette coaxed
the cook till he gave her seven saucers of milk; then there was a great
smacking of lips.

When nurse awoke as usual at seven o'clock, she was frightened to find
that her little charge had vanished. "What a child to look after in my
old age!" she groaned. "And yet she is taking too! How sweet she looked
curled up in the old cot." She soon found out from the servants what
Babette had been doing; so the child was seized upon, washed and brushed
again, and dressed in a stiff frock with white frills.

Quite sober and respectable our little wild girl looked when she went
downstairs after breakfast to see my Lord and Lady in the dining-room.

She sat on the high, straight-backed sofa, and played with the carved
lions' heads, and had never a word to say for herself until the Count
produced a doll that he had rummaged out from among some old treasures.
It was yellow from age; but its frock was of satin, and it had on
little gold shoes. To Babette, who had never had a doll of her own, it
seemed very lovely indeed. "Is it _really_ for me?" she asked in tones
of ecstasy.

She was perfectly good all the morning, playing with it, washing its
face, dressing and undressing it, and putting it to bed as little girls
love to do.

At dinner she shocked the polite company by putting her food into her
mouth with her fingers; forks and spoons she did not know how to manage.
So she was sent to have dinner with the servants who made fine fun of
her again, till she flew into a passion and declared with many tears
that she would run away. Then they were frightened lest my Lord should
hear the noise, and soothed and petted her till she was quiet again.
They did not mean to be unkind; they were only stupid, and thought her
tempers amusing.

Well, the days went on, and Babette became more gentle and docile, and
gave up many of her wild ways. She saw but little of the Countess, but
she grew to admire the grave, silent lady, and to long for some response
to her affection. My Lord was Babette's best friend and protector in all
her childish troubles. Everyone said that he was quite infatuated with
the child. He would play ball with her in the garden, "regardless of
his knightly dignity," as his wife remarked.

Babette knew all the animals about the Castle and ruled over them like a
little queen.

She would go up to the proud peacocks and say imperiously: "Spread out
your tails, or I will smack your silly heads!" and they obeyed her
meekly at once.

She had a pet frog in the pond, and once when the gardener was scolding
her for breaking some of his beautiful lilies, she popped it down his
neck, to his horror and disgust! For this she was whipped and put to
bed. I think she richly deserved it--don't you?

The garden at the back of the Castle led into the dense forest by which
the mountains were covered. Babette would sit on the stone wall and gaze
into the deep shades, as if she could see things there that were
invisible to others. She knew how to call the deer. One day she enticed
a fine stag into the garden. She made a garland of cornflowers and
ox-eye daisies, and threw it over his antlers; then she sprang on his
back, holding a red foxglove in her hand for a whip, and galloped round
the garden, singing and shouting: "Look at me, look at me! I am the
Queen of the fairies!"

The Countess herself owned that she had never seen a prettier sight; but
then she sighed deeply, and said to her husband she feared all was not
right with the child.

The Count shared her fears to some extent, and nurse had orders never to
let her out of her sight.

Nurse had several times seen a strange man watching Babette from over
the wall as she played alone in the garden. She too felt nervous and
anxious about her little charge.


PART II

Years passed by, Babette grew into a tall and charming maiden. She
learned to read and write, and to play on the harp. She could even speak
a little French, which was the fashionable language of the Court in
those days. So that with these accomplishments she was considered a fine
lady, far above the village children, who had formerly despised her.

One fine evening (she was then about sixteen years of age) she was
walking with her old nurse in the forest, not far from the Castle,
picking bilberries, and singing to herself songs of her own composing.
The wood was very still; not a leaf stirred. The setting sun shone out
behind a beech-tree, making a brilliant star of iridescent colours that
dazzled her eyes. She heard a sudden noise as of a cough: the bushes
near her rustled. She felt frightened and called out: "Nurse, nurse," in
trembling tones.

As she spoke, a man sprang out of the wood and seized her by the arm.
Nurse began to scream; but the man raised the stick he had in his hand,
and she stood as if turned to stone.

Babette's courage always rose to emergencies. She looked the man over
from head to foot. He was dressed in green, with a red feather in his
cap. His hair was dark and curly; his eyes were large and would have
been beautiful, but that they had a wild and sinister look that Babette
did not like, and squinted slightly. She seemed to remember his face;
but where or when she had seen him before, she did not know. Her first
thought was that he must be a wizard like one of those her grandmother
had told her stories about.

"Who are you?" he said, shaking her slightly.

"I am Babette, daughter of Count Karl of Eppenhain," said Babette
proudly.

"A Count's daughter--a fine tale--the witch's granddaughter you mean,"
he said with emphasis, and Babette shuddered. "Come along with me,
child!" he continued, "you must follow me now, and serve me well and
cook my dinners. I knew your old grandmother and have often seen you as
a child; a little imp you were," he said. "Now it is high time you
learnt to be useful; they will only turn your head, and teach you
rubbish up there at the Castle; you must come along with me now." Then
he turned to the poor nurse, and said, "In half an hour you will be free
to return to the Castle. Adieu!" He fixed his strange eyes on the nurse,
who swooned away, and thus she was found exactly half an hour afterwards
by the housemaid, who had followed her to say that supper was ready.

You may imagine the consternation at the Castle. The poor Countess who
had been so cold to Babette, seemed to feel it most. She sat and cried:
"O Babette, come back, come back, my dear, and I will be a real mother
to you, indeed I will."

The Count immediately took steps to recover her. The forests were
searched through and through by his men; but not the slightest trace
could they discover.

The seven ravens said: "Caw, caw," and set off at once in search of her.

The next day Fotchen and Silverpaws and the other cats disappeared.
Lucky and several of the old witch's hens were also missed.

It was evident that they had all followed Babette, and that she must be
alive somewhere; but where, that was the question. Where there is magic
at work, it is always a difficult matter.

One clever youth remarked that if one could find her pets, why, then one
might find Babette.

But this brilliant idea was not of much use, as they were _all_ lost.

Meanwhile Babette followed her strange guide with many misgivings and
sad sinkings of the heart. They had not gone far when they came to a
cottage in the forest, surrounded, like her granny's garden, by a briar
hedge.

Now I must tell you that Babette had fallen into the power of a reputed
wizard, and he had the power of making everything within this briar
hedge invisible and intangible to those outside. So that poor Babette
would be more safely imprisoned there than in an iron-barred fortress.
She did not realise this at first; she grew to understand it later, when
she became more acquainted with the wizard (or Mr Squint-eyes, as
Babette called him) and his ways. The hedge was so thick and high, and
the thorns were so huge, that it would have been impossible for Babette
to think of squeezing herself through it, and running away.

The wizard parted this hedge with his wand; it closed up thick and close
behind them as they entered.

The cottage garden was laid out in patches of vegetables. Not a flower
was to be seen in it; but there were fruit-trees with ripe apples, and
pears, plums and medlars; for it was the early autumn. They entered into
the little parlour which seemed dark and gloomy to Babette. Mr
Squint-eyes tossed off a mug of beer that stood on the table, and told
her to be off to bed. The poor girl was hungry; for bilberries are not
very satisfying and it was supper time; but she crept up the narrow
stairs, too much frightened to say a word. She found a tiny room with a
white bed in it, a looking-glass, very dim and old and uncanny-looking,
with candlesticks on either side, also a primitive washing-stand.

As she began to undress, a sense of fear and loneliness came over her.
She thought of her happy home at Eppenhain, and of the Count, and hot
tears began to fall. However, she was accustomed to look at the cheerful
side of things. "They are sure to find me to-morrow," she said to
herself; she knew she could not be far away.

The next morning she was awakened by a loud knocking at the door. The
horrid man who had stolen her, poked his head in, "Get up, get up, you
lazy bones," he said, "and see about my breakfast."

Babette hurried downstairs and found a small kitchen, with a door
leading into the garden. There was a heap of dried wood just outside the
door, and, after many attempts, she succeeded in making the fire.

She filled the heavy iron kettle from the pump in the yard, making her
pretty frock quite black.

"That's right, that's the way that women should work," said the wizard
coolly.

Babette felt indignant and thought that he might offer to help her, but
not a bit of it. There he stood, leaning against the door, smoking his
long pipe, the picture of laziness.

"Please where is the coffee?" said Babette.

"Use your eyes and you will find it," said her polite host.

Then she saw a jar on a shelf labelled "Coffee," and near it the
coffee-mill.

Babette ground the beans till she was red in the face. Then she waited
for the water to boil. Whilst she was attending to the coffee, rolls and
butter appeared on the table and a blue and white china coffee service.
The table seemed to have laid itself; for Babette was sure that the man
had never moved from the door. Now breakfast was ready. They sat down
together, the wizard saying never a word, but lifting one eyebrow at
times in a peculiar way that made Babette feel very uncomfortable.

After breakfast he went out of the house saying: "Clean the house, make
the beds, cook the dinner."

"But there is no dinner to cook," said poor Babette.

"Find it," was all the reply she could get out of him.

Now Babette had not been remarkable for obedience and docility, and if
anyone had spoken to her like that at home, she would have rebelled at
once; but she felt instinctively that her safety here lay in doing
exactly as she was told. The man was half-mad she feared, and if she
aroused his wrath, he might do her bodily harm.

The tears came into her eyes; she felt quite in despair; but she was a
brave girl and determined to make the best of things.

The vegetables in the garden occurred to her. She would cook some
carrots; that was easy. Stewed plums would do for pudding; but what
about the soup and the joint?

At this point of her deliberations a hare was thrown over the hedge.
This settled the question. Evidently the man did not wish to starve.

"But how shall I get its fur off?" thought Babette. "Bah! I shall never
be able to skin the creature!"

Just then she heard to her joy a "caw caw," seven times repeated, and
there she saw her dear ravens sitting on a tree just outside the garden.

Now the limit of invisibility did not exist for the witch's favourites.
They flew at once to Babette; she told them her troubles, and showed
them the hare.

"That is an easy matter," said the ravens, "the hare has seven skins; we
are seven ravens, each of us will take off one skin, and may we have the
pickings?" said the greedy fellows.

"Anything, anything you like! Please take it away and bring it back
again all ready to pop in the pot!" said Babette.

"Potted or jugged hare famous!" said the ravens, and they laughed
hoarsely.

"Be quiet, be quiet, or the wizard will catch you!" she said in a
warning tone.

Now the dinner was all ready on the stove. Potatoes she had dug out of
the garden. "Hare and carrots and stewed plums, what can anyone want
more?" she thought, and felt very proud. But suddenly soup occurred to
her. How could she make soup? She had heard that soup was made of bones
and water; but she had no bones, and those nice little halfpenny packets
for making soup out of nothing were not invented in those days.

She put on some hot water with a few carrots and a little chopped
parsley in it and plenty of pepper and salt. She tasted it, as a good
cook should, and said to herself: "Not bad, I have tasted worse."

She laid the table, and punctually at one o'clock the man came in.
Babette trembled. He proceeded at once to business; that is, he sat
down to dinner.

Soup came first, which was unfortunate. "Bah!" he said, making a
horribly wry face, "what stuff, child, do you want to make me sick?"

"No-o-o," said poor Babette.

"Never make such soup again, or I shall fetch my sister, and she will
cook _you_," he said with a terrible look.

However the hare was tender, and when a pot of red-currant jelly
produced itself, seemingly from nowhere, it was quite a fine dinner.

The carrots were hard, and "not scraped," as the wizard said severely.
"Plums too much sugar."

But in spite of all this grumbling she felt immensely proud of her
morning's work. The house was not cleaned; neither were the beds made;
but this he did not seem to notice. He lay on the sofa by the window,
covered himself up with a bear skin, and snored loudly with his mouth
open.

Babette made up the fire, and put the kettle on to boil for tea. Then
she strolled out into the garden. She climbed up into a pear-tree. From
her perch in its branches she could see far into the woods. She wondered
when her friends would come and rescue her.

Then she saw to her delight Lucky and some of her favourite cocks and
hens wandering about in search of her. They came scuttling up at once.
She held up one finger to enjoin silence. She feared that her capturer
might take a fancy for roast fowl if he should see them. So they hid
under the hedge.

"Now I can make scrambled eggs for supper," thought Babette joyfully.

Fotchen and Silverpaws had likewise no rest when their mistress was
gone, and they too set out in search of her. When they reached the briar
hedge, Babette was indoors making tea. They began to miew and made a
great noise.

"The old woman's cats, by Thor!" said the wizard. "They know a thing or
two. I'll go and let them in." So saying he again parted the hedge with
his wand, and let them through. Although Babette was very pleased to see
them, she felt a little anxious as to their welfare.

However the wizard scratched their heads, and was quite affectionate to
them. He had, it seemed, a partiality for cats.

Babette felt a little happier now that her pets were with her; yet her
heart was sore. She thought of her lovely house, of her kind, good
foster-father, and of all her friends, and the tears stood in her eyes.

Several weeks passed away, and Babette cooked and scrubbed every day in
fear and trembling, like a regular little Cinderella. Being German, she
was used to helping in the household, and was not so inexperienced as
many English girls would have been. But never a word of praise did she
get from her queer companion; but if anything were amiss, then he opened
his mouth and scolded the poor girl roughly.


PART III

A young man was returning home after a day's hunting. He was the son of
the knight of a neighbouring castle, and his name was Sir Rudolf of
Ruppertshain. It was a hot afternoon; the sunlight made a chequered
pattern through the forest trees. His bag was heavy with game, and he
whistled merrily as he strode between the oak-trees and bracken fern. He
had a light heart and an easy conscience, few enemies and many friends,
and added to these advantages was the exhilarating feeling of youth and
perfect health.

Suddenly he stopped and looked around him, startled. He heard a sweet
voice singing. The notes were clear and distinct as those of a bird, and
yet it was no bird. Who could it be in this lonely spot? He could
distinguish the words of the song as he held his breath to listen:

 "A lonely maiden, I,
  Sit here and sob and sigh;
  No man my face can see,
  Ah, who will rescue me?
    O lack-a-daisy-me!

  O wasted life of mine!
  Here must I sadly pine;
  My young life hid must be
  From all humanity.
    O lack-a-daisy me!

  O were a knight so bold,
  As in the time of old,
  In days of chivalry,
  He would deliver me!
    O lack-a-daisy-me!"

Rudolf's eyes were trained by hunting. He searched the woods carefully
round that place, and peered behind every bush and tree; but nothing was
to be seen. His heart beat fast, this was a real adventure. Surely if a
wood-nymph or fairy were to appear to him here in this lonely forest, it
would hardly seem strange.

So he summoned up his courage and addressed the wood-spirit as he
thought. "Who are you? Where are you?" he said. "Be you wood-sprite or
fairy, I fear you not. I am ready to do your bidding; for your sweet
voice and your distress have touched my heart: appear, O appear!"

Babette (for of course it was she) trembled with excitement. This was
really a chance of escape. She had seen the young huntsman from her
perch in the pear-tree, and had made up the impromptu song. She thought
it was even more original than her cooking. Now she answered eagerly:

"Alas it is impossible for me to appear unto you; for I am as invisible
as if I had on Siegfried's cap of darkness. I was stolen by a horrid
wizard when I was walking in the forest with my nurse. Surely you have
heard of me?"

Now of course Sir Rudolf had heard of Babette,--the story of whose
kidnapping was told all over the country, and became more wonderful with
every telling. Some people said that the devil himself had carried her
off; this was really unkind; for Babette, though lively, was not a bad
girl, as we know.

"Are you Babette, the witch's granddaughter?" said the young man
hesitatingly.

"O don't, don't say that, I want to forget that!" said Babette, and he
heard a slight sob. "I am the adopted daughter of Count Karl of
Eppenhain, and O, a wicked wizard holds me here invisible under a
powerful spell. Just think," said Babette crying again, "I slave for him
all day and cook and do all the house-work, and never a kind word or
look do I get from him in return. It is a shame. O dear! O dear!"

"Please don't cry, I really cannot bear it, when I cannot even see you
to comfort you," said Rudolf tenderly. "Tell me what to do! Shall I
shoot the wizard?"

"No, of course not; besides, he is invisible, too. You might walk
through us all, and notice no difference, so subtle is the spell," said
Babette.

Rudolf was one of those specially gifted mortals in whom the sense of
things unseen is as clearly developed as the senses of sight and
hearing. He never doubted Babette's reality, though I think a more
up-to-date youth would certainly have done so, and have thought that his
imagination was playing tricks with him. He felt much distressed and
perplexed, but could think of no way out of this strange dilemma.

But an inspiration came to Babette.

"Go to Mother Holle," she said, "if you really wish to help me. She was
an intimate friend of my grandmother's, and she is a powerful fairy and
can perhaps help us. What is your name, brave youth?" she continued.
"Sir Rudolf of Ruppertshain," he answered. "Why, then, I know your
mother quite well; but you were away travelling with your father, when I
visited your castle. But quick, we must not delay matters by
conversation, though it is _dreadfully_ nice to talk to a real human
being again." Her voice sounded near and yet far away; "a curious kind
of conversation," Rudolf thought it was.

"Where can I find Mother Holle?" said Rudolf. "And will she not drop
pitch on my head? I should be no good at shaking feather beds, you see!"

"Nonsense, she won't expect you to do anything of the sort. She is very
kind and friendly; she lives on the Rossert Mountain, quite near to your
Castle. Hush, hush, go now! my tyrant is waking up; if he were to
suspect us! Go!--go!"

A complete and somewhat unnatural silence followed, like one of those
awkward pauses in the conversation when we entertain stiff callers for
the first time.

Then Rudolf took the precaution of marking the position of the trees in
that part of the woods.

Three tall fir-trees raised their heads among the beech and oaks. He cut
a cross [image: anti-clockwise swastika] thus, on each one of them,
because trees are so deceptive. This mark is the old symbol of the
Mithras cult, two axes placed sideways signifying the striking of fire.
It is an old sign known and respected by the fairies; so he hoped that
the good folk would see it and further his quest.

On one of the firs the ravens were assembled. They caw-cawed seven times
to indicate their willingness to lend Rudolf their aid.

The wizard looked at Babette closely that evening. The new-born hope,
perhaps, too, the sight of the handsome stranger had given an extra
colour to her cheeks. "I may have trouble with her yet!" he said to
himself, and cleared his throat with a rumbling sound.

I must tell you that the cocks and hens had betrayed themselves. They
were silent all through the night, but when the dawn broke, they could
not resist one cock-a-doodle-doo! Then the wizard chuckled and brought
them in; but nothing had happened to them as yet.

Babette lived during the next days in a state of suppressed excitement.
She felt that something _must_ happen for good or evil; but she did not
know what. Patient waiting! a hard lesson for all of us to learn, but
harder still for a maiden of seventeen years who had been kept so long
in that dull hole. She had passed her birthday in that horrid place!
just think of it, and not one birthday present did she get. She made up
for it afterwards by having two birthdays at once; but it was not
_quite_ so nice.

Meanwhile Sir Rudolf had turned homewards pondering on his strange
adventure, and fully determined to seek Mother Holle's aid. Should he go
first to the Castle of Eppenhain and tell Babette's foster-parents that
he had found out where Babette was imprisoned? He felt that, credulous
though they were in those days, they would only laugh at him, and
consider the story as outside the range of possibility. They might even
suggest that a cask of Rhine wine had clouded his intelligence; no, he
would go home to Ruppertshain Castle and have supper, and think it over.
So he returned home, and was so silent and dreamy, and his appetite,
which was usually of heroic proportions, was so small that his mother
felt quite anxious about him.

"You are not bewitched, Rudie dear?" she asked anxiously, just as we
might inquire if he were a little upset.

"I am not sure, mother, maybe I am!" he answered to the good lady's
dismay.

After sprinkling him with various herbs, she insisted on his drinking
some nasty aromatic tea when he went to bed. As she had put some
spider's legs in it and a few choice things of that sort, Rudolf asked
to be allowed to take it upstairs with him. Then I regret to say he
deceived the good lady by pouring it out of the window. I rather think
that you or I might have done the same thing under the circumstances,
though it was undoubtedly wrong.

The full moon was shining into the little window in the gable of the
turret. He shook off the very natural sleepiness and fatigue consequent
on his night's hunting, took off his soiled clothes, and dressed
himself in his fine velvet Court suit with the beautiful lace on the
collar.

He opened the little window, squeezed himself (it was lucky that he was
slight for a German knight) through the iron bars, and climbed on to the
roof with some difficulty, not to say danger. Then he crawled
noiselessly along the Castle walls, fearing to be challenged by the
warder of the Castle on his nightly rounds. But the warder was just
enjoying his seventh glass of lager beer, and was not very keen on the
look-out.

As he dropped outside the walls, his favourite dog began to bark and beg
to go with him; but Rudolf did not dare to let him out for fear of
creating a disturbance.

He soon gained the little path which led through Eppenhain, and then
through fields to the woods that clothed the Rossert. Great clouds had
obscured the moon; but he was not afraid; he was so used to the woods
and could distinguish one creature from another simply by its movements.

In his hand he carried a dark lantern. A rough path covered with rocks
and stones led to the summit of the mountain. As he walked cautiously
along, a bat hit him in the face as it blundered along. "Hi, ho, steady
there, old fellow!" said Rudolf. He now entered the part of the woods
where the beeches and oaks grow so closely together that at midday the
sky seems green, rather than blue. The moon shone out suddenly, and he
saw by its light a gruesome-looking head without a body that seemed to
grin at him from among the undergrowth. His heart stood still for a
moment, and then he laughed at his fears; for he saw that it was only a
grotesque old tree-stump, such as one so often sees in the woods.

Suddenly he saw a bright light through the trees, as if one of the
bushes were on fire, or was it merely the brilliant moonbeams shining on
a wet clearing?

For a moment all was still; then lightning played across his path,
revealing a huge clumsy-looking giant who stood with club uplifted in
the way, looking as if he would dash his brains out. Brave though Rudolf
was, he did not wish to court danger; so he turned aside into the woods
hoping to find another path before long that was not thus barricaded.
Then voices seemed to mock him and to laugh at him, and he had the
unpleasant sensation of dark shadows, moving as he moved, shadows
unaccompanied by substance.

The rain came down, pouring, drenching rain, such as the forests love.
In a few minutes he was wet to the skin, as wet as if he had plunged
into the river with his clothes on. Naturally his vanity was to blame
for this; in his stout hunting clothes and thick leather boots even a
deluge could not have wetted him through. To add to this, the air was
close and stifling, and he had lost his way. All this for the sake of an
unseen maiden. What if she were as old and ugly as Fräulein Kunigunde of
whom Heinrich von Kleist has written? Somehow he felt that was
impossible; but even if it had been so, his natural gallantry would not
have deserted him, and we will hope that he would still have sought to
deliver her.

A Christian knight is ready to help all women, be they young or old,
rich or poor, plain or pretty.

The rain had ceased; but there was a sense of something oppressive in
the atmosphere. An owl with eyes that looked like live coals glared at
him from the branch of an oak-tree, vanishing as he approached. A fox?
No, it was too large for a fox; it was a wolf (there were really wolves
in the Taunus woods in those days!) came up to him snarling. Rudolf had
his gun ready, but the creature moved away into the darkest shades,
snarling and growling as it went.

Altogether I cannot say it was a pleasant walk. I do not think any one
of us would have enjoyed it all alone at the dead of night, do you?

At this moment came a flash of lightning that struck down a tree just
before Rudolf's eyes. He crossed himself involuntarily and muttered a
paternoster.

A lull followed the storm; the heavens were clear again. Rudolf made out
by the light of his lantern a triangular spot made by three footpaths
crossing. It was bare of all vegetation; black ashes were heaped up in
the middle as if gipsies had lately lit a fire there.

An irresistible impulse made him enter this triangle, though he felt as
if long ghostly arms were trying to hold him back.

No sooner had he stepped on to this spot than he fell into a deep sleep
or faint. When he awoke, he saw a wonderful light near him, and in the
midst of the light which seemed to radiate from her presence, was a
beautiful lady, with long rippling fair hair.

"You are safe now in my kingdom," she said. "You have passed the
boundary between the good and evil powers, and have left the dangers of
the night behind you."

"O can you tell me where to find Mother Holle, beautiful fairy?" he
said.

"Easily enough, for I _am_ Mother Holle!" she answered. "I know why you
have come here, and I am ready to help you." She took him by the hand,
and he leapt to his feet, making a low bow to the lovely lady. All the
evil dreams that had perplexed him, fled as the night before the day,
and he could have shouted hurrah! for joy and gladness.

He had the unshaken confidence in the final victory of good over evil,
that is so necessary to help us to any measure of success in this world
with its chequered lights.

He walked with Mother Holle a little way, till they came to an arbour
made of honeysuckle and wild roses, surrounded by banks of evening
primroses, round which luminous moths were fluttering. Into this they
entered, and she sat down and gazed at him, till he was quite
overwhelmed with her beauty. He had expected to see an old witch
hobbling along with a stick and to have feather beds to make! Feather
pillows, indeed, there were in the arbour, very cosy and soft. It was
delightful to have a chat with such a woman in such a place, even if
there were no Babette in the world.

Mother Holle began to speak, her voice sounded like the murmur of the
fir-trees.

"I have heard that pretty little Babette has fallen into the power of a
bad man. He stole the magic book from her grandmother's house at a time
when the old lady was ill and feeble, shortly before her death. He has
been only able to make out a few of the spells--that, for instance, for
rendering things invisible. He is not a real wizard, so that if you
obtain the book, the power will be yours. But I strongly advise you to
have nothing to do with magic; it is very dangerous; but to return the
book to me, to whom, in fact, it rightfully belongs."

"Have no fear of that," laughed Rudolf. "I don't want it, I would not
touch it with the tongs if I could help it."

"Now listen carefully to my instructions! At the foot of one of the
fir-trees, grows a red toadstool, spotted with white. On it sits an ugly
old toad. Take this handkerchief (she gave him a lovely gauze scarf),
wrap the toad in it, and cast it to the ground. Pull up the toadstool.
Then the whole place will become visible, and you will be able to
consult with Babette as to how to overcome old Squint-eyes, as she calls
him.

"Hold this candle alight in your hand"--she gave him the young pointed
top of a fir-tree--"it will keep off evil spells. When you have overcome
the man, bind him with this grass." So saying, she gave him a bundle of
silvery woodland grass. "Then tie him up to the tallest of the three
fir-trees and leave him to us. We will punish him according to his
deserts, and teach him to behave better in the future."

"Can you tell me anything about the fair young lady herself? Is she
really the granddaughter of a witch? I could well believe it; for
verily she has bewitched me; but who were her parents? I wish to know
for her own sake," asked Rudolf anxiously.

"The old woman was really her nurse," said Mother Holle. "It is true
that the woman had fairy blood in her veins and was learned in magic,
but she never used her powers for any evil purposes, and as for riding
on a broomstick, she abhorred such practices. Babette is the
granddaughter of the great Baron of Siebenbergen. The Baron brought his
children up strictly as became their rank; but his youngest son ran away
from home, and married a village maiden much beneath him in rank.

"His father was exceedingly angry and refused to acknowledge her. The
young wife died when Babette was born. The father went off in despair to
the wars. He entrusted the tiny baby to the care of an old woman who had
formerly been his own nurse. This old woman, who was spoken of later as
Babette's grandmother, had been nurse to the children in Siebenbergen
Castle for many years; but she had been dismissed suddenly in her old
age, because evil tongues had denounced her as a witch. The Baron did
not believe in the charge, but, nevertheless, he was obliged to send her
away. He had his own reputation in the country to think of, and the
charge of witchcraft was no light one in those days, and not so easy to
disprove. He gave her a handsome pension, and a comfortable house and
troubled himself no more about her.

"Babette's father lost interest in life on the death of his dearly
beloved peasant wife. He fought recklessly in the front of the battle,
and fell, covered with many wounds. His body was brought home for burial
and there was a grand funeral in Siebenbergen. Everyone praised his
heroism, and lamented his early death, but no one inquired after his
peasant wife, or knew of the existence of his baby daughter.

"The notice of the marriage and the certificate of Babette's birth are
to be found in the church of Eppenhain, all duly registered and
complete.

"The old nurse became very feeble and was hardly fitted to bring up such
a wild, high-spirited child as Babette. That is all I can tell you; you
must find the papers, and test the accuracy of the story for yourself."

Rudolf was deeply interested; his heart beat fast. Babette became more
and more interesting, wrapped round in a web of romance. He wanted to
ask more questions of Mother Holle; but she faded slowly away. As she
vanished, a voice said: "Adieu, follow the light path, and nothing can
molest you."

A long stream of light shone out from where she had stood and illumined
the way through the woods. It shone on and on in one great bright path,
like the moon shining over the sea. Rudolf reached home walking like one
in a dream, his head full of strange and marvellous fancies.


PART IV

Rudolf awoke rather later than usual; for he was thoroughly tired out.
His mother did not feel so concerned about him when she saw the amount
of breakfast he consumed; but he was still silent and abstracted. His
adventures seemed to him like a wild dream. It seemed almost absurd to
seek for the three firs; but yet an irresistible longing led him
thither.

On the stroke of twelve at midday he stood beneath them, and recognised
his own sign, and O joy! saw the toadstool with the toad sitting on it.

Without a moment's hesitation he took the handkerchief ("which was in
itself a proof of the reality of the story," he said to himself) and
seized the horrid shiny toad (how it wriggled and squirmed like some
evil thing!) and cast it to the ground where it sprang into a thousand
pieces. These pieces took root in the earth, so to speak, and came up
again as a multitude of toadstools quite wonderful to behold. Perhaps
you may see them if you ever come across this spot in your excursions to
the Taunus Mountains.

Then Rudolf took hold of the red and white toadstool on which the toad
had sat. Surely never before had a fungus been so firmly planted in the
earth! The whole ground seemed to shake and tremble as he tugged at it;
trees were uprooted in the forest; the earth moved up and down like the
waves of the sea. At last it was out, and bump down fell Rudolf. One of
the great fir-trees fell as well, luckily in another direction, or he
might have been crushed beneath it.

When he got up again, he saw to his joy a little red-roofed house and a
pretty maiden sitting in a pear-tree.

Babette had been watching him all the time; but she could not make out
what he was doing. She had nearly fallen off the tree as he pulled up
the toadstool. Now she climbed carefully down and came to the hedge and
their eyes met. Need I say that they fell in love, or, at any rate,
Rudolf did, at first sight. The hedge parted to let him through. Perhaps
this was caused by the fairy candle, or perhaps it was Mother Holle's
doing--who knows?

"Hush, he is asleep, you have come just at the right moment," said
Babette.

"We must secure the magic book first of all," said Rudolf, holding the
fir-branch firmly in his hand, "and would you kindly light this candle
for me?"

Babette laughed. "A funny candle," she said.

"A _fairy_ candle," he whispered, "to keep off evil spells. Mother Holle
recommended it."

Babette felt inclined to dance for joy. "Can you really _see_ me?" she
whispered. "O how untidy and ragged I am, you must think me a perfect
fright!"

"I think you are the most beautiful lady I have ever seen," said Rudolf
sincerely, and Babette blushed at the compliment, and felt very grown-up
and important.

"I will light the candle for you at the kitchen fire. Come, we will go
together softly and try and get the magic book. I know where it is. It
is under the sofa where Old Squint-eyes is asleep. Follow me. Throw all
that grass away," she said in her old imperious way.

"Let me give it to you to hold," said Rudolf. "It is also a gift from
Mother Holle, and may come in useful."

They walked together towards the house, Babette holding the bunch of
silvery grass, and entered the kitchen. Here Babette lit the
fir-branch.

"It smells just like Christmas; there must be good times coming for poor
little me," she said.

Then they peeped into the parlour, and there was Mr Wizard fast asleep
in spite of the earthquake. Rudolf could hardly help laughing; he looked
such a funny sight with his mouth wide open, his nose very red, and his
hair hanging over his face.

Babette lifted up the bear-skin rug and pulled out the heavy book; but,
as soon as she touched the book, the wizard awoke and seized her by the
arm and sprang to his feet with many curses.

When he saw Rudolf, he let go of Babette's arm and tried to seize the
young man. Rudolf was fully prepared and threw him off with all his
force. A wrestling match began, and it might have ended badly for
Rudolf; for his adversary was tremendously strong and agile, but that he
had unexpected assistance. The ravens flew in at the window, and beat
themselves against Rudolf's opponent, nearly blinding him. The cats
stood on the cupboard, with their backs up and hair bristling ready to
spring if necessary. The cocks and hens crowded on the window-sill in
war-like attitudes.

Meanwhile the fumes of the fir-candle which Babette had lit, filled the
room, and Mr Squint-eyes could not abide the smell of burning fir. He
grew weaker and weaker, and more and more confused, and at last Rudolf
threw him down with such force that he was partially stunned.

Rudolf then took the woodland grass from Babette, and as he touched it,
it wound itself in his hands into strong cord. He bound the man up with
Babette's assistance, and gagged him with Mother Holle's handkerchief.

The two of them then lugged him into the wood, and tied him up to the
biggest of the fir-trees as Mother Holle had directed. Then they fetched
the magic book and placed it under the uprooted fir-tree, which
instantly stood up again as if nothing had happened, burying the book
beneath its roots.

They looked at the man they had tied up, bound like a martyr to the
tree. He could not curse and swear as his mouth was stopped up; but he
rolled his eyes and squinted so violently that he was horrible to look
at.

Then Rudolf and Babette ran off together. Breathlessly they ran and ran.
Babette was afraid Old Squint-eyes might wriggle out after all; he was
so thin and wiry, and she had no fancy for serving him any more. Not
until they came to a main road through the woods leading to Eppenhain
Castle, did they pause to look at one another.

Then impetuous Babette (she was half a child still, you must remember)
flew at Sir Rudolf and gave him a kiss. She turned red and white when
she realised, what she had done. "I couldn't help it," she said. "You
are such a _dear_. I am so very, very grateful to you for all you have
done for me, an unknown and even unseen maiden."

"Please, don't apologise, dearest lady," he said. "I liked it very, very
much. Won't you give me another?"

"_Never_," said Babette firmly. Subsequent events however caused her to
revoke this determination.

Rudolf did not answer, but offered her his arm, which she took shyly,
glancing at him from time to time out of her deer-like eyes with the
long-fringed lashes. Ragged and untidy as she was, she looked like a
princess; and he in his fine clothes, soiled and torn as they were,
looked nevertheless like a real fairy-tale prince!

He took her straight home to Eppenhain Castle, and you may imagine the
excitement there! The Count clasped Babette in his arms and could hardly
speak for emotion. Then he turned to Rudolf saying: "We shall never be
able to reward you enough."

"I shall only want one reward, and that is the little maiden herself,"
said Rudolf.

The Countess wept and cried over her darling child, and said she would
never scold her any more.

Nurse said: "Well, Miss Babette, you do look a fine sight to be
sure--and to come home with such a pretty young man, too! Come upstairs
with me, and let me make you clean and tidy." And this Babette was only
too glad to do.

A great company of retainers were sent out by the Count to capture the
so-called wizard; but they were unable to find either the fir-trees with
the mark on them or the man, or the wood cottage. Neither Babette nor
Rudolf set eyes on them since that day. I cannot say that they were
altogether sorry.

The papers proving Babette's parentage were found to be in order, and
her father's name and fortune became hers, so that she was not poor,
despised Babette any more--the witch's granddaughter--but a maiden of
good rank and birth with pin-money of her own.

A short time afterwards there was a grand wedding in Eppenhain, and two
happier mortals never lived than Rudolf and Babette on that day, and,
let us hope, for ever afterwards!




HOLIDAY ADVENTURES


PART I

O it was so hot, so hot; the earth was well-nigh parched up, and
moreover the use of water was restricted in the town where the children
lived. The flowers in the little garden were drooping for want of
moisture, and the trees began to shed their leaves as if it were already
autumn instead of July. The schools were obliged to close early; the
children came home at eleven o'clock instead of at one, and announced
that they had heat holidays. For there is a regulation in Germany, if
the thermometer is over a certain degree in the shade, the school is
closed for the rest of the day. The high schools do not have classes in
the afternoon; the children have six hours lessons in the morning, with
intervals of course for recreation and drilling. Some headmasters douche
the walls of the school-building with cold water, and then examine the
thermometer; but children as well as teachers think this a very mean
thing to do.

The school holidays commence at the beginning of July, not in August, as
is the case in England. This year the two little girls, Trudel and
Lottchen, and their mother were going to stay at a farm, which was
situated high up in the midst of the most lovely woods. Trudel, I must
tell you, was ten years old, and Lottchen eight; they both went to the
same school. This farm was an inn at the same time; but very few people
visited it during the week, and by nine o'clock the house was empty of
guests; for the woodways were hardly safe at night. It was easy to get
lost in those vast forests where one path so closely resembles the
other.

It was a long climb up from the station; the children began to flag, and
mother was tired. Father had come with them to settle them in; but he
could not stay longer than the first day or two; for his holidays did
not begin till August. He invented all sorts of games for getting along
quicker; he deposited chocolate on stones or tree-stumps by the wayside,
which was discovered by the children with a shout of joy. Then just as
Lottchen's legs were beginning to ache badly, and she was nearly crying,
he helped them on by telling the story of the assassination of Julius
Cæsar. Trudel had read about it in her history-book at school; but it
was written in such dreadfully historical language that she had not
understood the story; she found it thrillingly interesting as father
told it. Lottchen said that she could never have treated her little
friend Hansi so cruelly, and that she hated that man Brutus.

At last they reached the end of the woodpath, and there lay
Waldheim--for so the farm was called--before them. A big dog sprang out
to meet them. Mother and Lottchen shrank back from his rough welcome;
but Trudel was soon ordering him about, and did not seem in the least
surprised when he obeyed her. His name was Bruno. The farm consisted of
a group of buildings; two houses, one for the farm labourers and the
maids, the other for guests. There were also large barns which had been
newly erected, and a pond.

Round the houses were fields belonging to the farm, and then everywhere
woods, woods, woods. Blue mountain-crests were visible above and beyond
the woods.

The children partly unpacked the boxes themselves; for mother was still
so tired. They even took off her boots and put on her shoes for her,
like kind little daughters, and Trudel put away their clothes neatly in
the cupboard. Then they all went downstairs joyfully to a cosy tea,
which, I need hardly say, they enjoyed very much after their long walk
and journey.

After tea all fatigue vanished, and the children flew out to inspect the
premises for themselves. The farmer had two boys of about the same age
as Trudel and Lottchen. Their names were Hermann and Fritz. Hermann was
very shy; he hid himself at first and peeped out at the strange girls
from corners of the yard or barns, rushing away when they caught sight
of him. However Trudel soon coaxed him out, and they all played ball
together.

Then Hermann and Fritz took the girls round the farm. They went first
into the cow-shed; there were fourteen cows, seven calves and a bull.
The cow-herd was a strange, uncanny-looking fellow with a great shock of
red hair, and a very red face. He shouted at the children in a dreadful
hoarse voice; they felt frightened of him at first, and thought he was
mad; but they soon found out that the poor fellow was only deaf and
dumb. The cows were his intimate friends. He had christened each one of
them when they were born: Sophie, Emma, and so on. After they had gone
home again, the children learnt to their pride that he had named two new
calves after them, Trudel and Lotty.

There were four horses that were used for driving and ploughing.
Lottchen was especially fond of horses. She liked to see them come home
from the field by themselves and walk straight into the stable with a
noble air, like a lord returning to his castle. Her favourite horse was
called Hector. Lotty noticed one day that he was left alone in the
stable, whilst the other horses were ploughing in the field. The
stable-door was open, and after a while to her surprise he walked out.
"What is he going to do? I hope he will not run away and get lost,"
thought Lotty anxiously. But no, he just walked leisurely up to the
field where the other horses were hard at work and looked on! It was
evidently dull in the stable and he wanted a little distraction. When he
was tired of watching his friends, he returned to the stable, where he
was found innocently munching hay as if nothing had happened.

Pigs of course were there too in plenty; they ran about everywhere,
grunting and snorting; also geese and chickens. Trudel liked to drive
the geese into the water; she was fond of commanding, as her little
sister sometimes knew to her cost.

The maids were two peasant girls who wore very short full skirts and a
great many petticoats. Their dress was a modification of the wonderful
Hessen peasant costume. These girls were ready to do anything for the
children. Gustel, who was chief waitress and chambermaid at the same
time, said that she had never seen such pretty "kindersche" (little
children) in all her life before!

The only other guest in the house at this time was a Herr Baron; he told
wonderful stories of his adventures in South America.

"Drought," he said, "yes, that's very bad, but floods may be worse. I
have known years of labour destroyed in one night by a flood. All the
beautiful fields of grain, our sole wealth. I lived at that time with my
married sister and her family, and we had only just time to rescue
ourselves and the children. I was the last to leave the house which we
were never to see again. I could not decide which of my possessions to
take with me, so I seized up the skin of a puma that I had shot on
another memorable occasion, and bore it off on my shoulder, like Jason
carrying the golden fleece, and that was all that was left of my
personal property. Ah! it needs patience to conquer the elements," he
said.

Altogether the Herr Baron was a wonderful character; he seemed as if he
were not real, but had stepped out of a book of romance. He delighted in
reading English stories; he was especially fond of "She" and "King
Solomon's Mines." The children believed that he smoked day and night;
for they had never seen him without a cigarette, except at meal-times.

He told father and mother the story of how he had had a bullet
extracted from his side that he had carried about with him for years. It
had struck him during one of the revolutions that so frequently go on in
South America. The bullet had recently set up inflammation, and a
dangerous operation was necessary to remove it. "Chloroform! not if I
know it," he said to the doctors. "Just you let me smoke my cigar, and I
shall be all right. I won't say 'Oh!'"

The doctors were naturally very astonished and demurred at this new
method of treatment; but he persisted in his determination, and the
cigar never left his mouth till the painful business was successfully
over!

The Herr Baron was a mysterious person; why he lived for months
together in that lonely spot, no one knew. True, he was fond of hunting,
and went out at nights with the landlord to hunt the stag.

There were hunting-boxes made of logs of wood, with steps that led up
into them, placed in different positions in the woods near the inn.

The children loved to climb up into them. A hunting-box made such a nice
airy room, they said; but mother was glad when they were down again
without broken limbs.

Mother was surprised when she entered the inn-parlour to find the Herr
Baron engaged in a game of quartette with Trudel and Lottchen and
Fritz. Indeed he was so sociable and kind and fond of children that she
thought it was a pity that he had none of his own.

On the pond near the house were two most remarkable-looking boats. These
Hermann and Fritz had made themselves with the aid, I believe, of the
Herr Baron. They had a long stick and punted about in them on the water,
and they managed them quite cleverly. To Trudel and Lottchen they seemed
to suggest Robinson Crusoe and all sorts of fine adventures.

One day when mother was reading a book which absorbed her attention, and
so was safe not to interfere with them, they thought, the children stole
down to the pond. Hermann and Fritz were waiting for them. It was a
pre-conceived plan. "Come along and get in," they shouted to the girls.

"I daren't," said Lottchen. "Mother would be so cross; she has forbidden
us to go near the water."

"You are surely not going to spoil the fun," said Trudel. "Come along;
I'm going to get in first. I can swim, you know!"

"But not in mud and water-weeds," said Lottchen wisely.

The boys began to laugh at them.

"Why, you're funky, I do believe; the pond isn't really deep anywhere,"
they said.

So with beating hearts the children got into the boats, Trudel with
Fritz, and Hermann, who was the eldest of the party, with Lottchen. It
was splendid, quite a real adventure.

"Sit still in the middle of the boat," said Fritz; "I think we had
better keep near the bank."

"It's going down on my side; O dear, what shall I do?" said Trudel. "I
don't like it! I want to get out."

"You're a bit too heavy and upset the balance," said Fritz. "Very well,
then, get out!"

Trudel tried to do so; but the boat was very wobbly. It was not so easy;
her foot slipped, and in she stepped with one foot into the deep mud.
She grasped convulsively hold of a willow bush that grew on the bank.

Meanwhile Hermann, seeing the predicament they were in, jumped out of
his boat, leaving poor Lottchen quite alone. She began to scream with
all her might and main, and she could make a fine noise when she chose.

Mother heard the cries though she was some way off and flew to the pond.

The maids who were bleaching the linen in the meadow, came running to
the rescue as well, as fast as their legs could carry them.

Lotty was soon helped out of the boat. Trudel had rescued herself with
Hermann's assistance, and she looked very red and ashamed of herself.
She said she did not wish for any more Robinson Crusoe adventures of
that sort. Mother naturally gave the children a good talking to; but she
thought they had been punished enough this time for their disobedience,
by the fright they had had.


PART II

THE TREE MAN

There was a tree in the garden that was ideal to climb, and mother
allowed the children to do so, for she had been very fond of climbing
herself when she was a child.

They wore old serge skirts and jerseys that they could not spoil.

This tree made a splendid arbour, or house with a suite of rooms.
Lottchen sat up in the branches like a little bird, and like a little
bird she sang all the songs she knew. From this tree you could see the
mountain called the Stellerskuppe and the blue sky through the
tree-stems on the summit. At sunset time, the sky behind the trees
turned a golden colour, till it looked like a picture of fairyland.

It was a fine view, but still you could not see from here the famous
oak-tree, where the little green tree man lived. This was ten minutes'
walk from the farm.

Trudel and Lottchen saw him first on a wet day when they had set out for
a walk in spite of the rain, with their green waterproof cloaks on with
hoods over their heads, looking for all the world like wood-goblins
themselves. They were walking down a narrow green path, and mother was
some distance behind.

"Do just look, Trudel," said Lottchen. "I believe there is a little man
in that hollow tree!"

"So there is, he is smiling and bowing to us, let's go and visit him,"
said Trudel, always enterprising.

Lottchen hung back, feeling a little afraid; she was always on the
look-out for the unexpected, and yet was surprised when something really
happened.

"Come along, darling," said Trudel, grasping her smaller sister by the
hand.

They both distinctly saw the little man; they said they could have drawn
him afterwards, and indeed they attempted to do so as well as they
could. But as they approached the venerable oak, the little man
vanished, and all they saw was a strange green stain on the inside of
the tree, resembling a dwarf with a peaked hood on.

"Just look at this Gothic window," said Lottchen, proud of her knowledge
of the word "Gothic." "How nicely this tree-room is carved. I am sure
_he_ lives here; where are his little chairs and tables? I should love
to see them."

They peeped through a window or hole in the old tree and saw their
mother approaching.

"Mother, mother, here lives a real tree man; we saw him--didn't you?"

Mother smiled--what the children called her mysterious smile.

"You look like two little wood-men yourselves," she said. "Lottchen,
stand up straight in the hole and look at me."

Lottchen stood up just fitting into the green mark on the tree behind
her. She made a pretty picture, her laughing brown eyes with the long
eyelashes, her rosy cheeks, and the wind-blown hair straying from under
her hood.

"O look, Lottchen, here is a little basin of holy water, just like we
saw in the cathedral," said Trudel.

 "Wood water,
  Nice and brown,
  In a little cup.
  Wood water,
  Wood wine,
  Won't you drink it up?"

said a tiny voice that sounded like that of a wood-bird.

"Mother! did _you_ hear anything, mother?"

"Yes, darlings, the birds are singing so sweetly now the rain is over. I
have brought my camp-stool. I shall sit here and sketch the tree," said
mother.

"Do draw _him_," said Trudel, whose blue eyes were open wider than
usual.

"Him! Whom do you mean?" said mother.

"Why, the tree man, of course."

"Hum," said mother mysteriously, "we'll see," and she settled herself
down to sketch.

The children collected huge acorns, and laid them on a leaf in the
hollow tree. Then they stirred up the brackish "holy" water and put
their fingers in it.

"It smells like lavender and roses," said Lottchen.

"Well, you've got a funny nose; it smells to me like blackberry and
apple-tart," said Trudel.

"Ha--ha--he!" said a little voice again. Somebody was laughing. Where
could he be? Glancing round quickly the children saw a little man about
three feet high, dressed in green, wearing a long peaked cap with a
wreath of tiny oak-leaves around it. He looked very strong, although he
was small, and he stuck his arms out akimbo in a curious angular way
like the branches of an oak-tree.

"How did you know that trees were alive?" he asked the children.

They were embarrassed by the question.

"Why, of course we know they are not dead, unless they are cut down,"
they said.

The little man shuddered; then he began to wave his arms about wildly.

"_Let_ them try to cut me down, I'll knock them down. I'll fall on them
and crush their bones. I'll smash them like this stone!" Here he gave a
stone that stood near by, such a tremendous whack that sparks flew out
of it.

"Don't smash us, please, Mr Tree Man," said Lottchen trembling.

"No fear, little Miss Lottchen, no fear, you're a nice little thing, you
are; one can see that to look at you. You would _never_ cut me down,
would you?"

"Why, of course not," said Lotty.

"_I_ should not dream of such a thing either," said Trudel. "But may we
ask who you are?" Trudel continued, "You are surely not a tree?"

"Well, it's like this," said the little man; "I'm a tree, and the tree's
me!"

"_I_," said Trudel, correcting him, "would be more correct."

"Rubbish," said the little man, "Pedantic rot!--the tree's _me_, I
repeat. Every tree has its gnome or elf; they used to call us dryads in
old times; but nowadays people are getting so cock-sure of knowing
everything, that they can't see what is going on right under their
noses. Trees are never still," he continued; "they are always moving.

 "'Where there is movement, there is life,
   Where there is life, there is thought,
   Where there is thought, there is individuality.'

"Do you follow me? That is logically expressed."

"You forget we are only children, Mr Tree Man; you are talking too
grown-upy for us. Father talks like that sometimes; but then we don't
listen," they replied.

"Well," continued the gnome, "in every tree there either lives a jolly
fellow like me or a lovely lady fairy. Yes," he said in a sentimental
tone, "I, too, old and tough though I am, I, too, have known love."

"Who is she?" asked Trudel eagerly.

"Alas! I can never reach her; my old bones are too stiff and unbendable.
She is a graceful larch-tree in all the glory of her youth. You may see
her yonder!" He sat down and sighed deeply.

The children looked in the direction that the gnome had indicated, and
there they saw a larch-tree on which the sunlight had just fallen. It
was exquisitely dressed in a robe of delicate green and--was it only
fancy?--for one moment the children thought that they saw a lovely lady
with flowing tresses that gleamed golden in the sunlight, and large
starry eyes. As they gazed, she melted into the blue mist which shimmers
always between the forest trees.

"Now we must go home, children," mother called out, "before it begins to
rain again."

The children glanced round; their little friend had vanished, and no
trace was to be seen of the lady of the larch-tree. So they turned
reluctantly from the tree-house fully determined to come again very soon
to this enchanted spot.

"Mother, may we see your sketch?"

"Not now," said mother, "it's going to be a surprise."

"Did mother see him too?"

"Do you think so?" said Lottchen. "Mother's a fairy herself."

"I think," said Trudel, "she sees all sorts of queer things; but she
won't tell us everything she sees."

"It spoils some things to tell about them," said Lottchen. "I shan't
tell Hermann and Fritz about the tree man."

However, when she got home again, she could not contain herself. "Do you
believe in fairies and tree men?" she said to the boys.

"Of course not, that's all rot," said Hermann. "Like Santa Claus and
such things, just invented to stuff us up!"

"Santa Claus will never come to you any more if you talk like that; _he_
is _quite true_, I know. Trudel saw him come in last year when she was
in bed, and she heard him filling our stockings. Of course she did not
dare to turn round and look at him," said Lottchen.

"I don't say it isn't nice to believe such things," said Hermann
conscientiously, "but it isn't true; it's superstitious. You know quite
well, Trudel, who Santa Claus really is."

Trudel was silent; she was ten years old, and she had her doubts.

"But I've seen a tree man to-day," said Lotty.

The boys laughed.

"Don't try to stuff us up with such nonsense; we're not so green as your
tree man," they said.

Gustel, the maid, came in, and joined in the conversation. She supported
the boys' view.

"I don't care," said Lottchen, now in a high state of excitement. "My
mother knows a man--a very clever Irishman--a poet and a painter as
well, and he has often seen the fairies."

"Yes," said Trudel, "it's true he draws them just as he sees them with
rainbow-coloured wings."

"Well I never, you don't expect me to believe such things, do you?" said
Gustel. "Why, that's all lies, and it is very wicked to tell a lie!"

Lotty flew into a perfect tantrum. "How dare you say we tell lies; I
will tell my mother of you," she screamed, and threw herself on the
floor crying violently.

Mother rushed in, not knowing what had happened. "Lotty, get up at once;
tell me what's the matter, darling!"

"Booh!--booh--booh!--Gustel won't believe--booh, booh, booh--that you
know a man who has seen the fairies!"

Mother could not help laughing. "Don't be so absurd, Lotty. Of course
Gustel does not understand what you mean. Gustel," she said, "you are a
Catholic and believe in the saints; they saw very queer things too,
sometimes, didn't they?"

"O yes, you're right; of course, ma'am," said Gustel, feeling
embarrassed; for she had no arguments to support her disbelief in
fairies.

"Some people can see more than others," continued mother. "Now if I were
to tell you that I could see the old poacher or wild huntsman who used
to live in this house, riding through the yard on a moonlight night,
what would you say?"

"Lor, ma'am, if I saw him, I should die of fright," said Gustel, turning
pale.

"But you know that there are no such things as ghosts and fairies!"

"Yes, ma'am, very true, ma'am, it's rather confusing what you say," said
poor Gustel, feeling her head in a whirl.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a wonderful moonlight night. As father was still away, mother sat
by herself in the big bedroom, whilst the children slept in the little
room adjoining. There was a very high wind; the window-panes rattled;
the wooden shutters blew to and fro; the branches of the trees made
weird patterns on the ground. The moonlight was so white that the fields
and paths looked almost as if they were covered with snow. The
Stellerskuppe stood out black against the sky. As mother gazed, it
seemed to her as if strange creatures were abroad that night, driven to
and fro by that tireless hunter, the wind. Wild forms passed by and
gazed at her with deathless eyes; for a while she remained there
motionless, as under a spell. Then suddenly she remembered her joke
about the old huntsman of evil repute, who had formerly lived in this
farmhouse. Did his ghost haunt it still? Mother shivered; the nights
were cold up in the mountains, though it was such a hot summer. She
opened the door of the children's room and peeped in. To tell the truth,
she felt a little creepy, and longed for human companionship. There were
her darlings, sleeping soundly; but as she entered the room Trudel
turned round and flung herself on the other side of the bed, saying: "Go
away, go away, do not come near me!"

"Whom do you mean, darling?" said mother anxiously.

Then Trudel groaned and spoke again in her sleep. She uttered the
following deep and mystic words: "Gustel, bring in the shark, please;
mother can't eat the thimble."

Now, wasn't that a funny thing for a little girl to say in her sleep.
Mother was so amused that she wrote the words down on the spot, so as
not to forget them, and she troubled her head no more with thoughts of
the wild huntsman; indeed the spectres of the night vanished as they
always do vanish at a joke!

Some days passed, before the children visited the oak-tree again. When
they did so, they found that an enormous branch had been broken off, and
lay across the green pathway.

"O dear me," said Lottchen, "our _poor_ little man. I hope it hasn't
hurt him!"

"It must have happened on that windy night," said Trudel.

"It was my own fault, it was entirely my own fault," said a queer little
voice, and there was the oak-tree man sitting in his house smoking a
reed pipe. His arm was bound up with green fern leaves. "Yes, it was my
own fault; the wind excited me, and stirred my sap (that's my blood you
know)--I stretched out my arms towards her--one embrace--one blessed
moment in which to call her mine--and here you see me a cripple for
ever!"

"O _poor_ thing, we are so sorry for you," said the children.

"Never mind, it heals easily," said the oak man, "but, alas, my beauty
and my symmetry are gone for ever!"

"Your leaves are so nice and fresh; and your house is so pretty; why,
you have got furniture in it," said the children in astonishment.

"Such a pretty oak table and beautifully carved chairs; where did you
get them from?" asked Lottchen.

"I made them myself out of my own wood; it cheered me up a bit," said
the little man. "One must do something, you know; looks snug, doesn't
it? Ah, well--I have known love, that is something to be proud of; I have
experienced the most pleasing of human emotions. Have you ever been in
love?" he said inquisitively, looking at Trudel, who looked big enough
in his eyes.

"Why no, not exactly, we're only kiddies; but still we do love lots of
people, of course," said she.

"Your day will come, your day will come. Do not desire the unattainable,
but content yourself with the reachable," he said; "and yet ''Tis better
to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,' as the dear old
poem says."

"He's getting grand in his language again; he _is_ a funny little man,"
said Trudel in a whisper to Lottchen.

"Stay," said the tree man, "I have a good idea; I will give you a card
of introduction to _her_, my beloved Lady Larch-tree."

He gave them an oak leaf with the words: "Edle Eiche," printed on it,
which is in English Noble Oak.

"You need not say anything; she will know it comes from me," he said,
sighing sentimentally.

Full of curiosity, the children turned to go to the larch-tree, which
was only a few steps further down the green pathway. The ardent lover
watched the children from the window of his little house. They knocked
three times on the bark of the larch-tree; and they were very pleased
when a door opened in the tree, and a lovely lady was revealed to them.
Her dress was of green, looped up with tiny pink flowers such as grow on
the larches in early spring; her hair streamed down like a soft veil
about her. She hardly seemed to see the children at first, when they
presented their cards. She took the oak-leaf cards and pressed them to
her heart.

"Heart of oak! King of the forest! for ever mine," she murmured, and her
words were like the sound that a little brook makes when it trickles
beneath dark forest trees.

"He sends you his love," said the children politely.

"You dear little things," said Lady Larch; "it was so kind of you to
come and call on me. So you understand trees and their language, dear,
dear, so young and so clever! _Would_ you like some wood wine?"

"Not if it is dirty water with caterpillars in it," said Trudel.

"O dear no, it is purified and refined; it is most delicious." So
saying, she handed each of them a large acorn cup full; and they drank
the contents.

"It does taste nice, dear fairy," said the children, "like what we make
ourselves at a doll's feast. May we ask you for some more?"

"No, no, it is very strong, and would get into your heads, and you would
find out all about.... No, I'm sorry ... but----"

"Children," said mother's voice, "where are you? I have been looking for
you."

"We have only been to call on Lady Larch, mother; she has shut her door
tight again or we would have introduced you to her," said Lotty.


PART III

They came home rather late that evening and found the farm in a great
state of commotion. The red-haired cow-herd was shouting and crying in
an unintelligible way; the house seemed to be deserted. They met the
Herr Baron also preparing to set out in a hurry.

"What's the matter? Where is everybody?" said mother.

"The silly old cow-herd has lost one of the best cows; it has strayed
off among the bushes, and may die if it is exposed all night. Who knows
where the poor creature may have got to in these vast woods?"

The search went on till late at night; the men, including the Herr
Baron, walked miles with their lanterns, but in vain. The deaf mute was
in a dreadful state of mind and kept crying out in his harsh,
disagreeable voice: "Not my fault--_Schimmel's_ fault." (Schimmel was
the cow.)

It was difficult enough to sleep that night; but when mother had at last
dropped into a light doze, it must have been about four o'clock in the
morning, she and the children were aroused by a great shouting and
disturbance in the house. They looked out of the window and--what do you
think?--there was the lost cow, who had returned after all of her own
accord. And with her a dear little black and white calf, who frisked and
bounded along as if it thought it was fine fun to be in the world on
this lovely morning. Now wasn't that a queer thing, children, queerer
than all the fairy stories you have read? for this story is quite true,
you must know!

       *       *       *       *       *

It was an exceptionally fine Sunday, and as father had come down to
spend the week-end, mother and the children were in the seventh heaven
of joy. It was not possible to go to church; for the nearest town was
two hours' walk away, and would be partly over fields that were exposed
to the heat of the midday sun. So father and mother and their two little
daughters went to the great woodland cathedral.

The service was on the Stellerskuppe; surely no one could wish for a
more beautiful place of worship. Mountain after mountain ranged in the
distance, some with rounded or knolled heads, others rising to a peak.
Lottchen called the most pointed one Mesuvius, because she always forgot
the "V."

As the children sat there and sang hymns, with their white Sunday frocks
on, mother fancied that eyes were peering at them from out the forest
depths. If they were merely those of the gentle deer, or if stranger
creatures still were watching them as if fascinated, she did not know:
she felt there were lookers-on. There is the old story of the God Pan
who played so divinely that all living things came to listen to him.
Perhaps there may be a stirring at times in the souls of the mysterious
dwellers in the forest that makes them yearn for immortality and gives
them a fuller sense of existence. So that all the woodland sang too at
that Sunday service.

On Sunday afternoon, father and mother wanted to go for a longer walk
than usual; but the lazy children petitioned to be left behind.

"You will promise not to go near the pond," said mother. "Remember it is
Sunday, and you have your best frocks on; you must not romp or climb
trees."

"O no, mother, of course not," said Trudel. "We'll stay in the garden
and promise to be very good."

When father and mother returned from their walk, the first thing they
saw was Lottchen staggering along with a stand of empty beer-bottles.

"Whatever are you doing, Lottchen?"

"Oh, mother, there are such heaps of people here this afternoon, and
there are not enough waitresses to serve them; so Trudel and I are
helping. Trudel has got such a lot of tips already; she has bought
chocolate with the money. Do tell her to divide it fairly with me!"

Mother looked round. The whole place was covered with tables and
benches; a number of gaily dressed people from the neighbouring town
were drinking coffee and eating cake or waffeln, a kind of pancake for
which the inn was celebrated.

"Mother, don't speak to me, I'm too busy," said Trudel. "I've been
waiting on those gentlemen; the maids were shy of them, so I said I
would go and ask what they wanted." She pointed out some young men in
officers' uniform, who had come from a military school. "I've got 6d. in
tips, and I spent it on chocolate."

"Well I never!" said mother, astonished at her daughter's prowess--"you
have turned into a waitress, and on Sunday afternoon too. Whatever would
your aunts say?"

"I think I had better tell you what the young men said to me," said
Trudel seriously. "They said I was a sweet little thing, and that if I
were older, they would fall in love with me. I laughed of course; I
could see they were only silly old stupid heads. I told them they had
not much taste; for their military school was the ugliest building in
all the town. They quite agreed with me about this, however, and then
they asked me who my father was, and when I said he was a professor,
they laughed till I thought they would burst. But now you must excuse
me, really, mother darling. I have promised to go into the kitchen and
wash up cups and saucers!"

The landlady could not praise Trudel enough. Such a useful little girl,
she does everything in a most orderly way and wipes down the table when
she has finished! "If ever you want her to learn housekeeping, pray send
her to me, I should be delighted to teach her," she said.

"Yes," thought mother, "and make a nice little slavey of her into the
bargain. No, no, our Trudel is not going to turn into a housemaid!"

If Trudel had been some years older, father and mother might have
objected to these experiences; but, as it was, they only laughed.


PART IV

As the world is full of fact and fancy, so is this story. Whether it is
based mostly on fact or on fancy we will leave to the German
philosophers to decide, but I have heard that they are doubtful on this
point, with regard to the world, I mean.

It was a magical evening. Trudel was so engrossed in a game of cards
with the boys that she could not be induced to come out; moreover she
had a slight cold and the evenings were chilly. A glorious sunset glow
illumined the sky as mother and Lottchen set out for their
never-to-be-forgotten walk.

"We will go up and see the fire on the heath; I love the smell of dry
pine wood burning," said mother.

"I love to see the fire dancing and crackling," said Lottchen. "How
still everything is."

"It is the calm of twilight. The wind usually drops in the evening,"
said mother.

"Look, look, over there by those dark woods there is something moving,"
said Lotty. "I think it is a white cat."

"A white cat! How queer that she should have strayed so far; she does
not belong to the farm, I know."

"Hush! perhaps she is not a cat at all--then she will vanish." And lo
and behold when they looked again, there was no cat there, though they
had distinctly seen it a minute before on the field at the wood's edge.

"She is really a witch, I believe," said mother, with the curious
expression on her face that Lotty knew so well.

Going further up the hill, they saw a wonderful sight. Twenty or more
peasant girls were busy working, hacking the ground, their faces
illuminated by the wonderful sunset glow. They wore short full peasant
skirts edged with bright-coloured ribbons, and each had a gaily coloured
scarf pinned round the neck and bodice.

We learned afterwards that they were preparing the ground to plant young
fir-trees on a clearing. Germans are so careful of their woods, they
replant what has been cut down, so that they have a great wealth in wood
that we cannot boast of in England. I believe that they would _like_ to
cut off all the dead branches in order to make the woods quite tidy! But
this would be rather too big a job even for the German nation to
accomplish!

A man dressed in green with a feather in his cap, and a gun over his
shoulder stood by watching the girls at their work.

He was a forester and seemed to act as overseer. He gave the signal to
stop work as the strangers (mother and Lotty) approached. The women hid
their tools under the dry heather until the next day, and then strapped
on the big baskets they carried on their backs, without which they
hardly felt properly dressed. They then marched along together, singing
a melodious song in unison. As they came to the cross-roads they parted
company; some went this way, some that; all kept up the tune, which
echoed farther and farther, fainter and fainter in the distance.

Before long Lottchen and her mother were alone; but they felt that the
ground they stood on, was enchanted. Mother said it was like a scene
from the opera. They watched the fire; how the flames leaped and
crackled; yet they were dying down. The fire made a bright contrast to
the dark fir-woods which formed the background to the picture. The glory
died from the sky; but yet it was strangely light; darker and darker
grew the woods near the fire. Suddenly Lotty espied bright sparks among
the trees.

"I do believe they have set the wood on fire," said mother.

"O no, mother, don't you see; let us crouch down and hide; it is the
fairies: they are coming to the fire."

The air was suddenly full of bright beings.

 "There is a wood fire on the hill;
  High on the heath it glimmers still.
  Who are these beings in the air
  With gauzy robes and flowing hair?
  Is it the wreathing smoke I see
  That forms itself so curiously?

  Nay, they alight: they form a ring,
  Around the flickering fire spring,
  And from those embers burning low
  They light their wands, they gleam, they glow,
  Like firework stars of rainbow hue,
  Green, yellow, orange, lilac, blue!

  Ah what a scene, how wild, how strange!
  The stars each moment break and change
  In thousand colours; look on high:
  Each slender wand points to the sky,
  Then waves and trembles: lo afar
  On lonely woods falls many a star!"

And all this Trudel had missed. It seemed too great a pity, with that
silly old card playing.

Spellbound mother and Lotty watched the fairies at their revels, till
Lottchen began to shiver.

"We really must go home," whispered mother. "Trudel will be anxious."

"Oh, but mother I want to dance round the fire with the fairies, and I
want a fairy wand with shooting stars," said Lotty almost aloud.

Suddenly it seemed as if the fairies became aware that they were
observed. They vanished away, and all became dark. Lottchen said she
could hear the sound of little feet stamping out the fire.

"Fairies, dear fairies, come again, do," said Lotty.

No answer, perfect stillness, not even a leaf stirred.

"Well, you are not so polite as our tree man, not half," said Lotty,
"though you are so pretty. Good night," she shouted.

There was a sound of suppressed laughter; then from hill and dale the
word "good night" was echoed all around. Spellbound, as if in a trance,
they moved toward the farm. Trudel was wild with herself when she heard
what she had missed.

"_To-morrow_," she said, but to-morrow is sometimes a long, long way
off, and the fairies did not show themselves again during these
holidays.

One of Lottchen's favourite walks was the echo walk, but she usually
came home quite hoarse after having been this way. The path wound below
the fairy heath on the incline of the hill; further down still were the
fir-woods through which the light shone.

"Angel-pet!" "Cherry-ripe!" "Cheeky fellow!" "You're another!" So Lotty
shouted the whole time, and the echoes came back so surprisingly
distinct that Lotty was sure it must be really the fairies answering
her. When you turned the corner of the hill, the echoes ceased. It was
too queer.

The next day Trudel distinguished herself again. Two great cart-loads of
swedes arrived that were to be stored up as fodder for the cattle in the
winter. Now the joy was to throw these through a hole in the wall into
the cellar. Hermann stood in the cart and Trudel threw the swedes to him
as the bricklayers throw the bricks to one another. Fritz and Lottchen
helped too; they had to take their turn and be very quick, as the hole
was small. Hour after hour this went on, till the children were as black
as chimney sweeps, and yet Trudel's energy did not fail. At last the
carts were empty, and only then did the little workers leave off, dead
tired.

Hermann could make curious heads out of the swedes, with eyes and nose
and mouth. If you put an old candle-end inside, they looked ghastly,
like some Chinese god. Lotty declared that they rolled about in the yard
at night and grinned at her, and that she did not like "heads without
people."

"But they _are_ so funny, Lottchen," said mother, and then she laughed
at them and was not frightened any more.

In the fields grew nice little buttony mushrooms. No one knew better
than the Herr Baron where they were to be found and how to prepare them.
Apparently he had lived on mushrooms in the wilds of South America. He
was very kind in helping the children to fill their baskets to take home
with them; for, alas, even the pleasantest of holidays must come to an
end; and there was only one day left. He discovered a treasure in the
field, a little mother-of-pearl knife, very old and rusty, and presented
it to Trudel. He told her to soak it in petroleum to clean it. That
knife was more trouble than all the rest of the luggage on the way
back, for Trudel made such a fuss about it, and dissolved in tears
several times when she thought that she had lost it.

To leave the beautiful cool woods, the fairies, the tree man and his
sweetheart, the cows and the geese and all the marvels of the country,
yes, it was hard; but home is home, and always turns a smiling face to
us after a long absence. How nice to rediscover one's playthings and
dolls. Trudel's first thought was always for her doll babies, and she
would rush upstairs, and embrace each one tenderly.

As the children drove to the station from the farm, they passed the
famous oak-tree, but no little man was to be seen.

"He's shy of the coachman, of course," said the children.

Looking back, they caught a glimpse of him in the distance, and shouted
and waved their handkerchiefs.

Hermann and Fritz were very sorry to say "good-bye" to their little
friends; but school began the next day, and they would not have so much
time for play then.

The landlady told the children a great secret before they left. "The
Herr Baron is going to be married next week," she said.

"Well, I am glad," said mother. "I hope she is very nice," and the
children echoed the wish warmly.

"She has lots of money, and is a countess, I believe," continued the
landlady.

"Well, I do hope she does not object to smoking," said Trudel, and they
all laughed.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Mother, you have never shown us your sketch," said Trudel during the
unpacking.

Mother laughed. "Where's Lottchen? I suppose she wants to see it too?"

"Here I am," said Lotty. "Oh, do be quick and show it to us!"

Mother held up the sketch. There was the hollow oak-tree, and standing
in it the little tree man himself just as the children had first seen
him, with his green peaked hood on.

"So mother really did see him too!" said the children.

Now this story disproves the common fallacy that only children can see
the fairies and forest folk; for how could mother have painted the tree
gnome unless she had seen him?


EVERETT AND CO. LTD., 42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, LONDON




Transcriber's note

In the tale "The Engineer and the Dwarfs", a line is missing in
the original text; since this edition is apparently the only one in
existence, it has sadly not been possible to discover what the missing
section was. However, from the context it must be a greeting, perhaps
from the dwarfs' Committee.

Otherwise, missing punctuation has been silently added, and the spelling
of some names regularised. The word centuary was changed to centaury in
the sentence:

"Little harebells, and pink _centaury_ bordered the pathway."





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Tales from the German Forests, by 
Margaret Arndt

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY TALES ***

***** This file should be named 30834-8.txt or 30834-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/8/3/30834/

Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     http://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
_THE BLUE BIRD_


Once upon a time there lived a King who was immensely rich. He had broad
lands, and sacks overflowing with gold and silver; but he did not care a
bit for all his riches, because the Queen, his wife, was dead. He shut
himself up in a little room and knocked his head against the walls for
grief, until his courtiers were really afraid that he would hurt
himself. So they hung feather-beds between the tapestry and the walls,
and then he could go on knocking his head as long as it was any
consolation to him without coming to much harm. All his subjects came to
see him, and said whatever they thought would comfort him: some were
grave, even gloomy with him; and some agreeable, even gay; but not one
could make the least impression upon him. Indeed, he hardly seemed to
hear what they said. At last came a lady who was wrapped in a black
mantle, and seemed to be in the deepest grief. She wept and sobbed until
even the King's attention was attracted; and when she said that, far
from coming to try and diminish his grief, she, who had just lost a good
husband, was come to add her tears to his, since she knew what he must
be feeling, the King redoubled his lamentations. Then he told the
sorrowful lady long stories about the good qualities of his departed
Queen, and she in her turn recounted all the virtues of her departed
husband; and this passed the time so agreeably that the King quite
forgot to thump his head against the feather-beds, and the lady did not
need to wipe the tears from her great blue eyes as often as before. By
degrees they came to talking about other things in which the King took
an interest, and in a wonderfully short time the whole kingdom was
astonished by the news that the King was married again--to the sorrowful
lady.

[Illustration]

Now the King had one daughter, who was just fifteen years old. Her name
was Fiordelisa, and she was the prettiest and most charming Princess
imaginable, always gay end merry. The new Queen, who also had a
daughter, very soon sent for her to come to the Palace. Turritella, for
that was her name, had been brought up by her godmother, the Fairy
Mazilla, but in spite of all the care bestowed upon her, she was
neither beautiful nor gracious. Indeed, when the Queen saw how
ill-tempered and ugly she appeared beside Fiordelisa she was in despair,
and did everything in her power to turn the King against his own
daughter, in the hope that he might take a fancy to Turritella. One day
the King said that it was time Fiordelisa and Turritella were married,
so he would give one of them to the first suitable Prince who visited
his Court. The Queen answered:

'My daughter certainly ought to be the first to be married; she is older
than yours, and a thousand times more charming!'

The King, who hated disputes, said, 'Very well, it's no affair of mine,
settle it your own way.'

Very soon after came the news that King Charming, who was the most
handsome and magnificent Prince in all the country round, was on his way
to visit the King. As soon as the Queen heard this, she set all her
jewellers, tailors, weavers, and embroiderers to work upon splendid
dresses and ornaments for Turritella, but she told the King that
Fiordelisa had no need of anything new, and the night before the King
was to arrive, she bribed her waiting woman to steal away all the
Princess's own dresses and jewels, so that when the day came, and
Fiordelisa wished to adorn herself as became her high rank, not even a
ribbon could she find.

However, as she easily guessed who had played her such a trick, she made
no complaint, but sent to the merchants for some rich stuffs. But they
said that the Queen had expressly forbidden them to supply her with any,
and they dared not disobey. So the Princess had nothing left to put on
but the little white frock she had been wearing the clay before; and
dressed in that, she went down when the time of the King's arrival came,
and sat in a corner hoping to escape notice. The Queen received her
guest with great ceremony, and presented him to her daughter, who was
gorgeously attired, but so much splendour only made her ugliness more
noticeable, and the King, after one glance at her, looked the other way.
The Queen, however, only thought that he was bashful, and took pains to
keep Turritella in full view. King Charming then asked if there was not
another Princess, called Fiordelisa.

'Yes,' said Turritella, pointing with her finger, 'there she is, trying
to keep out of sight because she is not smart.'

At this Fiordelisa blushed, and looked so shy and so lovely, that the
King was fairly astonished. He rose, and bowing low before her, said--

'Madam, your incomparable beauty needs no adornment.'

'Sire,' answered the Princess, 'I assure you that I am not in the habit
of wearing dresses as crumpled and untidy as this one, so I should have
been better pleased if you had not seen me at all.'

'Impossible!' cried King Charming. 'Wherever such a marvellously
beautiful Princess appears I can look at nothing else.'

Here the Queen broke in, saying sharply--

[Illustration]

'I assure you, Sire, that Fiordelisa is vain enough already. Pray make
her no more flattering speeches.'

The King quite understood that she was not pleased, but that did not
matter to him, so he admired Fiordelisa to his heart's content, and
talked to her for three hours without stopping.

The Queen was in despair, and so was Turritella, when they saw how much
the King preferred Fiordelisa. They complained bitterly to the King, and
begged and teased him, until he at last consented to have the Princess
shut up somewhere out of sight while King Charming's visit lasted. So
that night, as she went to her room, she was seized by four masked
figures, and carried up into the topmost room of a high tower, where
they left her in the deepest dejection. She easily guessed that she was
to be kept out of sight for fear the King should fall in love with her;
but then, how disappointing that was, for she already liked him very
much, and would have been quite willing to be chosen for his bride! As
King Charming did not know what had happened to the Princess, he looked
forward impatiently to meeting her again, and he tried to talk about her
with the courtiers who were placed in attendance on him. But by the
Queen's orders they would say nothing good of her, but declared that she
was vain, capricious, and bad-tempered; that she tormented her
waiting-maids, and that, in spite of all the money that the King gave
her, she was so mean that she preferred to go about dressed like a poor
shepherdess, rather than spend any of it. All these things vexed the
King very much, and he was silent.

'It is true,' thought he, 'that she was very poorly dressed, but then
she was so ashamed that it proves that she was not accustomed to be so.
I cannot believe that with that lovely face she can be as ill-tempered
and contemptible as they say. No, no, the Queen must be jealous of her
for the sake of that ugly daughter of hers, and so these evil reports
are spread.'

The courtiers could not help seeing that what they had told the King did
not please him, and one of them cunningly began to praise Fiordelisa,
when he could talk to the King without being heard by the others.

King Charming thereupon became so cheerful, and interested in all he
said, that it was easy to guess how much he admired the Princess. So
when the Queen sent for the courtiers and questioned them about all they
had found out, their report confirmed her worst fears. As to the poor
Princess Fiordelisa, she cried all night without stopping.

'It would have been quite bad enough to be shut up in this gloomy tower
before I had ever seen King Charming,' she said; 'but now when he is
here, and they are all enjoying themselves with him, it is too unkind.'

The next day the Queen sent King Charming splendid presents of jewels
and rich stuffs, and among other things an ornament made expressly in
honour of the approaching wedding. It was a heart cut out of one huge
ruby, and was surrounded by several diamond arrows, and pierced by one.
A golden true-lover's knot above the heart bore the motto, 'But one can
wound me,' and the whole jewel was hung upon a chain of immense pearls.
Never, since the world has been a world, had such a thing been made, and
the King was quite amazed when it was presented to him. The page who
brought it begged him to accept it from the Princess, who chose him to
be her knight.

'What!' cried he, 'does the lovely Princess Fiordelisa deign to think of
me in this amiable and encouraging way?'

'You confuse the names, Sire,' said the page hastily. 'I come on behalf
of the Princess Turritella.'

'Oh, it is Turritella who wishes me to be her knight,' said the King
coldly. 'I am sorry that I cannot accept the honour.' And he sent the
splendid gifts back to the Queen and Turritella, who were furiously
angry at the contempt with which they were treated. As soon as he
possibly could, King Charming went to see the King and Queen, and as he
entered the hall he looked for Fiordelisa, and every time anyone came in
he started round to see who it was, and was altogether so uneasy and
dissatisfied that the Queen saw it plainly. But she would not take any
notice, and talked of nothing but the entertainments she was planning.
The Prince answered at random, and presently asked if he was not to have
the pleasure of seeing the Princess Fiordelisa.

'Sire,' answered the Queen haughtily, 'her father has ordered that she
shall not leave her own apartments until my daughter is married.'

'What can be the reason for keeping that lovely Princess a prisoner?'
cried the King in great indignation.

'That I do not know,' answered the Queen; 'and even if I did, I might
not feel bound to tell you.'

The King was terribly angry at being thwarted like this. He felt certain
that Turritella was to blame for it, so casting a furious glance at her
he abruptly took leave of the Queen, and returned to his own apartments.
There he said to a young squire whom he had brought with him: 'I would
give all I have in the world to gain the good will of one of the
Princess's waiting-women, and obtain a moment's speech with Fiordelisa.'

'Nothing could be easier,' said the young squire; and he very soon made
friends with one of the ladies, who told him that in the evening
Fiordelisa would be at a little window which looked into the garden,
where he could come and talk to her. Only, she said, he must take very
great care not to be seen, as it would be as much as her place was worth
to be caught helping King Charming to see the Princess. The squire was
delighted, and promised all she asked; but the moment he had run off to
announce his success to the King, the false waiting-woman went and told
the Queen all that had passed. She at once determined that her own
daughter should be at the little window; and she taught her so well all
she was to say and do, that even the stupid Turritella could make no
mistake.

The night was so dark that the King had not a chance of finding out the
trick that was being played upon him, so he approached the window with
the greatest delight, and said everything that he had been longing to
say to Fiordelisa to persuade her of his love for her. Turritella
answered as she had been taught, that she was very unhappy, and that
there was no chance of her being better treated by the Queen until her
daughter was married. And then the King entreated her to marry him; and
thereupon he drew his ring from his finger and put it upon Turritella's,
and she answered him as well as she could. The King could not help
thinking that she did not say exactly what he would have expected from
his darling Fiordelisa, but he persuaded himself that the fear of being
surprised by the Queen was making her awkward and unnatural. He would
not leave her until she had promised to see him again the next night,
which Turritella did willingly enough. The Queen was overjoyed at the
success of her stratagem, and promised herself that all would now be as
she wished; and sure enough, as soon as it was dark the following night
the King came, bringing with him a chariot which had been given him by
an Enchanter who was his friend. This chariot was drawn by flying frogs,
and the King easily persuaded Turritella to come out and let him put her
into it, then mounting beside her he cried triumphantly--

'Now, my Princess, you are free; where will it please you that we shall
hold our wedding?'

And Turritella, with her head muffled in her mantle, answered that the
Fairy Mazilla was her godmother, and that she would like it to be at her
castle. So the King told the Frogs, who had the map of the whole world
in their heads, and very soon he and Turritella were set down at the
castle of the Fairy Mazilla. The King would certainly have found out his
mistake the moment they stepped into the brilliantly lighted castle, but
Turritella held her mantle more closely round her, and asked to see the
Fairy by herself, and quickly told her all that had happened, and how
she had succeeded in deceiving King Charming.

'Oho! my daughter,' said the Fairy, 'I see we have no easy task before
us. He loves Fiordelisa so much that he will not be easily pacified. I
feel sure he will defy us!' Meanwhile the King was waiting in a splendid
room with diamond walls, so clear that he could see the Fairy and
Turritella as they stood whispering together, and he was very much
puzzled.

'Who can have betrayed us?' he said to himself. 'How comes our enemy
here? She must be plotting to prevent our marriage. Why doesn't my
lovely Fiordelisa make haste and come back to me?'

But it was worse than anything he had imagined when the Fairy Mazilla
entered, leading Turritella by the hand, and said to him--

'King Charming, here is the Princess Turritella to whom you have
plighted your faith. Let us have the wedding at once.'

'I!' cried the King. 'I marry that little creature! What do you take me
for? I have promised her nothing!'

'Say no more. Have you no respect for a Fairy?' cried she angrily.

'Yes, madam,' answered the King, 'I am prepared to respect you as much
as a Fairy can be respected, if you will give me back my Princess.'

'Am I not here?' interrupted Turritella. 'Here is the ring you gave me.
With whom did you talk at the little window, if it was not with me?'

'What!' cried the King angrily, 'have I been altogether deceived and
deluded? Where is my chariot? Not another moment will I stay here.'

'Oho,' said the Fairy, 'not so fast.' And she touched his feet, which
instantly became as firmly fixed to the floor as if they had been nailed
there.

'Oh! do whatever you like with me,' said the King; 'you may turn me to
stone, but I will marry no one but Fiordelisa.'

And not another word would he say, though the Fairy scolded and
threatened, and Turritella wept and raged for twenty days and twenty
nights. At last the Fairy Mazilla said furiously (for she was quite
tired out by his obstinacy), 'Choose whether you will marry my
goddaughter, or do penance seven years for breaking your word to her.'

And then the King cried gaily: 'Pray do whatever you like with me, as
long as you deliver me from this ugly scold!'

'Scold!' cried Turritella angrily. 'Who are you, I should like to know,
that you dare to call me a scold? A miserable King who breaks his word,
and goes about in a chariot drawn by croaking frogs out of a marsh!'

'Let us have no more of these insults,' cried the Fairy. 'Fly from that
window, ungrateful King, and for seven years be a Blue Bird.' As she
spoke the King's face altered, his arms turned to wings, his feet to
little crooked black claws. In a moment he had a slender body like a
bird, covered with shining blue feathers, his beak was like ivory, his
eyes were bright as stars, and a crown of white feathers adorned his
head.

As soon as the transformation was complete the King uttered a dolorous
cry and fled through the open window, pursued by the mocking laughter of
Turritella and the Fairy Mazilla. He flew on until he reached the
thickest part of the wood, and there, perched upon a cypress tree, he
bewailed his miserable fate. 'Alas! in seven years who knows what may
happen to my darling Fiordelisa!' he said. 'Her cruel stepmother may
have married her to someone else before I am myself again, and then what
good will life be to me?'

In the meantime the Fairy Mazilla had sent Turritella back to the Queen,
who was all anxiety to know how the wedding had gone off. But when her
daughter arrived and told her all that had happened she was terribly
angry, and of course all her wrath fell upon Fiordelisa. 'She shall have
cause to repent that the King admires her,' said the Queen, nodding her
head meaningly, and then she and Turritella went up to the little room
in the tower where the Princess was imprisoned. Fiordelisa was immensely
surprised to see that Turritella was wearing a royal mantle and a
diamond crown, and her heart sank when the Queen said: 'My daughter is
come to show you some of her wedding presents, for she is King
Charming's bride, and they are the happiest pair in the world, he loves
her to distraction.' All this time Turritella was spreading out lace,
and jewels, and rich brocades, and ribbons before Fiordelisa's unwilling
eyes, and taking good care to display King Charming's ring, which she
wore upon her thumb. The Princess recognised it as soon as her eyes fell
upon it, and after that she could no longer doubt that he had indeed
married Turritella. In despair she cried, 'Take away these miserable
gauds! what pleasure has a wretched captive in the sight of them?' and
then she fell insensible upon the floor, and the cruel Queen laughed
maliciously, and went away with Turritella, leaving her there without
comfort or aid. That night the Queen said to the King, that his daughter
was so infatuated with King Charming, in spite of his never having shown
any preference for her, that it was just as well she should stay in the
tower until she came to her senses. To which he answered that it was her
affair, and she could give what orders she pleased about the Princess.

When the unhappy Fiordelisa recovered, and remembered all she had just
heard, she began to cry bitterly, believing that King Charming was lost
to her for ever, and all night long she sat at her open window sighing
and lamenting; but when it was dawn she crept away into the darkest
corner of her little room and sat there, too unhappy to care about
anything. As soon as night came again she once more leaned out into the
darkness and bewailed her miserable lot.

Now it happened that King Charming, or rather the Blue Bird, had been
flying round the palace in the hope of seeing his beloved Princess, but
had not dared to go too near the windows for fear of being seen and
recognised by Turritella. When night fell he had not succeeded in
discovering where Fiordelisa was imprisoned, and, weary and sad, he
perched upon a branch of a tall fir tree which grew close to the tower,
and began to sing himself to sleep. But soon the sound of a soft voice
lamenting attracted his attention, and listening intently he heard it
say--

'Ah! cruel Queen! what have I ever done to be imprisoned like this? And
was I not unhappy enough before, that you must needs come and taunt me
with the happiness your daughter is enjoying now she is King Charming's
bride?'

The Blue Bird, greatly surprised, waited impatiently for the dawn, and
the moment it was light flew off to see who it could have been who spoke
thus. But he found the window shut, and could see no one. The next
night, however, he was on the watch, and by the clear moonlight he saw
that the sorrowful lady at the window was Fiordelisa herself.

'My Princess! have I found you at last?' said he, alighting close to
her.

'Who is speaking to me?' cried the Princess in great surprise.

'Only a moment since you mentioned my name, and now you do not know me,
Fiordelisa,' said he sadly. 'But no wonder, since I am nothing but a
Blue Bird, and must remain one for seven years.'

'What! Little Blue Bird, are you really the powerful King Charming?'
said the Princess, caressing him.

'It is too true,' he answered. 'For being faithful to you I am thus
punished. But believe me, if it were for twice as long I would bear it
joyfully rather than give you up.'

'Oh! what are you telling me?' cried the Princess. 'Has not your bride,
Turritella, just visited me, wearing the royal mantle and the diamond
crown you gave her? I cannot be mistaken, for I saw your ring upon her
thumb.'

Then the Blue Bird was furiously angry, and told the Princess all that
had happened, how he had been deceived into carrying off Turritella, and
how, for refusing to marry her, the Fairy Mazilla had condemned him to
be a Blue Bird for seven years.

The Princess was very happy when she heard how faithful her lover was,
and would never have tired of hearing his loving speeches and
explanations, but too soon the sun rose, and they had to part lest the
Blue Bird should be discovered. After promising to come again to the
Princess's window as soon as it was dark, he flew away, and hid himself
in a little hole in the fir-tree, while Fiordelisa remained devoured by
anxiety lest he should be caught in a trap, or eaten up by an eagle.

But the Blue Bird did not long stay in his hiding-place. He flew away,
and away, until he came to his own palace, and got into it through a
broken window, and there he found the cabinet where his jewels were
kept, and chose out a splendid diamond ring as a present for the
Princess. By the time he got back, Fiordelisa was sitting waiting for
him by the open window, and when he gave her the ring, she scolded him
gently for having run such a risk to get it for her.

'Promise me that you will wear it always!' said the Blue Bird. And the
Princess promised on condition that he should come and see her in the
day as well as by night. They talked all night long, and the next
morning the Blue Bird flew off to his kingdom, and crept into his palace
through the broken window, and chose from his treasures two bracelets,
each cut out of a single emerald. When he presented them to the
Princess, she shook her head at him reproachfully, saying--

'Do you think I love you so little that I need all these gifts to remind
me of you?'

And he answered--

'No, my Princess; but I love you so much that I feel I cannot express
it, try as I may. I only bring you these worthless trifles to show that
I have not ceased to think of you, though I have been obliged to leave
you for a time.' The following night he gave Fiordelisa a watch set in a
single pearl. The Princess laughed a little when she saw it, and said--

[Illustration]

'You may well give me a watch, for since I have known you I have lost
the power of measuring time. The hours you spend with me pass like
minutes, and the hours that I drag through without you seem years to
me.'

'Ah, Princess, they cannot seem so long to you as they do to me!' he
answered. Day by day he brought more beautiful things for the
Princess--diamonds, and rubies, and opals; and at night she decked
herself with them to please him, but by day she hid them in her straw
mattress. When the sun shone the Blue Bird, hidden in the tall fir-tree,
sang to her so sweetly that all the passers-by wondered, and said that
the wood was inhabited by a spirit. And so two years slipped away, and
still the Princess was a prisoner, and Turritella was not married. The
Queen had offered her hand to all the neighbouring Princes, but they
always answered that they would marry Fiordelisa with pleasure, but not
Turritella on any account. This displeased the Queen terribly.
'Fiordelisa must be in league with them, to annoy me!' she said. 'Let us
go and accuse her of it.'

So she and Turritella went up into the tower. Now it happened that it
was nearly midnight, and Fiordelisa, all decked with jewels, was sitting
at the window with the Blue Bird, and as the Queen paused outside the
door to listen she heard the Princess and her lover singing together a
little song he had just taught her. These were the words:--

  'Oh! what a luckless pair are we,
  One in a prison, and one in a tree.
  All our trouble and anguish came
  From our faithfulness spoiling our enemies' game.
  But vainly they practise their cruel arts,
  For nought can sever our two fond hearts.'

They sound melancholy perhaps, but the two voices sang them gaily
enough, and the Queen burst open the door, crying, 'Ah! my Turritella,
there is some treachery going on here!'

As soon as she saw her, Fiordelisa, with great presence of mind, hastily
shut her little window, that the Blue Bird might have time to escape,
and then turned to meet the Queen, who overwhelmed her with a torrent of
reproaches.

'Your intrigues are discovered, Madam,' she said furiously; 'and you
need not hope that your high rank will save you from the punishment you
deserve.'

'And with whom do you accuse me of intriguing, Madam?' said the
Princess. 'Have I not been your prisoner these two years, and who have I
seen except the gaolers sent by you?'

While she spoke the Queen and Turritella were looking at her in the
greatest surprise, perfectly dazzled by her beauty and the splendour of
her jewels, and the Queen said:

'If one may ask, Madam, where did you get all these diamonds? Perhaps
you mean to tell me that you have discovered a mine of them in the
tower!'

'I certainly did find them here,' answered the Princess.

'And pray,' said the Queen, her wrath increasing every moment, 'for
whose admiration are you decked out like this, since I have often seen
you not half as fine on the most important occasions at Court?'

'For my own,' answered Fiordelisa. 'You must admit that I have had
plenty of time on my hands, so you cannot be surprised at my spending
some of it in making myself smart.'

'That's all very fine,' said the Queen suspiciously. 'I think I will
look about, and see for myself.'

So she and Turritella began to search every corner of the little room,
and when they came to the straw mattress out fell such a quantity of
pearls, diamonds, rubies, opals, emeralds, and sapphires, that they were
amazed, and could not tell what to think. But the Queen resolved to hide
somewhere a packet of false letters to prove that the Princess had been
conspiring with the King's enemies, and she chose the chimney as a good
place. Fortunately for Fiordelisa this was exactly where the Blue Bird
had perched himself, to keep an eye upon her proceedings, and try to
avert danger from his beloved Princess, and now he cried:

'Beware, Fiordelisa! Your false enemy is plotting against you.'

This strange voice so frightened the Queen that she took the letter and
went away hastily with Turritella, and they held a council to try and
devise some means of finding out what Fairy or Enchanter was favouring
the Princess. At last they sent one of the Queen's maids to wait upon
Fiordelisa, and told her to pretend to be quite stupid, and to see and
hear nothing, while she was really to watch the Princess day and night,
and keep the Queen informed of all her doings.

Poor Fiordelisa, who guessed she was sent as a spy, was in despair, and
cried bitterly that she dared not see her dear Blue Bird for fear that
some evil might happen to him if he were discovered.

The days were so long, and the nights so dull, but for a whole month she
never went near her little window, lest he should fly to her as he used
to do.

However, at last the spy, who had never taken her eyes off the Princess
day or night, was so overcome with weariness that she fell into a deep
sleep, and as soon as the Princess saw that, she flew to open her window
and cried softly:

  'Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
  Fly to me now, there's nobody by.'

And the Blue Bird, who had never ceased to flutter round within sight
and hearing of her prison, came in an instant. They had so much to say,
and were so overjoyed to meet once more, that it scarcely seemed to them
five minutes before the sun rose, and the Blue Bird had to fly away.

But the next night the spy slept as soundly as before, so that the Blue
Bird came, and he and the Princess began to think they were perfectly
safe, and to make all sorts of plans for being happy as they were before
the Queen's visit. But, alas! the third night the spy was not quite so
sleepy, and when the Princess opened her window and cried as usual:

  'Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
  Fly to me now, there's nobody nigh,'

she was wide awake in a moment, though she was sly enough to keep her
eyes shut at first. But presently she heard voices, and peeping
cautiously, she saw by the moonlight the most lovely blue bird in the
world, who was talking to the Princess, while she stroked and caressed
it fondly.

The spy did not lose a single word of the conversation, and as soon as
the day dawned, and the Blue Bird had reluctantly said good-bye to the
Princess, she rushed off to the Queen, and told her all she had seen and
heard.

Then the Queen sent for Turritella, and they talked it over, and very
soon came to the conclusion than this Blue Bird was no other than King
Charming himself.

'Ah! that insolent Princess!' cried the Queen. 'To think that when we
supposed her to be so miserable, she was all the while as happy as
possible with that false King. But I know how we can avenge ourselves!'

So the spy was ordered to go back and pretend to sleep as soundly as
ever, and indeed she went to bed earlier than usual, and snored as
naturally as possible, and the poor Princess ran to the window and
cried:

  'Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
  Fly to me now, there's nobody by!'

But no bird came. All night long she called, and waited, and listened,
but still there was no answer, for the cruel Queen had caused the fir
tree to be hung all over with knives, swords, razors, shears,
bill-hooks, and sickles, so that when the Blue Bird heard the Princess
call, and flew towards her, his wings were cut, and his little black
feet clipped off, and all pierced and stabbed in twenty places, he fell
back bleeding into his hiding place in the tree, and lay there groaning
and despairing, for he thought the Princess must have been persuaded to
betray him, to regain her liberty.

'Ah! Fiordelisa, can you indeed be so lovely and so faithless?' he
sighed, 'then I may as well die at once!' And he turned over on his side
and began to die. But it happened that his friend the Enchanter had been
very much alarmed at seeing the Frog chariot come back to him without
King Charming, and had been round the world eight times seeking him, but
without success. At the very moment when the King gave himself up to
despair, he was passing through the wood for the eighth time, and
called, as he had done all over the world:

'Charming! King Charming! Are you here?'

The King at once recognised his friend's voice, and answered very
faintly:

'I am here.'

The Enchanter looked all round him, but could see nothing, and then the
King said again:

'I am a Blue Bird.'

Then the Enchanter found him in an instant, and seeing his pitiable
condition, ran hither and thither without a word, until he had collected
a handful of magic herbs, with which, and a few incantations, he
speedily made the King whole and sound again.

'Now,' said he, 'let me hear all about it. There must be a Princess at
the bottom of this.'

'There are two!' answered King Charming, with a wry smile.

And then he told the whole story, accusing Fiordelisa of having betrayed
the secret of his visits to make her peace with the Queen, and indeed
saying a great many hard things about her fickleness and her deceitful
beauty, and so on. The Enchanter quite agreed with him, and even went
further, declaring that all Princesses were alike, except perhaps in the
matter of beauty, and advised him to have done with Fiordelisa, and
forget all about her. But, somehow or other, this advice did not quite
please the King.

'What is to be done next?' said the Enchanter, 'since you still have
five years to remain a Blue Bird.'

'Take me to your palace,' answered the King; 'there you can at least
keep me in a cage safe from cats and swords.'

'Well, that will be the best thing to do for the present,' said his
friend. 'But I am not an Enchanter for nothing. I'm sure to have a
brilliant idea for you before long.'

[Illustration]

In the meantime Fiordelisa, quite in despair, sat at her window day and
night calling her dear Blue Bird in vain, and imagining over and over
again all the terrible things that could have happened to him, until she
grew quite pale and thin. As for the Queen and Turritella, they were
triumphant; but their triumph was short, for the King, Fiordelisa's
father, fell ill and died, and all the people rebelled against the Queen
and Turritella, and came in a body to the palace demanding Fiordelisa.

The Queen came out upon the balcony with threats and haughty
words, so that at last they lost their patience, and broke open the
doors of the palace, one of which fell back upon the Queen and
killed her. Turritella fled to the Fairy Mazilla, and all the nobles
of the kingdom fetched the Princess Fiordelisa from her prison in
the tower, and made her Queen. Very soon, with all the care and
attention they bestowed upon her, she recovered from the effects of
her long captivity and looked more beautiful than ever, and was able
to take counsel with her courtiers, and arrange for the governing of
her kingdom during her absence. And then, taking a bagful of
jewels, she set out all alone to look for the Blue Bird, without
telling anyone where she was going.

Meanwhile, the Enchanter was taking care of King Charming, but as his
power was not great enough to counteract the Fairy Mazilla's, he at last
resolved to go and see if he could make any kind of terms with her for
his friend; for you see, Fairies and Enchanters are cousins in a sort of
way, after all; and after knowing one another for five or six hundred
years and falling out, and making it up again pretty often, they
understand one another well enough. So the Fairy Mazilla received him
graciously. 'And what may you be wanting, Gossip?' said she.

'You can do a good turn for me if you will,' he answered. 'A King, who
is a friend of mine, was unlucky enough to offend you----'

'Aha! I know who you mean,' interrupted the Fairy. 'I am sorry not to
oblige you, Gossip, but he need expect no mercy from me unless he will
marry my goddaughter, whom you see yonder looking so pretty and
charming. Let him think over what I say.'

The Enchanter hadn't a word to say, for he thought Turritella really
frightful, but he could not go away without making one more effort for
his friend the King, who was really in great danger as long as he lived
in a cage. Indeed, already he had met with several alarming accidents.
Once the nail on which his cage was hung had given way, and his
feathered Majesty had suffered much from the fall, while Madam Puss, who
happened to be in the room at the time, had given him a scratch in the
eye which came very near blinding him. Another time they had forgotten
to give him any water to drink, so that he was nearly dead with thirst;
and the worst thing of all was that he was in danger of losing his
kingdom, for he had been absent so long that all his subjects believed
him to be dead. So considering all these things the Enchanter agreed
with the Fairy Mazilla that she should restore the King to his natural
form, and should take Turritella to stay in his palace for several
months, and if, after the time was over, he still could not make up his
mind to marry her, he should once more be changed into a Blue Bird.

Then the Fairy dressed Turritella in a magnificent gold and silver robe,
and they mounted together upon a flying Dragon, and very soon reached
King Charming's palace, where he, too, had just been brought by his
faithful friend the Enchanter.

Three strokes of the Fairy's wand restored his natural form, and he was
as handsome and delightful as ever, but he considered that he paid
dearly for his restoration when he caught sight of Turritella, and the
mere idea of marrying her made him shudder.

Meanwhile, Queen Fiordelisa, disguised as a poor peasant girl, wearing a
great straw hat that concealed her face, and carrying an old sack over
her shoulder, had set out upon her weary journey, and had travelled far,
sometimes by sea and sometimes by land; sometimes on foot, and sometimes
on horseback, but not knowing which way to go. She feared all the time
that every step she took was leading her farther from her lover. One day
as she sat, quite tired and sad, on the bank of a little brook, cooling
her white feet in the clear running water, and combing her long hair
that glittered like gold in the sunshine, a little bent old woman passed
by, leaning on a stick. She stopped, and said to Fiordelisa:

'What, my pretty child, are you all alone?'

'Indeed, good mother, I am too sad to care for company,' she answered;
and the tears ran down her cheeks.

'Don't cry,' said the old woman, 'but tell me truly what is the matter.
Perhaps I can help you.'

The Queen told her willingly all that had happened, and how she was
seeking the Blue Bird. Thereupon the little old woman suddenly stood up
straight, and grew tall, and young, and beautiful, and said with a smile
to the astonished Fiordelisa:

'Lovely Queen, the King whom you seek is no longer a bird. My sister
Mazilla has given his own form back to him, and he is in his own
kingdom. Do not be afraid, you will reach him, and will prosper. Take
these four eggs; if you break one when you are in any great difficulty,
you will find aid.'

[Illustration]

So saying, she disappeared, and Fiordelisa, feeling much encouraged, put
the eggs into her bag and turned her steps towards Charming's kingdom.
After walking on and on for eight days and eight nights, she came at
last to a tremendously high hill of polished ivory, so steep that it was
impossible to get a foothold upon it. Fiordelisa tried a thousand times,
and scrambled and slipped, but always in the end found herself exactly
where she started from. At last she sat down at the foot of it in
despair, and then suddenly bethought herself of the eggs. Breaking one
quickly, she found in it some little gold hooks, and with these fastened
to her feet and hands, she mounted the ivory hill without farther
trouble, for the little hooks saved her from slipping. As soon as she
reached the top a new difficulty presented itself, for all the other
side, and indeed the whole valley, was one polished mirror, in which
thousands and thousands of people were admiring their reflections. For
this was a magic mirror, in which people saw themselves just as they
wished to appear, and pilgrims came to it from the four corners of the
world. But nobody had ever been able to reach the top of the hill, and
when they saw Fiordelisa standing there, they raised a terrible outcry,
declaring that if she set foot upon their glass she would break it to
pieces. The Queen, not knowing what to do, for she saw it would be
dangerous to try to go down, broke the second egg, and out came a
chariot, drawn by two white doves, and Fiordelisa got into it, and was
floated softly away. After a night and a day the doves alighted outside
the gate of King Charming's kingdom. Here the Queen got out of the
chariot, and kissed the doves and thanked them, and then with a beating
heart she walked into the town, asking the people she met where she
could see the King. But they only laughed at her, crying:

'See the King? And pray, why do you want to see the King, my little
kitchen-maid? You had better go and wash your face first, your eyes are
not clear enough to see him!' For the Queen had disguised herself, and
pulled her hair down about her eyes, that no one might know her. As they
would not tell her, she went on farther, and presently asked again, and
this time the people answered that to-morrow she might see the King
driving through the streets with the Princess Turritella, as it was said
that at last he had consented to marry her. This was indeed terrible
news to Fiordelisa. Had she come all this weary way only to find
Turritella had succeeded in making King Charming forget her?

She was too tired and miserable to walk another step, so she sat down in
a doorway and cried bitterly all night long. As soon as it was light she
hastened to the palace, and after being sent away fifty times by the
guards, she got in at last, and saw the thrones set in the great hall
for the King and Turritella, who was already looked upon as Queen.

Fiordelisa hid herself behind a marble pillar, and very soon saw
Turritella make her appearance, richly dressed, but as ugly as ever, and
with her came the King, more handsome and splendid even than Fiordelisa
had remembered him. When Turritella had seated herself upon the throne,
the Queen approached her.

'Who are you, and how dare you come near my high-mightiness, upon my
golden throne?' said Turritella, frowning fiercely at her.

'They call me the little kitchen-maid,' she replied, 'and I come to
offer some precious things for sale,' and with that she searched in her
old sack, and drew out the emerald bracelets King Charming had given
her.

'Ho, ho!' said Turritella, 'those are pretty bits of glass. I suppose
you would like five silver pieces for them.'

'Show them to someone who understands such things, Madam,' answered the
Queen; 'after that we can decide upon the price.'

Turritella, who really loved King Charming as much as she could love
anybody, and was always delighted to get a chance of talking to him, now
showed him the bracelets, asking how much he considered them worth. As
soon as he saw them he remembered those he had given to Fiordelisa, and
turned very pale and sighed deeply, and fell into such sad thought that
he quite forgot to answer her. Presently she asked him again, and then
he said, with a great effort:

'I believe these bracelets are worth as much as my kingdom. I thought
there was only one such pair in the world; but here, it seems, is
another.'

Then Turritella went back to the Queen, and asked her what was the
lowest price she would take for them.

'More than you would find it easy to pay, Madam,' answered she; 'but if
you will manage for me to sleep one night in the Chamber of Echoes, I
will give you the emeralds.'

'By all means, my little kitchen-maid,' said Turritella, highly
delighted.

The King did not try to find out where the bracelets had come from, not
because he did not want to know, but because the only way would have
been to ask Turritella, and he disliked her so much that he never spoke
to her if he could possibly avoid it. It was he who had told Fiordelisa
about the Chamber of Echoes, when he was a Blue Bird. It was a little
room below the King's own bed-chamber, and was so ingeniously built that
the softest whisper in it was plainly heard in the King's room.
Fiordelisa wanted to reproach him for his faithlessness, and could not
imagine a better way than this. So when, by Turritella's orders, she was
left there she began to weep and lament, and never ceased until
daybreak.

The King's pages told Turritella, when she asked them, what a sobbing
and sighing they had heard, and she asked Fiordelisa what it was all
about. The Queen answered that she often dreamed and talked aloud.

But by an unlucky chance the King heard nothing of all this, for he took
a sleeping draught every night before he lay down, and did not wake up
until the sun was high.

The Queen passed the day in great disquietude.

'If he did hear me,' she said, 'could he remain so cruelly indifferent?
But if he did not hear me, what can I do to get another chance? I have
plenty of jewels, it is true, but nothing remarkable enough to catch
Turritella's fancy.'

Just then she thought of the eggs, and broke one, out of which came a
little carriage of polished steel ornamented with gold, drawn by six
green mice. The coachman was a rose-coloured rat, the postilion a grey
one, and the carriage was occupied by the tiniest and most charming
figures, who could dance and do wonderful tricks. Fiordelisa clapped her
hands and danced for joy when she saw this triumph of magic art, and as
soon as it was evening, went to a shady garden-path down which she knew
Turritella would pass, and then she made the mice galop, and the tiny
people show off their tricks, and sure enough Turritella came, and the
moment she saw it all cried:

'Little kitchen-maid, little kitchen-maid, what will you take for your
mouse-carriage?'

And the Queen answered:

'Let me sleep once more in the Chamber of Echoes.'

[Illustration]

'I won't refuse your request, poor creature,' said Turritella
condescendingly.

And then she turned to her ladies and whispered:

'The silly creature does not know how to profit by her chances; so much
the better for me.'

When night came Fiordelisa said all the loving words she could think of,
but alas! with no better success than before, for the King slept heavily
after his draught. One of the pages said:

'This peasant girl must be crazy;' but another answered:

'Yet what she says sounds very sad and touching.'

As for Fiordelisa, she thought the King must have a very hard heart if
he could hear how she grieved and yet pay her no attention. She had but
one more chance, and on breaking the last egg she found to her great
delight that it contained a more marvellous thing than ever. It was a
pie made of six birds, cooked to perfection, and yet they were all
alive, and singing and talking, and they answered questions and told
fortunes in the most amusing way. Taking this treasure Fiordelisa once
more set herself to wait in the great hall through which Turritella was
sure to pass, and as she sat there one of the King's pages came by, and
said to her:

'Well, little kitchen-maid, it is a good thing that the King always
takes a sleeping draught, for if not he would be kept awake all night by
your sighing and lamenting.'

Then Fiordelisa knew why the King had not heeded her, and taking a
handful of pearls and diamonds out of her sack, she said, 'If you can
promise me that to-night the King shall not have his sleeping draught, I
will give you all these jewels.'

'Oh! I promise that willingly,' said the page.

At this moment Turritella appeared, and at the first sight of the
savoury pie, with the pretty little birds all singing and chattering,
she cried:--

'That is an admirable pie, little kitchen-maid. Pray what will you take
for it?'

'The usual price,' she answered. 'To sleep once more in the Chamber of
Echoes.'

'By all means, only give me the pie,' said the greedy Turritella. And
when night was come, Queen Fiordelisa waited until she thought everybody
in the palace would be asleep, and then began to lament as before.

'Ah, Charming!' she said, 'what have I ever done that you should forsake
me and marry Turritella? If you could only know all I have suffered, and
what a weary way I have come to seek you.'

Now the page had faithfully kept his word, and given King Charming a
glass of water instead of his usual sleeping draught, so there he lay
wide awake, and heard every word Fiordelisa said, and even recognised
her voice, though he could not tell where it came from.

'Ah, Princess!' he said, 'how could you betray me to our cruel enemies
when I loved you so dearly?'

Fiordelisa heard him, and answered quickly:

'Find out the little kitchen-maid, and she will explain everything.'

Then the King in a great hurry sent for his pages and said:

'If you can find the little kitchen-maid, bring her to me at once.'

'Nothing could be easier, Sire,' they answered, 'for she is in the
Chamber of Echoes.'

[Illustration]

The King was very much puzzled when he heard this. How could the lovely
Princess Fiordelisa be a little kitchen-maid? or how could a little
kitchen-maid have Fiordelisa's own voice? So he dressed hastily, and ran
down a little secret staircase which led to the Chamber of Echoes.
There, upon a heap of soft cushions, sat his lovely Princess. She had
laid aside all her ugly disguises and wore a white silken robe, and her
golden hair shone in the soft lamp-light. The King was overjoyed at the
sight, and rushed to throw himself at her feet, and asked her a thousand
questions without giving her time to answer one. Fiordelisa was equally
happy to be with him once more, and nothing troubled them but the
remembrance of the Fairy Mazilla. But at this moment in came the
Enchanter, and with him a famous Fairy, the same in fact who had given
Fiordelisa the eggs. After greeting the King and Queen, they said that
as they were united in wishing to help King Charming, the Fairy Mazilla
had no longer any power against him, and he might marry Fiordelisa as
soon as he pleased. The King's joy may be imagined, and as soon as it
was day the news was spread through the palace, and everybody who saw
Fiordelisa loved her directly. When Turritella heard what had happened
she came running to the King, and when she saw Fiordelisa with him she
was terribly angry, but before she could say a word the Enchanter and
the Fairy changed her into a big brown owl, and she floated away out of
one of the palace windows, hooting dismally. Then the wedding was held
with great splendour, and King Charming and Queen Fiordelisa lived
happily ever after.

  L'Oiseau Bleu.      Par Mme. d'Auluoy.




  _THE HALF-CHICK_


Once upon a time there was a handsome black Spanish hen, who had a large
brood of chickens. They were all fine, plump little birds, except the
youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters. Indeed, he was
such a strange, queer-looking creature, that when he first chipped his
shell his mother could scarcely believe her eyes, he was so different
from the twelve other fluffy, downy, soft little chicks who nestled
under her wings. This one looked just as if he had been cut in two. He
had only one leg, and one wing, and one eye, and he had half a head and
half a beak. His mother shook her head sadly as she looked at him and
said:

'My youngest born is only a half-chick. He can never grow up a tall
handsome cock like his brothers. They will go out into the world and
rule over poultry yards of their own; but this poor little fellow will
always have to stay at home with his mother.' And she called him Medio
Pollito, which is Spanish for half-chick.

Now though Medio Pollito was such an odd, helpless-looking little thing,
his mother soon found that he was not at all willing to remain under her
wing and protection. Indeed, in character he was as unlike his brothers
and sisters as he was in appearance. They were good, obedient chickens,
and when the old hen chicked after them, they chirped and ran back to
her side. But Medio Pollito had a roving spirit in spite of his one leg,
and when his mother called to him to return to the coop, he pretended
that he could not hear, because he had only one ear.

When she took the whole family out for a walk in the fields, Medio
Pollito would hop away by himself, and hide among the Indian corn. Many
an anxious minute his brothers and sisters had looking for him, while
his mother ran to and fro cackling in fear and dismay.

As he grew older he became more self-willed and disobedient, and his
manner to his mother was often very rude, and his temper to the other
chickens very disagreeable.

One day he had been out for a longer expedition than usual in the
fields. On his return he strutted up to his mother with the peculiar
little hop and kick which was his way of walking, and cocking his one
eye at her in a very bold way he said:

'Mother, I am tired of this life in a dull farmyard, with nothing but a
dreary maize field to look at. I'm off to Madrid to see the King.'

'To Madrid, Medio Pollito!' exclaimed his mother; 'why, you silly chick,
it would be a long journey for a grown-up cock, and a poor little thing
like you would be tired out before you had gone half the distance. No,
no, stay at home with your mother, and some day, when you are bigger, we
will go a little journey together.'

But Medio Pollito had made up his mind, and he would not listen to his
mother's advice, nor to the prayers and entreaties of his brothers and
sisters.

'What is the use of our all crowding each other up in this poky little
place?' he said. 'When I have a fine courtyard of my own at the King's
palace, I shall perhaps ask some of you to come and pay me a short
visit,' and scarcely waiting to say good-bye to his family, away he
stumped down the high road that led to Madrid.

'Be sure that you are kind and civil to everyone you meet,' called his
mother, running after him; but he was in such a hurry to be off, that he
did not wait to answer her, or even to look back.

A little later in the day, as he was taking a short cut through a field,
he passed a stream. Now the stream was all choked up, and overgrown with
weeds and water-plants, so that its waters could not flow freely.

'Oh! Medio Pollito,' it cried, as the half-chick hopped along its banks,
'do come and help me by clearing away these weeds.'

'Help you, indeed!' exclaimed Medio Pollito, tossing his head, and
shaking the few feathers in his tail. 'Do you think I have nothing to do
but to waste my time on such trifles? Help yourself, and don't trouble
busy travellers. I am off to Madrid to see the King,' and hoppity-kick,
hoppity-kick, away stumped Medio Pollito.

A little later he came to a fire that had been left by some gipsies in
a wood. It was burning very low, and would soon be out.

'Oh! Medio Pollito,' cried the fire, in a weak, wavering voice as the
half-chick approached, 'in a few minutes I shall go quite out, unless
you put some sticks and dry leaves upon me. Do help me, or I shall die!'

'Help you, indeed!' answered Medio Pollito. 'I have other things to do.
Gather sticks for yourself, and don't trouble me. I am off to Madrid to
see the King,' and hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, away stumped Medio
Pollito.

The next morning, as he was getting near Madrid, he passed a large
chestnut tree, in whose branches the wind was caught and entangled. 'Oh!
Medio Pollito,' called the wind, 'do hop up here, and help me to get
free of these branches. I cannot come away, and it is so uncomfortable.'

'It is your own fault for going there,' answered Medio Pollito. 'I can't
waste all my morning stopping here to help you. Just shake yourself off,
and don't hinder me, for I am off to Madrid to see the King,' and
hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, away stumped Medio Pollito in great glee,
for the towers and roofs of Madrid were now in sight. When he entered
the town he saw before him a great splendid house, with soldiers
standing before the gates. This he knew must be the King's palace, and
he determined to hop up to the front gate and wait there until the King
came out. But as he was hopping past one of the back windows the King's
cook saw him:

'Here is the very thing I want,' he exclaimed, 'for the King has just
sent a message to say that he must have chicken broth for his dinner,'
and opening the window he stretched out his arm, caught Medio Pollito,
and popped him into the broth-pot that was standing near the fire. Oh!
how wet and clammy the water felt as it went over Medio Pollito's head,
making his feathers cling to his side.

'Water, water!' he cried in his despair, 'do have pity upon me, and do
not wet me like this.'

'Ah! Medio Pollito,' replied the water, 'you would not help me when I
was a little stream away on the fields, now you must be punished.'

Then the fire began to burn and scald Medio Pollito, and he danced and
hopped from one side of the pot to the other, trying to get away from
the heat, and crying out in pain:

'Fire, fire! do not scorch me like this; you can't think how it hurts.'

'Ah! Medio Pollito,' answered the fire, 'you would not help me when I
was dying away in the wood. You are being punished.'

At last, just when the pain was so great that Medio Pollito thought he
must die, the cook lifted up the lid of the pot to see if the broth was
ready for the King's dinner.

'Look here!' he cried in horror, 'this chicken is quite useless.

It is burnt to a cinder. I can't send it up to the royal table;' and
opening the window he threw Medio Pollito out into the street. But the
wind caught him up, and whirled him through the air so quickly that
Medio Pollito could scarcely breathe, and his heart beat against his
side till he thought it would break.

[Illustration]

'Oh, wind!' at last he gasped out, 'if you hurry me along like this you
will kill me. Do let me rest a moment, or----' but he was so breathless
that he could not finish his sentence.

'Ah! Medio Pollito,' replied the wind, 'when I was caught in the
branches of the chestnut tree you would not help me; now you are
punished.' And he swirled Medio Pollito over the roofs of the houses
till they reached the highest church in the town, and there he left him
fastened to the top of the steeple.

And there stands Medio Pollito to this day. And if you go to Madrid, and
walk through the streets till you come to the highest church, you will
see Medio Pollito perched on his one leg on the steeple, with his one
wing drooping at his side, and gazing sadly out of his one eye over the
town.

  Spanish Tradition.




  _THE STORY OF CALIPH STORK_

  I.


Caliph Chasid, of Bagdad, was resting comfortably on his divan one fine
afternoon. He was smoking a long pipe, and from time to time he sipped a
little coffee which a slave handed to him, and after each sip he stroked
his long beard with an air of enjoyment. In short, anyone could see that
the Caliph was in an excellent humour. This was, in fact, the best time
of day in which to approach him, for just now he was pretty sure to be
both affable and in good spirits, and for this reason the Grand Vizier
Mansor always chose this hour in which to pay his daily visit.

He arrived as usual this afternoon, but, contrary to his usual custom,
with an anxious face. The Caliph withdrew his pipe for a moment from his
lips and asked, 'Why do you look so anxious, Grand Vizier?'

The Grand Vizier crossed his arms on his breast and bent low before his
master as he answered:

'Oh, my Lord! whether my countenance be anxious or not I know not, but
down below, in the court of the palace, is a pedlar with such beautiful
things that I cannot help feeling annoyed at having so little money to
spare.'

The Caliph, who had wished for some time past to give his Grand Vizier a
present, ordered his black slave to bring the pedlar before him at once.
The slave soon returned, followed by the pedlar, a short stout man with
a swarthy face, and dressed in very ragged clothes. He carried a box
containing all manner of wares--strings of pearls, rings, richly mounted
pistols, goblets, and combs. The Caliph and his Vizier inspected
everything, and the Caliph chose some handsome pistols for himself and
Mansor, and a jewelled comb for the Vizier's wife. Just as the pedlar
was about to close his box, the Caliph noticed a small drawer, and asked
if there was anything else in it for sale. The pedlar opened the drawer
and showed them a box containing a black powder, and a scroll written in
strange characters, which neither the Caliph nor the Mansor could read.

'I got these two articles from a merchant who had picked them up in the
street at Mecca,' said the pedlar. 'I do not know what they may contain,
but as they are of no use to me, you are welcome to have them for a
trifle.'

[Illustration]

The Caliph, who liked to have old manuscripts in his library, even
though he could not read them, purchased the scroll and the box, and
dismissed the pedlar. Then, being anxious to know what might be the
contents of the scroll, he asked the Vizier if he did not know of anyone
who might be able to decipher it.

'Most gracious Lord and master,' replied the Vizier, 'near the great
Mosque lives a man called Selim the learned, who knows every language
under the sun. Send for him; it may be that he will be able to interpret
these mysterious characters.'

The learned Selim was summoned immediately.

'Selim,' said the Caliph, 'I hear you are a scholar. Look well at this
scroll and see whether you can read it. If you can, I will give you a
robe of honour; but if you fail, I will order you to receive twelve
strokes on your cheeks, and five-and-twenty on the soles of your feet,
because you have been falsely called Selim the learned.'

Selim prostrated himself and said, 'Be it according to your will, oh
master!' Then he gazed long at the scroll. Suddenly he exclaimed: 'May I
die, oh, my Lord, if this isn't Latin!'

'Well,' said the Caliph, 'if it is Latin, let us hear what it means.'

So Selim began to translate: 'Thou who mayest find this, praise Allah
for his mercy. Whoever shall snuff the powder in this box, and at the
same time shall pronounce the word "Mutabor!" can transform himself into
any creature he likes, and will understand the language of all animals.
When he wishes to resume the human form, he has only to bow three times
towards the east, and to repeat the same word. Be careful, however, when
wearing the shape of some beast or bird, not to laugh, or thou wilt
certainly forget the magic word and remain an animal for ever.'

When Selim the learned had read this, the Caliph was delighted. He made
the wise man swear not to tell the matter to anyone, gave him a splendid
robe, and dismissed him. Then he said to his Vizier, 'That's what I call
a good bargain, Mansor. I am longing for the moment when I can become
some animal. To-morrow morning I shall expect you early; we will go into
the country, take some snuff from my box, and then hear what is being
said in air, earth, and water.'


  II.

Next morning Caliph Chasid had barely finished dressing and
breakfasting, when the Grand Vizier arrived, according to orders, to
accompany him in his expedition. The Caliph stuck the snuff-box in his
girdle, and, having desired his servants to remain at home, started off
with the Grand Vizier only in attendance. First they walked through the
palace gardens, but they looked in vain for some creature which could
tempt them to try their magic power. At length the Vizier suggested
going further on to a pond which lay beyond the town, and where he had
often seen a variety of creatures, especially storks, whose grave,
dignified appearance and constant chatter had often attracted his
attention.

The Caliph consented, and they went straight to the pond. As soon as
they arrived they remarked a stork strutting up and down with a stately
air, hunting for frogs, and now and then muttering something to itself.
At the same time they saw another stork far above in the sky flying
towards the same spot.

'I would wager my beard, most gracious master,' said the Grand Vizier,
'that these two long legs will have a good chat together. How would it
be if we turned ourselves into storks?'

'Well said,' replied the Caliph; 'but first let us remember carefully
how we are to become men once more. True! Bow three times towards the
east and say "Mutabor!" and I shall be Caliph and you my Grand Vizier
again. But for Heaven's sake don't laugh or we are lost!'

As the Caliph spoke he saw the second stork circling round his head and
gradually flying towards the earth. Quickly he drew the box from his
girdle, took a good pinch of the snuff, and offered one to Mansor, who
also took one, and both cried together 'Mutabor!'

Instantly their legs shrivelled up and grew thin and red; their smart
yellow slippers turned to clumsy stork's feet, their arms to wings;
their necks began to sprout from between their shoulders and grew a yard
long; their beards disappeared, and their bodies were covered with
feathers.

'You've got a fine long bill, Sir Vizier,' cried the Caliph, after
standing for some time lost in astonishment. 'By the beard of the
Prophet I never saw such a thing in all my life!'

'My very humble thanks,' replied the Grand Vizier, as he bent his long
neck; 'but, if I may venture to say so, your Highness is even handsomer
as a stork than as a Caliph. But come, if it so pleases you, let us go
near our comrades there and find out whether we really do understand the
language of storks.'

Meantime the second stork had reached the ground. It first scraped its
bill with its claw, stroked down its feathers, and then advanced towards
the first stork. The two newly made storks lost no time in drawing near,
and to their amazement overheard the following conversation:

'Good morning, Dame Longlegs. You are out early this morning!'

'Yes, indeed, dear Chatterbill! I am getting myself a morsel of
breakfast. May I offer you a joint of lizard or a frog's thigh?'

'A thousand thanks, but I have really no appetite this morning. I am
here for a very different purpose. I am to dance to-day before my
father's guests, and I have come to the meadow for a little quiet
practice.'

Thereupon the young stork began to move about with the most wonderful
steps. The Caliph and Mansor looked on in surprise for some time; but
when at last she balanced herself in a picturesque attitude on one leg,
and flapped her wings gracefully up and down, they could hold out no
longer; a prolonged peal burst from each of their bills, and it was some
time before they could recover their composure. The Caliph was the first
to collect himself. 'That was the best joke,' said he, 'I've ever seen.
It's a pity the stupid creatures were scared away by our laughter, or no
doubt they would have sung next!'

[Illustration]

Suddenly, however, the Vizier remembered how strictly they had been
warned not to laugh during their transformation. He at once communicated
his fears to the Caliph, who exclaimed, 'By Mecca and Medina! it would
indeed prove but a poor joke if I had to remain a stork for the
remainder of my days! Do just try and remember the stupid word, it has
slipped my memory.'

'We must bow three times eastwards and say "Mu . . . mu . . . mu . . ."'

They turned to the east and fell to bowing till their bills touched the
ground, but, oh horror--the magic word was quite forgotten, and however
often the Caliph bowed and however touchingly his Vizier cried 'Mu . . .
mu . . .' they could not recall it, and the unhappy Chasid and Mansor
remained storks as they were.


  III.

The two enchanted birds wandered sadly on through the meadows. In their
misery they could not think what to do next. They could not rid
themselves of their new forms; there was no use in returning to the town
and saying who they were; for who would believe a stork who announced
that he was a Caliph; and even if they did believe him, would the people
of Bagdad consent to let a stork rule over them?

So they lounged about for several days, supporting themselves on fruits,
which, however, they found some difficulty in eating with their long
bills. They did not much care to eat frogs or lizards. Their one comfort
in their sad plight was the power of flying, and accordingly they often
flew over the roofs of Bagdad to see what was going on there.

During the first few days they noticed signs of much disturbance and
distress in the streets, but about the fourth day, as they sat on the
roof of the palace, they perceived a splendid procession passing below
them along the street. Drums and trumpets sounded, a man in a scarlet
mantle, embroidered in gold, sat on a splendidly caparisoned horse
surrounded by richly dressed slaves; half Bagdad crowded after him, and
they all shouted, 'Hail, Mirza, the Lord of Bagdad!'

The two storks on the palace roof looked at each other, and Caliph
Chasid said, 'Can you guess now, Grand Vizier, why I have been
enchanted? This Mirza is the son of my deadly enemy, the mighty magician
Kaschnur, who in an evil moment vowed vengeance on me. Still I will not
despair! Come with me, my faithful friend; we will go to the grave of
the Prophet, and perhaps at that sacred spot the spell may be loosed.'

They rose from the palace roof, and spread their wings toward Medina.

But flying was not quite an easy matter, for the two storks had had but
little practice as yet.

'Oh, my Lord!' gasped the Vizier, after a couple of hours, 'I can get on
no longer; you really fly too quick for me. Besides, it is nearly
evening, and we should do well to find some place in which to spend the
night.'

Chasib listened with favour to his servant's suggestion, and perceiving
in the valley beneath them a ruin which seemed to promise shelter they
flew towards it. The building in which they proposed to pass the night
had apparently been formerly a castle. Some handsome pillars still stood
amongst the heaps of ruins, and several rooms, which yet remained in
fair preservation, gave evidence of former splendour. Chasid and his
companion wandered along the passages seeking a dry spot, when suddenly
Mansor stood still.

'My Lord and master,' he whispered, 'if it were not absurd for a Grand
Vizier, and still more for a stork, to be afraid of ghosts, I should
feel quite nervous, for someone, or something close by me, has sighed
and moaned quite audibly.'

The Caliph stood still and distinctly heard a low weeping sound which
seemed to proceed from a human being rather than from any animal. Full
of curiosity he was about to rush towards the spot from whence the
sounds of woe came, when the Vizier caught him by the wing with his
bill, and implored him not to expose himself to fresh and unknown
dangers. The Caliph, however, under whose stork's breast a brave heart
beat, tore himself away with the loss of a few feathers, and hurried
down a dark passage. He saw a door which stood ajar, and through which
he distinctly heard sighs, mingled with sobs. He pushed open the door
with his bill, but remained on the threshold, astonished at the sight
which met his eyes. On the floor of the ruined chamber--which was but
scantily lighted by a small barred window--sat a large screech owl. Big
tears rolled from its large round eyes, and in a hoarse voice it uttered
its complaints through its crooked beak. As soon as it saw the Caliph
and his Vizier--who had crept up meanwhile--it gave vent to a joyful
cry. It gently wiped the tears from its eyes with its spotted brown
wings, and to the great amazement of the two visitors, addressed them in
good human Arabic.

'Welcome, ye storks! You are a good sign of my deliverance, for it was
foretold me that a piece of good fortune should befall me through a
stork.'

When the Caliph had recovered from his surprise, he drew up his feet
into a graceful position, bent his long neck, and said: 'Oh, screech
owl! from your words I am led to believe that we see in you a companion
in misfortune. But, alas! your hope that you may attain your deliverance
through us is but a vain one. You will know our helplessness when you
have heard our story.'

The screech owl begged him to relate it, and the Caliph accordingly told
him what we already know.


  IV.

When the Caliph had ended, the owl thanked him and said: 'You hear my
story, and own that I am no less unfortunate than yourselves. My father
is the King of the Indies. I, his only daughter, am named Lusa. That
magician Kaschnur, who enchanted you, has been the cause of my
misfortunes too. He came one day to my father and demanded my hand for
his son Mirza. My father--who is rather hasty--ordered him to be thrown
downstairs. The wretch not long after managed to approach me under
another form, and one day, when I was in the garden, and asked for some
refreshment, he brought me--in the disguise of a slave--a draught which
changed me at once to this horrid shape. Whilst I was fainting with
terror he transported me here, and cried to me with his awful voice:
"There shall you remain, lonely and hideous, despised even by the
brutes, till the end of your days, or till some one of his own free will
asks you to be his wife. Thus do I avenge myself on you and your proud
father."

'Since then many months have passed away. Sad and lonely do I live like
any hermit within these walls, avoided by the world and a terror even to
animals; the beauties of nature are hidden from me, for I am blind by
day, and it is only when the moon sheds her pale light on this spot that
the veil falls from my eyes and I can see.' The owl paused, and once
more wiped her eyes with her wing, for the recital of her woes had drawn
fresh tears from her.

The Caliph fell into deep thought on hearing this story of the Princess.
'If I am not much mistaken,' said he, 'there is some mysterious
connection between our misfortunes, but how to find the key to the
riddle is the question.'

The owl answered: 'Oh, my Lord! I too feel sure of this, for in my
earliest youth a wise woman foretold that a stork would bring me some
great happiness, and I think I could tell you how we might save
ourselves.' The Caliph was much surprised, and asked her what she meant.

'The Magician who has made us both miserable,' said she, 'comes once a
month to these ruins. Not far from this room is a large hall where he is
in the habit of feasting with his companions. I have often watched them.
They tell each other all about their evil deeds, and possibly the magic
word which you have forgotten may be mentioned.'

'Oh, dearest Princess!' exclaimed the Caliph, 'say, when does he come,
and where is the hall?'

The owl paused a moment and then said: 'Do not think me unkind, but I
can only grant your request on one condition.'

'Speak, speak!' cried Chasid; 'command, I will gladly do whatever you
wish!'

'Well,' replied the owl, 'you see I should like to be free too; but this
can only be if one of you will offer me his hand in marriage.'

The storks seemed rather taken aback by this suggestion, and the Caliph
beckoned to his Vizier to retire and consult with him.

When they were outside the door the Caliph said: 'Grand Vizier, this is
a tiresome business. However, you can take her.'

'Indeed!' said the Vizier; 'so that when I go home my wife may scratch
my eyes out! Besides, I am an old man, and your Highness is still young
and unmarried, and a far more suitable match for a young and lovely
Princess.'

'That's just where it is,' sighed the Caliph, whose wings drooped in a
dejected manner; 'how do you know she is young and lovely? I call it
buying a pig in a poke.'

They argued on for some time, but at length, when the Caliph saw plainly
that his Vizier would rather remain a stork to the end of his days than
marry the owl, he determined to fulfil the condition himself. The owl
was delighted. She owned that they could not have arrived at a better
time, as most probably the magicians would meet that very night.

She then proceeded to lead the two storks to the chamber. They passed
through a long dark passage till at length a bright ray of light shone
before them through the chinks of a half-ruined wall. When they reached
it the owl advised them to keep very quiet. Through the gap near which
they stood they could with ease survey the whole of the large hall. It
was adorned with splendid carved pillars; a number of coloured lamps
replaced the light of day. In the middle of the hall stood a round
table covered with a variety of dishes, and about the table was a divan
on which eight men were seated. In one of these bad men the two
recognised the pedlar who had sold the magic powder. The man next him
begged him to relate all his latest doings, and amongst them he told the
story of the Caliph and his Vizier.

[Illustration]

'And what kind of word did you give them?' asked another old sorcerer.

'A very difficult Latin word; it is "Mutabor."'


  V.

As soon as the storks heard this they were nearly beside themselves with
joy. They ran at such a pace to the door of the ruined castle that the
owl could scarcely keep up with them. When they reached it the Caliph
turned to the owl, and said with much feeling: 'Deliverer of my friend
and myself, as a proof of my eternal gratitude, accept me as your
husband.' Then he turned towards the east. Three times the storks bowed
their long necks to the sun, which was just rising over the mountains.
'Mutabor!' they both cried, and in an instant they were once more
transformed. In the rapture of their newly-given lives master and
servant fell laughing and weeping into each other's arms. Who shall
describe their surprise when they at last turned round and beheld
standing before them a beautiful lady exquisitely dressed!

With a smile she held out her hand to the Caliph, and asked: 'Do you not
recognise your screech owl?'

It was she! The Caliph was so enchanted by her grace and beauty, that he
declared being turned into a stork had been the best piece of luck which
had ever befallen him. The three set out at once for Bagdad.
Fortunately, the Caliph found not only the box with the magic powder,
but also his purse in his girdle; he was, therefore, able to buy in the
nearest village all they required for their journey, and so at last they
reached the gates of Bagdad.

Here the Caliph's arrival created the greatest sensation. He had been
quite given up for dead, and the people were greatly rejoiced to see
their beloved ruler again.

Their rage with the usurper Mirza, however, was great in proportion.
They marched in force to the palace and took the old magician and his
son prisoners. The Caliph sent the magician to the room where the
Princess had lived as an owl, and there had him hanged. As the son,
however, knew nothing of his father's acts, the Caliph gave him his
choice between death and a pinch of the magic snuff. When he chose the
latter, the Grand Vizier handed him the box. One good pinch, and the
magic word transformed him to a stork. The Caliph ordered him to be
confined in an iron cage, and placed in the palace gardens.

Caliph Chasid lived long and happily with his wife the Princess. His
merriest time was when the Grand Vizier visited him in the afternoon;
and when the Caliph was in particularly high spirits he would condescend
to mimic the Vizier's appearance when he was a stork. He would strut
gravely, and with well-stiffened legs, up and down the room, chattering,
and showing how he had vainly bowed to the east and cried 'Mu . . . Mu . . .'
The Caliphess and her children were always much entertained by this
performance; but when the Caliph went on nodding and bowing, and calling
'Mu . . . mu . . .' too long, the Vizier would threaten laughingly to
tell the Caliphess the subject of the discussion carried on one night
outside the door of Princess Screech Owl.




  _THE ENCHANTED WATCH_


Once upon a time there lived a rich man who had three sons. When they
grew up, he sent the eldest to travel and see the world, and three years
passed before his family saw him again. Then he returned, magnificently
dressed, and his father was so delighted with his behaviour, that he
gave a great feast in his honour, to which all the relations and friends
were invited.

When the rejoicings were ended, the second son begged leave of his
father to go in his turn to travel and mix with the world. The father
was enchanted at the request, and gave him plenty of money for his
expenses, saying, 'If you behave as well as your brother, I will do
honour to you as I did to him.' The young man promised to do his best,
and his conduct during three years was all that it should be. Then he
went home, and his father was so pleased with him that his feast of
welcome was even more splendid than the one before.

The third brother, whose name was Jenik, or Johnnie, was considered the
most foolish of the three. He never did anything at home except sit over
the stove and dirty himself with the ashes; but he also begged his
father's leave to travel for three years. 'Go if you like, you idiot;
but what good will it do you?'

The youth paid no heed to his father's observations as long as he
obtained permission to go. The father saw him depart with joy, glad to
get rid of him, and gave him a handsome sum of money for his needs.

Once, as he was making one of his journeys, Jenik chanced to cross a
meadow where some shepherds were just about to kill a dog. He entreated
them to spare it, and to give it to him instead, which they willingly
did, and he went on his way, followed by the dog. A little further on he
came upon a cat, which someone was going to put to death. He implored
its life, and the cat followed him. Finally, in another place, he saved
a serpent, which was also handed over to him, and now they made a party
of four--the dog behind Jenik, the cat behind the dog, and the serpent
behind the cat.

Then the serpent said to Jenik, 'Go wherever you see me go,' for in the
autumn, when all the serpents hide themselves in their holes, this
serpent was going in search of his king, who was king of all the snakes.

Then he added: 'My king will scold me for my long absence, everyone else
is housed for the winter, and I am very late. I shall have to tell him
what danger I have been in, and how, without your help, I should
certainly have lost my life. The king will ask what you would like in
return, and be sure you beg for the watch which hangs on the wall. It
has all sorts of wonderful properties, you only need to rub it to get
whatever you like.'

[Illustration]

No sooner said than done. Jenik became the master of the watch, and the
moment he got out he wished to put its virtues to the proof. He was
hungry, and thought it would be delightful to eat in the meadow a loaf
of new bread and a steak of good beef washed down by a flask of wine, so
he scratched the watch, and in an instant it was all before him. Imagine
his joy!

Evening soon came, and Jenik rubbed his watch, and thought it would be
very pleasant to have a room with a comfortable bed and a good supper.
In an instant they were all before him. After supper he went to bed and
slept till morning, as every honest man ought to do. Then he set forth
for his father's house, his mind dwelling on the feast that would be
awaiting him. But as he returned in the same old clothes in which he
went away, his father flew into a great rage, and refused to do anything
for him. Jenik went to his old place near the stove, and dirtied himself
in the ashes without anybody minding.

The third day, feeling rather dull, he thought it would be nice to see a
three-story house filled with beautiful furniture, and with vessels of
silver and gold. So he rubbed the watch, and there it all was. Jenik
went to look for his father, and said to him: 'You offered me no feast
of welcome, but permit me to give one to you, and come and let me show
you my plate.'

The father was much astonished, and longed to know where his son had got
all this wealth. Jenik did not reply, but begged him to invite all their
relations and friends to a grand banquet.

So the father invited all the world, and everyone was amazed to see such
splendid things, so much plate, and so many fine dishes on the table.
After the first course Jenik prayed his father to invite the King, and
his daughter the Princess. He rubbed his watch and wished for a carriage
ornamented with gold and silver, and drawn by six horses, with harness
glittering with precious stones. The father did not dare to sit in this
gorgeous coach, but went to the palace on foot. The King and his
daughter were immensely surprised with the beauty of the carriage, and
mounted the steps at once to go to Jenik's banquet. Then Jenik rubbed
his watch afresh, and wished that for six miles the way to the house
should be paved with marble. Who ever felt so astonished as the King?
Never had he travelled over such a gorgeous road.

When Jenik heard the wheels of the carriage, he rubbed his watch and
wished for a still more beautiful house, four stories high, and hung
with gold, silver, and damask; filled with wonderful tables, covered
with dishes such as no king had ever eaten before. The King, the Queen,
and the Princess were speechless with surprise. Never had they seen such
a splendid palace, nor such a high feast! At dessert the King asked
Jenik's father to give him the young man for a son-in-law. No sooner
said than done! The marriage took place at once, and the King returned
to his own palace, and left Jenik with his wife in the enchanted house.

Now Jenik was not a very clever man, and at the end of a very short time
he began to bore his wife. She inquired how he managed to build palaces
and to get so many precious things. He told her all about the watch, and
she never rested till she had stolen the precious talisman. One night
she took the watch, rubbed it, and wished for a carriage drawn by four
horses; and in this carriage she at once set out for her father's
palace. There she called to her own attendants, bade them follow her
into the carriage, and drove straight to the sea-side. Then she rubbed
her watch, and wished that the sea might be crossed by a bridge, and
that a magnificent palace might arise in the middle of the sea. No
sooner said than done. The Princess entered the house, rubbed her watch,
and in an instant the bridge was gone.

Left alone, Jenik felt very miserable. His father, mother, and brothers,
and, indeed, everybody else, all laughed at him. Nothing remained to him
but the cat and dog whose lives he had once saved. He took them with him
and went far away, for he could no longer live with his family. He
reached at last a great desert, and saw some crows flying towards a
mountain. One of them was a long way behind, and when he arrived his
brothers inquired what had made him so late. 'Winter is here,' they
said, 'and it is time to fly to other countries.' He told them that he
had seen in the middle of the sea the most wonderful house that ever was
built.

On hearing this, Jenik at once concluded that this must be the
hiding-place of his wife. So he proceeded directly to the shore with his
dog and his cat. When he arrived on the beach, he said to the dog: 'You
are an excellent swimmer, and you, little one, are very light; jump on
the dog's back and he will take you to the palace. Once there, he will
hide himself near the door, and you must steal secretly in and try to
get hold of my watch.'

No sooner said than done. The two animals crossed the sea; the dog hid
near the house, and the cat stole into the chamber. The Princess
recognised him, and guessed why he had come; and she took the watch down
to the cellar and locked it in a box. But the cat wriggled its way into
the cellar, and the moment the Princess turned her back, he scratched
and scratched till he had made a hole in the box. Then he took the watch
between his teeth, and waited quietly till the Princess came back.
Scarcely had she opened the door when the cat was outside, and the
watch into the bargain.

The cat was no sooner beyond the gates than she said to the dog:

'We are going to cross the sea; be very careful not to speak to me.'

The dog laid this to heart and said nothing; but when they approached
the shore he could not help asking, 'Have you got the watch?'

The cat did not answer--he was afraid that he might let the talisman
fall. When they touched the shore the dog repeated his question.

'Yes,' said the cat.

And the watch fell into the sea. Then our two friends began each to
accuse the other, and both looked sorrowfully at the place where their
treasure had fallen in. Suddenly a fish appeared near the edge of the
sea. The cat seized it, and thought it would make them a good supper.

'I have nine little children,' cried the fish. 'Spare the father of a
family!'

'Granted,' replied the cat; 'but on condition that you find our watch.'

The fish executed his commission, and they brought the treasure back to
their master. Jenik rubbed the watch and wished that the palace, with
the Princess and all its inhabitants, should be swallowed up in the sea.
No sooner said than done. Jenik returned to his parents, and he and his
watch, his cat and his dog, lived together happily to the end of their
days.

  Deulin.




  _ROSANELLA_


Everybody knows that though the fairies live hundreds of years they do
sometimes die, and especially as they are obliged to pass one day in
every week under the form of some animal, when of course they are liable
to accident. It was in this way that death once overtook the Queen of
the Fairies, and it became necessary to call a general assembly to elect
a new sovereign. After much discussion, it appeared that the choice lay
between two fairies, one called Surcantine and the other Paridamie; and
their claims were so equal that it was impossible without injustice to
prefer one to the other. Under these circumstances it was unanimously
decided that whichever of the two could show to the world the greatest
wonder should be Queen; but it was to be a special kind of wonder, no
moving of mountains or any such common fairy tricks would do.
Surcantine, therefore, resolved that she would bring up a Prince whom
nothing could make constant. While Paridamie decided to display to
admiring mortals a Princess so charming that no one could see her
without falling in love with her. They were allowed to take their own
time, and meanwhile the four oldest fairies were to attend to the
affairs of the kingdom.

Now Paridamie had for a long time been very friendly with King
Bardondon, who was a most accomplished Prince, and whose court was the
model of what a court should be. His Queen, Balanice, was also charming;
indeed it is rare to find a husband and wife so perfectly of one mind
about everything. They had one little daughter, whom they had named
'Rosanella,' because she had a little pink rose printed upon her white
throat. From her earliest infancy she had shown the most astonishing
intelligence, and the courtiers knew her smart sayings by heart, and
repeated them on all occasions. In the middle of the night following the
assembly of fairies, Queen Balanice woke up with a shriek, and when her
maids of honour ran to see what was the matter, they found she had had a
frightful dream.

'I thought,' said she, 'that my little daughter had changed into a
bouquet of roses, and that as I held it in my hand a bird swooped down
suddenly and snatched it from me and carried it away.'

'Let some one run and see that all is well with the Princess,' she
added.

[Illustration]

So they ran; but what was their dismay when they found that the cradle
was empty; and though they sought high and low, not a trace of Rosanella
could they discover. The Queen was inconsolable, and so, indeed, was the
King, only being a man he did not say quite so much about his feelings.
He presently proposed to Balanice that they should spend a few days at
one of their palaces in the country; and to this she willingly agreed,
since her grief made the gaiety of the capital distasteful to her. One
lovely summer evening, as they sat together on a shady lawn shaped like
a star, from which radiated twelve splendid avenues of trees, the Queen
looked round and saw a charming peasant-girl approaching by each path,
and what was still more singular was that everyone carried something in
a basket which appeared to occupy her whole attention. As each drew near
she laid her basket at Balanice's feet, saying:

'Charming Queen, may this be some slight consolation to you in your
unhappiness!'

The Queen hastily opened the baskets, and found in each a lovely
baby-girl, about the same age as the little Princess for whom she
sorrowed so deeply. At first the sight of them renewed her grief; but
presently their charms so gained upon her that she forgot her melancholy
in providing them with nursery-maids, cradle-rockers, and
ladies-in-waiting, and in sending hither and thither for swings and
dolls and tops, and bushels of the finest sweetmeats.

Oddly enough, every baby had upon its throat a tiny pink rose. The Queen
found it so difficult to decide on suitable names for all of them, that
until she could settle the matter she chose a special colour for
everyone, by which it was known, so that when they were all together
they looked like nothing so much as a nosegay of gay flowers. As they
grew older it became evident that though they were all remarkably
intelligent, and profited equally by the education they received, yet
they differed one from another in disposition, so much so that they
gradually ceased to be known as 'Pearl,' or 'Primrose,' or whatever
might have been their colour, and the Queen instead would say:

'Where is my Sweet?' or 'my Beautiful,' or 'my Gay.'

Of course, with all these charms they had lovers by the dozen. Not only
in their own court, but princes from afar, who were constantly arriving,
attracted by the reports which were spread abroad; but these lovely
girls, the first Maids of Honour, were as discreet as they were
beautiful, and favoured no one.

But let us return to Surcantine. She had fixed upon the son of a king
who was cousin to Bardondon, to bring up as her fickle Prince. She had
before, at his christening, given him all the graces of mind and body
that a prince could possibly require; but now she redoubled her efforts,
and spared no pains in adding every imaginable charm and fascination. So
that whether he happened to be cross or amiable, splendidly or simply
attired, serious or frivolous, he was always perfectly irresistible! In
truth, he was a charming young fellow, since the Fairy had given him the
best heart in the world as well as the best head, and had left nothing
to be desired but--constancy. For it cannot be denied that Prince
Mirliflor was a desperate flirt, and as fickle as the wind; so much so,
that by the time he arrived at his eighteenth birthday there was not a
heart left for him to conquer in his father's kingdom--they were all his
own, and he was tired of everyone! Things were in this state when he was
invited to visit the court of his father's cousin, King Bardondon.

Imagine his feelings when he arrived and was presented at once to twelve
of the loveliest creatures in the world, and his embarrassment was
heightened by the fact that they all liked him as much as he liked each
one of them, so that things came to such a pass that he was never happy
a single instant without them. For could he not whisper soft speeches to
Sweet, and laugh with Joy, while he looked at Beauty? And in his more
serious moments what could be pleasanter than to talk to Grave upon some
shady lawn, while he held the hand of Loving in his own, and all the
others lingered near in sympathetic silence? For the first time in his
life he really loved, though the object of his devotion was not one
person, but twelve, to whom he was equally attached, and even Surcantine
was deceived into thinking that this was indeed the height of
inconstancy. But Paridamie said not a word.

In vain did Prince Mirliflor's father write commanding him to return,
and proposing for him one good match after another. Nothing in the world
could tear him from his twelve enchantresses.

One day the Queen gave a large garden-party, and just as the guests were
all assembled, and Prince Mirliflor was as usual dividing his attentions
between the twelve beauties, a humming of bees was heard. The
Rose-maidens, fearing their stings, uttered little shrieks, and fled all
together to a distance from the rest of the company. Immediately, to the
horror of all who were looking on, the bees pursued them, and, growing
suddenly to an enormous size, pounced each upon a maiden and carried her
off into the air, and in an instant they were all lost to view. This
amazing occurrence plunged the whole court into the deepest affliction,
and Prince Mirliflor, after giving way to the most violent grief at
first, fell gradually into a state of such deep dejection that it was
feared if nothing could rouse him he would certainly die. Surcantine
came in all haste to see what she could do for her darling, but he
rejected with scorn all the portraits of lovely princesses which she
offered him for his collection. In short, it was evident that he was in
a bad way, and the Fairy was at her wits' end. One day, as he wandered
about absorbed in melancholy reflections, he heard sudden shouts and
exclamations of amazement, and if he had taken the trouble to look up he
could not have helped being as astonished as everyone else, for through
the air a chariot of crystal was slowly approaching which glittered in
the sunshine. Six lovely maidens with shining wings drew it by
rose-coloured ribbons, while a whole flight of others, equally
beautiful, were holding long garlands of roses crossed above it, so as
to form a complete canopy. In it sat the Fairy Paridamie, and by her
side a Princess whose beauty positively dazzled all who saw her. At the
foot of the great staircase they descended, and proceeded to the Queen's
apartments, though everyone had run together to see this marvel, till it
was quite difficult to make a way through the crowd; and exclamations of
wonder rose on all sides at the loveliness of the strange Princess.
'Great Queen,' said Paridamie, 'permit me to restore to you your
daughter Rosanella, whom I stole out of her cradle.'

After the first transports of joy were over the Queen said to Paridamie:

'But my twelve lovely ones, are they lost to me for ever? Shall I never
see them again?'

But Paridamie only said:

'Very soon you will cease to miss them!' in a tone that evidently meant
'Don't ask me any more questions.' And then mounting again into her
chariot she swiftly disappeared.

The news of his beautiful cousin's arrival was soon carried to the
Prince, but he had hardly the heart to go and see her. However, it
became absolutely necessary that he should pay his respects, and he had
scarcely been five minutes in her presence before it seemed to him that
she combined in her own charming person all the gifts and graces which
had so attracted him in the twelve Rose-maidens whose loss he had so
truly mourned; and after all it is really more satisfactory to make love
to one person at a time. So it came to pass that before he knew where he
was he was entreating his lovely cousin to marry him, and the moment the
words had left his lips, Paridamie appeared, smiling and triumphant, in
the chariot of the Queen of the Fairies, for by that time they had all
heard of her success, and declared her to have earned the kingdom. She
had to give a full account of how she had stolen Rosanella from her
cradle, and divided her character into twelve parts, that each might
charm Prince Mirliflor, and when once more united might cure him of his
inconstancy once and for ever.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS CARRIED OFF BY THE BEES]

And as one more proof of the fascination of the whole Rosanella, I may
tell you that even the defeated Surcantine sent her a wedding gift, and
was present at the ceremony which took place as soon as the guests could
arrive. Prince Mirliflor was constant for the rest of his life. And
indeed who would not have been in his place? As for Rosanella, she loved
him as much as all the twelve beauties put together, so they reigned in
peace and happiness to the end of their long lives.

  By the Comte de Caylus.




  _SYLVAIN AND JOCOSA_


Once upon a time there lived in the same village two children, one
called Sylvain and the other Jocosa, who were both remarkable for beauty
and intelligence. It happened that their parents were not on terms of
friendship with one another, on account of some old quarrel, which had,
however, taken place so long ago, that they had quite forgotten what it
was all about, and only kept up the feud from force of habit. Sylvain
and Jocosa for their parts were far from sharing this enmity, and indeed
were never happy when apart. Day after day they fed their flocks of
sheep together, and spent the long sunshiny hours in playing, or resting
upon some shady bank. It happened one day that the Fairy of the Meadows
passed by and saw them, and was so much attracted by their pretty faces
and gentle manners that she took them under her protection, and the
older they grew the dearer they became to her. At first she showed her
interest by leaving in their favourite haunts many little gifts such as
they delighted to offer one to the other, for they loved each other so
much that their first thought was always, 'What will Jocosa like?' or,
'What will please Sylvain?' And the Fairy took a great delight in their
innocent enjoyment of the cakes and sweetmeats she gave them nearly
every day. When they were grown up she resolved to make herself known to
them, and chose a time when they were sheltering from the noonday sun in
the deep shade of a flowery hedgerow. They were startled at first by the
sudden apparition of a tall and slender lady, dressed all in green, and
crowned with a garland of flowers. But when she spoke to them sweetly,
and told them how she had always loved them, and that it was she who had
given them all the pretty things which it had so surprised them to find,
they thanked her gratefully, and took pleasure in answering the
questions she put to them. When she presently bade them farewell, she
told them never to tell anyone else that they had seen her. 'You will
often see me again,' added she, 'and I shall be with you frequently,
even when you do not see me.' So saying she vanished, leaving them in a
state of great wonder and excitement. After this she came often, and
taught them numbers of things, and showed them many of the marvels of
her beautiful kingdom, and at last one day she said to them, 'You know
that I have always been kind to you; now I think it is time you did
something for me in your turn. You both remember the fountain I call my
favourite? Promise me that every morning before the sun rises you will
go to it and clear away every stone that impedes its course, and every
dead leaf or broken twig that sullies its clear waters. I shall take it
as a proof of your gratitude to me if you neither forget nor delay this
duty, and I promise that so long as the sun's earliest rays find my
favourite spring the clearest and sweetest in all my meadows, you two
shall not be parted from one another.'

[Illustration]

Sylvain and Jocosa willingly undertook this service, and indeed felt
that it was but a very small thing in return for all that the fairy had
given and promised to them. So for a long time the fountain was tended
with the most scrupulous care, and was the clearest and prettiest in all
the country round. But one morning in the spring, long before the sun
rose, they were hastening towards it from opposite directions, when,
tempted by the beauty of the myriads of gay flowers which grew thickly
on all sides, they paused each to gather some for the other.

'I will make Sylvain a garland,' said Jocosa, and 'How pretty Jocosa
will look in this crown!' thought Svlvain.

Hither and thither they strayed, led ever farther and farther, for the
brightest flowers seemed always just beyond them, until at last they
were startled by the first bright rays of the rising sun. With one
accord they turned and ran towards the fountain, reaching it at the same
moment, though from opposite sides. But what was their horror to see its
usually tranquil waters seething and bubbling, and even as they looked
down rushed a mighty stream, which entirely engulfed it, and Sylvain and
Jocosa found themselves parted by a wide and swiftly-rushing river. All
this had happened with such rapidity that they had only time to utter a
cry, and each to hold up to the other the flowers they had gathered; but
this was explanation enough. Twenty times did Sylvain throw himself into
the turbulent waters, hoping to be able to swim to the other side, but
each time an irresistible force drove him back upon the bank he had just
quitted, while, as for Jocosa, she even essayed to cross the flood upon
a tree which came floating down torn up by the roots, but her efforts
were equally useless. Then with heavy hearts they set out to follow the
course of the stream, which had now grown so wide that it was only with
difficulty they could distinguish each other. Night and day, over
mountains and through valleys, in cold or in heat, they struggled on,
enduring fatigue and hunger and every hardship, and consoled only by the
hope of meeting once more--until three years had passed, and at last
they stood upon the cliffs where the river flowed into the mighty sea.

And now they seemed farther apart than ever, and in despair they tried
once more to throw themselves into the foaming waves. But the Fairy of
the Meadows, who had really never ceased to watch over them, did not
intend that they should be drowned at last, so she hastily waved her
wand, and immediately they found themselves standing side by side upon
the golden sand. You may imagine their joy and delight when they
realised that their weary struggle was ended, and their utter
contentment as they clasped each other by the hand. They had so much to
say that they hardly knew where to begin, but they agreed in blaming
themselves bitterly for the negligence which had caused all their
trouble; and when she heard this the Fairy immediately appeared to them.
They threw themselves at her feet and implored her forgiveness, which
she granted freely, and promised at the same time that now their
punishment was ended she would always befriend them. Then she sent for
her chariot of green rushes, ornamented with May dew-drops, which she
particularly valued and always collected with great care; and ordered
her six short-tailed moles to carry them all back to the well-known
pastures, which they did in a remarkably short time; and Sylvain and
Jocosa were overjoyed to see their dearly-loved home once more after all
their toilful wanderings. The Fairy, who had set her mind upon securing
their happiness, had in their absence quite made up the quarrel between
their parents, and gained their consent to the marriage of the faithful
lovers; and now she conducted them to the most charming little cottage
that can be imagined, close to the fountain, which had once more resumed
its peaceful aspect, and flowed gently down into the little brook which
enclosed the garden and orchard and pasture which belonged to the
cottage. Indeed, nothing more could have been thought of, either for
Sylvain and Jocosa or for their flocks; and their delight satisfied even
the Fairy who had planned it all to please them. When they had explored
and admired until they were tired they sat down to rest under the
rose-covered porch, and the Fairy said that to pass the time until the
wedding guests whom she had invited could arrive she would tell them a
story. This is it:


  The Yellow Bird

Once upon a time a Fairy, who had somehow or other got into mischief,
was condemned by the High Court of Fairyland to live for several years
under the form of some creature, and at the moment of resuming her
natural appearance once again to make the fortune of two men. It was
left to her to choose what form she would take, and because she loved
yellow she transformed herself into a lovely bird with shining golden
feathers such as no one had ever seen before. When the time of her
punishment was at an end the beautiful yellow bird flew to Bagdad, and
let herself be caught by a Fowler at the precise moment when
Badi-al-Zaman was walking up and down outside his magnificent summer
palace. This Badi-al-Zaman--whose name means 'Wonder-of-the-World'--was
looked upon in Bagdad as the most fortunate creature under the sun,
because of his vast wealth. But really, what with anxiety about his
riches and being weary of everything, and always desiring something he
had not, he never knew a moment's real happiness. Even now he had come
out of his palace, which was large and splendid enough for fifty kings,
weary and cross because he could find nothing new to amuse him. The
Fowler thought that this would be a favourable opportunity for offering
him the marvellous bird, which he felt certain he would buy the instant
he saw it. And he was not mistaken, for when Badi-al-Zaman took the
lovely prisoner into his own hands, he saw written under its right wing
the words, 'He who eats my head will become a king,' and under its left
wing, 'He who eats my heart will find a hundred gold pieces under his
pillow every morning.' In spite of all his wealth he at once began to
desire the promised gold, and the bargain was soon completed. Then the
difficulty arose as to how the bird was to be cooked; for among all his
army of servants not one could Badi-al-Zaman trust. At last he asked the
Fowler if he were married, and on hearing that he was he bade him take
the bird home with him and tell his wife to cook it.

[Illustration]

'Perhaps,' said he, 'this will give me an appetite, which I have not had
for many a long day, and if so your wife shall have a hundred pieces of
silver.'

The Fowler with great joy ran home to his wife, who speedily made a
savoury stew of the Yellow Bird. But when Badi-al-Zaman reached the
cottage and began eagerly to search in the dish for its head and its
heart he could not find either of them, and turned to the Fowler's wife
in a furious rage. She was so terrified that she fell upon her knees
before him and confessed that her two children had come in just before
he arrived, and had so teased her for some of the dish she was preparing
that she had presently given the head to one and the heart to the other,
since these morsels are not generally much esteemed; and Badi-al-Zaman
rushed from the cottage vowing vengeance against the whole family. The
wrath of a rich man is generally to be feared, so the Fowler and his
wife resolved to send their children out of harm's way; but the wife, to
console her husband, confided to him that she had purposely given them
the head and heart of the bird because she had been able to read what
was written under its wings. So, believing that their children's
fortunes were made, they embraced them and sent them forth, bidding them
get as far away as possible, to take different roads, and to send news
of their welfare. For themselves, they remained hidden and disguised in
the town, which was really rather clever of them; but very soon
afterwards Badi-al-Zaman died of vexation and annoyance at the loss of
the promised treasure, and then they went back to their cottage to wait
for news of their children. The younger, who had eaten the heart of the
Yellow Bird, very soon found out what it had done for him, for each
morning when he awoke he found a purse containing a hundred gold pieces
under his pillow. But, as all poor people may remember for their
consolation, nothing in the world causes so much trouble or requires so
much care as a great treasure. Consequently, the Fowler's son, who spent
with reckless profusion and was supposed to be possessed of a great
hoard of gold, was before very long attacked by robbers, and in trying
to defend himself was so badly wounded that he died.

The elder brother, who had eaten the Yellow Bird's head, travelled a
long way without meeting with any particular adventure, until at last he
reached a large city in Asia, which was all in an uproar over the
choosing of a new Emir. All the principal citizens had formed themselves
into two parties, and it was not until after a prolonged squabble that
they agreed that the person to whom the most singular thing happened
should be Emir. Our young traveller entered the town at this juncture,
with his agreeable face and jaunty air, and all at once felt something
alight upon his head, which proved to be a snow-white pigeon. Thereupon
all the people began to stare, and to run after him, so that he
presently reached the palace with the pigeon upon his head and all the
inhabitants of the city at his heels, and before he knew where he was
they made him Emir, to his great astonishment.

As there is nothing more agreeable than to command, and nothing to which
people get accustomed more quickly, the young Emir soon felt quite at
his ease in his new position; but this did not prevent him from making
every kind of mistake, and so misgoverning the kingdom that at last the
whole city rose in revolt and deprived him at once of his authority and
his life--a punishment which he richly deserved, for in the days of his
prosperity he disowned the Fowler and his wife, and allowed them to die
in poverty.

'I have told you this story, my dear Sylvain and Jocosa,' added the
Fairy, 'to prove to you that this little cottage and all that belongs to
it is a gift more likely to bring you happiness and contentment than
many things that would at first seem grander and more desirable. If you
will faithfully promise me to till your fields and feed your flocks,
and will keep your word better than you did before, I will see that you
never lack anything that is really for your good.'

Sylvain and Jocosa gave their faithful promise, and as they kept it they
always enjoyed peace and prosperity. The Fairy had asked all their
friends and neighbours to their wedding, which took place at once with
great festivities and rejoicings, and they lived to a good old age,
always loving one another with all their hearts.

  By the Comte de Caylus.




  _FAIRY GIFTS_


It generally happens that people's surroundings reflect more or less
accurately their minds and dispositions, so perhaps that is why the
Flower Fairy lived in a lovely palace, with the most delightful garden
you can imagine, full of flowers, and trees, and fountains, and
fish-ponds, and everything nice. For the Fairy herself was so kind and
charming that everybody loved her, and all the young princes and
princesses who formed her court, were as happy as the day was long,
simply because they were near her. They came to her when they were quite
tiny, and never left her until they were grown up and had to go away
into the great world; and when that time came she gave to each whatever
gift he asked of her. But it is chiefly of the Princess Sylvia that you
are going to hear now. The Fairy loved her with all her heart, for she
was at once original and gentle, and she had nearly reached the age at
which the gifts were generally bestowed. However, the Fairy had a great
wish to know how the other princesses who had grown up and left her,
were prospering, and before the time came for Sylvia to go herself, she
resolved to send her to some of them. So one day her chariot, drawn by
butterflies, was made ready, and the Fairy said: 'Sylvia, I am going to
send you to the court of Iris; she will receive you with pleasure for my
sake as well as for your own. In two months you may come back to me
again, and I shall expect you to tell me what you think of her.'

Sylvia was very unwilling to go away, but as the Fairy wished it she
said nothing--only when the two months were over she stepped joyfully
into the butterfly chariot, and could not get back quickly enough to the
Flower-Fairy, who, for her part, was equally delighted to see her again.

[Illustration]

'Now, child,' said she, 'tell me what impression you have received.'

'You sent me, madam,' answered Sylvia, 'to the Court of Iris, on whom
you had bestowed the gift of beauty. She never tells anyone, however,
that it was your gift, though she often speaks of your kindness in
general. It seemed to me that her loveliness, which fairly dazzled me at
first, had absolutely deprived her of the use of any of her other gifts
or graces. In allowing herself to be seen, she appeared to think that
she was doing all that could possibly be required of her. But,
unfortunately, while I was still with her she became seriously ill, and
though she presently recovered, her beauty is entirely gone, so that she
hates the very sight of herself, and is in despair. She entreated me to
tell you what had happened, and to beg you, in pity, to give her beauty
back to her. And, indeed, she does need it terribly, for all the things
in her that were tolerable, and even agreeable, when she was so pretty,
seem quite different now she is ugly, and it is so long since she
thought of using her mind or her natural cleverness, that I really don't
think she has any left now. She is quite aware of all this herself, so
you may imagine how unhappy she is, and how earnestly she begs for your
aid.'

'You have told me what I wanted to know,' cried the Fairy, 'but alas! I
cannot help her; my gifts can be given but once.'

Some time passed in all the usual delights of the Flower-Fairy's palace,
and then she sent for Sylvia again, and told her she was to stay for a
little while with the Princess Daphne, and accordingly the butterflies
whisked her off, and set her down in quite a strange kingdom. But she
had only been there a very little time before a wandering butterfly
brought a message from her to the Fairy, begging that she might be sent
for as soon as possible, and before very long she was allowed to return.

'Ah! madam,' cried she, 'what a place you sent me to that time!'

'Why, what was the matter?' asked the Fairy. 'Daphne was one of the
princesses who asked for the gift of eloquence, if I remember rightly.'

'And very ill the gift of eloquence becomes a woman,' replied Sylvia,
with an air of conviction. 'It is true that she speaks well, and her
expressions are well chosen; but then she never leaves off talking, and
though at first one may be amused, one ends by being wearied to death.
Above all things she loves any assembly for settling the affairs of her
kingdom, for on those occasions she can talk and talk without fear of
interruption; but, even then, the moment it is over she is ready to
begin again about anything or nothing, as the case may be. Oh! how glad
I was to come away I cannot tell you.'

The Fairy smiled at Sylvia's unfeigned disgust at her late experience;
but after allowing her a little time to recover she sent her to the
Court of the Princess Cynthia, where she left her for three months. At
the end of that time Sylvia came back to her with all the joy and
contentment that one feels at being once more beside a dear friend. The
Fairy, as usual, was anxious to hear what she thought of Cynthia, who
had always been amiable, and to whom she had given the gift of pleasing.

'I thought at first,' said Sylvia, 'that she must be the happiest
Princess in the world; she had a thousand lovers who vied with one
another in their efforts to please and gratify her. Indeed, I had nearly
decided that I would ask a similar gift.'

'Have you altered your mind, then?' interrupted the Fairy.

'Yes, indeed, madam,' replied Sylvia; 'and I will tell you why. The
longer I stayed the more I saw that Cynthia was not really happy. In her
desire to please everyone she ceased to be sincere, and degenerated
into a mere coquette; and even her lovers felt that the charms and
fascinations which were exercised upon all who approached her without
distinction were valueless, so that in the end they ceased to care for
them, and went away disdainfully.'

'I am pleased with you, child,' said the Fairy; 'enjoy yourself here for
awhile and presently you shall go to Phyllida.'

Sylvia was glad to have leisure to think, for she could not make up her
mind at all what she should ask for herself, and the time was drawing
very near. However, before very long the Fairy sent her to Phyllida, and
waited for her report with unabated interest.

'I reached her court safely,' said Sylvia, 'and she received me with
much kindness, and immediately began to exercise upon me that brilliant
wit which you had bestowed upon her. I confess that I was fascinated by
it, and for a week thought that nothing could be more desirable; the
time passed like magic, so great was the charm of her society. But I
ended by ceasing to covet that gift more than any of the others I have
seen, for, like the gift of pleasing, it cannot really give
satisfaction. By degrees I wearied of what had so delighted me at first,
especially as I perceived more and more plainly that it is impossible to
be constantly smart and amusing without being frequently ill-natured,
and too apt to turn all things, even the most serious, into mere
occasions for a brilliant jest.'

The Fairy in her heart agreed with Sylvia's conclusions, and felt
pleased with herself for having brought her up so well.

But now the time was come for Sylvia to receive her gift, and all her
companions were assembled; the Fairy stood in the midst and in the usual
manner asked what she would take with her into the great world.

Sylvia paused for a moment, and then answered: 'A quiet spirit.' And the
Fairy granted her request.

This lovely gift makes life a constant happiness to its possessor, and
to all who are brought into contact with her. She has all the beauty of
gentleness and contentment in her sweet face; and if at times it seems
less lovely through some chance grief or disquietude, the hardest thing
that one ever hears said is:

'Sylvia's dear face is pale to-day. It grieves one to see her so.'

And when, on the contrary, she is gay and joyful, the sunshine of her
presence rejoices all who have the happiness of being near her.

  By the Comte de Caylus.




  _PRINCE NARCISSUS AND THE PRINCESS POTENTILLA_


Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who, though it is a very
long while since they died, were much the same in their tastes and
pursuits as people nowadays. The King, who was called Cloverleaf, liked
hunting better than anything else; but he nevertheless bestowed as much
care upon his kingdom as he felt equal to--that is to say, he never made
an end of folding and unfolding the State documents. As to the Queen,
she had once been very pretty, and she liked to believe that she was so
still, which is, of course, always made quite easy for queens. Her name
was Frivola, and her one occupation in life was the pursuit of
amusement. Balls, masquerades, and picnics followed one another in rapid
succession, as fast as she could arrange them, and you may imagine that
under these circumstances the kingdom was somewhat neglected. As a
matter of fact, if anyone had a fancy for a town, or a province, he
helped himself to it; but as long as the King had his horses and dogs,
and the Queen her musicians and her actors, they did not trouble
themselves about the matter. King Cloverleaf and Queen Frivola had but
one child, and this Princess had from her very babyhood been so
beautiful, that by the time she was four years old the Queen was
desperately jealous of her, and so fearful that when she was grown up
she would be more admired than herself, that she resolved to keep her
hidden away out of sight. To this end she caused a little house to be
built not far beyond the Palace gardens, on the bank of a river. This
was surrounded by a high wall, and in it the charming Potentilla was
imprisoned. Her nurse, who was dumb, took care of her, and the
necessaries of life were conveyed to her through a little window in the
wall, while guards were always pacing to and fro outside, with orders to
cut off the head of anyone who tried to approach, which they would
certainly have done without thinking twice about it. The Queen told
everyone, with much pretended sorrow, that the Princess was so ugly, and
so troublesome, and altogether so impossible to love, that to keep her
out of sight was the only thing that could be done for her. And this
tale she repeated so often, that at last the whole court believed it.
Things were in this state, and the Princess was about fifteen years old
when Prince Narcissus, attracted by the report of Queen Frivola's gay
doings, presented himself at the court. He was not much older than the
Princess, and was as handsome a Prince as you would see in a day's
journey, and really, for his age, not so very scatter-brained. His
parents were a King and Queen, whose story you will perhaps read some
day. They died almost at the same time, leaving their kingdom to the
eldest of their children, and commending their youngest son, Prince
Narcissus, to the care of the Fairy Melinette. In this they did very
well for him, for the Fairy was as kind as she was powerful, and she
spared no pains in teaching the little Prince everything it was good for
him to know, and even imparted to him some of her own Fairy lore. But as
soon as he was grown up she sent him out to see the world for himself,
though all the time she was secretly keeping watch over him, ready to
help in any time of need. Before he started she gave him a ring which
would render him invisible when he put it on his finger. These rings
seem to be quite common; you must often have heard of them, even if you
have never seen one. It was in the course of the Prince's wanderings, in
search of experience of men and things, that he came to the court of
Queen Frivola, where he was extremely well received. The Queen was
delighted with him, so were all her ladies; and the King was very polite
to him, though he did not quite see why the whole court was making such
a fuss over him.

[Illustration]

Prince Narcissus enjoyed all that went on, and found the time pass very
pleasantly. Before long, of course, he heard the story about the
Princess Potentilla, and, as it had by that time been repeated many
times, and had been added to here and there, she was represented as such
a monster of ugliness that he was really quite curious to see her, and
resolved to avail himself of the magic power of his ring to accomplish
his design. So he made himself invisible, and passed the guard without
their so much as suspecting that anyone was near. Climbing the wall was
rather a difficulty, but when he at length found himself inside it he
was charmed with the peaceful beauty of the little domain it enclosed,
and still more delighted when he perceived a slender, lovely maiden
wandering among the flowers. It was not until he had sought vainly for
the imaginary monster that he realised that this was the Princess
herself, and by that time he was deeply in love with her, for indeed it
would have been hard to find anyone prettier than Potentilla, as she sat
by the brook, weaving a garland of blue forget-me-nots to crown her
waving golden locks, or to imagine anything more gentle than the way she
tended all the birds and beasts who inhabited her small kingdom, and who
all loved and followed her. Prince Narcissus watched her every movement,
and hovered near her in a dream of delight, not daring as yet to appear
to her, so humble had he suddenly become in her presence. And when
evening came, and the nurse fetched the Princess into her little house,
he felt obliged to go back to Frivola's palace, for fear his absence
should be noticed and someone should discover his new treasure. But he
forgot that to go back absent, and dreamy, and indifferent, when he had
before been gay and ardent about everything, was the surest way of
awakening suspicion; and when, in response to the jesting questions
which were put to him upon the subject, he only blushed and returned
evasive answers, all the ladies were certain that he had lost his heart,
and did their utmost to discover who was the happy possessor of it. As
to the Prince, he was becoming day by day more attached to Potentilla,
and his one thought was to attend her, always invisible, and help her in
everything she did, and provide her with everything that could possibly
amuse or please her. And the Princess, who had learnt to find diversion
in very small things in her quiet life, was in a continual state of
delight over the treasures which the Prince constantly laid where she
must find them. Then Narcissus implored his faithful friend Melinette to
send the Princess such dreams of him as should make her recognise him as
a friend when he actually appeared before her eyes; and this device was
so successful that the Princess quite dreaded the cessation of these
amusing dreams, in which a certain Prince Narcissus was such a
delightful lover and companion. After that he went a step further and
began to have long talks with the Princess--still, however, keeping
himself invisible, until she begged him so earnestly to appear to her
that he could no longer resist, and after making her promise that, no
matter what he was like, she would still love him, he drew the ring from
his finger, and the Princess saw with delight that he was as handsome as
he was agreeable. Now, indeed, they were perfectly happy, and they
passed the whole long summer day in Potentilla's favourite place by the
brook, and when at last Prince Narcissus had to leave her it seemed to
them both that the hours had gone by with the most amazing swiftness.
The Princess stayed where she was, dreaming of her delightful Prince,
and nothing could have been further from her thoughts than any trouble
or misfortune, when suddenly, in a cloud of dust and shavings, by came
the enchanter Grumedan, and unluckily he chanced to catch sight of
Potentilla. Down he came straightway and alighted at her feet, and one
look at her charming blue eyes and smiling lips quite decided him that
he must appear to her at once, though he was rather annoyed to remember
that he had on only his second-best cloak. The Princess sprang to her
feet with a cry of terror at this sudden apparition, for really the
Enchanter was no beauty. To begin with, he was very big and clumsy, then
he had but one eye, and his teeth were long, and he stammered badly;
nevertheless, he had an excellent opinion of himself, and mistook the
Princess's cry of terror for an exclamation of delighted surprise. After
pausing a moment to give her time to admire him, the Enchanter made her
the most complimentary speech he could invent, which, however, did not
please her at all, though he was extremely delighted with it himself.
Poor Potentilla only shuddered and cried:

'Oh! where is my Narcissus?'

To which he replied with a self-satisfied chuckle: 'You want a
narcissus, madam? Well, they are not rare; you shall have as many as you
like.'

Whereupon he waved his wand, and the Princess found herself surrounded
and half buried in the fragrant flowers. She would certainly have
betrayed that this was not the kind of narcissus she wanted, but for the
Fairy Melinette, who had been anxiously watching the interview, and now
thought it quite time to interfere. Assuming the Prince's voice, she
whispered in Potentilla's ear:

'We are menaced by a great danger, but my only fear is for you, my
Princess. Therefore I beg you to hide what you really feel, and we will
hope that some way out of the difficulty may present itself.'

The Princess was much agitated by this speech, and feared lest the
Enchanter should have overheard it; but he had been loudly calling her
attention to the flowers, and chuckling over his own smartness in
getting them for her; and it was rather a blow to him when she said very
coldly that they were not the sort she preferred, and she would be glad
if he would send them all away. This he did, but afterwards wished to
kiss the Princess's hand as a reward for having been so obliging; but
the Fairy Melinette was not going to allow anything of that kind. She
appeared suddenly, in all her splendour, and cried:

'Stay, Grumedan; this Princess is under my protection, and the smallest
impertinence will cost you a thousand years of captivity. If you can win
Potentilla's heart by the ordinary methods I cannot oppose you, but I
warn you that I will not put up with any of your usual tricks.'

This declaration was not at all to the Enchanter's taste; but he knew
that there was no help for it, and that he would have to behave well,
and pay the Princess all the delicate attentions he could think of,
though they were not at all the sort of thing he was used to. However,
he decided that to win such a beauty it was quite worth while; and
Melinette, feeling that she could now leave the Princess in safety,
hurried off to tell Prince Narcissus what was going forward. Of course,
at the very mention of the Enchanter as a rival he was furious, and I
don't know what foolish things he would not have done if Melinette had
not been there to calm him down. She represented to him what a powerful
enchanter Grumedan was, and how, if he were provoked, he might avenge
himself upon the Princess, since he was the most unjust and churlish of
all the enchanters, and had often before had to be punished by the Fairy
Queen for some of his ill-deeds. Once he had been imprisoned in a tree,
and was only released when it was blown down by a furious wind; another
time he was condemned to stay under a big stone at the bottom of a
river, until by some chance the stone should be turned over; but nothing
could ever really improve him. The Fairy finally made Narcissus promise
that he would remain invisible when he was with the Princess, since she
felt sure that this would make things easier for all of them. Then began
a struggle between Grumedan and the Prince, the latter under the name of
Melinette, as to which could best delight and divert the Princess and
win her approbation. Prince Narcissus first made friends with all the
birds in Potentilla's little domain, and taught them to sing her name
and her praises, with all their sweetest trills and most touching
melodies, and all day long to tell her how dearly he loved her.
Grumedan, thereupon, declared that there was nothing new about that,
since the birds had sung since the world began, and all lovers had
imagined that they sang for them alone. Therefore he said he would
himself write an opera that should be absolutely a novelty and something
worth hearing. When the time came for the performance (which lasted five
weary hours) the Princess found to her dismay that the 'opera' consisted
of this more than indifferent verse, chanted with all their might by ten
thousand frogs:

  'Admirable Potentilla,
    Do you think it kind or wise
  In this sudden way to kill a
    Poor Enchanter with your eyes?'

Really, if Narcissus had not been there to whisper in her ear and divert
her attention, I don't know what would have become of poor Potentilla,
for though the first repetition of this absurdity amused her faintly,
she nearly died of weariness before the time was over. Luckily Grumedan
did not perceive this, as he was too much occupied in whipping up the
frogs, many of whom perished miserably from fatigue, since he did not
allow them to rest for a moment. The Prince's next idea for Potentilla's
amusement was to cause a fleet of boats exactly like those of Cleopatra,
of which you have doubtless read in history, to come up the little
river, and upon the most gorgeously decorated of these reclined the
great Queen herself, who, as soon as she reached the place where
Potentilla sat in rapt attention, stepped majestically on shore and
presented the Princess with that celebrated pearl of which you have
heard so much, saying:

'You are more beautiful than I ever was. Let my example warn you to make
a better use of your beauty!'

And then the little fleet sailed on, until it was lost to view in the
windings of the river. Grumedan was also looking on at the spectacle,
and said very contemptuously:

'I cannot say I think these marionettes amusing. What a to-do to make
over a single pearl! But if you like pearls, madam, why, _I_ will soon
gratify you.'

So saying, he drew a whistle from his pocket, and no sooner had he blown
it than the Princess saw the water of the river bubble and grow muddy,
and in another instant up came hundreds of thousands of great oysters,
who climbed slowly and laboriously towards her and laid at her feet all
the pearls they contained.

'Those are what I call pearls,' cried Grumedan in high glee. And truly
there were enough of them to pave every path in Potentilla's garden and
leave some to spare! The next day Prince Narcissus had prepared for the
Princess's pleasure a charming arbour of leafy branches, with couches of
moss and grassy floor and garlands everywhere, with her name written in
different-coloured blossoms. Here he caused a dainty little banquet to
be set forth, while hidden musicians played softly, and the silvery
fountains splashed down into their marble basins, and when presently the
music stopped a single nightingale broke the stillness with his
delicious chant.

'Ah!' cried the Princess, recognising the voice of one of her
favourites, 'Philomel, my sweet one, who taught you that new song?'

And he answered: 'Love, my Princess.'

Meanwhile the Enchanter was very ill-pleased with the entertainment,
which he declared was dullness itself.

'You don't seem to have any idea in these parts beyond little squeaking
birds!' said he. 'And fancy giving a banquet without so much as an ounce
of plate!'

So the next day, when the Princess went out into her garden, there stood
a summer-house built of solid gold, decorated within and without with
her initials and the Enchanter's combined. And in it was spread an
enormous repast, while the table so glittered with golden cups and
plates, flagons and dishes, candlesticks and a hundred other things
beside, that it was hardly possible to look steadily at it. The
Enchanter ate like six ogres, but the Princess could not touch a morsel.
Presently Grumedan remarked with a grin:

'I have provided neither musicians nor singers; but as you seem fond of
music I will sing to you myself.'

Whereupon he began, with a voice like a screech-owl's, to chant the
words of his 'opera,' only this time happily not at such a length, and
without the frog accompaniment. After this the Prince again asked the
aid of his friends the birds, and when they had assembled from all the
country round he tied about the neck of each one a tiny lamp of some
brilliant colour, and when darkness fell he made them go through a
hundred pretty tricks before the delighted Potentilla, who clapped her
little hands with delight when she saw her own name traced in points of
light against the dark trees, or when the whole flock of sparks grouped
themselves into bouquets of different colours, like living flowers.
Grumedan leaning back in his arm-chair, with one knee crossed over the
other and his nose in the air, looked on disdainfully.

'Oh! if you like fireworks, Princess,' said he; and the next night all
the will-o'-the-wisps in the country came and danced on the plain, which
could be seen from the Princess's windows, and as she was looking out,
and rather enjoying the sight, up sprang a frightful volcano, pouring
out smoke and flames which terrified her greatly, to the intense
amusement of the Enchanter, who laughed like a pack of wolves
quarrelling. After this, as many of the will-o'-the-wisps as could get
in crowded into Potentilla's garden, and by their light the tall
yew-trees danced minuets until the Princess was weary and begged to be
excused from looking at anything more that night. But, in spite of
Potentilla's efforts to behave politely to the tiresome old Enchanter,
whom she detested, he could not help seeing that he failed to please
her, and then he began to suspect very strongly that she must love
someone else, and that somebody besides Melinette was responsible for
all the festivities he had witnessed. So after much consideration he
devised a plan for finding out the truth. He went to the Princess
suddenly, and announced that he was most unwillingly forced to leave
her, and had come to bid her farewell. Potentilla could scarcely hide
her delight when she heard this, and his back was hardly turned before
she was entreating Prince Narcissus to make himself visible once more.
The poor Prince had been getting quite thin with anxiety and annoyance,
and was only too delighted to comply with her request. They greeted one
another rapturously, and were just sitting down to talk over everything
cosily, and enjoy the Enchanter's discomfiture together, when out he
burst in a fury from behind a bush. With his huge club he aimed a
terrific blow at Narcissus, which must certainly have killed him but for
the adroitness of the Fairy Melinette, who arrived upon the scene just
in time to snatch him up and carry him off at lightning speed to her
castle in the air. Poor Potentilla, however, had not the comfort of
knowing this, for at the sight of the Enchanter threatening her beloved
Prince she had given one shriek and fallen back insensible. When she
recovered her senses she was more than ever convinced that he was dead,
since even Melinette was no longer near her, and no one was left to
defend her from the odious old Enchanter.

[Illustration]

To make matters worse, he seemed to be in a very bad temper, and came
blustering and raging at the poor Princess.

'I tell you what it is, madam,' said he: 'whether you love this
whipper-snapper Prince or not doesn't matter in the least. You are going
to marry me, so you may as well make up your mind to it; and I am going
away this very minute to make all the arrangements. But in case you
should get into mischief in my absence, I think I had better put you to
sleep.'

So saying, he waved his wand over her, and in spite of her utmost
efforts to keep awake she sank into a profound and dreamless slumber.

As he wished to make what he considered a suitable entry into the King's
palace, he stepped outside the Princess's little domain, and mounted
upon an immense chariot with great solid wheels, and shafts like the
trunk of an oak-tree, but all of solid gold. This was drawn with great
difficulty by forty-eight strong oxen; and the Enchanter reclined at his
ease, leaning upon his huge club, and holding carelessly upon his knee a
tawny African lion, as if it had been a little lapdog. It was about
seven o'clock in the morning when this extraordinary chariot reached the
palace gates; the King was already astir, and about to set off on a
hunting expedition; as for the Queen, she had only just gone off into
her first sleep, and it would have been a bold person indeed who
ventured to wake her.

The King was greatly annoyed at having to stay and see a visitor at such
a time, and pulled off his hunting boots again with many grimaces.
Meantime the Enchanter was stumping about in the hall, crying:

'Where is this King? Let him be told that I must see him and his wife
also.'

The King, who was listening at the top of the staircase, thought this
was not very polite; however, he took counsel with his favourite
huntsman, and, following his advice, presently went down to see what was
wanted of him. He was struck with astonishment at the sight of the
chariot, and was gazing at it, when the Enchanter strode up to him,
exclaiming:

'Shake hands, Cloverleaf, old fellow! Don't you know me?'

'No, I can't say I do,' replied the King, somewhat embarrassed.

'Why, I am Grumedan, the Enchanter,' said he, 'and I am come to make
your fortune. Let us come in and talk things over a bit.'

Thereupon he ordered the oxen to go about their business, and they
bounded off like stags, and were out of sight in a moment. Then, with
one blow of his club, he changed the massive chariot into a perfect
mountain of gold pieces.

'Those are for your lackeys,' said he to the King, 'that they may drink
my health.'

Naturally a great scramble ensued, and at last the laughter and shouting
awoke the Queen, who rang for her maids to ask the reason of such an
unwonted hurly-burly. When they said that a visitor was asking for her,
and then proceeded each one to tell breathlessly a different tale of
wonder, in which she could only distinguish the words, 'oxen,' 'gold,'
'club,' 'giant,' 'lion,' she thought they were all out of their minds.
Meanwhile the King was asking the Enchanter to what he was indebted for
the honour of this visit, and on his replying that he would not say
until the Queen was also present, messenger after messenger was
dispatched to her to beg her immediate attendance. But Frivola was in a
very bad humour at having been so unceremoniously awakened, and declared
that she had a pain in her little finger, and that nothing should induce
her to come.

When the Enchanter heard this he insisted that she must come.

'Take my club to her Majesty,' said he, 'and tell her that if she smells
the end of it she will find it wonderfully reviving.'

So four of the King's strongest men-at-arms staggered off with it; and
after some persuasion the Queen consented to try this novel remedy. She
had hardly smelt it for an instant when she declared herself to be
perfectly restored; but whether that was due to the scent of the wood or
to the fact that as soon as she touched it out fell a perfect shower of
magnificent jewels, I leave you to decide. At any rate, she was now all
eagerness to see the mysterious stranger, and hastily throwing on her
royal mantle, popped her second-best diamond crown over her night-cap,
put a liberal dab of rouge upon each cheek, and holding up her largest
fan before her nose--for she was not used to appearing in broad
daylight--she went mincing into the great hall. The Enchanter waited
until the King and Queen had seated themselves upon their throne, and
then, taking his place between them, he began solemnly:

[Illustration: GRUMEDAN'S LION FETCHES IN THE PRINCESS]

'My name is Grumedan. I am an extremely well-connected Enchanter; my
power is immense. In spite of all this, the charms of your daughter
Potentilla have so fascinated me that I cannot live without her. She
fancies that she loves a certain contemptible puppy called Narcissus;
but I have made very short work with him. I really do not care whether
you consent to my marriage with your daughter or not, but I am bound to
ask your consent, on account of a certain meddling Fairy called
Melinette, with whom I have reason for wishing to keep on good terms.'

The King and Queen were somewhat embarrassed to know what answer to make
to this terrible suitor, but at last they asked for time to talk over
the matter: since, they said, their subjects might think that the heir
to the throne should not be married with as little consideration as a
dairymaid.

'Oh! take a day or two if you like,' said the Enchanter; 'but in the
meantime, I am going to send for your daughter. Perhaps you will be able
to induce her to be reasonable.'

So saying, he drew out his favourite whistle, and blew one ear-piercing
note--whereupon the great lion, who had been dozing in the sunny
courtyard, come bounding in on his soft, heavy feet. 'Orion,' said the
Enchanter, 'go and fetch me the Princess, and bring her here at once. Be
gentle now!'

At these words Orion went off at a great pace, and was soon at the other
end of the King's gardens. Scattering the guards right and left, he
cleared the wall at a bound, and seizing the sleeping Princess, he threw
her on to his back, where he kept her by holding her robe in his teeth.
Then he trotted gently back, and in less than five minutes stood in the
great hall before the astonished King and Queen.

The Enchanter held his club close to the Princess's charming little
nose, whereupon she woke up and shrieked with terror at finding herself
in a strange place with the detested Grumedan. Frivola, who had stood
by, stiff with displeasure at the sight of the lovely Princess, now
stepped forward, and with much pretended concern proposed to carry off
Potentilla to her own apartments that she might enjoy the quiet she
seemed to need. Really her one idea was to let the Princess be seen by
as few people as possible; so, throwing a veil over her head, she led
her away and locked her up securely. All this time Prince Narcissus,
gloomy and despairing, was kept a prisoner by Melinette in her castle
in the air, and in spite of all the splendour by which he was
surrounded, and all the pleasures which he might have enjoyed, his one
thought was to get back to Potentilla. The Fairy, however, left him
there, promising to do her very best for him, and commanding all her
swallows and butterflies to wait upon him and do his bidding. One day,
as he paced sadly to and fro, he thought he heard a voice he knew
calling to him, and sure enough there was the faithful Philomel,
Potentilla's favourite, who told him all that had passed, and how the
sleeping Princess had been carried off by the Lion to the great grief of
all her four-footed and feathered subjects, and how, not knowing what to
do, he had wandered about until he heard the swallows telling one
another of the Prince who was in their airy castle and had come to see
if it could be Narcissus. The Prince was more distracted than ever, and
tried vainly to escape from the castle, by leaping from the roof into
the clouds; but every time they caught him, and rolling softly up,
brought him back to the place from which he started, so at last he gave
up the attempt and waited with desperate patience for the return of
Melinette. Meanwhile matters were advancing rapidly in the court of King
Cloverleaf, for the Queen quite made up her mind that such a beauty as
Potentilla must be got out of the way as quickly as possible. So she
sent for the Enchanter secretly, and after making him promise that he
would never turn herself and King Cloverleaf out of their kingdom, and
that he would take Potentilla far away, so that never again might she
set eyes upon her, she arranged the wedding for the next day but one.

You may imagine how Potentilla lamented her sad fate, and entreated to
be spared. All the comfort she could get out of Frivola was, that if she
preferred a cup of poison to a rich husband she would certainly provide
her with one.

When, then, the fatal day came the unhappy Potentilla was led into the
great hall between the King and Queen, the latter wild with envy at the
murmurs of admiration which rose on all sides at the loveliness of the
Princess. An instant later in came Grumedan by the opposite door. His
hair stood on end, and he wore a huge bag-purse and a cravat tied in a
bow, his mantle was made of a shower of silver coins with a lining of
rose colour, and his delight in his own appearance knew no bounds. That
any Princess could prefer a cup of poison to himself never for an
instant occurred to him. Nevertheless, that was what did happen, for
when Queen Frivola in jest held out the fatal cup to the Princess, she
took it eagerly, crying:

[Illustration]

'Ah! beloved Narcissus, I come to thee!' and was just raising it to her
lips when the window of the great hall burst open, and the Fairy
Melinette floated in upon a glowing sunset cloud, followed by the Prince
himself.

All the court looked on in dazzled surprise, while Potentilla, catching
sight of her lover, dropped the cup and ran joyfully to meet him.

The Enchanter's first thought was to defend himself when he saw
Melinette appear, but she slipped round to his blind side, and catching
him by the eyelashes dragged him off to the ceiling of the hall, where
she held him kicking for a while just to give him a lesson, and then
touching him with her wand she imprisoned him for a thousand years in a
crystal ball which hung from the roof. 'Let this teach you to mind what
I tell you another time,' she remarked severely. Then turning to the
King and Queen, she begged them to proceed with the wedding, since she
had provided a much more suitable bridegroom. She also deprived them of
their kingdom, for they had really shown themselves unfit to manage it,
and bestowed it upon the Prince and Princess, who, though they were
unwilling to take it, had no choice but to obey the Fairy. However, they
took care that the King and Queen were always supplied with everything
they could wish for.

Prince Narcissus and Princess Potentilla lived long and happily, beloved
by all their subjects. As for the Enchanter, I don't believe he has been
let out yet.

  La Princesse Pimprenella et Le Prince Romarin.




  _PRINCE FEATHERHEAD AND THE PRINCESS CELANDINE_


Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen, who were the best
creatures in the world, and so kind-hearted that they could not bear to
see their subjects want for anything. The consequence was they gradually
gave away all their treasures, till they positively had nothing left to
live upon; and this coming to the ears of their neighbour, King Bruin,
he promptly raised a large army and marched into their country. The poor
King, having no means of defending his kingdom, was forced to disguise
himself with a false beard, and carrying his only son, the little Prince
Featherhead, in his arms, and accompanied only by the Queen, to make the
best of his way into the wild country. They were lucky enough to escape
the soldiers of King Bruin, and at last, after unheard-of fatigues and
adventures, they found themselves in a charming green valley, through
which flowed a stream clear as crystal and overshadowed by beautiful
trees. As they looked round them with delight, a voice said suddenly:
'Fish, and see what you will catch.' Now the King had always loved
fishing, and never went anywhere without a fish-hook or two in his
pocket, so he drew one out hastily, and the Queen lent him her girdle to
fasten it to, and it had hardly touched the water before it caught a big
fish, which made them an excellent meal--and not before they needed it,
for they had found nothing until then but a few wild berries and roots.
They thought that for the present they could not do better than stay in
this delightful place, and the King set to work, and soon built a bower
of branches to shelter them; and when it was finished the Queen was so
charmed with it that she declared nothing was lacking to complete her
happiness but a flock of sheep, which she and the little Prince might
tend while the King fished. They soon found that the fish were not only
abundant and easily caught, but also very beautiful, with glittering
scales of every imaginable hue; and before long the King discovered
that he could teach them to talk and whistle better than any parrot.
Then he determined to carry some to the nearest town and try to sell
them; and as no one had ever before seen any like them the people
flocked about him eagerly and bought all he had caught, so that
presently not a house in the city was considered complete without a
crystal bowl full of fish, and the King's customers were very particular
about having them to match the rest of the furniture, and gave him a
vast amount of trouble in choosing them. However, the money he obtained
in this way enabled him to buy the Queen her flock of sheep, as well as
many of the other things which go to make life pleasant, so that they
never once regretted their lost kingdom. Now it happened that the Fairy
of the Beech-Woods lived in the lovely valley to which chance had led
the poor fugitives, and it was she who had, in pity for their forlorn
condition, sent the King such good luck to his fishing, and generally
taken them under her protection. This she was all the more inclined to
do as she loved children, and little Prince Featherhead, who never
cried and grew prettier day by day, quite won her heart. She made the
acquaintance of the King and the Queen without at first letting them
know that she was a fairy, and they soon took a great fancy to her, and
even trusted her with the precious Prince, whom she carried off to her
palace, where she regaled him with cakes and tarts and every other good
thing. This was the way she chose of making him fond of her; but
afterwards, as he grew older, she spared no pains in educating and
training him as a prince should be trained. But unfortunately, in spite
of all her care, he grew so vain and frivolous that he quitted his
peaceful country life in disgust, and rushed eagerly after all the
foolish gaieties of the neighbouring town, where his handsome face and
charming manners speedily made him popular. The King and Queen deeply
regretted this alteration in their son, but did not know how to mend
matters, since the good old Fairy had made him so self-willed.

[Illustration]

Just at this time the Fairy of the Beech-Woods received a visit from an
old friend of hers called Saradine, who rushed into her house so
breathless with rage that she could hardly speak.

'Dear, dear! what _is_ the matter?' said the Fairy of the Beech-Woods
soothingly.

'The matter!' cried Saradine. 'You shall soon hear all about it. You
know that, not content with endowing Celandine, Princess of the Summer
Islands, with everything she could desire to make her charming, I
actually took the trouble to bring her up myself; and now what does she
do but come to me with more coaxings and caresses than usual to beg a
favour. And what do you suppose this favour turns out to be--when I have
been cajoled, into promising to grant it? Nothing more nor less than a
request that I will take back all my gifts--"since," says my young
madam, "if I have the good fortune to please you, how am I to know that
it is really I, myself? And that's how it will be all my life long,
whenever I meet anybody. You see what a weariness my life will be to me
under these circumstances, and yet I assure you I am not ungrateful to
you for all your kindness!" I did all I could,' continued Saradine, 'to
make her think better of it, but in vain; so after going through the
usual ceremony for taking back my gifts, I'm come to you for a little
peace and quietness. But, after all, I have not taken anything of
consequence from this provoking Celandine. Nature had already made her
so pretty, and given her such a ready wit of her own, that she will do
perfectly well without me. However, I thought she deserved a little
lesson, so to begin with I have whisked her off into the desert, and
there left her!'

'What! all alone, and without any means of existence?' cried the
kind-hearted old Fairy. 'You had better hand her over to me. I don't
think so very badly of her after all. I'll just cure her vanity by
making her love someone better than herself. Really, when I come to
consider of it, I declare the little minx has shown more spirit and
originality in the matter than one expects of a princess.'

[Illustration]

Saradine willingly consented to this arrangement, and the old Fairy's
first care was to smooth away all the difficulties which surrounded the
Princess, and lead her by the mossy path overhung with trees to the
bower of the King and Queen, who still pursued their peaceful life in
the valley.

They were immensely surprised at her appearance, but her charming face,
and the deplorably ragged condition to which the thorns and briers had
reduced her once elegant attire, speedily won their compassion; they
recognised her as a companion in misfortune, and the Queen welcomed her
heartily, and begged her to share their simple repast. Celandine
gracefully accepted their hospitality, and soon told them what had
happened to her. The King was charmed with her spirit, while the Queen
thought she had indeed been daring thus to go against the Fairy's
wishes.

'Since it has ended in my meeting you,' said the Princess, 'I cannot
regret the step I have taken, and if you will let me stay with you, I
shall be perfectly happy.'

The King and Queen were only too delighted to have this charming
Princess to supply the place of Prince Featherhead, whom they saw but
seldom, since the Fairy had provided him with a palace in the
neighbouring town, where he lived in the greatest luxury, and did
nothing but amuse himself from morning to night. So Celandine stayed,
and helped the Queen to keep house, and very soon they loved her dearly.
When the Fairy of the Beech-Woods came to them, they presented the
Princess to her, and told her story, little thinking that the Fairy knew
more about Celandine than they did. The old Fairy was equally delighted
with her, and often invited her to visit her Leafy Palace, which was the
most enchanting place that could be imagined, and full of treasures.
Often she would say to the Princess, when showing her some wonderful
thing:

'This will do for a wedding gift some day.' And Celandine could not help
thinking that it was to her that the Fairy meant to give the two blue
wax-torches which burned without ever getting smaller, or the diamond
from which more diamonds were continually growing, or the boat that
sailed under water, or whatever beautiful or wonderful thing they might
happen to be looking at. It is true that she never said so positively,
but she certainly allowed the Princess to believe it, because she
thought a little disappointment would be good for her. But the person
she really relied upon for curing Celandine of her vanity was Prince
Featherhead. The old Fairy was not at all pleased with the way he had
been going on for some time, but her heart was so soft towards him that
she was unwilling to take him away from the pleasures he loved, except
by offering him something better, which is not the most effectual mode
of correction, though it is without doubt the most agreeable.

However, she did not even hint to the Princess that Featherhead was
anything but absolutely perfect, and talked of him so much that when at
last she announced that he was coming to visit her, Celandine made up
her mind that this delightful Prince would be certain to fall in love
with her at once, and was quite pleased at the idea. The old Fairy
thought so too, but as this was not at all what she wished, she took
care to throw such an enchantment over the Princess that she appeared to
Featherhead quite ugly and awkward, though to every one else she looked
just as usual. So when he arrived at the Leafy Palace, more handsome and
fascinating even than ever she had been led to expect, he hardly so much
as glanced at the Princess, but bestowed all his attention upon the old
Fairy, to whom he seemed to have a hundred things to say. The Princess
was immensely astonished at his indifference, and put on a cold and
offended air, which, however, he did not seem to observe. Then as a last
resource she exerted all her wit and gaiety to amuse him, but with no
better success, for he was of an age to be more attracted by beauty than
by anything else, and though he responded politely enough, it was
evident that his thoughts were elsewhere. Celandine was deeply
mortified, since for her part the Prince pleased her very well, and for
the first time she bitterly regretted the fairy gifts she had been
anxious to get rid of. Prince Featherhead was almost equally puzzled,
for he had heard nothing from the King and Queen but the praises of this
charming Princess, and the fact that they had spoken of her as so very
beautiful only confirmed his opinion that people who live in the country
have no taste. He talked to them of his charming acquaintances in the
town, the beauties he had admired, did admire, or thought he was going
to admire, until Celandine, who heard it all, was ready to cry with
vexation. The Fairy too was quite shocked at his conceit, and hit upon a
plan for curing him of it. She sent to him by an unknown messenger a
portrait of Princess Celandine as she really was, with this inscription:
'All this beauty and sweetness, with a loving heart and a great kingdom,
might have been yours but for your well-known fickleness.'

This message made a great impression upon the Prince, but not so much as
the portrait. He positively could not tear his eyes away from it, and
exclaimed aloud that never, never had he seen anything so lovely and so
graceful. Then he began to think that it was too absurd that he, the
fascinating Featherhead, should fall in love with a portrait; and, to
drive away the recollections of its haunting eyes, he rushed back to the
town; but somehow everything seemed changed. The beauties no longer
pleased him, their witty speeches had ceased to amuse; and indeed, for
their parts, they found the Prince far less amiable than of yore, and
were not sorry when he declared that, after all, a country life suited
him best, and went back to the Leafy Palace. Meanwhile, the Princess
Celandine had been finding the time pass but slowly with the King and
Queen, and was only too pleased when Featherhead re-appeared. She at once
noticed the change in him, and was deeply curious to find the reason of
it. Far from avoiding her, he now sought her company and seemed to take
pleasure in talking to her, and yet the Princess did not for a moment
flatter herself with the idea that he was in love with her, though it
did not take her long to decide that he certainly loved someone. But one
day the Princess, wandering sadly by the river, spied Prince Featherhead
fast asleep in the shade of a tree, and stole nearer to enjoy the
delight of gazing at his dear face unobserved. Judge of her astonishment
when she saw that he was holding in his hand a portrait of herself! In
vain did she puzzle over the apparent contradictoriness of his
behaviour. Why did he cherish her portrait while he was so fatally
indifferent to herself? At last she found an opportunity of asking him
the name of the Princess whose picture he carried about with him always.

[Illustration]

'Alas! how can I tell you?' replied he.

'Why should you not?' said the Princess timidly. 'Surely there is
nothing to prevent you.'

'Nothing to prevent me!' repeated he, 'when my utmost efforts have
failed to discover the lovely original. Should I be so sad if I could
but find her? But I do not even know her name.'

More surprised than ever, the Princess asked to be allowed to see the
portrait, and after examining it for a few minutes returned it,
remarking shyly that at least the original had every cause to be
satisfied with it.

'That means that you consider it flattered,' said the Prince severely.
'Really, Celandine, I thought better of you, and should have expected
you to be above such contemptible jealousy. But all women are alike!'

'Indeed, I meant only that it was a good likeness,' said the Princess
meekly.

'Then you know the original,' cried the Prince, throwing himself on his
knees beside her. 'Pray tell me at once who it is, and don't keep me in
suspense!'

'Oh! don't you see that it is meant for me?' cried Celandine.

The Prince sprang to his feet, hardly able to refrain from telling her
that she must be blinded by vanity to suppose she resembled the lovely
portrait even in the slightest degree; and after gazing at her for an
instant with icy surprise, turned and left her without another word, and
in a few hours quitted the Leafy Palace altogether.

Now the Princess was indeed unhappy, and could no longer bear to stay in
a place where she had been so cruelly disdained. So, without even
bidding farewell to the King and Queen, she left the valley behind her,
and wandered sadly away, not caring whither. After walking until she was
weary, she saw before her a tiny house, and turned her slow steps
towards it. The nearer she approached the more miserable it appeared,
and at length she saw a little old woman sitting upon the door-step, who
said grimly:

'Here comes one of these fine beggars who are too idle to do anything
but run about the country!'

'Alas! madam,' said Celandine, with tears in her pretty eyes, 'a sad
fate forces me to ask you for shelter.'

'Didn't I tell you what it would be?' growled the old hag. 'From
shelter we shall proceed to demand supper, and from supper money to take
us on our way. Upon my word, if I could be sure of finding some one
every day whose head was as soft as his heart, I wouldn't wish for a
more agreeable life myself! But I have worked hard to build my house and
secure a morsel to eat, and I suppose you think that I am to give away
everything to the first passer-by who chooses to ask for it. Not at all!
I wager that a fine lady like you has more money than I have. I must
search her, and see if it is not so,' she added, hobbling towards
Celandine with the aid of her stick.

'Alas! madam,' replied the Princess, 'I only wish I had. I would give it
to you with all the pleasure in life.'

'But you are very smartly dressed for the kind of life you lead,'
continued the old woman.

'What!' cried the Princess, 'do you think I am come to beg of you?'

'I don't know about that,' answered she; 'but at any rate you don't seem
to have come to bring me anything. But what is it that you do want?
Shelter? Well, that does not cost much; but after that comes supper, and
that I can't hear of. Oh dear no! Why, at your age one is always ready
to eat; and now you have been walking, and I suppose you are ravenous?'

'Indeed no, madam,' answered the poor Princess, 'I am too sad to be
hungry.'

'Oh, well! if you will promise to go on being sad, you may stay for the
night,' said the old woman mockingly.

Thereupon she made the Princess sit down beside her, and began fingering
her silken robe, while she muttered 'Lace on top, lace underneath! This
must have cost you a pretty penny! It would have been better to save
enough to feed yourself, and not come begging to those who want all they
have for themselves. Pray, what may you have paid for these fine
clothes?'

'Alas! madam,' answered the Princess, 'I did not buy them, and I know
nothing about money.'

'What _do_ you know, if I may ask?' said the old dame.

'Not much; but indeed I am very unhappy,' cried Celandine, bursting into
tears, 'and if my services are any good to you----'

'Services!' interrupted the hag crossly. 'One has to pay for services,
and I am not above doing my own work.'

'Madam, I will serve you for nothing,' said the poor Princess, whose
spirits were sinking lower and lower. 'I will do anything you please;
all I wish is to live quietly in this lonely spot.'

'Oh! I know you are only trying to take me in,' answered she; 'and if I
do let you serve me, is it fitting that you should be so much better
dressed than I am? If I keep you, will you give me your clothes and wear
some that I will provide you with? It is true that I am getting old and
may want someone to take care of me some day.'

[Illustration]

'Oh! for pity's sake, do what you please with my clothes,' cried poor
Celandine miserably.

And the old woman hobbled off with great alacrity, and fetched a little
bundle containing a wretched dress, such as the Princess had never even
seen before, and nimbly skipped round, helping her to put it on instead
of her own rich robe, with many exclamations of:

'Saints!--what a magnificent lining! And the width of it! It will make
me four dresses at least. Why, child, I wonder you could walk under such
a weight, and certainly in my house you would not have had room to turn
round.'

So saying, she folded up the robe, and put it by with great care, while
she remarked to Celandine:

'That dress of mine certainly suits you to a marvel; be sure you take
great care of it.'

When supper-time came she went into the house, declining all the
Princess's offers of assistance, and shortly afterwards brought out a
very small dish, saying:

'Now let us sup.'

Whereupon she handed Celandine a small piece of black bread and
uncovered the dish, which contained two dried plums.

'We will have one between us,' continued the old dame; 'and as you are
the visitor, you shall have the half which contains the stone; but be
very careful that you don't swallow it, for I keep them against the
winter, and you have no idea what a good fire they make. Now, you take
my advice which won't cost you anything--and remember that it is always
more economical to buy fruit with stones on this account.'

Celandine, absorbed in her own sad thoughts, did not even hear this
prudent counsel, and quite forgot to eat her share of the plum, which
delighted the old woman, who put it by carefully for her breakfast,
saying:

'I am very much pleased with you, and if you go on as you have begun, we
shall do very well, and I can teach you many useful things which people
don't generally know. For instance, look at my house! It is built
entirely of the seeds of all the pears I have eaten in my life. Now,
most people throw them away, and that only shows what a number of things
are wasted for want of a little patience and ingenuity.'

But Celandine did not find it possible to be interested in this and
similar pieces of advice. And the old woman soon sent her to bed, for
fear the night air might give her an appetite. She passed a sleepless
night; but in the morning the old dame remarked:

'I heard how well you slept. After such a night you cannot want any
breakfast; so while I do my household tasks you had better stay in bed,
since the more one sleeps the less one need eat; and as it is market-day
I will go to town and buy a pennyworth of bread for the week's eating.'

And so she chattered on, but poor Celandine did not hear or heed her;
she wandered out into the desolate country to think over her sad fate.
However, the good Fairy of the Beech-Woods did not want her to be
starved, so she sent her an unlooked-for relief in the shape of a
beautiful white cow, which followed her back to the tiny house. When the
old woman saw it her joy knew no bounds.

[Illustration]

'Now we can have milk and cheese and butter!' cried she. 'Ah! how good
milk is! What a pity it is so ruinously expensive!' So they made a
little shelter of branches for the beautiful creature, which was quite
gentle, and followed Celandine about like a dog when she took it out
every day to graze. One morning as she sat by a little brook, thinking
sadly, she suddenly saw a young stranger approaching, and got up
quickly, intending to avoid him. But Prince Featherhead, for it was he,
perceiving her at the same moment, rushed towards her with every
demonstration of joy: for he had recognised her, not as the Celandine
whom he had slighted, but as the lovely Princess whom he had sought
vainly for so long. The fact was that the Fairy of the Beech-Woods,
thinking she had been punished enough, had withdrawn the enchantment
from her, and transferred it to Featherhead, thereby in an instant
depriving him of the good looks which had done so much towards making
him the fickle creature he was. Throwing himself down at the Princess's
feet, he implored her to stay, and at least speak to him, and she at
last consented, but only because he seemed to wish it so very much.
After that he came every day in the hope of meeting her again, and often
expressed his delight at being with her. But one day, when he had been
begging Celandine to love him, she confided to him that it was quite
impossible, since her heart was already entirely occupied by another.

'I have,' said she, 'the unhappiness of loving a Prince who is fickle,
frivolous, proud, incapable of caring for anyone but himself, who has
been spoilt by flattery, and, to crown all, who does not love me.'

'But' cried Prince Featherhead, 'surely you cannot care for so
contemptible and worthless a creature as that.'

'Alas! but I do care,' answered the Princess, weeping.

'But where can his eyes be,' said the Prince, 'that your beauty makes no
impression upon him? As for me, since I have possessed your portrait I
have wandered over the whole world to find you, and, now we have met, I
see that you are ten times lovelier than I could have imagined, and I
would give all I own to win your love.'

'My portrait?' cried Celandine with sudden interest. 'Is it possible
that Prince Featherhead can have parted with it?'

'He would part with his life sooner, lovely Princess,' answered he; 'I
can assure you of that, for _I_ am Prince Featherhead.'

At the same moment the Fairy of the Beech-Woods took away the
enchantment, and the happy Princess recognised her lover, now truly
hers, for the trials they had both undergone had so changed and improved
them that they were capable of a real love for each other. You may
imagine how perfectly happy they were, and how much they had to hear and
to tell. But at length it was time to go back to the little house, and
as they went along Celandine remembered for the first time what a ragged
old dress she was wearing, and what an odd appearance she must present.
But the Prince declared that it became her vastly, and that he thought
it most picturesque. When they reached the house the old woman received
them very crossly.

'I declare,' said she, 'that it's perfectly true: wherever there is a
girl you may be sure that a young man will appear before long! But don't
imagine that I'm going to have you here--not a bit of it; be off with
you, my fine fellow!'

Prince Featherhead was inclined to be angry at this uncivil reception,
but he was really too happy to care much, so he only demanded, on
Celandine's behalf, that the old dame should give her back her own
attire, that she might go away suitably dressed.

This request roused her to fury, since she had counted upon the
Princess's fine robes to clothe her for the rest of her life, so that it
was some time before the Prince could make himself heard to explain that
he was willing to pay for them. The sight of a handful of gold pieces
somewhat mollified her, however, and after making them both promise
faithfully that on no consideration would they ask for the gold back
again, she took the Princess into the house and grudgingly doled out to
her just enough of her gay attire to make her presentable, while the
rest she pretended to have lost. After this they found that they were
very hungry, for one cannot live on love, any more than on air, and then
the old woman's lamentations were louder than before. 'What!' she cried,
'feed people who were as happy as all that! Why, it was simply ruinous!'

But as the Prince began to look angry, she, with many sighs and
mutterings, brought out a morsel of bread, a bowl of milk, and six
plums, with which the lovers were well content: for as long as they
could look at one another they really did not know what they were
eating. It seemed as if they would go on for ever with their
reminiscences, the Prince telling how he had wandered all over the world
from beauty to beauty, always to be disappointed when he found that no
one resembled the portrait; the Princess wondering how it was he could
have been so long with her and yet never have recognised her, and over
and over again pardoning him for his cold and haughty behaviour to her.

'For,' she said, 'you see, Featherhead, I love you, and love makes
everything right! But we cannot stay here,' she added; 'what are we to
do?'

The Prince thought they had better find their way to the Fairy of the
Beech-Woods and put themselves once more under her protection, and they
had hardly agreed upon this course when two little chariots wreathed
with jasmine and honeysuckle suddenly appeared, and, stepping into them,
they were whirled away to the Leafy Palace. Just before they lost sight
of the little house they heard loud cries and lamentations from the
miserly old dame, and, looking round, perceived that the beautiful cow
was vanishing in spite of her frantic efforts to hold it fast. And they
afterwards heard that she spent the rest of her life in trying to put
the handful of gold the Prince had thrown to her into her money-bag. For
the Fairy, as a punishment for her avarice, caused it to slip out again
as fast as she dropped it in.

The Fairy of the Beech-Woods ran to welcome the Prince and Princess with
open arms, only too delighted to find them so much improved that she
could, with a clear conscience, begin to spoil them again. Very soon the
Fairy Saradine also arrived, bringing the King and Queen with her.
Princess Celandine implored her pardon, which she graciously gave;
indeed the Princess was so charming she could refuse her nothing. She
also restored to her the Summer Islands, and promised her protection in
all things. The Fairy of the Beech-Woods then informed the King and
Queen that their subjects had chased King Bruin from the throne, and
were waiting to welcome them back again; but they at once abdicated in
favour of Prince Featherhead, declaring that nothing could induce them
to forsake their peaceful life, and the Fairies undertook to see the
Prince and Princess established in their beautiful kingdoms. Their
marriage took place the next day, and they lived happily ever
afterwards, for Celandine was never vain and Featherhead was never
fickle any more.

  _Le Prince Muguet et la Princesse Zaza._




  _THE THREE LITTLE PIGS_


There was once upon a time a pig who lived with her three children on a
large, comfortable, old-fashioned farmyard. The eldest of the little
pigs was called Browny, the second Whitey, and the youngest and best
looking Blacky. Now Browny was a very dirty little pig, and I am sorry
to say spent most of his time rolling and wallowing about in the mud. He
was never so happy as on a wet day, when the mud in the farmyard got
soft, and thick, and slab. Then he would steal away from his mother's
side, and finding the muddiest place in the yard, would roll about in it
and thoroughly enjoy himself. His mother often found fault with him for
this, and would shake her head sadly and say: 'Ah, Browny! some day you
will be sorry that you did not obey your old mother.' But no words of
advice or warning could cure Browny of his bad habits.

[Illustration]

Whitey was quite a clever little pig, but she was greedy. She was always
thinking of her food, and looking forward to her dinner; and when the
farm girl was seen carrying the pails across the yard, she would rise up
on her hind legs and dance and caper with excitement. As soon as the
food was poured into the trough she jostled Blacky and Browny out of the
way in her eagerness to get the best and biggest bits for herself. Her
mother often scolded her for her selfishness, and told her that some day
she would suffer for being so greedy and grabbing.

Blacky was a good, nice little pig, neither dirty nor greedy. He had
nice dainty ways (for a pig), and his skin was always as smooth and
shining as black satin. He was much cleverer than Browny and Whitey, and
his mother's heart used to swell with pride when she heard the farmer's
friends say to each other that some day the little black fellow would be
a prize pig.

Now the time came when the mother pig felt old and feeble and near her
end. One day she called the three little pigs round her and said:

'My children, I feel that I am growing old and weak, and that I shall
not live long. Before I die I should like to build a house for each of
you, as this dear old sty in which we have lived so happily will be
given to a new family of pigs, and you will have to turn out. Now,
Browny, what sort of a house would you like to have?'

'A house of mud,' replied Browny, looking longingly at a wet puddle in
the corner of the yard.

'And you, Whitey?' said the mother pig in rather a sad voice, for she
was disappointed that Browny had made so foolish a choice.

'A house of cabbage,' answered Whitey, with a mouth full, and scarcely
raising her snout out of the trough in which she was grubbing for some
potato-parings.

'Foolish, foolish child!' said the mother pig, looking quite distressed,
'And you, Blacky?' turning to her youngest son, 'what sort of a house
shall I order for you?'

'A house of brick, please mother, as it will be warm in winter, and cool
in summer, and safe all the year round.'

'That is a sensible little pig,' replied his mother, looking fondly at
him. 'I will see that the three houses are got ready at once. And now
one last piece of advice. You have heard me talk of our old enemy the
fox. When he hears that I am dead, he is sure to try and get hold of
you, to carry you off to his den. He is very sly and will no doubt
disguise himself, and pretend to be a friend, but you must promise me
not to let him enter your houses on any pretext whatever.'

And the little pigs readily promised, for they had always had a great
fear of the fox, of whom they had heard many terrible tales. A short
time afterwards the old pig died, and the little pigs went to live in
their own houses.

Browny was quite delighted with his soft mud walls and with the clay
floor, which soon looked like nothing but a big mud pie. But that was
what Browny enjoyed, and he was as happy as possible, rolling about all
day and making himself in such a mess. One day, as he was lying half
asleep in the mud, he heard a soft knock at his door, and a gentle voice
said:

'May I come in, Master Browny? I want to see your beautiful new house.'

'Who are you?' said Browny, starting up in great fright, for though the
voice sounded gentle, he felt sure it was a feigned voice, and he feared
it was the fox.

'I am a friend come to call on you,' answered the voice.

'No, no,' replied Browny, 'I don't believe you are a friend. You are the
wicked fox, against whom our mother warned us. I won't let you in.'

'Oho! is that the way you answer me?' said the fox, speaking very
roughly in his natural voice. 'We shall soon see who is master here,'
and with his paws he set to work and scraped a large hole in the soft
mud walls. A moment later he had jumped through it, and catching Browny
by the neck, flung him on his shoulders and trotted off with him to his
den.

The next day, as Whitey was munching a few leaves of cabbage out of the
corner of her house, the fox stole up to her door, determined to carry
her off to join her brother in his den. He began speaking to her in the
same feigned gentle voice in which he had spoken to Browny; but it
frightened her very much when he said:

'I am a friend come to visit you, and to have some of your good cabbage
for my dinner.'

'Please don't touch it,' cried Whitey in great distress. 'The cabbages
are the walls of my house, and if you eat them you will make a hole, and
the wind and rain will come in and give me a cold. Do go away; I am sure
you are not a friend, but our wicked enemy the fox.' And poor Whitey
began to whine and to whimper, and to wish that she had not been such a
greedy little pig, and had chosen a more solid material than cabbages
for her house. But it was too late now, and in another minute the fox
had eaten his way through the cabbage walls, and had caught the
trembling, shivering Whitey, and carried her off to his den.

The next day the fox started off for Blacky's house, because he had made
up his mind that he would get the three little pigs together in his den,
and then kill them, and invite all his friends to a feast. But when he
reached the brick house, he found that the door was bolted and barred,
so in his sly manner he began, 'Do let me in, dear Blacky. I have
brought you a present of some eggs that I picked up in a farmyard on my
way here.'

[Illustration]

'No, no, Mister Fox,' replied Blacky, 'I am not going to open my door to
you. I know your cunning ways. You have carried off poor Browny and
Whitey, but you are not going to get me.'

At this the fox was so angry that he dashed with all his force against
the wall, and tried to knock it down. But it was too strong and
well-built; and though the fox scraped and tore at the bricks with his
paws he only hurt himself, and at last he had to give it up, and limp
away with his fore-paws all bleeding and sore.

'Never mind!' he cried angrily as he went off, 'I'll catch you another
day, see if I don't, and won't I grind your bones to powder when I have
got you in my den!' and he snarled fiercely and showed his teeth.

Next day Blacky had to go into the neighbouring town to do some
marketing and to buy a big kettle. As he was walking home with it slung
over his shoulder, he heard a sound of steps stealthily creeping after
him. For a moment his heart stood still with fear, and then a happy
thought came to him. He had just reached the top of a hill, and could
see his own little house nestling at the foot of it among the trees. In
a moment he had snatched the lid off the kettle and had jumped in
himself. Coiling himself round he lay quite snug in the bottom of the
kettle, while with his fore-leg he managed to put the lid on, so that he
was entirely hidden. With a little kick from the inside he started the
kettle off, and down the hill it rolled full tilt; and when the fox came
up, all that he saw was a large black kettle spinning over the ground at
a great pace. Very much disappointed, he was just going to turn away,
when he saw the kettle stop close to the little brick house, and in a
moment later Blacky jumped out of it and escaped with the kettle into
the house, when he barred and bolted the door, and put the shutter up
over the window.

'Oho!' exclaimed the fox to himself, 'you think you will escape me that
way, do you? We shall soon see about that, my friend,' and very quietly
and stealthily he prowled round the house looking for some way to climb
on to the roof.

In the meantime Blacky had filled the kettle with water, and having put
it on the fire, sat down quietly waiting for it to boil. Just as the
kettle was beginning to sing, and steam to come out of the spout, he
heard a sound like a soft, muffled step, patter, patter, patter
overhead, and the next moment the fox's head and fore-paws were seen
coming down the chimney. But Blacky very wisely had not put the lid on
the kettle, and, with a yelp of pain, the fox fell into the boiling
water, and before he could escape, Blacky had popped the lid on, and the
fox was scalded to death.

As soon as he was sure that their wicked enemy was really dead, and
could do them no further harm, Blacky started off to rescue Browny and
Whitey. As he approached the den he heard piteous grunts and squeals
from his poor little brother and sister who lived in constant terror of
the fox killing and eating them. But when they saw Blacky appear at the
entrance to the den their joy knew no bounds. He quickly found a sharp
stone and cut the cords by which they were tied to a stake in the
ground, and then all three started off together for Blacky's house,
where they lived happily ever after; and Browny quite gave up rolling in
the mud, and Whitey ceased to be greedy, for they never forgot how
nearly these faults had brought them to an untimely end.

[Illustration]




  _HEART OF ICE_


Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who were foolish beyond
all telling, but nevertheless they were vastly fond of one another. It
is true that certain spiteful people were heard to say that this was
only one proof the more of their exceeding foolishness, but of course
you will understand that these were not their own courtiers, since,
after all, they _were_ a King and Queen, and up to this time all things
had prospered with them. For in those days the one thing to be thought
of in governing a kingdom was to keep well with all the Fairies and
Enchanters, and on no account to stint them of the cakes, the ells of
ribbon, and similar trifles which were their due, and, above all things,
when there was a christening, to remember to invite every single one,
good, bad, or indifferent, to the ceremony. Now, the foolish Queen had
one little son who was just going to be christened, and for several
months she had been hard at work preparing an enormous list of the names
of those who were to be invited, but she quite forgot that it would take
nearly as long to read it over as it had taken to write it out. So, when
the moment of the christening arrived the King--to whom the task had
been entrusted--had barely reached the end of the second page and his
tongue was tripping with fatigue and haste as he repeated the usual
formula: 'I conjure and pray you, Fairy so-and-so'--or 'Enchanter
such-a-one'--'to honour me with a visit, and graciously bestow your
gifts upon my son.'

To make matters worse, word was brought to him that the Fairies asked on
the first page had already arrived and were waiting impatiently in the
Great Hall, and grumbling that nobody was there to receive them.
Thereupon he gave up the list in despair and hurried to greet those whom
he had succeeded in asking, imploring their goodwill so humbly that most
of them were touched, and promised that they would do his son no harm.
But there happened to be among them a Fairy from a far country about
whom they knew nothing, though her name had been written on the first
page of the list. This Fairy was annoyed that after having taken the
trouble to come so quickly, there had been no one to receive her, or
help her to alight from the great ostrich on which she had travelled
from her distant home, and now she began to mutter to herself in the
most alarming way.

'Oh! prate away,' said she, 'your son will never be anything to boast
of. Say what you will, he will be nothing but a Mannikin----'

No doubt she would have gone on longer in this strain, and given the
unhappy little Prince half-a-dozen undesirable gifts, if it had not been
for the good Fairy Genesta, who held the kingdom under her special
protection, and who luckily hurried in just in time to prevent further
mischief. When she had by compliments and entreaties pacified the
unknown Fairy, and persuaded her to say no more, she gave the King a
hint that now was the time to distribute the presents, after which
ceremony they all took their departure, excepting the Fairy Genesta, who
then went to see the Queen, and said to her:

'A nice mess you seem to have made of this business, madam. Why did you
not condescend to consult me? But foolish people like you always think
they can do without help or advice, and I observe that, in spite of all
my goodness to you, you had not even the civility to invite me!'

'Ah! dear madam,' cried the King, throwing himself at her feet; 'did I
ever have time to get as far as your name? See where I put in this mark
when I abandoned the hopeless undertaking which I had but just begun!'

'There! there!' said the Fairy, 'I am not offended. I don't allow myself
to be put out by trifles like that with people I really am fond of. But
now about your son: I have saved him from a great many disagreeable
things, but you must let me take him away and take care of him, and you
will not see him again until he is all covered with fur!'

At these mysterious words the King and Queen burst into tears, for they
lived in such a hot climate themselves that how or why the Prince should
come to be covered with fur they could not imagine, and thought it must
portend some great misfortune to him.

However, Genesta told them not to disquiet themselves.

[Illustration]

'If I left him to you to bring up,' said she, 'you would be certain to
make him as foolish as yourselves. I do not even intend to let him know
that he is your son. As for you, you had better give your minds to
governing your kingdom properly.' So saying, she opened the window, and
catching up the little Prince, cradle and all, she glided away in the
air as if she were skating upon ice, leaving the King and Queen in the
greatest affliction. They consulted everyone who came near them as to
what the Fairy could possibly have meant by saying that when they saw
their son again he would be covered with fur. But nobody could offer any
solution of the mystery, only they all seemed to agree that it must be
something frightful, and the King and Queen made themselves more
miserable than ever, and wandered about their palace in a way to make
anyone pity them. Meantime the Fairy had carried off the little Prince
to her own castle, and placed him under the care of a young peasant
woman, whom she bewitched so as to make her think that this new baby was
one of her own children. So the Prince grew up healthy and strong,
leading the simple life of a young peasant, for the Fairy thought that
he could have no better training; only as he grew older she kept him
more and more with herself, that his mind might be cultivated and
exercised as well as his body. But her care did not cease there: she
resolved that he should be tried by hardships and disappointments and
the knowledge of his fellowmen; for indeed she knew the Prince would
need every advantage that she could give him, since, though he increased
in years, he did not increase in height, but remained the tiniest of
Princes. However, in spite of this he was exceedingly active and well
formed, and altogether so handsome and agreeable that the smallness of
his stature was of no real consequence. The Prince was perfectly aware
that he was called by the ridiculous name of 'Mannikin,' but he consoled
himself by vowing that, happen what might, he would make it illustrious.

In order to carry out her plans for his welfare the Fairy now began to
send Prince Mannikin the most wonderful dreams of adventure by sea and
land, and of these adventures he himself was always the hero. Sometimes
he rescued a lovely Princess from some terrible danger, again he earned
a kingdom by some brave deed, until at last he longed to go away and
seek his fortune in a far country where his humble birth would not
prevent his gaining honour and riches by his courage, and it was with a
heart full of ambitious projects that he rode one day into a great city
not far from the Fairy's castle. As he had set out intending to hunt in
the surrounding forest he was quite simply dressed, and carried only a
bow and arrows and a light spear; but even thus arrayed he looked
graceful and distinguished. As he entered the city he saw that the
inhabitants were all racing with one accord towards the market-place,
and he also turned his horse in the same direction, curious to know what
was going forward. When he reached the spot he found that certain
foreigners of strange and outlandish appearance were about to make a
proclamation to the assembled citizens, and he hastily pushed his way
into the crowd until he was near enough to hear the words of the
venerable old man who was their spokesman:

'Let the whole world know that he who can reach the summit of the Ice
Mountain shall receive as his reward, not only the incomparable Sabella,
fairest of the fair, but also all the realms of which she is Queen!'
'Here,' continued the old man after he had made this proclamation--'here
is the list of all those Princes who, struck by the beauty of the
Princess, have perished in the attempt to win her; and here is the list
of those who have just entered upon the high emprise.'

Prince Mannikin was seized with a violent desire to inscribe his name
among the others, but the remembrance of his dependent position and his
lack of wealth held him back. But while he hesitated the old man, with
many respectful ceremonies, unveiled a portrait of the lovely Sabella,
which was carried by some of the attendants, and after one glance at it
the Prince delayed no longer, but, rushing forward, demanded permission
to add his name to the list. When they saw his tiny stature and simple
attire the strangers looked at each other doubtfully, not knowing
whether to accept or refuse him. But the Prince said haughtily:

'Give me the paper that I may sign it,' and they obeyed. What between
admiration for the Princess and annoyance at the hesitation shown by her
ambassadors the Prince was too much agitated to choose any other name
than the one by which he was always known. But when, after all the grand
titles of the other Princes, he simply wrote 'Mannikin,' the ambassadors
broke into shouts of laughter.

'Miserable wretches!' cried the Prince; 'but for the presence of that
lovely portrait I would cut off your heads.'

But he suddenly remembered that, after all, it _was_ a funny name, and
that he had not yet had time to make it famous; so he was calm, and
enquired the way to the Princess Sabella's country.

Though his heart did not fail him in the least, still he felt there were
many difficulties before him, and he resolved to set out at once,
without even taking leave of the Fairy, for fear she might try to stop
him. Everybody in the town who knew him made great fun of the idea of
Mannikin's undertaking such an expedition, and it even came to the ears
of the foolish King and Queen, who laughed over it more than any of the
others, without having an idea that the presumptuous Mannikin was their
only son!

[Illustration]

Meantime the Prince was travelling on, though the directions he had
received for his journey were none of the clearest.

'Four hundred leagues north of Mount Caucasus you will receive your
orders and instructions for the conquest of the Ice Mountain.'

Fine marching orders, those, for a man starting from a country near
where Japan is nowadays!

However, he fared eastward, avoiding all towns, lest the people should
laugh at his name, for, you see, he was not a very experienced
traveller, and had not yet learned to enjoy a joke even if it were
against himself. At night he slept in the woods, and at first he lived
upon wild fruits; but the Fairy, who was keeping a benevolent eye upon
him, thought that it would never do to let him be half-starved in that
way, so she took to feeding him with all sorts of good things while he
was asleep, and the Prince wondered very much that when he was awake he
never felt hungry! True to her plan the Fairy sent him various
adventures to prove his courage, and he came successfully through them
all, only in his last fight with a furious monster rather like a tiger
he had the ill luck to lose his horse. However, nothing daunted, he
struggled on on foot, and at last reached a seaport. Here he found a
boat sailing for the coast which he desired to reach, and, having just
enough money to pay his passage, he went on board and they started. But
after some days a fearful storm came on, which completely wrecked the
little ship, and the Prince only saved his life by swimming a long, long
way to the only land that was in sight, and which proved to be a desert
island. Here he lived by fishing and hunting, always hoping that the
good Fairy would presently rescue him. One day, as he was looking sadly
out to sea, he became aware of a curious-looking boat which was drifting
slowly towards the shore, and which presently ran into a little creek
and there stuck fast in the sand. Prince Mannikin rushed down eagerly to
examine it, and saw with amazement that the masts and spars were all
branched, and covered thickly with leaves until it looked like a little
wood. Thinking from the stillness that there could be no one on board,
the Prince pushed aside the branches and sprang over the side, and found
himself surrounded by the crew, who lay motionless as dead men and in a
most deplorable condition. They, too, had become almost like trees, and
were growing to the deck, or to the masts, or to the sides of the
vessel, or to whatever they had happened to be touching when the
enchantment fell upon them. Mannikin was struck with pity for their
miserable plight, and set to work with might and main to release them.
With the sharp point of one of his arrows he gently detached their hands
and feet from the wood which held them fast, and carried them on shore,
one after another, where he rubbed their rigid limbs, and bathed them
with infusions of various herbs with such success, that, after a few
days, they recovered perfectly and were as fit to manage a boat as ever.
You may be sure that the good Fairy Genesta had something to do with
this marvellous cure, and she also put it into the Prince's head to rub
the boat itself with the same magic herbs, which cleared it entirely,
and not before it was time, for, at the rate at which it was growing
before, it would very soon have become a forest! The gratitude of the
sailors was extreme, and they willingly promised to land the Prince upon
any coast he pleased; but, when he questioned them about the
extraordinary thing that had happened to them and to their ship, they
could in no way explain it, except that they said that, as they were
passing along a thickly wooded coast, a sudden gust of wind had reached
them from the land and enveloped them in a dense cloud of dust, after
which everything in the boat that was not metal had sprouted and
blossomed, as the Prince had seen, and that they themselves had grown
gradually numb and heavy, and had finally lost all consciousness. Prince
Mannikin was deeply interested in this curious story, and collected a
quantity of the dust from the bottom of the boat, which he carefully
preserved, thinking that its strange property might one day stand him in
good stead.

[Illustration]

Then they joyfully left the desert island, and after a long and
prosperous voyage over calm seas they at length came in sight of land,
and resolved to go on shore, not only to take in a fresh stock of water
and provisions, but also to find out, if possible, where they were and
in what direction to proceed.

As they neared the coast they wondered if this could be another
uninhabited land, for no human beings could be distinguished, and yet
that something was stirring became evident, for in the dust-clouds that
moved near the ground small dark forms were dimly visible. These
appeared to be assembling at the exact spot where they were preparing to
run ashore, and what was their surprise to find they were nothing more
nor less than large and beautiful spaniels, some mounted as sentries,
others grouped in companies and regiments, all eagerly watching their
disembarkation. When they found that Prince Mannikin, instead of saying,
'Shoot them,' as they had feared, said 'Hi, good dog!' in a thoroughly
friendly and ingratiating way, they crowded round him with a great
wagging of tails and giving of paws, and very soon made him understand
that they wanted him to leave his men with the boat and follow them. The
Prince was so curious to know more about them that he agreed willingly;
so, after arranging with the sailors to wait for him fifteen days, and
then, if he had not come back, to go on their way without him, he set
out with his new friends. Their way lay inland, and Mannikin noticed
with great surprise that the fields were well cultivated and that the
carts and ploughs were drawn by horses or oxen, just as they might have
been in any other country, and when they passed any village the cottages
were trim and pretty, and an air of prosperity was everywhere. At one of
the villages a dainty little repast was set before the Prince, and while
he was eating, a chariot was brought, drawn by two splendid horses,
which were driven with great skill by a large spaniel. In this carriage
he continued his journey very comfortably, passing many similar
equipages upon the road, and being always most courteously saluted by
the spaniels who occupied them. At last they drove rapidly into a large
town, which Prince Mannikin had no doubt was the capital of the kingdom.
News of his approach had evidently been received, for all the
inhabitants were at their doors and windows, and all the little spaniels
had climbed upon the wall and gates to see him arrive. The Prince was
delighted with the hearty welcome they gave him, and looked round him
with the deepest interest. After passing through a few wide streets,
well paved, and adorned with avenues of fine trees, they drove into the
courtyard of a grand palace, which was full of spaniels who were
evidently soldiers. 'The King's body-guard,' thought the Prince to
himself as he returned their salutations, and then the carriage stopped,
and he was shown into the presence of the King, who lay upon a rich
Persian carpet surrounded by several little spaniels, who were occupied
in chasing away the flies lest they should disturb his Majesty. He was
the most beautiful of all spaniels, with a look of sadness in his large
eyes, which, however, quite disappeared as he sprang up to welcome
Prince Mannikin with every demonstration of delight; after which he made
a sign to his courtiers, who came one by one to pay their respects to
the visitor. The Prince thought that he would find himself puzzled as to
how he should carry on a conversation, but as soon as he and the King
were once more left alone, a Secretary of State was sent for, who wrote
from his Majesty's dictation a most polite speech, in which he regretted
much that they were unable to converse, except in writing, the language
of dogs being difficult to understand. As for the writing, it had
remained the same as the Prince's own.

Mannikin thereupon wrote a suitable reply, and then begged the King to
satisfy his curiosity about all the strange things he had seen and heard
since his landing. This appeared to awaken sad recollections in the
King's mind, but he informed the Prince that he was called King Bayard,
and that a Fairy, whose kingdom was next his own, had fallen violently
in love with him, and had done all she could to persuade him to marry
her; but that he could not do so, as he himself was the devoted lover of
the Queen of the Spice Islands. Finally, the Fairy, furious at the
indifference with which her love was treated, had reduced him to the
state in which the Prince found him, leaving him unchanged in mind, but
deprived of the power of speech; and, not content with wreaking her
vengeance upon the King alone, she had condemned all his subjects to a
similar fate, saying:

'Bark, and run upon four feet, until the time comes when virtue shall be
rewarded by love and fortune.'

Which, as the poor King remarked, was very much the same thing as if she
had said, 'Remain a spaniel for ever and ever.'

Prince Mannikin was quite of the same opinion; nevertheless he said
what we should all have said in the same circumstances:

'Your Majesty must have patience.'

He was indeed deeply sorry for poor King Bayard, and said all the
consoling things he could think of, promising to aid him with all his
might if there was anything to be done. In short they became firm
friends, and the King proudly displayed to Mannikin the portrait of the
Queen of the Spice Islands, and he quite agreed that it was worth while
to go through anything for the sake of a creature so lovely. Prince
Mannikin in his turn told his own history, and the great undertaking
upon which he had set out, and King Bayard was able to give him some
valuable instructions as to which would be the best way for him to
proceed, and then they went together to the place where the boat had
been left. The sailors were delighted to see the Prince again, though
they had known that he was safe, and when they had taken on board all
the supplies which the King had sent for them, they started once more.
The King and Prince parted with much regret, and the former insisted
that Mannikin should take with him one of his own pages, named Mousta,
who was charged to attend to him everywhere, and serve him faithfully,
which he promised to do.

The wind being favourable they were soon out of hearing of the general
howl of regret from the whole army, which had been given by order of the
King, as a great compliment, and it was not long before the land was
entirely lost to view. They met with no further adventures worth
speaking of, and presently found themselves within two leagues of the
harbour for which they were making. The Prince, however, thought it
would suit him better to land where he was, so as to avoid the town,
since he had no money left and was very doubtful as to what he should do
next. So the sailors set him and Mousta on shore, and then went back
sorrowfully to their ship, while the Prince and his attendant walked off
in what looked to them the most promising direction. They soon reached a
lovely green meadow on the border of a wood, which seemed to them so
pleasant after their long voyage that they sat down to rest in the shade
and amused themselves by watching the gambols and antics of a pretty
tiny monkey in the trees close by. The Prince presently became so
fascinated by it that he sprang up and tried to catch it, but it eluded
his grasp and kept just out of arm's reach, until it had made him
promise to follow wherever it led him, and then it sprang upon his
shoulder and whispered in his ear:

'We have no money, my poor Mannikin, and we are altogether badly off,
and at a loss to know what to do next.'

'Yes, indeed,' answered the Prince ruefully, 'and I have nothing to give
you, no sugar or biscuits, or anything that you like, my pretty one.'

'Since you are so thoughtful for me, and so patient about your own
affairs,' said the little monkey, 'I will show you the way to the Golden
Rock, only you must leave Mousta to wait for you here.'

Prince Mannikin agreed willingly, and then the little monkey sprang from
his shoulder to the nearest tree, and began to run through the wood from
branch to branch, crying, 'Follow me.'

This the Prince did not find quite so easy, but the little monkey waited
for him and showed him the easiest places, until presently the wood grew
thinner and they came out into a little clear grassy space at the foot
of a mountain, in the midst of which stood a single rock, about ten feet
high. When they were quite close to it the little monkey said:

'This stone looks pretty hard, but give it a blow with your spear and
let us see what will happen.'

So the Prince took his spear and gave the rock a vigorous dig, which
split off several pieces, and showed that, though the surface was thinly
coated with stone, inside it was one solid mass of pure gold.

Thereupon the little monkey said, laughing at his astonishment:

'I make you a present of what you have broken off; take as much of it as
you think proper.'

The Prince thanked her gratefully, and picked up one of the smallest of
the lumps of gold; as he did so the little monkey was suddenly
transformed into a tall and gracious lady, who said to him:

'If you are always as kind and persevering and easily contented as you
are now you may hope to accomplish the most difficult tasks; go on your
way and have no fear that you will be troubled any more for lack of
gold, for that little piece which you modestly chose shall never grow
less, use it as much as you will. But that you may see the danger you
have escaped by your moderation, come with me.' So saying she led him
back into the wood by a different path, and he saw that it was full of
men and women; their faces were pale and haggard, and they ran hither
and thither seeking madly upon the ground, or in the air, starting at
every sound, pushing and trampling upon one another in their frantic
eagerness to find the way to the Golden Rock.

'You see how they toil,' said the Fairy; 'but it is all of no avail:
they will end by dying of despair, as hundreds have done before them.'

As soon as they had got back to the place where they had left Mousta the
Fairy disappeared, and the Prince and his faithful Squire, who had
greeted him with every demonstration of joy, took the nearest way to the
city. Here they stayed several days, while the Prince provided himself
with horses and attendants, and made many enquiries about the Princess
Sabella, and the way to her kingdom, which was still so far away that he
could hear but little, and that of the vaguest description, but when he
presently reached Mount Caucasus it was quite a different matter. Here
they seemed to talk of nothing but the Princess Sabella, and strangers
from all parts of the world were travelling towards her father's Court.

The Prince heard plenty of assurances as to her beauty and her riches,
but he also heard of the immense number of his rivals and their power.
One brought an army at his back, another had vast treasures, a third was
as handsome and accomplished as it was possible to be; while, as to poor
Mannikin, he had nothing but his determination to succeed, his faithful
spaniel, and his ridiculous name--which last was hardly likely to help
him, but as he could not alter it he wisely determined not to think of
it any more. After journeying for two whole months they came at last to
Trelintin, the capital of the Princess Sabella's kingdom, and here he
heard dismal stories about the Ice Mountain, and how none of those who
had attempted to climb it had ever come back. He heard also the story of
King Farda-Kinbras, Sabella's father. It appeared that he, being a rich
and powerful monarch, had married a lovely Princess named Birbantine,
and they were as happy as the day was long--so happy that as they were
out sledging one day they were foolish enough to defy fate to spoil
their happiness.

'We shall see about that,' grumbled an old hag who sat by the wayside
blowing her fingers to keep them warm. The King thereupon was very
angry, and wanted to punish the woman; but the Queen prevented him,
saying:

[Illustration: GORGONZOLA FLIES OFF ON HER DRAGON]

'Alas! sire, do not let us make bad worse; no doubt this is a Fairy!'

'You are right there,' said the old woman, and immediately she stood up,
and as they gazed at her in horror she grew gigantic and terrible, her
staff turned to a fiery dragon with outstretched wings, her ragged cloak
to a golden mantle, and her wooden shoes to two bundles of rockets. 'You
are right there, and you will see what will come of your fine goings on,
and remember the Fairy Gorgonzola!' So saying she mounted the dragon and
flew off, the rockets shooting in all directions and leaving long trails
of sparks.

In vain did Farda-Kinbras and Birbantine beg her to return, and
endeavour by their humble apologies to pacify her; she never so much as
looked at them, and was very soon out of sight, leaving them a prey to
all kinds of dismal forebodings. Very soon after this the Queen had a
little daughter, who was the most beautiful creature ever seen; all the
Fairies of the North were invited to her christening, and warned against
the malicious Gorgonzola. She also was invited, but she neither came to
the banquet nor received her present; but as soon as all the others were
seated at table, after bestowing their gifts upon the little Princess,
she stole into the Palace, disguised as a black cat, and hid herself
under the cradle until the nurses and the cradle-rockers had all turned
their backs, and then she sprang out, and in an instant had stolen the
little Princess's heart and made her escape, only being chased by a few
dogs and scullions on her way across the courtyard. Once outside she
mounted her chariot and flew straight away to the North Pole, where she
shut up her stolen treasure on the summit of the Ice Mountain, and
surrounded it with so many difficulties that she felt quite easy about
its remaining there as long as the Princess lived, and then she went
home, chuckling at her success. As to the other Fairies, they went home
after the banquet without discovering that anything was amiss, and so
the King and Queen were quite happy. Sabella grew prettier day by day.
She learnt everything a Princess ought to know without the slightest
trouble, and yet something always seemed lacking to make her perfectly
charming. She had an exquisite voice, but whether her songs were grave
or gay it did not matter, she did not seem to know what they meant; and
everyone who heard her said:

'She certainly sings perfectly; but there is no tenderness, no heart in
her voice.' Poor Sabella! how could there be when her heart was far away
on the Ice Mountains? And it was just the same with all the other things
that she did. As time went on, in spite of the admiration of the whole
Court and the blind fondness of the King and Queen, it became more and
more evident that something was fatally wrong: for those who love no one
cannot long be loved; and at last the King called a general assembly,
and invited the Fairies to attend, that they might, if possible, find
out what was the matter. After explaining their grief as well as he
could, he ended by begging them to see the Princess for themselves. 'It
is certain,' said he, 'that something is wrong--_what_ it is I don't
know how to tell you, but in some way your work is imperfect.'

They all assured him that, so far as they knew, everything had been done
for the Princess, and they had forgotten nothing that they could bestow
on so good a neighbour as the King had been to them. After this they
went to see Sabella; but they had no sooner entered her presence than
they cried out with one accord:

'Oh! horror!--she has no heart!'

On hearing this frightful announcement, the King and Queen gave a cry of
despair, and entreated the Fairies to find some remedy for such an
unheard-of misfortune. Thereupon the eldest Fairy consulted her Book of
Magic, which she always carried about with her, hung to her girdle by a
thick silver chain, and there she found out at once that it was
Gorgonzola who had stolen the Princess's heart, and also discovered what
the wicked old Fairy had done with it.

'What shall we do? What shall we do?' cried the King and Queen in one
breath.

'You must certainly suffer much annoyance from seeing and loving
Sabella, who is nothing but a beautiful image,' replied the Fairy, 'and
this must go on for a long time; but I think I see that, in the end, she
will once more regain her heart. My advice is that you shall at once
cause her portrait to be sent all over the world, and promise her hand
and all her possessions to the Prince who is successful in reaching her
heart. Her beauty alone is sufficient to engage all the Princes of the
world in the quest.'

This was accordingly done, and Prince Mannikin heard that already five
hundred Princes had perished in the snow and ice, not to mention their
squires and pages, and that more continued to arrive daily, eager to try
their fortune. After some consideration he determined to present himself
at Court; but his arrival made no stir, as his retinue was as
inconsiderable as his stature, and the splendour of his rivals was great
enough to throw even Farda-Kinbras himself into the shade. However, he
paid his respects to the King very gracefully, and asked permission to
kiss the hand of the Princess in the usual manner; but when he said he
was called 'Mannikin,' the King could hardly repress a smile, and the
Princes who stood by openly shouted with laughter.

[Illustration]

Turning to the King, Prince Mannikin said with great dignity:

'Pray laugh if it pleases your Majesty, I am glad that it is in my power
to afford you any amusement; but I am not a plaything for these
gentlemen, and I must beg them to dismiss any ideas of that kind from
their minds at once,' and with that he turned upon the one who had
laughed the loudest and proudly challenged him to a single combat. This
Prince, who was called Fadasse, accepted the challenge very scornfully,
mocking at Mannikin, whom he felt sure had no chance against himself;
but the meeting was arranged for the next day. When Prince Mannikin
quitted the King's presence he was conducted to the audience hall of the
Princess Sabella. The sight of so much beauty and magnificence almost
took his breath away for an instant, but, recovering himself with an
effort, he said:

'Lovely Princess, irresistibly drawn by the beauty of your portrait, I
come from the other end of the world to offer my services to you. My
devotion knows no bounds, but my absurd name has already involved me in
a quarrel with one of your courtiers. To-morrow I am to fight this ugly,
overgrown Prince, and I beg you to honour the combat with your presence,
and prove to the world that there is nothing in a name, and that you
deign to accept Mannikin as your knight.'

When it came to this the Princess could not help being amused, for,
though she had no heart, she was not without humour. However, she
answered graciously that she accepted with pleasure, which encouraged
the Prince to entreat further that she would not show any favour to his
adversary.

'Alas!' said she, 'I favour none of these foolish people, who weary me
with their sentiment and their folly. I do very well as I am, and yet
from one year's end to another they talk of nothing but delivering me
from some imaginary affliction. Not a word do I understand of all their
pratings about love, and who knows what dull things besides, which, I
declare to you, I cannot even remember.'

Mannikin was quick enough to gather from this speech that to amuse and
interest the Princess would be a far surer way of gaining her favour
than to add himself to the list of those who continually teased her
about that mysterious thing called 'love' which she was so incapable of
comprehending. So he began to talk of his rivals, and found in each of
them something to make merry over, in which diversion the Princess
joined him heartily, and so well did he succeed in his attempt to amuse
her that before very long she declared that of all the people at Court
he was the one to whom she preferred to talk.

[Illustration]

The following day, at the time appointed for the combat, when the King,
the Queen, and the Princess had taken their places, and the whole Court
and the whole town were assembled to see the show, Prince Fadasse rode
into the lists magnificently armed and accoutred, followed by
twenty-four squires and a hundred men-at-arms, each one leading a
splendid horse, while Prince Mannikin entered from the other side armed
only with his spear and followed by the faithful Mousta. The contrast
between the two champions was so great that there was a shout of
laughter from the whole assembly; but when at the sounding of a trumpet
the combatants rushed upon each other, and Mannikin, eluding the blow
aimed at him, succeeded in thrusting Prince Fadasse from his horse and
pinning him to the sand with his spear, it changed to a murmur of
admiration.

So soon as he had him at his mercy, however, Mannikin, turning to the
Princess, assured her that he had no desire to kill anyone who called
himself her courtier, and then he bade the furious and humiliated
Fadasse rise and thank the Princess to whom he owed his life. Then, amid
the sounding of the trumpets and the shoutings of the people, he and
Mousta retired gravely from the lists.

The King soon sent for him to congratulate him upon his success, and to
offer him a lodging in the Palace, which he joyfully accepted. While the
Princess expressed a wish to have Mousta brought to her, and, when the
Prince sent for him, she was so delighted with his courtly manners and
his marvellous intelligence that she entreated Mannikin to give him to
her for her own. The Prince consented with alacrity, not only out of
politeness, but because he foresaw that to have a faithful friend always
near the Princess might some day be of great service to him. All these
events made Prince Mannikin a person of much more consequence at the
Court. Very soon after, there arrived upon the frontier the Ambassador
of a very powerful King, who sent to Farda-Kinbras the following letter,
at the same time demanding permission to enter the capital in state to
receive the answer:

'I, Brandatimor, to Farda-Kinbras send greeting. If I had before this
time seen the portrait of your beautiful daughter Sabella I should not
have permitted all these adventurers and petty Princes to be dancing
attendance and getting themselves frozen with the absurd idea of
meriting her hand. For myself I am not afraid of any rivals, and, now I
have declared my intention of marrying your daughter, no doubt they will
at once withdraw their pretensions. My Ambassador has orders, therefore,
to make arrangements for the Princess to come and be married to me
without delay--for I attach no importance at all to the farrago of
nonsense which you have caused to be published all over the world about
this Ice Mountain. If the Princess really has no heart, be assured that
I shall not concern myself about it, since, if anybody can help her to
discover one, it is myself. My worthy father-in-law, farewell!'

The reading of this letter embarrassed and displeased Farda-Kinbras and
Birbantine immensely, while the Princess was furious at the insolence of
the demand. They all three resolved that its contents must be kept a
profound secret until they could decide what reply should be sent, but
Mousta contrived to send word of all that had passed to Prince Mannikin.
He was naturally alarmed and indignant, and, after thinking it over a
little, he begged an audience of the Princess, and led the conversation
so cunningly up to the subject that was uppermost in her thoughts, as
well as his own, that she presently told him all about the matter and
asked his advice as to what it would be best to do. This was exactly
what he had not been able to decide for himself; however, he replied
that he should advise her to gain a little time by promising her answer
after the grand entry of the Ambassador, and this was accordingly done.

The Ambassador did not at all like being put off after that fashion, but
he was obliged to be content, and only said very arrogantly that so soon
as his equipages arrived, as he expected they would do very shortly, he
would give all the people of the city, and the stranger Princes with
whom it was inundated, an idea of the power and the magnificence of his
master. Mannikin, in despair, resolved that he would for once beg the
assistance of the kind Fairy Genesta. He often thought of her and always
with gratitude, but from the moment of his setting out he had determined
to seek her aid only on the greatest occasions. That very night, when he
had fallen asleep quite worn out with thinking over all the difficulties
of the situation, he dreamed that the Fairy stood beside him, and said:

'Mannikin, you have done very well so far; continue to please me and you
shall always find good friends when you need them most. As for this
affair with the Ambassador, you can assure Sabella that she may look
forward tranquilly to his triumphal entry, since it will all turn out
well for her in the end.'

The Prince tried to throw himself at her feet to thank her, but woke to
find it was all a dream; nevertheless he took fresh courage, and went
next day to see the Princess, to whom he gave many mysterious assurances
that all would yet be well. He even went so far as to ask her if she
would not be very grateful to anyone who would rid her of the insolent
Brandatimor. To which she replied that her gratitude would know no
bounds. Then he wanted to know what would be her best wish for the
person who was lucky enough to accomplish it. To which she said that she
would wish them to be as insensible to the folly called 'love' as she
was herself!

This was indeed a crushing speech to make to such a devoted lover as
Prince Mannikin, but he concealed the pain it caused him with great
courage.

And now the Ambassador sent to say that on the very next day he would
come in state to receive his answer, and from the earliest dawn the
inhabitants were astir, to secure the best places for the grand sight;
but the good Fairy Genesta was providing them an amount of amusement
they were far from expecting, for she so enchanted the eyes of all the
spectators that when the Ambassador's gorgeous procession appeared, the
splendid uniforms seemed to them miserable rags that a beggar would
have been ashamed to wear, the prancing horses appeared as wretched
skeletons hardly able to drag one leg after the other, while their
trappings, which really sparkled with gold and jewels, looked like old
sheepskins that would not have been good enough for a plough horse. The
pages resembled the ugliest sweeps. The trumpets gave no more sound than
whistles made of onion-stalks, or combs wrapped in paper; while the
train of fifty carriages looked no better than fifty donkey carts. In
the last of these sat the Ambassador with the haughty and scornful air
which he considered becoming in the representative of so powerful a
monarch: for this was the crowning point of the absurdity of the whole
procession, that all who took part in it wore the expression of vanity
and self-satisfaction and pride in their own appearance and all their
surroundings which they believed their splendour amply justified.

[Illustration]

The laughter and howls of derision from the whole crowd rose ever louder
and louder as the extraordinary cortège advanced, and at last reached
the ears of the King as he waited in the audience hall, and before the
procession reached the palace he had been informed of its nature, and,
supposing that it must be intended as an insult, he ordered the gates
to be closed. You may imagine the fury of the Ambassador when, after all
his pomp and pride, the King absolutely and unaccountably refused to
receive him. He raved wildly both against King and people, and the
cortège retired in great confusion, jeered at and pelted with stones and
mud by the enraged crowd. It is needless to say that he left the country
as fast as horses could carry him, but not before he had declared war,
with the most terrible menaces, threatening to devastate the country
with fire and sword.

Some days after this disastrous embassy King Bayard sent couriers to
Prince Mannikin with a most friendly letter, offering his services in
any difficulty, and enquiring with the deepest interest how he fared.

Mannikin at once replied, relating all that had happened since they
parted, not forgetting to mention the event which had just involved
Farda-Kinbras and Brandatimor in this deadly quarrel, and he ended by
entreating his faithful friend to despatch a few thousands of his
veteran spaniels to his assistance.

Neither the King, the Queen, nor the Princess could in the least
understand the amazing conduct of Brandatimor's Ambassador; nevertheless
the preparations for the war went forward briskly and all the Princes
who had not gone on towards the Ice Mountain offered their services, at
the same time demanding all the best appointments in the King's army.
Mannikin was one of the first to volunteer, but he only asked to go as
aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-chief, who was a gallant soldier and
celebrated for his victories. As soon as the army could be got together
it was marched to the frontier, where it met the opposing force headed
by Brandatimor himself, who was fall of fury, determined to avenge the
insult to his Ambassador and to possess himself of the Princess Sabella.
All the army of Farda-Kinbras could do, being so heavily outnumbered,
was to act upon the defensive, and before long Mannikin won the esteem
of the officers for his ability, and of the soldiers for his courage,
and care for their welfare, and in all the skirmishes which he conducted
he had the good fortune to vanquish the enemy.

At last Brandatimor engaged the whole army in a terrific conflict, and
though the troops of Farda-Kinbras fought with desperate courage, their
general was killed, and they were defeated and forced to retreat with
immense loss. Mannikin did wonders, and half-a-dozen times turned the
retreating forces and beat back the enemy; and he afterwards collected
troops enough to keep them in check until, the severe winter setting in,
put an end to hostilities for a while.

He then returned to the Court, where consternation reigned. The King was
in despair at the death of his trusty general, and ended by imploring
Mannikin to take the command of the army, and his counsel was followed
in all the affairs of the Court. He followed up his former plan of
amusing the Princess, and on no account reminding her of that tedious
thing called 'love,' so that she was always glad to see him, and the
winter slipped by gaily for both of them.

The Prince was all the while secretly making plans for the next
campaign; he received private intelligence of the arrival of a strong
reinforcement of Spaniels, to whom he sent orders to post themselves
along the frontier without attracting attention, and as soon as he
possibly could he held a consultation with their Commander, who was an
old and experienced warrior. Following his advice, he decided to have a
pitched battle as soon as the enemy advanced, and this Brandatimor lost
not a moment in doing, as he was perfectly persuaded that he was now
going to make an end of the war and utterly vanquish Farda-Kinbras. But
no sooner had he given the order to charge than the Spaniels, who had
mingled with his troops unperceived, leaped each upon the horse nearest
to him, and not only threw the whole squadron into confusion by the
terror they caused, but, springing at the throats of the riders,
unhorsed many of them by the suddenness of their attack; then turning
the horses to the rear, they spread consternation everywhere, and made
it easy for Prince Mannikin to gain a complete victory. He met
Brandatimor in single combat, and succeeded in taking him prisoner; but
he did not live to reach the Court, to which Mannikin had sent him: his
pride killed him at the thought of appearing before Sabella under these
altered circumstances. In the meantime Prince Fadasse and all the others
who had remained behind were setting out with all speed for the conquest
of the Ice Mountain, being afraid that Prince Mannikin might prove as
successful in that as he seemed to be in everything else, and when
Mannikin returned he heard of it with great annoyance. True he had been
serving the Princess, but she only admired and praised him for his
gallant deeds, and seemed no whit nearer bestowing on him the love he so
ardently desired, and all the comfort Mousta could give him on the
subject was that at least she loved no one else, and with that he had
to content himself. But he determined that, come what might, he would
delay no longer, but attempt the great undertaking for which he had come
so far. When he went to take leave of the King and Queen they entreated
him not to go, as they had just heard that Prince Fadasse, and all who
accompanied him, had perished in the snow; but he persisted in his
resolve. As for Sabella, she gave him her hand to kiss with precisely
the same gracious indifference as she had given it to him the first time
they met. It happened that this farewell took place before the whole
Court, and so great a favourite had Prince Mannikin become that they
were all indignant at the coldness with which the Princess treated him.

[Illustration]

Finally the King said to him:

'Prince, you have constantly refused all the gifts which, in my
gratitude for your invaluable services, I have offered to you, but I
wish the Princess to present you with her cloak of marten's fur, and
_that_ I hope you will not reject!' Now this was a splendid fur mantle
which the Princess was very fond of wearing, not so much because she
felt cold, as that its richness set off to perfection the delicate tints
of her complexion and the brilliant gold of her hair. However, she took
it off, and with graceful politeness begged Prince Mannikin to accept
it, which you may be sure he was charmed to do, and, taking only this
and a little bundle of all kinds of wood, and accompanied only by two
spaniels out of the fifty who had stayed with him when the war was
ended, he set forth, receiving many tokens of love and favour from the
people in every town he passed through. At the last little village he
left his horse behind him, to begin his toilful march through the snow,
which extended, blank and terrible, in every direction as far as the eye
could see. Here he had appointed to meet the other forty-eight spaniels,
who received him joyfully, and assured him that, happen what might, they
would follow and serve him faithfully. And so they started, full of
heart and hope. At first there was a slight track, difficult, but not
impossible to follow; but this was soon lost, and the Pole Star was
their only guide. When the time came to call a halt, the Prince, who had
after much consideration decided on his plan of action, caused a few
twigs from the faggot he had brought with him to be planted in the snow,
and then he sprinkled over them a pinch of the magic powder he had
collected from the enchanted boat. To his great joy they instantly began
to sprout and grow, and in a marvellously short time the camp was
surrounded by a perfect grove of trees of all sorts, which blossomed and
bore ripe fruit, so that all their wants were easily supplied, and they
were able to make huge fires to warm themselves. The Prince then sent
out several spaniels to reconnoitre, and they had the good luck to
discover a horse laden with provisions stuck fast in the snow. They at
once fetched their comrades, and brought the spoil triumphantly into the
camp, and, as it consisted principally of biscuits, not a spaniel among
them went supperless to sleep. In this way they journeyed by day and
encamped safely at night, always remembering to take on a few branches
to provide them with food and shelter. They passed by the way armies of
those who had set out upon the perilous enterprise, who stood frozen
stiffly, without sense or motion; but Prince Mannikin strictly forbade
that any attempt should be made to thaw them. So they went on and on for
more than three months, and day by day the Ice Mountain, which they had
seen for a long time, grew clearer, until at last they stood close to
it, and shuddered at its height and steepness. But by patience and
perseverance they crept up foot by foot, aided by their fires of magic
wood, without which they must have perished in the intense cold, until
presently they stood at the gates of the magnificent Ice Palace which
crowned the mountain, where, in deadly silence and icy sleep, lay the
heart of Sabella. Now the difficulty became immense, for if they
maintained enough heat to keep themselves alive they were in danger
every moment of melting the blocks of solid ice of which the palace was
entirely built, and bringing the whole structure down upon their heads;
but cautiously and quickly they traversed courtyards and halls, until
they found themselves at the foot of a vast throne, where, upon a
cushion of snow, lay an enormous and brilliantly sparkling diamond,
which contained the heart of the lovely Princess Sabella. Upon the
lowest step of the throne was inscribed in icy letters, 'Whosoever thou
art who by courage and virtue canst win the heart of Sabella enjoy
peacefully the good fortune which thou hast richly deserved.'

[Illustration]

Prince Mannikin bounded forward, and had just strength left to grasp the
precious diamond which contained all he coveted in the world before he
fell insensible upon the snowy cushion. But his good spaniels lost no
time in rushing to the rescue, and between them they bore him hastily
from the hall, and not a moment too soon, for all around them they heard
the clang of the falling blocks of ice as the Fairy Palace slowly
collapsed under the unwonted heat. Not until they reached the foot of
the mountain did they pause to restore the Prince to consciousness, and
then his joy to find himself the possessor of Sabella's heart knew no
bounds.

With all speed they began to retrace their steps, but this time the
happy Prince could not bear the sight of his defeated and disappointed
rivals, whose frozen forms lined his triumphant way. He gave orders to
his spaniels to spare no pains to restore them to life, and so
successful were they that day by day his train increased, so that by the
time he got back to the little village where he had left his horse he
was escorted by five hundred sovereign Princes, and knights and squires
without number, and he was so courteous and unassuming that they all
followed him willingly, anxious to do him honour. But then he was so
happy and blissful himself that he found it easy to be at peace with all
the world. It was not long before he met the faithful Mousta, who was
coming at the top of his speed hoping to meet the Prince, that he might
tell him of the sudden and wonderful change that had come over the
Princess, who had become gentle and thoughtful and had talked to him of
nothing but Prince Mannikin, of the hardships she feared he might be
suffering, and of her anxiety for him, and all this with a hundred
tender expressions which put the finishing stroke to the Prince's
delight. Then came a courier bearing the congratulations of the King and
Queen, who had just heard of his successful return, and there was even a
graceful compliment from Sabella herself. The Prince sent Mousta back to
her, and he was welcomed with joy, for was he not her lover's present?

At last the travellers reached the capital, and were received with regal
magnificence. Farda-Kinbras and Birbantine embraced Prince Mannikin,
declaring that they regarded him as their heir and the future husband of
the Princess, to which he replied that they did him too much honour. And
then he was admitted into the presence of the Princess, who for the
first time in her life blushed as he kissed her hand, and could not find
a word to say. But the Prince, throwing himself on his knees beside her,
held out the splendid diamond, saying:

'Madam, this treasure is yours, since none of the dangers and
difficulties I have gone through have been sufficient to make me deserve
it.'

'Ah! Prince,' said she, 'if I take it, it is only that I may give it
back to you, since truly it belongs to you already.'

At this moment in came the King and Queen, and interrupted them by
asking all the questions imaginable, and not infrequently the same over
and over again. It seems that there is always one thing that is sure to
be said about an event by everybody, and Prince Mannikin found that the
question which he was asked by more than a thousand people on this
particular occasion was:

'And didn't you find it very cold?'

The King had come to request Prince Mannikin and the Princess to follow
him to the Council Chamber, which they did, not knowing that he meant to
present the Prince to all the nobles assembled there as his son-in-law
and successor. But when Mannikin perceived his intention, he begged
permission to speak first, and told his whole story, even to the fact
that he believed himself to be a peasant's son. Scarcely had he finished
speaking when the sky grew black, the thunder growled, and the lightning
flashed, and in the blaze of light the good Fairy Genesta suddenly
appeared. Turning to Prince Mannikin, she said:

'I am satisfied with you, since you have shown not only courage but a
good heart.' Then she addressed King Farda-Kinbras, and informed him of
the real history of the Prince, and how she had determined to give him
the education she knew would be best for a man who was to command
others. 'You have already found the advantage of having a faithful
friend,' she added to the Prince, 'and now you will have the pleasure of
seeing King Bayard and his subjects regain their natural forms as a
reward for his kindness to you.'

Just then arrived a chariot drawn by eagles, which proved to contain the
foolish King and Queen, who embraced their long-lost son with great joy,
and were greatly struck with the fact that they did indeed find him
covered with fur! While they were caressing Sabella and wringing her
hands (which is a favourite form of endearment with foolish people)
chariots were seen approaching from all points of the compass,
containing numbers of Fairies.

'Sire,' said Genesta to Farda-Kinbras, 'I have taken the liberty of
appointing your Court as a meeting-place for all the Fairies who could
spare the time to come; and I hope you can arrange to hold the great
ball, which we have once in a hundred years, on this occasion.'

The King having suitably acknowledged the honour done him, was next
reconciled to Gorgonzola, and they two presently opened the ball
together. The Fairy Marsontine restored their natural forms to King
Bayard and all his subjects, and he appeared once more as handsome a
king as you could wish to see. One of the Fairies immediately despatched
her chariot for the Queen of the Spice Islands, and their wedding took
place at the same time as that of Prince Mannikin and the lovely and
gracious Sabella. They lived happily ever afterwards, and their vast
kingdoms were presently divided between their children.

The Prince, out of grateful remembrance of the Princess Sabella's first
gift to him, bestowed the right of bearing her name upon the most
beautiful of the martens, and that is why they are called _sables_ to
this day.

  Comte de Caylus.




  _THE ENCHANTED RING_


Once upon a time there lived a young man named Rosimond, who was as good
and handsome as his elder brother Bramintho was ugly and wicked. Their
mother detested her eldest son, and had only eyes for the youngest. This
excited Bramintho's jealousy, and he invented a horrible story in order
to ruin his brother. He told his father that Rosimond was in the habit
of visiting a neighbour who was an enemy of the family, and betraying to
him all that went on in the house, and was plotting with him to poison
their father.

The father flew into a rage, and flogged his son till the blood came.
Then he threw him into prison and kept him for three days without food,
and after that he turned him out of the house, and threatened to kill
him if he ever came back. The mother was miserable, and did nothing but
weep, but she dared not say anything.

The youth left his home with tears in his eyes, not knowing where to go,
and wandered about for many hours till he came to a thick wood. Night
overtook him at the foot of a great rock, and he fell asleep on a bank
of moss, lulled by the music of a little brook.

It was dawn when he woke, and he saw before him a beautiful woman seated
on a grey horse, with trappings of gold, who looked as if she were
preparing for the hunt.

'Have you seen a stag and some deerhounds go by?' she asked.

'No, madam,' he replied.

Then she added, 'You look unhappy; is there anything the matter? Take
this ring, which will make you the happiest and most powerful of men,
provided you never make a bad use of it. If you turn the diamond inside,
you will become invisible. If you turn it outside, you will become
visible again. If you place it on your little finger, you will take the
shape of the King's son, followed by a splendid court. If you put it on
your fourth finger, you will take your own shape.'

Then the young man understood that it was a Fairy who was speaking to
him, and when she had finished she plunged into the woods. The youth was
very impatient to try the ring, and returned home immediately. He found
that the Fairy had spoken the truth, and that he could see and hear
everything, while he himself was unseen. It lay with him to revenge
himself, if he chose, on his brother, without the slightest danger to
himself, and he told no one but his mother of all the strange things
that had befallen him. He afterwards put the enchanted ring on his
little finger, and appeared as the King's son, followed by a hundred
fine horses, and a guard of officers all richly dressed.

[Illustration]

His father was much surprised to see the King's son in his quiet little
house, and he felt rather embarrassed, not knowing what was the proper
way to behave on such a grand occasion. Then Rosimond asked him how many
sons he had.

'Two,' replied he.

'I wish to see them,' said Rosimond. 'Send for them at once. I desire to
take them both to Court, in order to make their fortunes.'

The father hesitated, then answered: 'Here is the eldest, whom I have
the honour to present to your Highness.'

'But where is the youngest? I wish to see him too,' persisted Rosimond.

'He is not here,' said the father. 'I had to punish him for a fault, and
he has run away.'

Then Rosimond replied, 'You should have shown him what was right, but
not have punished him. However, let the elder come with me, and as for
you, follow these two guards, who will escort you to a place that I will
point out to them.'

Then the two guards led off the father, and the Fairy of whom you have
heard found him in the forest, and beat him with a golden birch rod, and
cast him into a cave that was very deep and dark, where he lay
enchanted. 'Lie there,' she said, 'till your son comes to take you out
again.'

Meanwhile the son went to the King's palace, and arrived just when the
real prince was absent. He had sailed away to make war on a distant
island, but the winds had been contrary, and he had been shipwrecked on
unknown shores, and taken captive by a savage people. Rosimond made his
appearance at Court in the character of the Prince, whom everyone wept
for as lost, and told them that he had been rescued when at the point of
death by some merchants. His return was the signal for great public
rejoicings, and the King was so overcome that he became quite
speechless, and did nothing but embrace his son. The Queen was even more
delighted, and fêtes were ordered over the whole kingdom.

One day the false Prince said to his real brother, 'Bramintho, you know
that I brought you here from your native village in order to make your
fortune; but I have found out that you are a liar, and that by your
deceit you have been the cause of all the troubles of your brother
Rosimond. He is in hiding here, and I desire that you shall speak to
him, and listen to his reproaches.'

Bramintho trembled at these words, and, flinging himself at the Prince's
feet, confessed his crime.

'That is not enough,' said Rosimond. 'It is to your brother that you
must confess, and I desire that you shall ask his forgiveness. He will
be very generous if he grants it, and it will be more than you deserve.
He is in my ante-room, where you shall see him at once. I myself will
retire into another apartment, so as to leave you alone with him.'

Bramintho entered, as he was told, into the ante-room. Then Rosimond
changed the ring, and passed into the room by another door.

Bramintho was filled with shame as soon as he saw his brother's face. He
implored his pardon, and promised to atone for all his faults. Rosimond
embraced him with tears, and at once forgave him, adding, 'I am in great
favour with the King. It rests with me to have your head cut off, or to
condemn you to pass the remainder of your life in prison; but I desire
to be as good to you as you have been wicked to me.' Bramintho, confused
and ashamed, listened to his words without daring to lift his eyes or to
remind Rosimond that he was his brother. After this, Rosimond gave out
that he was going to make a secret voyage, to marry a Princess who lived
in a neighbouring kingdom; but in reality he only went to see his
mother, whom he told all that had happened at the Court, giving her at
the same time some money that she needed, for the King allowed him to
take exactly what he liked, though he was always careful not to abuse
this permission. Just then a furious war broke out between the King his
master and the Sovereign of the adjoining country, who was a bad man and
one that never kept his word. Rosimond went straight to the palace of
the wicked King, and by means of his ring was able to be present at all
the councils, and learnt all their schemes, so that he was able to
forestall them and bring them to naught. He took the command of the army
which was brought against the wicked King, and defeated him in a
glorious battle, so that peace was at once concluded on conditions that
were just to everyone.

Henceforth the King's one idea was to marry the young man to a Princess
who was the heiress to a neighbouring kingdom, and, besides that, was as
lovely as the day. But one morning, while Rosimond was hunting in the
forest where for the first time he had seen the Fairy, his benefactress
suddenly appeared before him. 'Take heed,' she said to him in severe
tones, 'that you do not marry anybody who believes you to be a Prince.
You must never deceive anyone. The real Prince, whom the whole nation
thinks you are, will have to succeed his father, for that is just and
right. Go and seek him in some distant island, and I will send winds
that will swell your sails and bring you to him. Hasten to render this
service to your master, although it is against your own ambition, and
prepare, like an honest man, to return to your natural state. If you do
not do this, you will become wicked and unhappy, and I will abandon you
to all your former troubles.'

Rosimond took these wise counsels to heart. He gave out that he had
undertaken a secret mission to a neighbouring state, and embarked on
board a vessel, the winds carrying him straight to the island where the
Fairy had told him he would find the real Prince. This unfortunate youth
had been taken captive by a savage people, who had kept him to guard
their sheep. Rosimond, becoming invisible, went to seek him amongst the
pastures, where he kept his flock, and, covering him with his mantle, he
delivered him out of the hands of his cruel masters, and bore him back
to the ship. Other winds sent by the Fairy swelled the sails, and
together the two young men entered the King's presence.

Rosimond spoke first and said, 'You have believed me to be your son. I
am not he, but I have brought him back to you.' The King, filled with
astonishment, turned to his real son and asked, 'Was it not you, my son,
who conquered my enemies and won such a glorious peace? Or is it true
that you have been shipwrecked and taken captive, and that Rosimond has
set you free?'

'Yes, my father,' replied the Prince. 'It is he who sought me out in my
captivity and set me free, and to him I owe the happiness of seeing you
once more. It was he, not I, who gained the victory.'

The King could hardly believe his ears; but Rosimond, turning the ring,
appeared before him in the likeness of the Prince, and the King gazed
distractedly at the two youths who seemed both to be his son. Then he
offered Rosimond immense rewards for his services, which were refused,
and the only favour the young man would accept was that one of his posts
at Court should be conferred on his brother Bramintho. For he feared for
himself the changes of fortune, the envy of mankind and his own
weakness. His desire was to go back to his mother and his native
village, and to spend his time in cultivating the land.

One day, when he was wandering through the woods, he met the Fairy, who
showed him the cavern where his father was imprisoned, and told him what
words he must use in order to set him free. He repeated them joyfully,
for he had always longed to bring the old man back and to make his last
days happy. Rosimond thus became the benefactor of all his family, and
had the pleasure of doing good to those who had wished to do him evil.
As for the Court, to whom he had rendered such services, all he asked
was the freedom to live far from its corruption; and, to crown all,
fearing that if he kept the ring he might be tempted to use it in order
to regain his lost place in the world, he made up his mind to restore it
to the Fairy. For many days he sought her up and down the woods and at
last he found her. 'I want to give you back,' he said, holding out the
ring, 'a gift as dangerous as it is powerful, and which I fear to use
wrongfully. I shall never feel safe till I have made it impossible for
me to leave my solitude and to satisfy my passions.'

While Rosimond was seeking to give back the ring to the Fairy,
Bramintho, who had failed to learn any lessons from experience, gave way
to all his desires, and tried to persuade the Prince, lately become
King, to ill-treat Rosimond. But the Fairy, who knew all about
everything, said to Rosimond, when he was imploring her to accept the
ring:

'Your wicked brother is doing his best to poison the mind of the King
towards you, and to ruin you. He deserves to be punished, and he must
die; and in order that he may destroy himself, I shall give the ring to
him.'

Rosimond wept at these words, and then asked:

'What do you mean by giving him the ring as a punishment? He will only
use it to persecute everyone, and to become master.'

'The same things,' answered the Fairy, 'are often a healing medicine to
one person and a deadly poison to another. Prosperity is the source of
all evil to a naturally wicked man. If you wish to punish a scoundrel,
the first thing to do is to give him power. You will see that with this
rope he will soon hang himself.'

Having said this, she disappeared, and went straight to the Palace,
where she showed herself to Bramintho under the disguise of an old woman
covered with rags. She at once addressed him in these words:

'I have taken this ring from the hands of your brother, to whom I had
lent it, and by its help he covered himself with glory. I now give it to
you, and be careful what you do with it.'

Bramintho replied with a laugh:

'I shall certainly not imitate my brother, who was foolish enough to
bring back the Prince instead of reigning in his place,' and he was as
good as his word. The only use he made of the ring was to find out
family secrets and betray them, to commit murders and every sort of
wickedness, and to gain wealth for himself unlawfully. All these
crimes, which could be traced to nobody, filled the people with
astonishment. The King, seeing so many affairs, public and private,
exposed, was at first as puzzled as anyone, till Bramintho's wonderful
prosperity and amazing insolence made him suspect that the enchanted
ring had become his property. In order to find out the truth he bribed a
stranger just arrived at Court, one of a nation with whom the King was
always at war, and arranged that he was to steal in the night to
Bramintho and to offer him untold honours and rewards if he would betray
the State secrets.

[Illustration: THE ENCHANTED RING]

Bramintho promised everything, and accepted at once the first payment of
his crime, boasting that he had a ring which rendered him invisible, and
that by means of it he could penetrate into the most private places. But
his triumph was short. Next day he was seized by order of the King, and
his ring was taken from him. He was searched, and on him were found
papers which proved his crimes; and, though Rosimond himself came back
to the Court to entreat his pardon, it was refused. So Bramintho was put
to death, and the ring had been even more fatal to him than it had been
useful in the hands of his brother.

To console Rosimond for the fate of Bramintho, the King gave him back
the enchanted ring, as a pearl without price. The unhappy Rosimond did
not look upon it in the same light, and the first thing he did on his
return home was to seek the Fairy in the woods.

'Here,' he said, 'is your ring. My brother's experience has made me
understand many things that I did not know before. Keep it, it has only
led to his destruction. Ah! without it he would be alive now, and my
father and mother would not in their old age be bowed to the earth with
shame and grief! Perhaps he might have been wise and happy if he had
never had the chance of gratifying his wishes! Oh! how dangerous it is
to have more power than the rest of the world! Take back your ring, and
as ill fortune seems to follow all on whom you bestow it, I will implore
you, as a favour to myself, that you will never give it to anyone who is
dear to me.'

  Fénelon.




  _THE SNUFF-BOX_


As often happens in this world, there was once a young man who spent all
his time in travelling. One day, as he was walking along, he picked up a
snuff-box. He opened it, and the snuff-box said to him in the Spanish
language, 'What do you want?' He was very much frightened, but, luckily,
instead of throwing the box away, he only shut it tight, and put it in
his pocket. Then he went on, away, away, away, and as he went he said to
himself, 'If it says to me again "What do you want?" I shall know better
what to say this time.' So he took out the snuff-box and opened it, and
again it asked 'What do you want?' 'My hat full of gold,' answered the
youth, and immediately it was full.

Our young man was enchanted. Henceforth he should never be in need of
anything. So on he travelled, away, away, away, through thick forests,
till at last he came to a beautiful castle. In the castle there lived a
King. The young man walked round and round the castle, not caring who
saw him, till the King noticed him, and asked what he was doing there.
'I was just looking at your castle.' 'You would like to have one like
it, wouldn't you?' The young man did not reply, but when it grew dark he
took his snuff-box and opened the lid. 'What do you want?' 'Build me a
castle with laths of gold and tiles of diamond, and the furniture all of
silver and gold.' He had scarcely finished speaking when there stood in
front of him, exactly opposite the King's palace, a castle built
precisely as he had ordered. When the King awoke he was struck dumb at
the sight of the magnificent house shining in the rays of the sun. The
servants could not do their work for stopping to stare at it. Then the
King dressed himself, and went to see the young man. And he told him
plainly that he was a very powerful Prince; and that he hoped that they
might all live together in one house or the other, and that the King
would give him his daughter to wife. So it all turned out just as the
King wished. The young man married the Princess, and they lived happily
in the palace of gold.

[Illustration: ¿QUE PESEA USTED?]

But the King's wife was jealous both of the young man and of her own
daughter The Princess had told her mother about the snuff-box, which
gave them everything they wanted, and the Queen bribed a servant to
steal the snuff-box. They noticed carefully where it was put away every
night, and one evening, when the whole world was asleep, the woman stole
it and brought it to her old mistress. Oh how happy the Queen was! She
opened the lid, and the snuff-box said to her 'What do you want?' And
she answered at once 'I want you to take me and my husband and my
servants and this beautiful house and set us down on the other side of
the Red Sea, but my daughter and her husband are to stay behind.'

[Illustration]

When the young couple woke up, they found themselves back in the old
castle, without their snuff-box. They hunted for it high and low, but
quite vainly. The young man felt that no time was to be lost, and he
mounted his horse and filled his pockets with as much gold as he could
carry. On he went, away, away, away, but he sought the snuff-box in vain
all up and down the neighbouring countries, and very soon he came to the
end of all his money. But still he went on, as fast as the strength of
his horse would let him, begging his way.

Someone told him that he ought to consult the moon, for the moon
travelled far, and might be able to tell him something. So he went away,
away, away, and ended, somehow or other, by reaching the land of the
moon. There he found a little old woman who said to him 'What are you
doing here? My son eats all living things he sees, and if you are wise,
you will go away without coming any further.' But the young man told her
all his sad tale, and how he possessed a wonderful snuff-box, and how it
had been stolen from him, and how he had nothing left, now that he was
parted from his wife and was in need of everything. And he said that
perhaps her son, who travelled so far, might have seen a palace with
laths of gold and tiles of diamond, and furnished all in silver and
gold. As he spoke these last words, the moon came in and said he smelt
mortal flesh and blood. But his mother told him that it was an unhappy
man who had lost everything, and had come all this way to consult him,
and bade the young man not to be afraid, but to come forward and show
himself. So he went boldly up to the moon, and asked if by any accident
he had seen a palace with the laths of gold and the tiles of diamond,
and all the furniture of silver and gold. Once this house belonged to
him, but now it was stolen. And the moon said no, but that the sun
travelled farther than he did, and that the young man had better go and
ask him.

So the young man departed, and went away, away, away, as well as his
horse would take him, begging his living as he rode along, and, somehow
or other, at last he got to the land of the sun. There he found a little
old woman, who asked him, 'What are you doing here? Go away. Have you
not heard that my son feeds upon Christians?' But he said no, and that
he would not go, for he was so miserable that it was all one to him
whether he died or not; that he had lost everything, and especially a
splendid palace like none other in the whole world, for it had laths of
gold and tiles of diamond, and all the furniture was of silver and gold.
And that he had sought it far and long, and in all the earth there was
no man more unhappy. So the old woman's heart melted, and she agreed to
hide him.

When the Sun arrived, he declared that he smelt Christian flesh, and he
meant to have it for his dinner. But his mother told him such a pitiful
story of the miserable wretch who had lost everything, and had come from
far to ask his help, that at last he promised to see him.

So the young man came out from his hiding-place and begged the sun to
tell him if in the course of his travels he had not seen somewhere a
palace that had not its like in the whole world, for its laths were of
gold and its tiles of diamond, and all the furniture in silver and gold.

And the sun said no, but that perhaps the wind had seen it, for he
entered everywhere, and saw things that no one else ever saw, and if
anyone knew where it was, it was certainly the wind.

Then the poor young man again set forth as well as his horse could take
him, begging his living as he went, and, somehow or other, he ended by
reaching the home of the wind. He found there a little old woman busily
occupied in filling great barrels with water. She asked him what had put
it into his head to come there, for her son ate everything he saw, and
that he would shortly arrive quite mad, and that the young man had
better look out. But he answered that he was so unhappy that he had
ceased to mind anything, even being eaten, and then he told her that he
had been robbed of a palace that had not its equal in all the world, and
of all that was in it, and that he had even left his wife, and was
wandering over the world until he found it. And that it was the sun who
had sent him to consult the wind. So she hid him under the staircase,
and soon they heard the south wind arrive, shaking the house to its
foundations. Thirsty as he was, he did not wait to drink, but he told
his mother that he smelt the blood of a Christian man, and that she had
better bring him out at once and make him ready to be eaten. But she
bade her son eat and drink what was before him, and said that the poor
young man was much to be pitied, and that the sun had granted him his
life in order that he might consult the wind. Then she brought out the
young man, who explained how he was seeking for his palace, and that no
man had been able to tell him where it was, so he had come to the wind.
And he added that he had been shamefully robbed, and that the laths were
of gold and the tiles of diamond, and all the furniture in silver and
gold, and he inquired if the wind had not seen such a palace during his
wanderings.

And the wind said yes, and that all that day he had been blowing
backwards and forwards over it without being able to move one single
tile. 'Oh, do tell me where it is,' cried the young man. 'It is a long
way off,' replied the wind, 'on the other side of the Red Sea.' But our
traveller was not discouraged, he had already journeyed too far.

So he set forth at once, and, somehow or other, he managed to reach that
distant land. And he enquired if anyone wanted a gardener. He was told
that the head gardener at the castle had just left, and perhaps he might
have a chance of getting the place. The young man lost no time, but
walked up to the castle and asked if they were in want of a gardener;
and how happy he was when they agreed to take him! Now he passed most of
his day in gossiping with the servants about the wealth of their masters
and the wonderful things in the house. He made friends with one of the
maids, who told him the history of the snuff-box, and he coaxed her to
let him see it. One evening she managed to get hold of it, and the young
man watched carefully where she hid it away, in a secret place in the
bed-chamber of her mistress.

The following night, when everyone was fast asleep, he crept in and took
the snuff-box. Think of his joy as he opened the lid! When it asked him,
as of yore, 'What do you want?' he replied: 'What do I want? What do I
want? Why, I want to go with my palace to the old place, and for the
King and the Queen and all their servants to be drowned in the Red Sea.'
He hardly finished speaking when he found himself back again with his
wife, while all the other inhabitants of the palace were lying at the
bottom of the Red Sea.

  Sébillot.




  _THE GOLDEN BLACKBIRD_


Once upon a time there was a great lord who had three sons.

He fell very ill, sent for doctors of every kind, even bone-setters, but
they, none of them, could find out what was the matter with him, or even
give him any relief. At last there came a foreign doctor, who declared
that the Golden Blackbird alone could cure the sick man.

So the old lord despatched his eldest son to look for the wonderful
bird, and promised him great riches if he managed to find it and bring
it back.

The young man began his journey, and soon arrived at a place where four
roads met. He did not know which to choose, and tossed his cap in the
air, determining that the direction of its fall should decide him. After
travelling for two or three days, he grew tired of walking without
knowing where or for how long, and he stopped at an inn which was filled
with merrymakers and ordered something to eat and drink.

'My faith,' said he, 'it is sheer folly to waste more time hunting for
this bird. My father is old, and if he dies I shall inherit his goods.'

The old man, after waiting patiently for some time, sent his second son
to seek the Golden Blackbird. The youth took the same direction as his
brother, and when he came to the cross roads, he too tossed up which
road he should take. The cap fell in the same place as before, and he
walked on till he came to the spot where his brother had halted. The
latter, who was leaning out of the window of the inn, called to him to
stay where he was and amuse himself.

'You are right,' replied the youth. 'Who knows if I should ever find the
Golden Blackbird, even if I sought the whole world through for it. At
the worst, if the old man dies, we shall have his property.'

He entered the inn and the two brothers made merry and feasted, till
very soon their money was all spent. They even owed something to their
landlord, who kept them as hostages till they could pay their debts.

The youngest son set forth in his turn, and he arrived at the place
where his brothers were still prisoners. They called to him to stop, and
did all they could to prevent his going further.

'No,' he replied, 'my father trusted me, and I will go all over the
world till I find the Golden Blackbird.'

'Bah,' said his brothers, 'you will never succeed any better than we
did. Let him die if he wants to; we will divide the property.'

As he went his way he met a little hare, who stopped to look at him, and
asked:

'Where are you going, my friend?'

'I really don't quite know,' answered he. 'My father is ill, and he
cannot be cured unless I bring him back the Golden Blackbird. It is a
long time since I set out, but no one can tell me where to find it.'

'Ah,' said the hare, 'you have a long way to go yet. You will have to
walk at least seven hundred miles before you get to it.'

'And how am I to travel such a distance?'

'Mount on my back,' said the little hare, 'and I will conduct you.'

The young man obeyed: at each bound the little hare went seven miles,
and it was not long before they reached a castle that was as large and
beautiful as a castle could be.

'The Golden Blackbird is in a little cabin near by,' said the little
hare, 'and you will easily find it. It lives in a little cage, with
another cage beside it made all of gold. But whatever you do, be sure
not to put it in the beautiful cage, or everybody in the castle will
know that you have stolen it.'

The youth found the Golden Blackbird standing on a wooden perch, but as
stiff and rigid as if he was dead. And beside the beautiful cage was the
cage of gold.

'Perhaps he would revive if I were to put him in that lovely cage,'
thought the youth.

The moment that Golden Bird had touched the bars of the splendid cage he
awoke, and began to whistle, so that all the servants of the castle ran
to see what was the matter, saying that he was a thief and must be put
in prison.

'No,' he answered, 'I am not a thief. If I have taken the Golden
Blackbird, it is only that it may cure my father, who is ill, and I have
travelled more than seven hundred miles in order to find it.'

'Well,' they replied, 'we will let you go, and will even give you the
Golden Bird, if you are able to bring us the Porcelain Maiden.'

The youth departed, weeping, and met the little hare, who was munching
wild thyme.

'What are you crying for, my friend?' asked the hare.

'It is because,' he answered, 'the castle people will not allow me to
carry off the Golden Blackbird without giving them the Porcelain Maiden
in exchange.'

'You have not followed my advice,' said the little hare. 'And you have
put the Golden Bird into the fine cage.'

'Alas! yes!'

'Don't despair! the Porcelain Maiden is a young girl, beautiful as
Venus, who dwells two hundred miles from here. Jump on my back and I
will take you there.'

The little hare, who took seven miles in a stride, was there in no time
at all, and he stopped on the borders of a lake.

'The Porcelain Maiden,' said the hare to the youth, 'will come here to
bathe with her friends, while I just eat a mouthful of thyme to refresh
me. When she is in the lake, be sure you hide her clothes, which are of
dazzling whiteness, and do not give them back to her unless she consents
to follow you.'

The little hare left him, and almost immediately the Porcelain Maiden
arrived with her friends. She undressed herself and got into the water.
Then the young man glided up noiselessly and laid hold of her clothes,
which he hid under a rock at some distance.

When the Porcelain Maiden was tired of playing in the water she came out
to dress herself, but, though she hunted for her clothes high and low,
she could find them nowhere. Her friends helped her in the search, but,
seeing at last that it was of no use, they left her, alone on the bank,
weeping bitterly.

'Why do you cry?' said the young man, approaching her.

'Alas!' answered she, 'while I was bathing someone stole my clothes, and
my friends have abandoned me.'

'I will find your clothes if you will only come with me.'

And the Porcelain Maiden agreed to follow him, and after having given up
her clothes, the young man bought a small horse for her, which went like
the wind. The little hare brought them both back to seek for the Golden
Blackbird, and when they drew near to the castle where it lived the
little hare said to the young man:

[Illustration]

'Now, do be a little sharper than you were before, and you will manage
to carry off both the Golden Blackbird and the Porcelain Maiden. Take
the golden cage in one hand, and leave the bird in the old cage where he
is, and bring that away too.'

The little hare then vanished; the youth did as he was bid, and the
castle servants never noticed that he was carrying off the Golden Bird.
When he reached the inn where his brothers were detained, he delivered
them by paying their debt. They set out all together, but as the two
elder brothers were jealous of the success of the youngest, they took
the opportunity as they were passing by the shores of a lake to throw
themselves upon him, seize the Golden Bird, and fling him in the water.
Then they continued their journey, taking with them the Porcelain
Maiden, in the firm belief that their brother was drowned. But, happily,
he had snatched in falling at a tuft of rushes and called loudly for
help. The little hare came running to him, and said 'Take hold of my
leg and pull yourself out of the water.'

When he was safe on shore the little hare said to him:

'Now this is what you have to do: dress yourself like a Breton seeking a
place as stable-boy, and go and offer your services to your father. Once
there, you will easily be able to make him understand the truth.'

The young man did as the little hare bade him, and he went to his
father's castle and enquired if they were not in want of a stable-boy.

'Yes,' replied his father, 'very much indeed. But it is not an easy
place. There is a little horse in the stable which will not let anyone
go near it, and it has already kicked to death several people who have
tried to groom it.'

'I will undertake to groom it,' said the youth. 'I never saw the horse I
was afraid of yet.' The little horse allowed itself to be rubbed down
without a toss of its head and without a kick.

'Good gracious!' exclaimed the master; 'how is it that he lets you touch
him, when no one else can go near him?'

'Perhaps he knows me,' answered the stable-boy.

Two or three days later the master said to him: 'The Porcelain Maiden is
here: but, though she is as lovely as the dawn, she is so wicked that
she scratches everyone that approaches her. Try if she will accept your
services.'

When the youth entered the room where she was, the Golden Blackbird
broke forth into a joyful song, and the Porcelain Maiden sang too, and
jumped for joy.

'Good gracious!' cried the master. 'The Porcelain Maiden and the Golden
Blackbird know you too?'

'Yes,' replied the youth, 'and the Porcelain Maiden can tell you the
whole truth, if she only will.'

Then she told all that had happened, and how she had consented to follow
the young man who had captured the Golden Blackbird.

'Yes,' added the youth, 'I delivered my brothers, who were kept
prisoners in an inn, and, as a reward, they threw me into a lake. So I
disguised myself and came here, in order to prove the truth to you.'

So the old lord embraced his son, and promised that he should inherit
all his possessions, and he put to death the two elder ones, who had
deceived him and had tried to slay their own brother.

The young man married the Porcelain Maiden, and had a splendid
wedding-feast.

  Sébillot.




  _THE LITTLE SOLDIER_


  I

Once upon a time there was a little soldier who had just come back from
the war. He was a brave little fellow, but he had lost neither arms nor
legs in battle. Still, the fighting was ended and the army disbanded, so
he had to return to the village where he was born.

Now the soldier's name was really John, but for some reason or other his
friends always called him the Kinglet; why, no one ever knew, but so it
was.

As he had no father or mother to welcome him home, he did not hurry
himself, but went quietly along, his knapsack on his back and his sword
by his side, when suddenly one evening he was seized with a wish to
light his pipe. He felt for his match-box to strike a light, but to his
great disgust he found he had lost it.

He had only gone about a stone's throw after making this discovery when
he noticed a light shining through the trees. He went towards it, and
perceived before him an old castle, with the door standing open.

The little soldier entered the courtyard, and, peeping through a window,
saw a large fire blazing at the end of a low hall. He put his pipe in
his pocket and knocked gently, saying politely:

'Would you give me a light?'

But he got no answer.

After waiting for a moment John knocked again, this time more loudly.
There was still no reply.

He raised the latch and entered; the hall was empty.

The little soldier made straight for the fireplace, seized the tongs,
and was stooping down to look for a nice red hot coal with which to
light his pipe, when clic! something went, like a spring giving way, and
in the very midst of the flames an enormous serpent reared itself up
close to his face.

And what was more strange still, this serpent had the head of a woman.

At such an unexpected sight many men would have turned and run for their
lives; but the little soldier, though he _was_ so small, had a true
soldier's heart. He only made one step backwards, and grasped the hilt
of his sword.

[Illustration]

'Don't unsheath it,' said the serpent. 'I have been waiting for you, as
it is you who must deliver me.'

'Who are you?'

'My name is Ludovine, and I am the daughter of the King of the Low
Countries. Deliver me, and I will marry you and make you happy for ever
after.'

Now, some people might not have liked the notion of being made happy by
a serpent with the head of a woman, but the Kinglet had no such fears.
And, besides, he felt the fascination of Ludovine's eyes, which looked
at him as a snake looks at a little bird. They were beautiful green
eyes, not round like those of a cat, but long and almond-shaped, and
they shone with a strange light, and the golden hair which floated round
them seemed all the brighter for their lustre. The face had the beauty
of an angel, though the body was only that of a serpent.

'What must I do?' asked the Kinglet.

'Open that door. You will find yourself in a gallery with a room at the
end just like this. Cross that, and you will see a closet, out of which
you must take a tunic, and bring it back to me.'

The little soldier boldly prepared to do as he was told. He crossed the
gallery in safety, but when he reached the room he saw by the light of
the stars eight hands on a level with his face, which threatened to
strike him. And, turn his eyes which way he would, he could discover no
bodies belonging to them.

He lowered his head and rushed forward amidst a storm of blows, which he
returned with his fists. When he got to the closet, he opened it, took
down the tunic, and brought it to the first room.

'Here it is,' he panted, rather out of breath.

'Clic!' once more the flames parted. Ludovine was a woman down to her
waist. She took the tunic and put it on.

It was a magnificent tunic of orange velvet, embroidered in pearls, but
the pearls were not so white as her own neck.

'That is not all,' she said. 'Go to the gallery, take the staircase
which is on the left, and in the second room on the first story you will
find another closet with my skirt. Bring this to me.'

The Kinglet did as he was told, but in entering the room he saw, instead
of merely hands, eight arms, each holding an enormous stick. He
instantly unsheathed his sword and cut his way through with such vigour
that he hardly received a scratch.

He brought back the skirt, which was made of silk as blue as the skies
of Spain.

'Here it is,' said John, as the serpent appeared. She was now a woman as
far as her knees.

'I only want my shoes and stockings now,' she said. 'Go and get them
from the closet which is on the second story.'

The little soldier departed, and found himself in the presence of eight
goblins armed with hammers, and flames darting from their eyes. This
time he stopped short at the threshold. 'My sword is no use,' he thought
to himself; 'these wretches will break it like glass, and if I can't
think of anything else, I am a dead man.' At this moment his eyes fell
on the door, which was made of oak, thick and heavy. He wrenched it off
its hinges and held it over his head, and then went straight at the
goblins, whom he crushed beneath it. After that he took the shoes and
stockings out of the closet and brought them to Ludovine, who, directly
she had put them on, became a woman all over.

When she was quite dressed in her white silk stockings and little blue
slippers dotted over with carbuncles, she said to her deliverer, 'Now
you must go away, and never come back here, whatever happens. Here is a
purse with two hundred ducats. Sleep to-night at the inn which is at the
edge of the wood, and awake early in the morning: for at nine o'clock I
shall pass the door, and shall take you up in my carriage.' 'Why
shouldn't we go now?' asked the little soldier. 'Because the time has
not yet come,' said the Princess. 'But first you may drink my health in
this glass of wine,' and as she spoke she filled a crystal goblet with a
liquid that looked like melted gold.

John drank, then lit his pipe and went out.


  II

When he arrived at the inn he ordered supper, but no sooner had he sat
down to eat it than he felt that he was going sound asleep.

'I must be more tired than I thought,' he said to himself, and, after
telling them to be sure to wake him next morning at eight o'clock, he
went to bed.

All night long he slept like a dead man. At eight o'clock they came to
wake him, and at half-past, and a quarter of an hour later, but it was
no use; and at last they decided to leave him in peace.

The clocks were striking twelve when John awoke. He sprang out of bed,
and, scarcely waiting to dress himself, hastened to ask if anyone had
been to inquire for him.

'There came a lovely princess,' replied the landlady, 'in a coach of
gold. She left you this bouquet, and a message to say that she would
pass this way to-morrow morning at eight o'clock.'

The little soldier cursed his sleep, but tried to console himself by
looking at his bouquet, which was of _immortelles_.

'It is the flower of remembrance,' thought he, forgetting that it is
also the flower of the dead.

When the night came, he slept with one eye open, and jumped up twenty
times an hour. When the birds began to sing he could lie still no
longer, and climbed out of his window into the branches of one of the
great lime-trees that stood before the door. There he sat, dreamily
gazing at his bouquet till he ended by going fast asleep.

[Illustration]

Once asleep, nothing was able to wake him; neither the brightness of the
sun, nor the songs of the birds, nor the noise of Ludovine's golden
coach, nor the cries of the landlady who sought him in every place she
could think of.

As the clock struck twelve he woke, and his heart sank as he came down
out of his tree and saw them laying the table for dinner.

'Did the Princess come?' he asked.

'Yes, indeed, she did. She left this flower-coloured scarf for you; said
she would pass by to-morrow at seven o'clock, but it would be the last
time.'

'I must have been bewitched,' thought the little soldier. Then he took
the scarf, which had a strange kind of scent, and tied it round his left
arm, thinking all the while that the best way to keep awake was not to
go to bed at all. So he paid his bill, and bought a horse with the money
that remained, and when the evening came he mounted his horse and stood
in front of the inn door, determined to stay there all night.

Every now and then he stooped to smell the sweet perfume of the scarf
round his arm; and gradually he smelt it so often that at last his head
sank on to the horse's neck, and he and his horse snored in company.

When the Princess arrived, they shook him, and beat him, and screamed at
him, but it was all no good. Neither man nor horse woke till the coach
was seen vanishing away in the distance.

Then John put spurs to his horse, calling with all his might 'Stop!
stop!' But the coach drove on as before, and though the little soldier
rode after it for a day and a night, he never got one step nearer.

Thus they left many villages and towns behind them, till they came to
the sea itself. Here John thought that at last the coach must stop, but,
wonder of wonders! it went straight on, and rolled over the water as
easily as it had done over the land. John's horse, which had carried him
so well, sank down from fatigue, and the little soldier sat sadly on the
shore, watching the coach which was fast disappearing on the horizon.


  III

However, he soon plucked up his spirits again, and walked along the
beach to try and find a boat in which he could sail after the Princess.
But no boat was there, and at last, tired and hungry, he sat down to
rest on the steps of a fisherman's hut.

In the hut was a young girl who was mending a net. She invited John to
come in, and set before him some wine and fried fish, and John ate and
drank and felt comforted, and he told his adventures to the little
fisher-girl. But though she was very pretty, with a skin as white as a
gull's breast, for which her neighbours gave her the name of the
Seagull, he did not think about her at all, for he was dreaming of the
green eyes of the Princess.

When he had finished his tale, she was filled with pity and said:

'Last week, when I was fishing, my net suddenly grew very heavy, and
when I drew it in I found a great copper vase, fastened with lead. I
brought it home and placed it on the fire. When the lead had melted a
little, I opened the vase with my knife and drew out a mantle of red
cloth and a purse containing fifty crowns. That is the mantle, covering
my bed, and I have kept the money for my marriage-portion. But take it
and go to the nearest seaport, where you will find a ship sailing for
the Low Countries, and when you become King you will bring me back my
fifty crowns.'

And the Kinglet answered: 'When I am King of the Low Countries, I will
make you lady-in-waiting to the Queen, for you are as good as you are
beautiful. So farewell,' said he, and as the Seagull went back to her
fishing he rolled himself in the mantle and threw himself down on a heap
of dried grass, thinking of the strange things that had befallen him,
till he suddenly exclaimed:

'Oh, how I wish I was in the capital of the Low Countries!'


  IV

In one moment the little soldier found himself standing before a
splendid palace. He rubbed his eyes and pinched himself, and when he was
quite sure he was not dreaming he said to a man who was smoking his pipe
before the door, 'Where am I?'

'Where are you? Can't you see? Before the King's palace, of course.'

'What King?'

'Why the King of the Low Countries!' replied the man, laughing and
supposing that he was mad.

Was there ever anything so strange? But as John was an honest fellow, he
was troubled at the thought that the Seagull would think he had stolen
her mantle and purse. And he began to wonder how he could restore them
to her the soonest. Then he remembered that the mantle had some hidden
charm that enabled the bearer to transport himself at will from place to
place, and in order to make sure of this he wished himself in the best
inn of the town. In an instant he was there.

Enchanted with this discovery, he ordered supper, and as it was too late
to visit the King that night he went to bed.

The next day, when he got up, he saw that all the houses were wreathed
with flowers and covered with flags, and all the church bells were
ringing. The little soldier inquired the meaning of all this noise, and
was told that the Princess Ludovine, the King's beautiful daughter, had
been found, and was about to make her triumphal entry. 'That will just
suit me,' thought the Kinglet; 'I will stand at the door and see if she
knows me.'

He had scarcely time to dress himself when the golden coach of Ludovine
went by. She had a crown of gold upon her head, and the King and Queen
sat by her side. By accident her eyes fell upon the little soldier, and
she grew pale and turned away her head.

'Didn't she know me?' the little soldier asked himself, 'or was she
angry because I missed our meetings?' and he followed the crowd till he
got to the palace. When the royal party entered he told the guards that
it was he who had delivered the Princess, and wished to speak to the
King. But the more he talked the more they believed him mad and refused
to let him pass.

The little soldier was furious. He felt that he needed his pipe to calm
him, and he entered a tavern and ordered a pint of beer. 'It is this
miserable soldier's helmet,' said he to himself. 'If I had only money
enough I could look as splendid as the lords of the Court; but what is
the good of thinking of that when I have only the remains of the
Seagull's fifty crowns?'

He took out his purse to see what was left, and he found that there were
still fifty crowns.

'The Seagull must have miscounted,' thought he, and he paid for his
beer. Then he counted his money again, and there were still fifty
crowns. He took away five and counted a third time, but there were still
fifty. He emptied the purse altogether and then shut it; when he opened
it the fifty crowns were still there!

Then a plan came into his head, and he determined to go at once to the
Court tailor and coachbuilder.

He ordered the tailor to make him a mantle and vest of blue velvet
embroidered with pearls, and the coachbuilder to make him a golden coach
like the coach of the Princess Ludovine. If the tailor and the
coachbuilder were quick he promised to pay them double.

A few days later the little soldier was driven through the city in his
coach drawn by six white horses, and with four lacqueys richly dressed
standing behind. Inside sat John, clad in blue velvet, with a bouquet of
immortelles in his hand and a scarf bound round his arm. He drove twice
round the city, throwing money to the right and left, and the third
time, as he passed under the palace windows, he saw Ludovine lift a
corner of the curtain and peep out.


  V

The next day no one talked of anything but the rich lord who had
distributed money as he drove along. The talk even reached the Court,
and the Queen, who was very curious, had a great desire to see the
wonderful Prince.

'Very well,' said the King; 'let him be asked to come and play cards
with me.'

This time the Kinglet was not late for his appointment.

The King sent for the cards and they sat down to play. They had six
games, and John always lost. The stake was fifty crowns, and each time
he emptied his purse, which was full the next instant.

[Illustration]

The sixth time the King exclaimed, 'It is amazing!'

The Queen cried, 'It is astonishing!'

The Princess said, 'It is bewildering!'

'Not so bewildering,' replied the little soldier, 'as your change into a
serpent.'

'Hush!' interrupted the King, who did not like the subject.

'I only spoke of it,' said John, 'because you see in me the man who
delivered the Princess from the goblins and whom she promised to
marry.'

'Is that true?' asked the King of the Princess.

'Quite true,' answered Ludovine. 'But I told my deliverer to be ready to
go with me when I passed by with my coach. I passed three times, but he
slept so soundly that no one could wake him.'

'What is your name?' said the King, 'and who are you?'

'My name is John. I am a soldier, and my father is a boatman.'

'You are not a fit husband for my daughter. Still, if you will give us
your purse, you shall have her for your wife.'

'My purse does not belong to me, and I cannot give it away.'

'But you can lend it to me till our wedding-day,' said the Princess with
one of those glances the little soldier never could resist.

'And when will that be?'

'At Easter,' said the monarch.

'Or in a blue moon!' murmured the Princess; but the Kinglet did not hear
her and let her take his purse.

Next evening he presented himself at the palace to play picquet with the
King and to make his court to the Princess. But he was told that the
King had gone into the country to receive his rents. He returned the
following day, and had the same answer. Then he asked to see the Queen,
but she had a headache. When this had happened five or six times, he
began to understand that they were making fun of him.

'That is not the way for a King to behave,' thought John. 'Old
scoundrel!' and then suddenly he remembered his red cloak.

'Ah, what an idiot I am!' said he. 'Of course I can get in whenever I
like with the help of this.'

That evening he was in front of the palace, wrapped in his red cloak.

On the first story one window was lighted, and John saw on the curtains
the shadow of the Princess.

'I wish myself in the room of the Princess Ludovine,' said he, and in a
second he was there.

The King's daughter was sitting before a table counting the money that
she emptied from the inexhaustible purse.

'Eight hundred and fifty, nine hundred, nine hundred and fifty----'

'A thousand,' finished John. 'Good evening everybody!'

The Princess jumped and gave a little cry. '_You_ here! What business
have you to do it? Leave at once, or I shall call----'

'I have come,' said the Kinglet, 'to remind you of your promise. The day
after to-morrow is Easter Day, and it is high time to think of our
marriage.'

Ludovine burst out into a fit of laughter. 'Our marriage! Have you
really been foolish enough to believe that the daughter of the King of
the Low Countries would ever marry the son of a boatman?'

'Then give me back the purse,' said John.

'Never,' said the Princess, and put it calmly in her pocket.

'As you like,' said the little soldier. 'He laughs best who laughs the
last;' and he took the Princess in his arms. 'I wish,' he cried, 'that
we were at the ends of the earth;' and in one second he was there, still
clasping the Princess tightly in his arms.

'Ouf,' said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree. 'I never took
such a long journey before. What do you say, madam?' The Princess
understood that it was no time for jesting, and did not answer. Besides
she was still feeling giddy from her rapid flight, and had not yet
collected her senses.


  VI

The King of the Low Countries was not a very scrupulous person, and his
daughter took after him. This was why she had been changed into a
serpent. It had been prophesied that she should be delivered by a little
soldier, and that she must marry him, unless he failed to appear at the
meeting-place three times running. The cunning Princess then laid her
plans accordingly.

The wine that she had given to John in the castle of the goblins, the
bouquet of immortelles, and the scarf, all had the power of producing
sleep like death. And we know how they had acted on John.

However, even in this critical moment, Ludovine did not lose her head.

'I thought you were simply a street vagabond,' said she, in her most
coaxing voice; 'and I find you are more powerful than any king. Here is
your purse. Have you got my scarf and my bouquet?'

'Here they are,' said the Kinglet, delighted with this change of tone,
and he drew them from his bosom. Ludovine fastened one in his
button-hole and the other round his arm. 'Now,' she said, 'you are my
lord and master, and I will marry you at your good pleasure.'

'You are kinder than I thought,' said John; 'and you shall never be
unhappy, for I love you.'

'Then, my little husband, tell me how you managed to carry me so quickly
to the ends of the world.'

The little soldier scratched his head. 'Does she really mean to marry
me,' he thought to himself, 'or is she only trying to deceive me again?'

But Ludovine repeated, 'Won't you tell me?' in such a tender voice he
did not know how to resist her.

'After all,' he said to himself, 'what does it matter telling her the
secret, as long as I don't give her the cloak.'

And he told her the virtue of the red mantle.

'Oh dear, how tired I am!' sighed Ludovine. 'Don't you think we had
better take a nap? And then we can talk over our plans.'

She stretched herself on the grass, and the Kinglet did the same. He
laid his head on his left arm, round which the scarf was tied, and was
soon fast asleep.

Ludovine was watching him out of one eye, and no sooner did she hear him
snore than she unfastened the mantle, drew it gently from under him and
wrapped it round her, took the purse from his pocket, and put it in
hers, and said: 'I wish I was back in my own room.' In another moment
she was there.


  VII

Who felt foolish but John, when he awoke, twenty-four hours after, and
found himself without purse, without mantle, and without Princess? He
tore his hair, he beat his breast, he trampled on the bouquet, and tore
the scarf of the traitress to atoms.

Besides this he was very hungry, and he had nothing to eat.

He thought of all the wonderful things his grandmother had told him when
he was a child, but none of them helped him now. He was in despair, when
suddenly he looked up and saw that the tree under which he had been
sleeping was a superb plum, covered with fruit as yellow as gold.

'Here goes for the plums,' he said to himself, 'all is fair in war.'

He climbed the tree and began to eat steadily. But he had hardly
swallowed two plums when, to his horror, he felt as if something was
growing on his forehead. He put up his hand and found that he had two
horns!

He leapt down from the tree and rushed to a stream that flowed close
by. Alas! there was no escape: two charming little horns, that would not
have disgraced the head of a goat.

Then his courage failed him.

'As if it was not enough,' said he, 'that a woman should trick me, but
the devil must mix himself up in it and lend me his horns. What a pretty
figure I should cut if I went back into the world!'

But as he was still hungry, and the mischief was done, he climbed boldly
up another tree, and plucked two plums of a lovely green colour. No
sooner had he swallowed two than the horns disappeared. The little
soldier was enchanted, though greatly surprised, and came to the
conclusion that it was no good to despair too quickly. When he had done
eating an idea suddenly occurred to him.

'Perhaps,' thought he, 'these pretty little plums may help me to recover
my purse, my cloak, and my heart from the hands of this wicked Princess.
She has the eyes of a deer already; let her have the horns of one. If I
can manage to set her up with a pair, I will bet any money that I shall
cease to want her for my wife. A horned maiden is by no means lovely to
look at.' So he plaited a basket out of the long willows, and placed in
it carefully both sorts of plums. Then he walked bravely on for many
days, having no food but the berries by the wayside, and was in great
danger from wild beasts and savage men. But he feared nothing, except
that his plums should decay, and this never happened.

At last he came to a civilised country, and with the sale of some jewels
that he had about him on the evening of his flight he took passage on
board a vessel for the Low Countries. So, at the end of a year and a
day, he arrived at the capital of the kingdom.


  VIII

The next day he put on a false beard and the dress of a date merchant,
and, taking a little table, he placed himself before the door of the
church.

He spread carefully out on a fine white cloth his Mirabelle plums, which
looked for all the world as if they had been freshly gathered, and when
he saw the Princess coming out of church he began to call out in a
feigned voice: 'Fine plums! lovely plums!'

'How much are they?' said the Princess.

'Fifty crowns each.'

'Fifty crowns! But what is there so very precious about them? Do they
give one wit, or will they increase one's beauty?'

'They could not increase what is perfect already, fair Princess, but
still they might add something.'

Rolling stones gather no moss, but they sometimes gain polish; and the
months which John had spent in roaming about the world had not been
wasted. Such a neatly turned compliment flattered Ludovine.

'What will they add?' she smilingly asked.

'You will see, fair Princess, when you taste them. It will be a surprise
for you.'

Ludovine's curiosity was roused. She drew out the purse and shook out as
many little heaps of fifty crowns as there were plums in the basket. The
little soldier was seized with a wild desire to snatch the purse from
her and proclaim her a thief, but he managed to control himself.

His plums all sold, he shut up shop, took off his disguise, changed his
inn, and kept quiet, waiting to see what would happen.

No sooner had she reached her room than the Princess exclaimed, 'Now let
us see what these fine plums can add to my beauty,' and throwing off her
hood, she picked up a couple and ate them.

Imagine with what surprise and horror she felt all of a sudden that
something was growing out of her forehead. She flew to her mirror and
uttered a piercing cry.

'Horns! so that was what he promised me! Let someone find the
plum-seller at once and bring him to me! Let his nose and ears be cut
off! Let him be flayed alive, or burnt at a slow fire and his ashes
scattered to the winds! Oh, I shall die of shame and despair!'

Her women ran at the sound of her screams, and tried to wrench off the
horns, but it was of no use, and they only gave her a violent headache.

The King then sent round a herald to proclaim that he would give the
hand of the Princess to anyone who would rid her of her strange
ornaments. So all the doctors and sorcerers and surgeons in the Low
Countries and the neighbouring kingdoms thronged to the palace, each
with a remedy of his own. But it was all no good, and the Princess
suffered so much from their remedies that the King was obliged to send
out a second proclamation that anyone who undertook to cure the
Princess, and who failed to do it, should be hanged up to the nearest
tree.

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS DRINKS THE PHIAL TO TAKE AWAY THE HORNS]

But the prize was too great for any proclamation to put a stop to the
efforts of the crowd of suitors, and that year the orchards of the Low
Countries all bore a harvest of dead men.


  IX

The King had given orders that they should seek high and low for the
plum-seller, but in spite of all their pains, he was nowhere to be
found.

When the little soldier discovered that their patience was worn out, he
pressed the juice of the green Queen Claude plums into a small phial,
bought a doctor's robe, put on a wig and spectacles, and presented
himself before the King of the Low Countries. He gave himself out as a
famous physician who had come from distant lands, and he promised that
he would cure the Princess if only he might be left alone with her.

'Another madman determined to be hanged,' said the King. 'Very well, do
as he asks; one should refuse nothing to a man with a rope round his
neck.'

As soon as the little soldier was in the presence of the Princess he
poured some drops of the liquid into a glass. The Princess had scarcely
tasted it, when the tip of the horns disappeared.

'They would have disappeared completely,' said the pretended doctor, 'if
there did not exist something to counteract the effect. It is only
possible to cure people whose souls are as clean as the palm of my hand.
Are you sure you have not committed some little sin? Examine yourself
well.'

Ludovine had no need to think over it long, but she was torn in pieces
between the shame of a humiliating confession, and the desire to be
unhorned. At last she made answer with downcast eyes,

'I have stolen a leather purse from a little soldier.'

'Give it to me. The remedy will not act till I hold the purse in my
hands.'

It cost Ludovine a great pang to give up the purse, but she remembered
that riches would not benefit her if she was still to keep the horns.

With a sigh, she handed the purse to the doctor, who poured more of the
liquid into the glass, and when the Princess had drunk it, she found
that the horns had diminished by one half.

'You must really have another little sin on your conscience. Did you
steal nothing from this soldier but his purse?'

'I also stole from him his cloak.'

'Give it me.'

'Here it is.'

This time Ludovine thought to herself that when once the horns had
departed, she would call her attendants and take the things from the
doctor by force.

She was greatly pleased with this idea, when suddenly the pretended
physician wrapped himself in the cloak, flung away the wig and
spectacles, and showed to the traitress the face of the Little Soldier.

She stood before him dumb with fright.

'I might,' said John, 'have left you horned to the end of your days, but
I am a good fellow and I once loved you, and besides--you are too like
the devil to have any need of his horns.'


  X

John had wished himself in the house of the Seagull. Now the Seagull was
seated at the window, mending her net, and from time to time her eyes
wandered to the sea as if she was expecting someone. At the noise made
by the little soldier, she looked up and blushed.

'So it is you!' she said. 'How did you get here?' And then she added in
a low voice, 'And have you married your Princess?'

Then John told her all his adventures, and when he had finished, he
restored to her the purse and the mantle.

'What can I do with them?' said she. 'You have proved to me that
happiness does not lie in the possession of treasures.'

'It lies in work and in the love of an honest women,' replied the little
soldier, who noticed for the first time what pretty eyes she had. 'Dear
Seagull, will you have me for a husband?' and he held out his hand.

'Yes, I will,' answered the fisher maiden, blushing very red, 'but only
on condition that we seal up the purse and the mantle in the copper
vessel and throw them into the sea.'

And this they did.

  Charles Deulin.




  _THE MAGIC SWAN_


There were once upon a time three brothers, of whom the eldest was
called Jacob, the second Frederick, and the youngest Peter. This
youngest brother was made a regular butt of by the other two, and they
treated him shamefully. If anything went wrong with their affairs, Peter
had to bear the blame and put things right for them, and he had to
endure all this ill-treatment because he was weak and delicate and
couldn't defend himself against his stronger brothers. The poor creature
had a most trying life of it in every way, and day and night he pondered
how he could make it better. One day, when he was in the wood gathering
sticks and crying bitterly, a little old woman came up to him and asked
him what was the matter; and he told her all his troubles.

'Come, my good youth,' said the old dame, when he had finished his tale
of woe, 'isn't the world wide enough? Why don't you set out and try your
fortune somewhere else?'

Peter took her words to heart, and left his father's house early one
morning to try his fortune in the wide world, as the old woman had
advised him. But he felt very bitterly parting from the home where he
had been born, and where he had at least passed a short but happy
childhood, and sitting down on a hill he gazed once more fondly on his
native place.

Suddenly the little old woman stood before him, and, tapping him on the
shoulder, said, 'So far good, my boy; but what do you mean to do now?'

Peter was at a loss what to answer, for so far he had always thought
that fortune would drop into his mouth like a ripe cherry. The old
woman, who guessed his thoughts, laughed kindly and said, 'I'll tell you
what you must do, for I've taken a fancy to you, and I'm sure you won't
forget me when you've made your fortune.'

Peter promised faithfully he wouldn't, and the old woman continued:

'This evening at sunset go to yonder pear-tree which you see growing at
the cross roads. Underneath it you will find a man lying asleep, and a
beautiful large swan will be fastened to the tree close to him. You must
be careful not to waken the man, but you must unfasten the swan and take
it away with you. You will find that everyone will fall in love with its
beautiful plumage, and you must allow anyone who likes to pull out a
feather. But as soon as the swan feels as much as a finger on it, it
will scream out, and then you must say, "Swan, hold fast." Then the hand
of the person who has touched the bird will be held as in a vice, and
nothing will set it free, unless you touch it with this little stick
which I will make you a present of. When you have captured a whole lot
of people in this way, lead your train straight on with you; you will
come to a big town where a Princess lives who has never been known to
laugh. If you can only make her laugh your fortune is made; then I beg
you won't forget your old friend.'

Peter promised again that he wouldn't, and at sunset he went to the tree
the old woman had mentioned. The man lay there fast asleep, and a large
beautiful swan was fastened to the tree beside him by a red cord. Peter
loosed the bird, and led it away with him without disturbing the bird's
master.

He walked on with the swan for some time, and came at last to a
building-yard where some men were busily at work. They were all lost in
admiration of the bird's beautiful plumage, and one forward youth, who
was covered with clay from head to foot, called out, 'Oh, if I'd only
one of those feathers how happy I should be!'

'Pull one out then,' said Peter kindly, and the youth seized one from
the bird's tail; instantly the swan screamed, and Peter called out,
'Swan, hold fast,' and do what he could the poor youth couldn't get his
hand away. The more he howled the more the others laughed, till a girl
who had been washing clothes in the neighbouring stream hurried up to
see what was the matter. When she saw the poor boy fastened to the swan
she felt so sorry for him that she stretched out her hand to free him.
The bird screamed.

'Swan, hold fast,' called out Peter, and the girl was caught also.

When Peter had gone on for a bit with his captives, they met a chimney
sweep, who laughed loudly over the extraordinary troop, and asked the
girl what she was doing.

'Oh, dearest John,' replied the girl, 'give me your hand and set me
free from this cursed young man.'

'Most certainly I will, if that's all you want,' replied the sweep, and
gave the girl his hand. The bird screamed.

'Swan, hold fast,' said Peter, and the black man was added to their
number.

They soon came to a village where a fair was being held. A travelling
circus was giving a performance, and the clown was just doing his
tricks. He opened his eyes wide with amazement when he saw the
remarkable trio fastened on to the swan's tail.

'Have you gone raving mad, Blackie?' he asked as well as he could for
laughing.

'It's no laughing matter,' the sweep replied. 'This wench has got so
tight hold of me that I feel as if I were glued to her. Do set me free,
like a good clown, and I'll do you a good turn some day.'

Without a moment's hesitation the clown grasped the black outstretched
hand. The bird screamed.

'Swan, hold fast,' called out Peter, and the clown became the fourth of
the party.

Now in the front row of the spectators sat the respected and popular
Mayor of the village, who was much put out by what he considered nothing
but a foolish trick. So much annoyed was he that he seized the clown by
the hand and tried to tear him away, in order to hand him over to the
police.

Then the bird screamed, and Peter called out, 'Swan, hold fast,' and the
dignified Mayor shared the fate of his predecessors.

The Mayoress, a long thin stick of a woman, enraged at the insult done
to her husband, seized his free arm and tore at it with all her might,
with the only result that she too was forced to swell the procession.
After this no one else had any wish to join them.

Soon Peter saw the towers of the capital in front of him. Just before
entering it, a glittering carriage came out to meet him, in which was
seated a young lady as beautiful as the day, but with a very solemn and
serious expression. But no sooner had she perceived the motley crowd
fastened to the swan's tail than she burst into a loud fit of laughter,
in which she was joined by all her servants and ladies in waiting.

'The Princess has laughed at last,' they all cried with joy.

She stepped out of her carriage to look more closely at the wonderful
sight, and laughed again over the capers the poor captives cut. She
ordered her carriage to be turned round and drove slowly back into the
town, never taking her eyes off Peter and his procession.

When the King heard the news that his daughter had actually laughed, he
was more than delighted, and had Peter and his marvellous train brought
before him. He laughed himself when he saw them till the tears rolled
down his cheeks.

[Illustration]

'My good friend,' he said to Peter, 'do you know what I promised the
person who succeeded in making the Princess laugh?'

'No, I don't,' said Peter.

'Then I'll tell you,' answered the King; 'a thousand gold crowns or a
piece of land. Which will you choose?'

Peter decided in favour of the land. Then he touched the youth, the
girl, the sweep, the clown, the Mayor, and the Mayoress with his little
stick, and they were all free again, and ran away home as if a fire were
burning behind them; and their flight, as you may imagine, gave rise to
renewed merriment.

Then the Princess felt moved to stroke the swan, at the same time
admiring its plumage. The bird screamed.

'Swan, hold fast,' called out Peter, and so he won the Princess for his
bride. But the swan flew up into the air, and vanished in the blue
horizon. Peter now received a duchy as a present, and became a very
great man indeed; but he did not forget the little old woman who had
been the cause of all his good fortune, and appointed her as head
housekeeper to him and his royal bride in their magnificent castle.

  Kletke.




  _THE DIRTY SHEPHERDESS_


Once upon a time there lived a King who had two daughters, and he loved
them with all his heart. When they grew up, he was suddenly seized with
a wish to know if they, on their part, truly loved him, and he made up
his mind that he would give his kingdom to whichever best proved her
devotion.

So he called the elder Princess and said to her, 'How much do you love
me?'

'As the apple of my eye!' answered she.

'Ah!' exclaimed the King, kissing her tenderly as he spoke, 'you are
indeed a good daughter.'

Then he sent for the younger, and asked her how much she loved him.

'I look upon you, my father,' she answered, 'as I look upon salt in my
food.'

But the King did not like her words, and ordered her to quit the Court,
and never again to appear before him. The poor Princess went sadly up to
her room and began to cry, but when she was reminded of her father's
commands, she dried her eyes, and made a bundle of her jewels and her
best dresses and hurriedly left the castle where she was born.

She walked straight along the road in front of her, without knowing very
well where she was going or what was to become of her, for she had never
been shown how to work, and all she had learnt consisted of a few
household rules, and receipts of dishes which her mother had taught her
long ago. And as she was afraid that no housewife would want to engage a
girl with such a pretty face, she determined to make herself as ugly as
she could.

She therefore took off the dress that she was wearing and put on some
horrible old rags belonging to a beggar, all torn and covered with mud.
After that she smeared mud all over her hands and face, and shook her
hair into a great tangle. Having thus changed her appearance, she went
about offering herself as a goose-girl or shepherdess. But the farmers'
wives would have nothing to say to such a dirty maiden, and sent her
away with a morsel of bread for charity's sake.

After walking for a great many days without being able to find any work,
she came to a large farm where they were in want of a shepherdess, and
engaged her gladly.

One day when she was keeping her sheep in a lonely tract of land, she
suddenly felt a wish to dress herself in her robes of splendour. She
washed herself carefully in the stream, and as she always carried her
bundle with her, it was easy to shake off her rags, and transform
herself in a few moments into a great lady.

The King's son, who had lost his way out hunting, perceived this lovely
damsel a long way off, and wished to look at her closer. But as soon as
the girl saw what he was at, she fled into the wood as swiftly as a
bird. The Prince ran after her, but as he was running he caught his foot
in the root of a tree and fell, and when he got up again, she was
nowhere to be seen.

When she was quite safe, she put on her rags again, and smeared over her
face and hands. However the young Prince, who was both hot and thirsty,
found his way to the farm, to ask for a drink of cider, and he inquired
the name of the beautiful lady that kept the sheep. At this everyone
began to laugh, for they said that the shepherdess was one of the
ugliest and dirtiest creatures under the sun.

The Prince thought some witchcraft must be at work, and he hastened away
before the return of the shepherdess, who became that evening the butt
of everybody's jests.

But the King's son thought often of the lovely maiden whom he had only
seen for a moment, though she seemed to him much more fascinating than
any lady of the Court. At last he dreamed of nothing else, and grew
thinner day by day till his parents inquired what was the matter,
promising to do all they could to make him as happy as he once was. He
dared not tell them the truth, lest they should laugh at him, so he only
said that he should like some bread baked by the kitchen girl in the
distant farm.

Although the wish appeared rather odd, they hastened to fulfil it, and
the farmer was told the request of the King's son. The maiden showed no
surprise at receiving such an order, but merely asked for some flour,
salt, and water, and also that she might be left alone in a little room
adjoining the oven, where the kneading-trough stood. Before beginning
her work she washed herself carefully, and even put on her rings; but,
while she was baking, one of her rings slid into the dough. When she
had finished she dirtied herself again, and let lumps of the dough
stick to her fingers, so that she became as ugly as before.

The loaf, which was a very little one, was brought to the King's son,
who ate it with pleasure. But in cutting it he found the ring of the
Princess, and declared to his parents that he would marry the girl whom
that ring fitted.

So the King made a proclamation through his whole kingdom, and ladies
came from afar to lay claim to the honour. But the ring was so tiny that
even those who had the smallest hands could only get it on their little
fingers. In a short time all the maidens of the kingdom, including the
peasant girls, had tried on the ring, and the King was just about to
announce that their efforts had been in vain, when the Prince observed
that he had not yet seen the shepherdess.

They sent to fetch her, and she arrived covered with rags, but with her
hands cleaner than usual, so that she could easily slip on the ring. The
King's son declared that he would fulfil his promise, and when his
parents mildly remarked that the girl was only a keeper of sheep, and a
very ugly one too, the maiden boldly said that she was born a princess,
and that, if they would only give her some water and leave her alone in
a room for a few minutes, she would show that she could look as well as
anyone in fine clothes.

They did what she asked, and when she entered in a magnificent dress,
she looked so beautiful that all saw she must be a princess in disguise.
The King's son recognised the charming damsel of whom he had once caught
a glimpse, and, flinging himself at her feet, asked if she would marry
him. The Princess then told her story, and said that it would be
necessary to send an ambassador to her father to ask his consent and to
invite him to the wedding.

The Princess's father, who had never ceased to repent his harshness
towards his daughter, had sought her through the land, but as no one
could tell him anything of her, he supposed her dead. Therefore it was
with great joy he heard that she was living and that a king's son asked
her in marriage, and he quitted his kingdom with his elder daughter so
as to be present at the ceremony.

By the orders of the bride, they only served her father at the wedding
breakfast bread without salt, and meat without seasoning. Seeing him
make faces, and eat very little, his daughter, who sat beside him,
inquired if his dinner was not to his taste.

[Illustration]

'No,' he replied, 'the dishes are carefully cooked and sent up, but they
are all so dreadfully tasteless.'

'Did not I tell you, my father, that salt was the best thing in life?
And yet, when I compared you to salt, to show how much I loved you, you
thought slightingly of me and you chased me from your presence.'

The King embraced his daughter, and allowed that he had been wrong to
misinterpret her words. Then, for the rest of the wedding feast they
gave him bread made with salt, and dishes with seasoning, and he said
they were the very best he had ever eaten.

  Sébillot.




  _THE ENCHANTED SNAKE_


There was once upon a time a poor woman who would have given all she
possessed for a child, but she hadn't one.

Now it happened one day that her husband went to the wood to collect
brushwood, and when he had brought it home, he discovered a pretty
little snake among the twigs.

When Sabatella, for that was the name of the peasant's wife, saw the
little beast, she sighed deeply and said, 'Even the snakes have their
brood; I alone am unfortunate and have no children.' No sooner had she
said these words than, to her intense surprise, the little snake looked
up into her face and spoke: 'Since you have no children, be a mother to
me instead, and I promise you will never repent it, for I will love you
as if I were your own son.'

At first Sabatella was frightened to death at hearing a snake speak, but
plucking up her courage, she replied, 'If it weren't for any other
reason than your kindly thought, I would agree to what you say, and I
will love you and look after you like a mother.'

So she gave the snake a little hole in the house for its bed, fed it
with all the nicest food she could think of, and seemed as if she never
could show it enough kindness. Day by day it grew bigger and fatter, and
at last one morning it said to Cola-Mattheo, the peasant, whom it always
regarded as its father, 'Dear papa, I am now of a suitable age and wish
to marry.'

'I'm quite agreeable,' answered Mattheo, 'and I'll do my best to find
another snake like yourself and arrange a match between you.'

'Why, if you do that,' replied the snake, 'we shall be no better than
the vipers and reptiles, and that's not what I want at all. No; I'd much
prefer to marry the King's daughter; therefore I pray you go without
further delay, and demand an audience of the King, and tell him a snake
wishes to marry his daughter.'

Cola-Mattheo, who was rather a simpleton, went as he was desired to the
King, and having obtained an audience, he said, 'Your Majesty, I have
often heard that people lose nothing by asking, so I have come to
inform you that a snake wants to marry your daughter, and I'd be glad to
know if you are willing to mate a dove with a serpent?'

The King, who saw at once that the man was a fool, said, in order to get
quit of him, 'Go home and tell your friend the snake that if he can turn
this palace into ivory, inlaid with gold and silver, before to-morrow at
noon, I will let him marry my daughter.' And with a hearty laugh he
dismissed the peasant.

When Cola-Mattheo brought this answer back to the snake, the little
creature didn't seem the least put out, but said, 'To-morrow morning,
before sunrise, you must go to the wood and gather a bunch of green
herbs, and then rub the threshold of the palace with them, and you'll
see what will happen.'

Cola-Mattheo, who was, as I have said before, a great simpleton, made no
reply; but before sunrise next morning he went to the wood and gathered
a bunch of St. John's Wort, and rosemary, and suchlike herbs, and rubbed
them, as he had been told, on the floor of the palace. Hardly had he
done so than the walls immediately turned into ivory, so richly inlaid
with gold and silver that they dazzled the eyes of all beholders. The
King, when he rose and saw the miracle that had been performed, was
beside himself with amazement, and didn't know what in the world he was
to do.

But when Cola-Mattheo came next day, and, in the name of the snake,
demanded the hand of the Princess, the King replied, 'Don't be in such a
hurry; if the snake really wants to marry my daughter, he must do some
more things first, and one of these is to turn all the paths and walls
of my garden into pure gold before noon to-morrow.'

When the snake was told of this new condition, he replied, 'To-morrow
morning, early, you must go and collect all the odds and ends of rubbish
you can find in the streets, and then take them and throw them on the
paths and walls of the garden, and you'll see then if we won't be more
than a match for the old King.'

So Cola-Mattheo rose at cock-crow, took a large basket under his arm,
and carefully collected all the broken fragments of pots and pans, and
jugs and lamps, and other trash of that sort. No sooner had he scattered
them over the paths and walls of the King's garden than they became one
blaze of glittering gold, so that everyone's eyes were dazzled with the
brilliancy, and everyone's soul was filled with wonder. The King, too,
was amazed at the sight, but still he couldn't make up his mind to part
with his daughter, so when Cola-Mattheo came to remind him of his
promise he replied, 'I have still a third demand to make. If the snake
can turn all the trees and fruit of my garden into precious stones, then
I promise him my daughter in marriage.'

When the peasant informed the snake what the King had said, he replied,
'To-morrow morning, early, you must go to the market and buy all the
fruit you see there, and then sow all the stones and seeds in the palace
garden, and, if I'm not mistaken, the King will be satisfied with the
result.'

Cola-Mattheo rose at dawn, and taking a basket on his arm, he went to
the market, and bought all the pomegranates, apricots, cherries, and
other fruit he could find there, and sowed the seeds and stones in the
palace garden. In one moment, the trees were all ablaze with rubies,
emeralds, diamonds, and every other precious stone you can think of.

This time the King felt obliged to keep his promise, and calling his
daughter to him, he said, 'My dear Grannonia,' for that was the
Princess's name, 'more as a joke than anything else, I demanded what
seemed to me impossibilities from your bridegroom, but now that he has
done all I required, I am bound to stick to my part of the bargain. Be a
good child, and as you love me, do not force me to break my word, but
give yourself up with as good grace as you can to a most unhappy fate.'

'Do with me what you like, my lord and father, for your will is my law,'
answered Grannonia.

When the King heard this, he told Cola-Mattheo to bring the snake to the
palace, and said that he was prepared to receive the creature as his
son-in-law.

The snake arrived at court in a carriage made of gold and drawn by six
white elephants; but wherever it appeared on the way, the people fled in
terror at the sight of the fearful reptile.

When the snake reached the palace, all the courtiers shook and trembled
with fear down to the very scullion, and the King and Queen were in such
a state of nervous collapse that they hid themselves in a far-away
turret. Grannonia alone kept her presence of mind, and although both her
father and mother implored her to fly for her life, she wouldn't move a
step, saying, 'I'm certainly not going to fly from the man you have
chosen for my husband.'

[Illustration]

As soon as the snake saw Grannonia, it wound its tail round her and
kissed her. Then, leading her into a room, it shut the door, and
throwing off its skin, it changed into a beautiful young man with golden
locks, and flashing eyes, who embraced Grannonia tenderly, and said all
sorts of pretty things to her.

When the King saw the snake shut itself into a room with his daughter,
he said to his wife, 'Heaven be merciful to our child, for I fear it is
all over with her now. This cursed snake has most likely swallowed her
up.' Then they put their eyes to the keyhole to see what had happened.

Their amazement knew no bounds when they saw a beautiful youth standing
before their daughter with the snake's skin lying on the floor beside
him. In their excitement they burst open the door, and seizing the skin
they threw it into the fire. But no sooner had they done this than the
young man called out, 'Oh, wretched people! what have you done?' and
before they had time to look round he had changed himself into a dove,
and dashing against the window he broke a pane of glass, and flew away
from their sight.

But Grannonia, who in one and the same moment saw herself merry and sad,
cheerful and despairing, rich and beggared, complained bitterly over
this robbery of her happiness, this poisoning of her cup of joy, this
unlucky stroke of fortune, and laid all the blame on her parents, though
they assured her that they had meant no harm. But the Princess refused
to be comforted, and at night, when all the inhabitants of the palace
were asleep, she stole out by a back door, disguised as a peasant woman,
determined to seek for her lost happiness till she found it. When she
got to the outskirts of the town, led by the light of the moon, she met
a fox, who offered to accompany her, an offer which Grannonia gladly
accepted, saying 'You are most heartily welcome, for I don't know my way
at all about the neighbourhood.'

So they went on their way together, and came at last to a wood, where,
being tired with walking, they paused to rest under the shade of a tree,
where a spring of water sported with the tender grass, refreshing it
with its crystal spray.

They laid themselves down on the green carpet and soon fell fast asleep,
and did not waken again till the sun was high in the heavens. They rose
up and stood for some time listening to the birds singing, because
Grannonia delighted in their songs.

When the fox perceived this, he said: 'If you only understood, as I do,
what these little birds are saying, your pleasure would be even
greater.'

Provoked by his words--for we all know that curiosity is as deeply
inborn in every woman as even the love of talking--Grannonia implored
the fox to tell her what the birds had said.

At first the wily fox refused to tell her what he had gathered from the
conversation of the birds, but at last he gave way to her entreaties,
and told her that they had spoken of the misfortunes of a beautiful
young Prince, whom a wicked enchantress had turned into a snake for the
period of seven years. At the end of this time he had fallen in love
with a charming Princess, but that when he had shut himself up into a
room with her, and had thrown off his snake's skin, her parents had
forced their way into the room and had burnt the skin, whereupon the
Prince, changed into the likeness of a dove, had broken a pane of glass
in trying to fly out of the window, and had wounded himself so badly
that the doctors despaired of his life.

Grannonia, when she learnt that they were talking of her lover, asked at
once whose son he was, and if there was any hope of his recovery; to
which the fox made answer that the birds had said he was the son of the
King of Vallone Grosso, and that the only thing that could cure him was
to rub the wounds on his head with the blood of the very birds who had
told the tale.

Then Grannonia knelt down before the fox, and begged him in her sweetest
way to catch the birds for her and procure their blood, promising at the
same time to reward him richly.

'All right,' said the fox, 'only don't be in such a hurry; let's wait
till night, when the little birds have gone to roost, then I'll climb up
and catch them all for you.'

So they passed the day, talking now of the beauty of the Prince, now of
the father of the Princess, and then of the misfortune that had
happened. At last the night arrived, and all the little birds were
asleep high up on the branches of a big tree. The fox climbed up
stealthily and caught the little creatures with his paws one after the
other; and when he had killed them all he put their blood into a little
bottle which he wore at his side, and returned with it to Grannonia, who
was beside herself with joy at the result of the fox's raid. But the fox
said, 'My dear daughter, your joy is in vain, because, let me tell you,
this blood is of no earthly use to you unless you add some of mine to
it,' and with these words he took to his heels.

Grannonia, who saw her hopes dashed to the ground in this cruel way, had
recourse to flattery and cunning, weapons which have often stood the sex
in good stead, and called out after the fox, 'Father Fox, you would be
quite right to save your skin, if, in the first place, I didn't feel I
owed so much to you, and if, in the second, there weren't other foxes in
the world; but as you know how grateful I feel to you, and as there are
heaps of other foxes about, you can trust yourself to me. Don't behave
like the cow that kicks the pail over after it has filled it with milk,
but continue your journey with me, and when we get to the capital you
can sell me to the King as a servant girl.'

It never entered the fox's head that even foxes can be outwitted, so
after a bit he consented to go with her; but he hadn't gone far before
the cunning girl seized a stick, and gave him such a blow with it on the
head, that he dropped down dead on the spot. Then Grannonia took some of
his blood and poured it into her little bottle, and went on her way as
fast as she could to Vallone Grosso.

When she arrived there she went straight to the Royal palace, and let
the King be told she had come to cure the young Prince.

The King commanded her to be brought before him at once, and was much
astonished when he saw that it was a girl who undertook to do what all
the cleverest doctors of his kingdom had failed in. As an attempt hurts
no one, he willingly consented that she should do what she could.

'All I ask,' said Grannonia, 'is that, should I succeed in what you
desire, you will give me your son in marriage.'

The King, who had given up all hopes of his son's recovery, replied:
'Only restore him to life and health and he shall be yours. It is only
fair to give her a husband who gives me a son.'

And so they went into the Prince's room. The moment Grannonia had rubbed
the blood on his wounds the illness left him, and he was as sound and
well as ever. When the King saw his son thus marvellously restored to
life and health, he turned to him and said: 'My dear son, I thought of
you as dead, and now, to my great joy and amazement, you are alive
again. I promised this young woman that if she should cure you, to
bestow your hand and heart on her, and seeing that Heaven has been
gracious, you must fulfil the promise I made her; for gratitude alone
forces me to pay this debt.'

But the Prince answered: 'My lord and father, I would that my will were
as free as my love for you is great. But as I have plighted my word to
another maiden, you will see yourself, and so will this young woman,
that I cannot go back from my word, and be faithless to her whom I
love.'

When Grannonia heard these words, and saw how deeply rooted the Prince's
love for her was, she felt very happy, and blushing rosy red, she said:
'But should I get the other lady to give up her rights, would you then
consent to marry me?'

'Far be it from me,' replied the Prince, 'to banish the beautiful
picture of my love from my heart. Whatever she may say, my heart and
desire will remain the same, and though I were to lose my life for it,
I couldn't consent to this exchange.'

Grannonia could keep silence no longer, and throwing off her peasant's
disguise, she discovered herself to the Prince, who was nearly beside
himself with joy when he recognised his fair lady-love. He then told his
father at once who she was, and what she had done and suffered for his
sake.

Then they invited the King and Queen of Starza-Longa to their Court, and
had a great wedding feast, and proved once more that there is no better
seasoning for the joys of true love than a few pangs of grief.

  Kletke.




  _THE BITER BIT_


Once upon a time there lived a man called Simon, who was very rich, but
at the same time as stingy and miserly as he could be. He had a
housekeeper called Nina, a clever capable woman, and as she did her work
carefully and conscientiously, her master had the greatest respect for
her.

In his young days Simon had been one of the gayest and most active
youths of the neighbourhood, but as he grew old and stiff he found it
very difficult to walk, and his faithful servant urged him to get a
horse so as to save his poor old bones. At last Simon gave way to the
request and persuasive eloquence of his housekeeper, and betook himself
one day to the market where he had seen a mule, which he thought would
just suit him, and which he bought for seven gold pieces.

Now it happened that there were three merry rascals hanging about the
market-place, who much preferred living on other people's goods to
working for their own living. As soon as they saw that Simon had bought
a mule, one of them said to his two boon companions, 'My friends, this
mule must be ours before we are many hours older.'

'But how shall we manage it,' asked one of them.

'We must all three station ourselves at different intervals along the
old man's homeward way, and must each in his turn declare that the mule
he has bought is a donkey. If we only stick to it you'll see the mule
will soon be ours.' This proposal quite satisfied the others, and they
all separated as they had agreed.

Now when Simon came by, the first rogue said to him, 'God bless you, my
fine gentleman.'

'Thanks for your courtesy,' replied Simon.

'Where have you been?' asked the thief.

'To the market,' was the reply.

'And what did you buy there?' continued the rogue.

'This mule.'

'Which mule?'

'The one I'm sitting upon, to be sure,' replied Simon.

'Are you in earnest, or only joking?'

'What do you mean?'

'Because it seems to me you've got hold of a donkey, and not of a mule.'

[Illustration]

'A donkey? Rubbish!' screamed Simon, and without another word he rode on
his way. After a few hundred yards he met the second confederate, who
addressed him, 'Good day, dear sir, where are you coming from?'

'From the market,' answered Simon.

'Did things go pretty cheap?' asked the other.

'I should just think so,' said Simon.

'And did you make any good bargain yourself?'

'I bought this mule on which you see me.'

'Is it possible that you really bought that beast for a mule?'

'Why certainly.'

'But, good heavens, it's nothing but a donkey!'

'A donkey!' repeated Simon, 'you don't mean to say so; if a single
other person tells me that, I'll make him a present of the wretched
animal.'

With these words he continued his way, and very soon met the third
knave, who said to him, 'God bless you, sir; are you by any chance
coming from the market?'

'Yes, I am,' replied Simon.

'And what bargain did you drive there?' asked the cunning fellow.

'I bought this mule on which I am riding.'

'A mule! Are you speaking seriously, or do you wish to make a fool of
me?'

'I'm speaking in sober earnest,' said Simon; 'it wouldn't occur to me to
make a joke of it.'

'Oh, my poor friend,' cried the rascal, 'don't you see that is a donkey
and not a mule? you have been taken in by some wretched cheats.'

'You are the third person in the last two hours who has told me the same
thing,' said Simon, 'but I couldn't believe it,' and dismounting from
the mule he spoke: 'Keep the animal, I make you a present of it.' The
rascal took the beast, thanked him kindly, and rode on to join his
comrades, while Simon continued his journey on foot.

As soon as the old man got home, he told his housekeeper that he had
bought a beast under the belief that it was a mule, but that it had
turned out to be a donkey--at least, so he had been assured by several
people he had met on the road, and that in disgust he had at last given
it away.

'Oh, you simpleton!' cried Nina; 'didn't you see that they were only
playing you a trick? Really, I thought you'd have had more gumption than
that; they wouldn't have taken me in in that way.'

'Never mind,' replied Simon, 'I'll play them one worth two of that; for
depend upon it they won't be contented with having got the donkey out of
me, but they'll try by some new dodge to get something more, or I'm much
mistaken.'

Now there lived in the village not far from Simon's house, a peasant who
had two goats, so alike in every respect that it was impossible to
distinguish one from the other. Simon bought them both, paid as small a
price as he could for them, and leading them home with him, he told Nina
to prepare a good meal, as he was going to invite some friends to
dinner. He ordered her to roast some veal, and to boil a pair of
chickens, and gave her some herbs to make a good savoury, and told her
to bake the best tart she could make. Then he took one of the goats and
tied it to a post in the courtyard, and gave it some grass to eat; but
he bound a cord round the neck of the other goat and led it to the
market.

Hardly had he arrived there, than the three gentlemen who had got his
mule perceived him, and coming up to him said: 'Welcome, Mr. Simon, what
brings you here; are you on the look out for a bargain?'

'I've come to get some provisions,' he answered, 'because some friends
are coming to dine with me to-day, and it would give me much pleasure if
you were to honour me with your company also.'

The accomplices willingly accepted this invitation; and after Simon had
made all his purchases, he tied them on to the goat's back, and said to
it, in the presence of the three cheats, 'Go home now, and tell Nina to
roast the veal, and boil the chickens, and tell her to prepare a savoury
with herbs, and to bake the best tart she can make. Have you followed
me? Then go, and Heaven's blessing go with you.'

As soon as it felt itself free, the laden goat trotted off as quickly as
it could, and to this day nobody knows what became of it. But Simon,
after wandering about the market for some time with his three friends
and some others he had picked up, returned home to his house.

When he and his guests entered the courtyard, they noticed the goat tied
to the post quietly chewing the cud. They were not a little astonished
at this, for of course they thought it was the same goat that Simon had
sent home laden with provisions. As soon as they reached the house Mr.
Simon said to his housekeeper, 'Well, Nina, have you done what I told
the goat to tell you to do?' The artful woman, who at once understood
her master, answered, 'Certainly I have. The veal is roasted, and the
chickens boiled.'

'That's all right,' said Simon.

When the three rogues saw the cooked meats, and the tart in the oven,
and heard Nina's words, they were nearly beside themselves with
amazement, and began to consult at once how they were to get the goat
into their own possession. At last, towards the end of the meal, having
sought in vain for some cunning dodge to get the goat away from Mr.
Simon, one of them said to him, 'My worthy host, you must sell your goat
to us.'

Simon replied that he was most unwilling to part with the creature, as
no amount of money would make up to him for its loss; still, if they
were quite set on it, he would let them have the goat for fifty gold
pieces.

The knaves, who thought they were doing a capital piece of business,
paid down the fifty gold pieces at once, and left the house quite
happily, leading the goat with them. When they got home they said to
their wives, 'You needn't begin to cook the dinner to-morrow till we
send the provisions home.'

The following day they went to the market and bought chickens and other
eatables, and after they had packed them on the back of the goat (which
they had brought with them), they told it all the dishes they wished
their wives to prepare. As soon as the goat felt itself free, it ran as
quickly as it could, and was very soon lost to sight, and, as far as I
know, was never heard of again.

When the dinner hour approached all three went home and asked their
wives if the goat had returned with the necessary provisions, and had
told them what they wished prepared for their meal.

'Oh, you fools and blockheads!' cried their wives, 'how could you ever
believe for a moment that a goat would do the work of a servant-maid?
You have been finely deceived for once in a way. Of course, if you are
always taking in other people, your turn to be taken in comes too, and
this time you've been made to look pretty foolish.'

When the three comrades saw that Mr. Simon had got the better of them,
and done them out of fifty gold pieces, they flew into such a rage that
they made up their minds to kill him, and, seizing their weapons for
this purpose, went to his house.

But the sly old man, who was terrified for his life that the three
rogues might do him some harm, was on his guard, and said to his
housekeeper, 'Nina, take this bladder, which is filled with blood, and
hide it under your cloak; then when these thieves come I'll lay all the
blame on you, and will pretend to be so angry with you that I will run
at you with my knife, and pierce the bladder with it; then you must fall
on the ground as if you were dead, and leave the rest to me.'

Hardly had Simon said these words when the three rogues appeared and
fell on him to kill him.

'My friends,' called out Simon to them, 'what do you accuse me of? I am
in no way to blame; perhaps my housekeeper has done you some injury of
which I know nothing.' And with these words, he turned on Nina with his
knife, and stuck it right into her, so that he pierced the bladder
filled with blood. Instantly the housekeeper fell down as if she were
dead, and the blood streamed all over the ground.

Simon then pretended to be seized with remorse at the sight of this
dreadful catastrophe, and cried out in a loud voice, 'Unhappy wretch
that I am! What have I done? Like a madman I have killed the woman who
is the prop and stay of my old age. How could I ever go on living
without her?' Then he seized a pipe, and when he had blown into it for
some time Nina sprang up alive and well.

The rogues were more amazed than ever; they forgot their anger, and
buying the pipe for two hundred gold pieces, they went joyfully home.

Not long after this one of them quarrelled with his wife, and in his
rage he thrust his knife into her breast so that she fell dead on the
ground. Then he took Simon's pipe and blew into it with all his might,
in the hopes of calling his wife back to life. But he blew in vain, for
the poor soul was as dead as a door-nail.

When one of his comrades heard what had happened, he said, 'You
blockhead, you can't have done it properly; just let me have a try,' and
with these words he seized his wife by the roots of her hair, cut her
throat with a razor, and then took the pipe and blew into it with all
his might but he couldn't bring her back to life. The same thing
happened to the third rogue, so that they were now all three without
wives.

Full of wrath they ran to Simon's house, and, refusing to listen to a
word of explanation or excuse, they seized the old man and put him into
a sack, meaning to drown him in the neighbouring river. On their way
there, however, a sudden noise threw them into such a panic that they
dropped the sack with Simon in it and ran for their lives.

Soon after this a shepherd happened to pass by with his flock, and while
he was slowly following the sheep, who paused here and there by the
wayside to browse on the tender grass, he heard a pitiful voice wailing,
'They insist on my taking her, and I don't want her, for I am too old,
and I really can't have her.' The shepherd was much startled, for he
couldn't make out where these words, which were repeated more than once,
came from, and looked about him to the right and left; at last he
perceived the sack in which Simon was hidden, and going up to it he
opened it and discovered Simon repeating his dismal complaint. The
shepherd asked him why he had been left there tied up in a sack.

[Illustration]

Simon replied that the king of the country had insisted on giving him
one of his daughters as a wife, but that he had refused the honour
because he was too old and too frail. The simple-minded shepherd, who
believed his story implicitly, asked him, 'Do you think the king of the
country would give his daughter to me?'

'Yes, certainly, I know he would,' answered Simon, 'if you were tied up
in this sack instead of me.' Then getting out of the sack, he tied the
confiding shepherd up in it instead, and at his request fastened it
securely and drove the sheep on himself.

An hour had scarcely passed when the three rogues returned to the place
where they had left Simon in the sack, and without opening it, one of
them seized it and threw it into the river. And so the poor shepherd was
drowned instead of Mr. Simon!

The three rogues, having wreaked their vengeance, set out for home. On
their way they noticed a flock of sheep grazing not far from the road.
They longed to steal a few of the lambs, and approached the flock, and
were more than startled to recognise Mr. Simon, whom they had drowned in
the river, as the shepherd who was looking after the sheep. They asked
him how he had managed to get out of the river, to which he replied:

'Get along with you--you are no better than silly donkeys without any
sense; if you had only drowned me in deeper water I would have returned
with three times as many sheep.'

When the three rogues heard this, they said to him: 'Oh, dear Mr. Simon,
do us the favour to tie us up in sacks and throw us into the river that
we may give up our thieving ways and become the owners of flocks.'

'I am ready,' answered Simon, 'to do what you please; there's nothing in
the world I wouldn't do for you.'

So he took three strong sacks and put a man in each of them, and
fastened them up so tightly that they couldn't get out, and then he
threw them all into the river; and that was the end of the three rogues.
But Mr. Simon returned home to his faithful Nina rich in flocks and
gold; and lived for many a year in health and happiness.

  Kletke.




  _KING KOJATA_

  (FROM THE RUSSIAN)


There was once upon a time a king called Kojata, whose beard was so long
that it reached below his knees. Three years had passed since his
marriage, and he lived very happily with his wife, but Heaven granted
him no heir, which grieved the King greatly. One day he set forth from
his capital, in order to make a journey through his kingdom. He
travelled for nearly a year through the different parts of his
territory, and then, having seen all there was to be seen, he set forth
on his homeward way. As the day was very hot and sultry he commanded his
servants to pitch tents in the open field, and there await the cool of
the evening. Suddenly a frightful thirst seized the King, and as he saw
no water near, he mounted his horse, and rode through the neighbourhood
looking for a spring. Before long he came to a well filled to the brim
with water clear as crystal, and on the bosom of which a golden jug was
floating. King Kojata at once tried to seize the vessel, but though he
endeavoured to grasp it with his right hand, and then with his left, the
wretched thing always eluded his efforts and refused to let itself be
caught. First with one hand, and then with two, did the King try to
seize it, but like a fish the goblet always slipped through his fingers
and bobbed to the ground only to reappear at some other place, and mock
the King.

'Plague on you!' said King Kojata. 'I can quench my thirst without you,'
and bending over the well he lapped up the water so greedily that he
plunged his face, beard and all, right into the crystal mirror. But when
he had satisfied his thirst, and wished to raise himself up, he couldn't
lift his head, because someone held his beard fast in the water. 'Who's
there? let me go!' cried King Kojata, but there was no answer; only an
awful face looked up from the bottom of the well with two great green
eyes, glowing like emeralds, and a wide mouth reaching from ear to ear
showing two rows of gleaming white teeth, and the King's beard was held,
not by mortal hands, but by two claws. At last a hoarse voice sounded
from the depths. 'Your trouble is all in vain, King Kojata; I will only
let you go on condition that you give me something you know nothing
about, and which you will find on your return home.'

[Illustration]

The King didn't pause to ponder long, 'for what,' thought he, 'could be
in my palace without my knowing about it--the thing is absurd;' so he
answered quickly:

'Yes, I promise that you shall have it.'

The voice replied, 'Very well; but it will go ill with you if you fail
to keep your promise.' Then the claws relaxed their hold, and the face
disappeared in the depths. The King drew his chin out of the water, and
shook himself like a dog; then he mounted his horse and rode
thoughtfully home with his retinue. When they approached the capital,
all the people came out to meet them with great joy and acclamation, and
when the King reached his palace the Queen met him on the threshold;
beside her stood the Prime Minister, holding a little cradle in his
hands, in which lay a new-born child as beautiful as the day. Then the
whole thing dawned on the King, and groaning deeply he muttered to
himself, 'So this is what I did not know about,' and the tears rolled
down his cheeks. All the courtiers standing round were much amazed at
the King's grief, but no one dared to ask him the cause of it. He took
the child in his arms and kissed it tenderly; then laying it in its
cradle, he determined to control his emotion and began to reign again as
before.

The secret of the King remained a secret, though his grave, careworn
expression escaped no one's notice. In the constant dread that his child
would be taken from him, poor Kojata knew no rest night or day. However,
time went on and nothing happened. Days and months and years passed, and
the Prince grew up into a beautiful youth, and at last the King himself
forgot all about the incident that had happened so long ago.

One day the Prince went out hunting, and going in pursuit of a wild boar
he soon lost the other huntsmen, and found himself quite alone in the
middle of a dark wood. The trees grew so thick and near together that it
was almost impossible to see through them, only straight in front of him
lay a little patch of meadowland, overgrown with thistles and rank
weeds, in the centre of which a leafy lime tree reared itself. Suddenly
a rustling sound was heard in the hollow of the tree, and an
extraordinary old man with green eyes and chin crept out of it.

'A fine day, Prince Milan,' he said; 'you've kept me waiting a good
number of years; it was high time for you to come and pay me a visit.'

'Who are you, in the name of wonder?' demanded the astonished Prince.

'You'll find out soon enough, but in the meantime do as I bid you. Greet
your father King Kojata from me, and don't forget to remind him of his
debt; the time has long passed since it was due, but now he will have to
pay it. Farewell for the present; we shall meet again.'

With these words the old man disappeared into the tree, and the Prince
returned home rather startled, and told his father all that he had seen
and heard.

The King grew as white as a sheet when he heard the Prince's story, and
said, 'Woe is me, my son! The time has come when we must part,' and with
a heavy heart he told the Prince what had happened at the time of his
birth.

'Don't worry or distress yourself, dear father,' answered Prince Milan.
'Things are never as bad as they look. Only give me a horse for my
journey, and I wager you'll soon see me back again.'

The King gave him a beautiful charger, with golden stirrups, and a
sword. The Queen hung a little cross round his neck, and after much
weeping and lamentation the Prince bade them all farewell and set forth
on his journey.

He rode straight on for two days, and on the third he came to a lake as
smooth as glass and as clear as crystal. Not a breath of wind moved, not
a leaf stirred, all was silent as the grave, only on the still bosom of
the lake thirty ducks, with brilliant plumage, swam about in the water.
Not far from the shore Prince Milan noticed thirty little white garments
lying on the grass, and dismounting from his horse, he crept down under
the high bulrushes, took one of the garments and hid himself with it
behind the bushes which grew round the lake. The ducks swam about all
over the place, dived down into the depths and rose again and glided
through the waves. At last, tired of disporting themselves, they swam to
the shore, and twenty-nine of them put on their little white garments
and instantly turned into so many beautiful maidens. Then they finished
dressing and disappeared. Only the thirtieth little duck couldn't come
to the land; it swam about close to the shore, and, giving out a
piercing cry, it stretched its neck up timidly, gazed wildly around, and
then dived under again. Prince Milan's heart was so moved with pity for
the poor little creature that he came out from behind the bulrushes, to
see if he could be of any help. As soon as the duck perceived him, it
cried in a human voice, 'Oh, dear Prince Milan, for the love of Heaven
give me back my garment, and I will be so grateful to you.' The Prince
laid the little garment on the bank beside her, and stepped back into
the bushes. In a few seconds a beautiful girl in a white robe stood
before him, so fair and sweet and young that no pen could describe her.
She gave the Prince her hand and spoke.

[Illustration]

'Many thanks, Prince Milan, for your courtesy. I am the daughter of a
wicked magician, and my name is Hyacinthia. My father has thirty young
daughters, and is a mighty ruler in the underworld, with many castles
and great riches. He has been expecting you for ages, but you need have
no fear if you will only follow my advice. As soon as you come into the
presence of my father, throw yourself at once on the ground and approach
him on your knees. Don't mind if he stamps furiously with his feet and
curses and swears. I'll attend to the rest, and in the meantime we had
better be off.'

With these words the beautiful Hyacinthia stamped on the ground with
her little foot, and the earth opened and they both sank down into the
lower world.

The palace of the Magician was all hewn out of a single carbuncle,
lighting up the whole surrounding region, and Prince Milan walked into
it gaily.

The Magician sat on a throne, a sparkling crown on his head; his eyes
blazed like a green fire, and instead of hands he had claws. As soon as
Prince Milan entered he flung himself on his knees. The Magician stamped
loudly with his feet, glared frightfully out of his green eyes, and
cursed so loudly that the whole underworld shook. But the Prince,
mindful of the counsel he had been given, wasn't the least afraid, and
approached the throne still on his knees. At last the Magician laughed
aloud and said, 'You rogue, you have been well advised to make me laugh;
I won't be your enemy any more. Welcome to the underworld! All the same,
for your delay in coming here, we must demand three services from you.
For to-day you may go, but to-morrow I shall have something more to say
to you.'

Then two servants led Prince Milan to a beautiful apartment, and he lay
down fearlessly on the soft bed that had been prepared for him, and was
soon fast asleep.

Early the next morning the Magician sent for him, and said, 'Let's see
now what you've learnt. In the first place you must build me a palace
to-night, the roof of purest gold, the walls of marble, and the windows
of crystal; all round you must lay out a beautiful garden, with
fish-ponds and artistic waterfalls. If you do all this, I will reward you
richly; but if you don't, you shall lose your head.'

'Oh, you wicked monster!' thought Prince Milan, 'you might as well have
put me to death at once.' Sadly he returned to his room, and with bent
head sat brooding over his cruel fate till evening. When it grew dark, a
little bee flew by, and knocking at the window, it said, 'Open, and let
me in.'

Milan opened the window quickly, and as soon as the bee had entered, it
changed into the beautiful Hyacinthia.

'Good evening, Prince Milan. Why are you so sad?'

'How can I help being sad? Your father threatens me with death, and I
see myself already without a head.'

'And what have you made up your mind to do?'

'There's nothing to be done, and after all I suppose one can only die
once.'

'Now, don't be so foolish, my dear Prince; but keep up your spirits, for
there is no need to despair. Go to bed, and when you wake up to-morrow
morning the palace will be finished. Then you must go all round it,
giving a tap here and there on the walls to look as if you had just
finished it.'

And so it all turned out just as she had said. As soon as it was
daylight Prince Milan stepped out of his room, and found a palace which
was quite a work of art down to the very smallest detail. The Magician
himself was not a little astonished at its beauty, and could hardly
believe his eyes.

'Well, you certainly are a splendid workman,' he said to the Prince. 'I
see you are very clever with your hands, now I must see if you are
equally accomplished with your head. I have thirty daughters in my
house, all beautiful princesses. To-morrow I will place the whole thirty
in a row. You must walk past them three times, and the third time you
must show me which is my youngest daughter Hyacinthia. If you don't
guess rightly, you shall lose your head.'

'This time you've made a mistake,' thought Prince Milan, and going to
his room he sat down at the window. 'Just fancy my not recognising the
beautiful Hyacinthia! Why, that's the easiest thing in the world.'

'Not so easy as you think,' cried the little bee, who was flying past.
'If I weren't to help you, you'd never guess. We are thirty sisters so
exactly alike that our own father can hardly distinguish us apart.'

'Then what am I to do?' asked Prince Milan.

'Listen,' answered Hyacinthia. 'You will recognise me by a tiny fly I
shall have on my left cheek, but be careful, for you might easily make a
mistake.'

The next day the Magician again commanded Prince Milan to be led before
him. His daughters were all arranged in a straight row in front of him,
dressed exactly alike, and with their eyes bent on the ground.

'Now, you genius,' said the Magician, 'look at these beauties three
times, and then tell us which is the Princess Hyacinthia.'

Prince Milan went past them and looked at them closely. But they were
all so precisely alike that they looked like one face reflected in
thirty mirrors, and the fly was nowhere to be seen; the second time he
passed them he still saw nothing; but the third time he perceived a
little-fly stealing down one cheek, causing it to blush a faint pink.
Then the Prince seized the girl's hand and cried out, 'This is the
Princess Hyacinthia!'

[Illustration]

'You're right again,' said the Magician in amazement; 'but I've still
another task for you to do. Before this candle, which I shall light,
burns to the socket, you must have made me a pair of boots reaching to
my knees. If they aren't finished in that time, off comes your head.'

The Prince returned to his room in despair; then the Princess Hyacinthia
came to him once more changed into the likeness of a bee, and asked him,
'Why so sad, Prince Milan?'

'How can I help being sad? Your father has set me this time an
impossible task. Before a candle which he has lit burns to the socket, I
am to make a pair of boots. But what does a prince know of shoemaking?
If I can't do it, I lose my head.'

'And what do you mean to do?' asked Hyacinthia.

'Well, what is there to be done? What he demands I can't and won't do,
so he must just make an end of me.'

'Not so, dearest. I love you dearly, and you shall marry me, and I'll
either save your life or die with you. We must fly now as quickly as we
can, for there is no other way of escape.'

With these words she breathed on the window, and her breath froze on the
pane. Then she led Milan out of the room with her, shut the door, and
threw the key away. Hand in hand, they hurried to the spot where they
had descended into the lower world, and at last reached the banks of the
lake. Prince Milan's charger was still grazing on the grass which grew
near the water. The horse no sooner recognised his master, than it
neighed loudly with joy, and springing towards him, it stood as if
rooted to the ground, while Prince Milan and Hyacinthia jumped on its
back. Then it sped onwards like an arrow from a bow.

In the meantime the Magician was waiting impatiently for the Prince.
Enraged by the delay, he sent his servants to fetch him, for the
appointed time was past.

The servants came to the door, and finding it locked, they knocked; but
the frozen breath on the window replied in Prince Milan's voice, 'I am
coming directly.' With this answer they returned to the Magician. But
when the Prince still did not appear, after a time he sent his servants
a second time to bring him. The frozen breath always gave the same
answer, but the Prince never came. At last the Magician lost all
patience, and commanded the door to be burst open. But when his servants
did so, they found the room empty, and the frozen breath laughed aloud.
Out of his mind with rage, the Magician ordered the Prince to be
pursued.

Then a wild chase began. 'I hear horses' hoofs behind us,' said
Hyacinthia to the Prince. Milan sprang from the saddle, put his ear to
the ground and listened. 'Yes,' he answered, 'they are pursuing us, and
are quite close.' 'Then no time must be lost,' said Hyacinthia, and she
immediately turned herself into a river, Prince Milan into an iron
bridge, and the charger into a blackbird. Behind the bridge the road
branched off into three ways.

The Magician's servants hurried after the fresh tracks, but when they
came to the bridge, they stood, not knowing which road to take, as the
footprints stopped suddenly, and there were three paths for them to
choose from. In fear and trembling they returned to tell the Magician
what had happened. He flew into a dreadful rage when he saw them, and
screamed out, 'Oh, you fools! the river and bridge were they! Go back
and bring them to me at once, or it will be the worse for you.'

Then the pursuit began afresh. 'I hear horses' hoofs,' sighed
Hyacinthia. The Prince dismounted and put his ear to the ground. 'They
are hurrying after us, and are already quite near.' In a moment the
Princess Hyacinthia had changed herself, the Prince, and his charger
into a thick wood where a thousand paths and roads crossed each other.
Their pursuers entered the forest, but searched in vain for Prince Milan
and his bride. At last they found themselves back at the same spot they
had started from; and in despair they returned once more with empty
hands to the Magician.

'Then I'll go after the wretches myself,' he shouted. 'Bring a horse at
once; they shan't escape me.'

Once more the beautiful Hyacinthia murmured, 'I hear horses' hoofs quite
near.' And the Prince answered, 'They are pursuing us hotly and are
quite close.'

'We are lost now, for that is my father himself. But at the first church
we come to his power ceases; he may chase us no further. Hand me your
cross.'

Prince Milan loosened from his neck the little gold cross his mother had
given him, and as soon as Hyacinthia grasped it, she had changed herself
into a church, Milan into a monk, and the horse into a belfry. They had
hardly done this when the magician and his servants rode up.

'Did you see no one pass by on horseback, reverend father?' he asked
the monk.

'Prince Milan and Princess Hyacinthia have just gone on this minute;
they stopped for a few minutes in the church to say their prayers, and
bade me light this wax candle for you, and give you their love.'

'I'd like to wring their necks,' said the magician, and made all haste
home, where he had every one of his servants beaten to within an inch of
their lives.

Prince Milan rode on slowly with his bride without fearing any further
pursuit. The sun was just setting, and its last rays lit up a large city
they were approaching. Prince Milan was suddenly seized with an ardent
desire to enter the town.

'Oh my beloved,' implored Hyacinthia, 'please don't go; for I am
frightened and fear some evil.'

'What are you afraid of?' asked the Prince. 'We'll only go and look at
what's to be seen in the town for about an hour, and then we'll continue
our journey to my father's kingdom.'

'The town is easy to get into, but more difficult to get out of,' sighed
Hyacinthia. 'But let it be as you wish. Go, and I will await you here,
but I will first change myself into a white milestone; only I pray you
be very careful. The King and Queen of the town will come out to meet
you, leading a little child with them. Whatever you do, don't kiss the
child, or you will forget me and all that has happened to us. I will
wait for you here for three days.'

The Prince hurried to the town, but Hyacinthia remained behind disguised
as a white milestone on the road. The first day passed, and then the
second, and at last the third also, but Prince Milan did not return, for
he had not taken Hyacinthia's advice. The King and Queen came out to
meet him as she had said, leading with them a lovely fair-haired little
girl, whose eyes shone like two clear stars. The child at once caressed
the Prince, who, carried away by its beauty, bent down and kissed it on
the cheek. From that moment his memory became a blank, and he forgot all
about the beautiful Hyacinthia.

When the Prince did not return, poor Hyacinthia wept bitterly and
changing herself from a milestone into a little blue field flower, she
said, 'I will grow here on the wayside till some passer-by tramples me
under foot.' And one of her tears remained as a dew-drop and sparkled on
the little blue flower.

[Illustration]

Now it happened shortly after this that an old man passed by, and seeing
the flower, he was delighted with its beauty. He pulled it up carefully
by the roots and carried it home. Here he planted it in a pot, and
watered and tended the little plant carefully. And now the most
extraordinary thing happened, for from this moment everything in the old
man's house was changed. When he awoke in the morning he always found
his room tidied and put into such beautiful order that not a speck of
dust was to be found anywhere. When he came home at midday, he found a
table laid out with the most dainty food, and he had only to sit down
and enjoy himself to his heart's content. At first he was so surprised
he didn't know what to think, but after a time he grew a little
uncomfortable, and went to an old witch to ask for advice.

The witch said, 'Get up before the cock crows, and watch carefully till
you see something move, and then throw this cloth quickly over it, and
you'll see what will happen.'

All night the old man never closed an eye. When the first ray of light
entered the room, he noticed that the little blue flower began to
tremble, and at last it rose out of the pot and flew about the room, put
everything in order, swept away the dust, and lit the fire. In great
haste the old man sprang from his bed, and covered the flower with the
cloth the old witch had given him, and in a moment the beautiful
Princess Hyacinthia stood before him.

'What have you done?' she cried. 'Why have you called me back to life?
For I have no desire to live since my bridegroom, the beautiful Prince
Milan, has deserted me.'

'Prince Milan is just going to be married,' replied the old man.
'Everything is being got ready for the feast, and all the invited guests
are flocking to the palace from all sides.'

The beautiful Hyacinthia cried bitterly when she heard this; then she
dried her tears, and went into the town dressed as a peasant woman. She
went straight to the King's kitchen, where the white-aproned cooks were
running about in great confusion. The Princess went up to the head cook,
and said, 'Dear cook, please listen to my request, and let me make a
wedding-cake for Prince Milan.'

The busy cook was just going to refuse her demand and order her out of
the kitchen, but the words died on his lips when he turned and beheld
the beautiful Hyacinthia, and he answered politely, 'You have just come
in the nick of time, fair maiden. Bake your cake, and I myself will lay
it before Prince Milan.'

The cake was soon made. The invited guests were already thronging round
the table, when the head cook entered the room, bearing a beautiful
wedding cake on a silver dish, and laid it before Prince Milan. The
guests were all lost in admiration, for the cake was quite a work of
art. Prince Milan at once proceeded to cut it open, when to his surprise
two white doves sprang out of it, and one of them said to the other: 'My
dear mate, do not fly away and leave me, and forget me as Prince Milan
forgot his beloved Hyacinthia.'

Milan sighed deeply when he heard what the little dove said. Then he
jumped up suddenly from the table and ran to the door, where he found
the beautiful Hyacinthia waiting for him. Outside stood his faithful
charger, pawing the ground. Without pausing for a moment, Milan and
Hyacinthia mounted him and galloped as fast as they could into the
country of King Kojata. The King and Queen received them with such joy
and gladness as had never been heard of before, and they all lived
happily for the rest of their lives.

  Kletke.




  _PRINCE FICKLE AND FAIR HELENA_

  (FROM THE GERMAN)


There was once upon a time a beautiful girl called Helena. Her own
mother had died when she was quite a child, and her stepmother was as
cruel and unkind to her as she could be. Helena did all she could to
gain her love, and performed the heavy work given her to do cheerfully
and well; but her stepmother's heart wasn't in the least touched, and
the more the poor girl did the more she asked her to do.

One day she gave Helena twelve pounds of mixed feathers and bade her
separate them all before evening, threatening her with a heavy
punishment if she failed to do so.

The poor child sat down to her task with her eyes so full of tears that
she could hardly see to begin. And when she had made one little heap of
feathers, she sighed so deeply that they all blew apart again. And so it
went on, and the poor girl grew more and more miserable. She bowed her
head in her hands and cried, 'Is there no one under heaven who will take
pity on me?'

Suddenly a soft voice replied, 'Be comforted, my child: I have come to
help you.'

Terrified to death, Helena looked up and saw a Fairy standing in front
of her, who asked in the kindest way possible, 'Why are you crying, my
dear?'

Helena, who for long had heard no friendly voice, confided her sad tale
of woe to the Fairy, and told her what the new task she had been given
to do was, and how she despaired of ever accomplishing it.

'Don't worry yourself about it any more,' said the kind Fairy; 'lie down
and go to sleep, and I'll see that your work is done all right.' So
Helena lay down, and when she awoke all the feathers were sorted into
little bundles; but when she turned to thank the good Fairy she had
vanished.

In the evening her stepmother returned and was much amazed to find
Helena sitting quietly with her work all finished before her.

[Illustration]

She praised her diligence, but at the same time racked her brain as to
what harder task she could set her to do.

The next day she told Helena to empty a pond near the house with a spoon
which was full of holes. Helena set to work at once, but she very soon
found that what her stepmother had told her to do was an impossibility.
Full of despair and misery, she was in the act of throwing the spoon
away, when suddenly the kind Fairy stood before her again, and asked her
why she was so unhappy?

When Helena told her of her stepmother's new demand she said, 'Trust to
me and I will do your task for you. Lie down and have a sleep in the
meantime.'

Helena was comforted and lay down, and before you would have believed it
possible the Fairy roused her gently and told her the pond was empty.
Full of joy and gratitude, Helena hurried to her stepmother, hoping that
now at last her heart would be softened towards her. But the wicked
woman was furious at the frustration of her own evil designs, and only
thought of what harder thing she could set the girl to do.

Next morning she ordered her to build before evening a beautiful castle,
and to furnish it all from garret to basement. Helena sat down on the
rocks which had been pointed out to her as the site of the castle,
feeling very depressed, but at the same time with the lurking hope that
the kind Fairy would come once more to her aid.

And so it turned out. The Fairy appeared, promised to build the castle,
and told Helena to lie down and go to sleep in the meantime. At the word
of the Fairy the rocks and stones rose and built themselves into a
beautiful castle, and before sunset it was all furnished inside, and
left nothing to be desired. You may think how grateful Helena was when
she awoke and found her task all finished.

But her stepmother was anything but pleased, and went through the whole
castle from top to bottom, to see if she couldn't find some fault for
which she could punish Helena. At last she went down into one of the
cellars, but it was so dark that she fell down the steep stairs and was
killed on the spot.

So Helena was now mistress of the beautiful castle, and lived there in
peace and happiness. And soon the noise of her beauty spread abroad, and
many wooers came to try and gain her hand.

Among them came one Prince Fickle by name, who very quickly won the love
of fair Helena. One day, as they were sitting happily together under a
lime-tree in front of the castle, Prince Fickle broke the sad news to
Helena that he must return to his parents to get their consent to his
marriage. He promised faithfully to come back to her as soon as he
could, and begged her to await his return under the lime-tree where they
had spent so many happy hours.

Helena kissed him tenderly at parting on his left cheek, and begged him
not to let anyone else kiss him there while they were parted, and she
promised to sit and wait for him under the lime-tree, for she never
doubted that the Prince would be faithful to her and would return as
quickly as he could.

And so she sat for three days and three nights under the tree without
moving. But when her lover never returned, she grew very unhappy, and
determined to set out to look for him. She took as many of her jewels as
she could carry, and three of her most beautiful dresses, one
embroidered with stars, one with moons, and the third with suns, all of
pure gold. Far and wide she wandered through the world, but nowhere did
she find any trace of her bridegroom. At last she gave up the search in
despair. She could not bear to return to her own castle where she had
been so happy with her lover, but determined rather to endure her
loneliness and desolation in a strange land. She took a place as
herd-girl with a peasant, and buried her jewels and beautiful dresses in
a safe and hidden spot.

Every day she drove the cattle to pasture, and all the time she thought
of nothing but her faithless bridegroom. She was very devoted to a
certain little calf in the herd, and made a great pet of it, feeding it
out of her own hands. She taught it to kneel before her, and then she
whispered in its ear:

  'Kneel, little calf, kneel;
  Be faithful and leal,
  Not like Prince Fickle,
  Who once on a time
  Left his fair Helena
  Under the lime.'

After some years passed in this way, she heard that the daughter of the
king of the country she was living in was going to marry a Prince called
'Fickle.' Everybody rejoiced at the news except poor Helena, to whom it
was a fearful blow, for at the bottom of her heart she had always
believed her lover to be true.

Now it chanced that the way to the capital led right past the village
where Helena was, and often when she was leading her cattle forth to the
meadows Prince Fickle rode past her, without ever noticing the poor
herd-girl, so engrossed was he in thoughts of his new bride. Then it
occurred to Helena to put his heart to the test and to see if it weren't
possible to recall herself to him. So one day as Prince Fickle rode by
she said to her little calf:

  'Kneel, little calf, kneel;
  Be faithful and leal,
  Not like Prince Fickle,
  Who once on a time
  Left his poor Helena
  Under the lime.'

When Prince Fickle heard her voice it seemed to him to remind him of
something, but of what he couldn't remember, for he hadn't heard the
words distinctly, as Helena had only spoken them very low and with a
shaky voice. Helena herself had been far too moved to let her see what
impression her words had made on the Prince, and when she looked round
he was already far away. But she noticed how slowly he was riding, and
how deeply sunk he was in thought, so she didn't quite give herself up
as lost.

[Illustration]

In honour of the approaching wedding a feast lasting many nights was to
be given in the capital. Helena placed all her hopes on this, and
determined to go to the feast and there to seek out her bridegroom.

When evening drew near she stole out of the peasant's cottage secretly,
and, going to her hiding-place, she put on her dress embroidered with
the gold suns, and all her jewels, and loosed her beautiful golden hair,
which up to now she had always worn under a kerchief, and, adorned thus,
she set out for the town.

When she entered the ball-room all eyes were turned on her, and everyone
marvelled at her beauty, but no one knew who she was. Prince Fickle,
too, was quite dazzled by the charms of the beautiful maiden, and never
guessed that she had once been his own lady-love. He never left her side
all night, and it was with great difficulty that Helena escaped from him
in the crowd when it was time to return home. Prince Fickle searched for
her everywhere, and longed eagerly for the next night, when the
beautiful lady had promised to come again.

The following evening the fair Helena started early for the feast.

This time she wore her dress embroidered with silver moons, and in her
hair she placed a silver crescent. Prince Fickle was enchanted to see
her again, and she seemed to him even more beautiful than she had been
the night before. He never left her side, and refused to dance with
anyone else. He begged her to tell him who she was, but this she refused
to do. Then he implored her to return again next evening, and this she
promised him she would.

On the third evening Prince Fickle was so impatient to see his fair
enchantress again, that he arrived at the feast hours before it began,
and never took his eyes from the door. At last Helena arrived in a dress
all covered with gold and silver stars, and with a girdle of stars round
her waist, and a band of stars in her hair. Prince Fickle was more in
love with her than ever, and begged her once again to tell him her name.

Then Helena kissed him silently on the left cheek, and in one moment
Prince Fickle recognised his old love. Full of remorse and sorrow, he
begged for her forgiveness, and Helena, only too pleased to have got him
back again, did not, you may be sure, keep him waiting very long for her
pardon, and so they were married and returned to Helena's castle, where
they are no doubt still sitting happily together under the lime-tree.

  Kletke.




  _PUDDOCKY_

  (FROM THE GERMAN)


There was once upon a time a poor woman who had one little daughter
called 'Parsley.' She was so called because she liked eating parsley
better than any other food, indeed she would hardly eat anything else.
Her poor mother hadn't enough money always to be buying parsley for her,
but the child was so beautiful that she could refuse her nothing, and so
she went every night to the garden of an old witch who lived near and
stole great branches of the coveted vegetable, in order to satisfy her
daughter.

This remarkable taste of the fair Parsley soon became known, and the
theft was discovered. The witch called the girl's mother to her, and
proposed that she should let her daughter come and live with her, and
then she could eat as much parsley as she liked. The mother was quite
pleased with this suggestion, and so the beautiful Parsley took up her
abode with the old witch.

One day three Princes, whom their father had sent abroad to travel, came
to the town where Parsley lived and perceived the beautiful girl combing
and plaiting her long black hair at the window. In one moment they all
fell hopelessly in love with her, and longed ardently to have the girl
for their wife; but hardly had they with one breath expressed their
desire than, mad with jealousy, they drew their swords and all three set
upon each other. The struggle was so violent and the noise so loud that
the old witch heard it, and said at once 'Of course Parsley is at the
bottom of all this.'

And when she had convinced herself that this was so, she stepped
forward, and, full of wrath over the quarrels and feuds Parsley's beauty
gave rise to, she cursed the girl and said, 'I wish you were an ugly
toad, sitting under a bridge at the other end of the world.'

Hardly were the words out of her mouth than Parsley was changed into a
toad and vanished from their sight. The Princes, now that the cause of
their dispute was removed, put up their swords, kissed each other
affectionately, and returned to their father.

[Illustration]

The King was growing old and feeble, and wished to yield his sceptre and
crown in favour of one of his sons, but he couldn't make up his mind
which of the three he should appoint as his successor. He determined
that fate should decide for him. So he called his three children to him
and said, 'My dear sons, I am growing old, and am weary of reigning, but
I can't make up my mind to which of you three I should yield my crown,
for I love you all equally. At the same time I would like the best and
cleverest of you to rule over my people. I have, therefore, determined
to set you three tasks to do, and the one that performs them best shall
be my heir. The first thing I shall ask you to do is to bring me a piece
of linen a hundred yards long, so fine that it will go through a gold
ring.' The sons bowed low, and, promising to do their best, they started
on their journey without further delay.

The two elder brothers took many servants and carriages with them, but
the youngest set out quite alone. In a short time they came to three
cross roads; two of them were gay and crowded, but the third was dark
and lonely.

The two elder brothers chose the more frequented ways, but the youngest,
bidding them farewell, set out on the dreary road.

Wherever fine linen was to be bought, there the two elder brothers
hastened. They loaded their carriages with bales of the finest linen
they could find and then returned home.

The youngest brother, on the other hand, went on his weary way for many
days, and nowhere did he come across any linen that would have done. So
he journeyed on, and his spirits sank with every step. At last he came
to a bridge which stretched over a deep river flowing through a flat and
marshy land. Before crossing the bridge he sat down on the banks of the
stream and sighed dismally over his sad fate. Suddenly a misshapen toad
crawled out of the swamp, and, sitting down opposite him, asked: 'What's
the matter with you, my dear Prince?'

The Prince answered impatiently, 'There's not much good my telling you,
Puddocky, for you couldn't help me if I did.'

'Don't be too sure of that,' replied the toad; 'tell me your trouble and
we'll see.'

Then the Prince became most confidential and told the little creature
why he had been sent out of his father's kingdom.

'Prince, I will certainly help you,' said the toad, and, crawling back
into her swamp, she returned dragging after her a piece of linen not
bigger than a finger, which she lay before the Prince, saying, 'Take
this home, and you'll see it will help you.'

The Prince had no wish to take such an insignificant bundle with him;
but he didn't like to hurt Puddocky's feelings by refusing it, so he
took up the little packet, put it in his pocket, and bade the little
toad farewell. Puddocky watched the Prince till he was out of sight and
then crept back into the water.

The further the Prince went the more he noticed that the pocket in which
the little roll of linen lay became heavier, and in proportion his heart
grew lighter. And so, greatly comforted, he returned to the Court of his
father, and arrived home just at the same time as his brothers with
their caravans. The King was delighted to see them all again, and at
once drew the ring from his finger and the trial began. In all the
waggon-loads there was not one piece of linen the tenth part of which
would go through the ring, and the two elder brothers, who had at first
sneered at their youngest brother for returning with no baggage, began
to feel rather small. But what were their feelings when he drew a bale
of linen out of his pocket which in fineness, softness, and purity of
colour was unsurpassable! The threads were hardly visible, and it went
through the ring without the smallest difficulty, at the same time
measuring a hundred yards quite correctly.

The father embraced his fortunate son, and commanded the rest of the
linen to be thrown into the water; then, turning to his children he
said, 'Now, dear Princes, prepare yourselves for the second task. You
must bring me back a little dog that will go comfortably into a
walnut-shell.'

The sons were all in despair over this demand, but as they each wished
to win the crown, they determined to do their best, and after a very few
days set out on their travels again.

At the cross roads they separated once more. The youngest went by
himself along his lonely way, but this time he felt much more cheerful.
Hardly had he sat down under the bridge and heaved a sigh, than Puddocky
came out; and, sitting down opposite him, asked, 'What's wrong with you
now, dear Prince?'

The Prince, who this time never doubted the little toad's power to help
him, told her his difficulty at once. 'Prince, I will help you,' said
the toad again, and crawled back into her swamp as fast as her short
little legs would carry her. She returned, dragging a hazel-nut behind
her, which she laid at the Prince's feet and said, 'Take this nut home
with you and tell your father to crack it very carefully, and you'll see
then what will happen.' The Prince thanked her heartily and went on his
way in the best of spirits while the little puddock crept slowly back
into the water.

When the Prince got home he found his brothers had just arrived with
great waggon-loads of little dogs of all sorts. The King had a walnut
shell ready, and the trial began; but not one of the dogs the two
eldest sons had brought with them would in the least fit into the shell.
When they had tried all their little dogs, the youngest son handed his
father the hazel-nut, with a modest bow, and begged him to crack it
carefully. Hardly had the old King done so than a lovely tiny dog sprang
out of the nutshell, and ran about on the King's hand, wagging its tail
and barking lustily at all the other little dogs. The joy of the Court
was great. The father again embraced his fortunate son, commanded the
rest of the small dogs to be thrown into the water and drowned, and once
more addressed his sons. 'The two most difficult tasks have been
performed. Now listen to the third and last: whoever brings the fairest
wife home with him shall be my heir.'

[Illustration]

This demand seemed so easy and agreeable and the reward was so great,
that the Princes lost no time in setting forth on their travels. At the
cross roads the two elder brothers debated if they should go the same
way as the youngest, but when they saw how dreary and deserted it looked
they made up their minds that it would be impossible to find what they
sought in these wilds, and so they stuck to their former paths.

The youngest was very depressed this time and said to himself, 'Anything
else Puddocky could have helped me in, but this task is quite beyond her
power. How could she ever find a beautiful wife for me? Her swamps are
wide and empty, and no human beings dwell there; only frogs and toads
and other creatures of that sort.' However, he sat down as usual under
the bridge, and this time he sighed from the bottom of his heart.

In a few minutes the toad stood in front of him and asked, 'What's the
matter with you now, my dear Prince?'

'Oh, Puddocky, this time you can't help me, for the task is beyond even
your power,' replied the Prince.

'Still,' answered the toad, 'you may as well tell me your difficulty,
for who knows but I mayn't be able to help you this time also.'

The Prince then told her the task they had been set to do. 'I'll help
you right enough, my dear Prince,' said the little toad; 'just you go
home, and I'll soon follow you.' With these words, Puddocky, with a
spring quite unlike her usual slow movements, jumped into the water and
disappeared.

The Prince rose up and went sadly on his way, for he didn't believe it
possible that the little toad could really help him in his present
difficulty. He had hardly gone a few steps when he heard a sound behind
him, and, looking round, he saw a carriage made of cardboard, drawn by
six big rats, coming towards him. Two hedgehogs rode in front as
outriders, and on the box sat a fat mouse as coachman, and behind stood
two little frogs as footmen. In the carriage itself sat Puddocky, who
kissed her hand to the Prince out of the window as she passed by.

Sunk deep in thought over the fickleness of fortune that had granted him
two of his wishes and now seemed about to deny him the last and best,
the Prince hardly noticed the absurd equipage, and still less did he
feel inclined to laugh at its comic appearance.

The carriage drove on in front of him for some time and then turned a
corner. But what was his joy and surprise when suddenly, round the same
corner, but coming towards him, there appeared a beautiful coach drawn
by six splendid horses, with outriders, coachmen, footmen and other
servants all in the most gorgeous liveries, and seated in the carriage
was the most beautiful woman the Prince had ever seen, and in whom he at
once recognised the beautiful Parsley, for whom his heart had formerly
burned. The carriage stopped when it reached him, and the footmen sprang
down and opened the door for him. He got in and sat down beside the
beautiful Parsley, and thanked her heartily for her help, and told her
how much he loved her.

And so he arrived at his father's capital, at the same moment as his
brothers who had returned with many carriage-loads of beautiful women.
But when they were all led before the King, the whole Court with one
consent awarded the prize of beauty to the fair Parsley.

The old King was delighted, and embraced his thrice fortunate son and
his new daughter-in-law tenderly, and appointed them as his successors
to the throne. But he commanded the other women to be thrown into the
water and drowned, like the bales of linen and the little dogs. The
Prince married Puddocky and reigned long and happily with her, and if
they aren't dead I suppose they are living still.




  _THE STORY OF HOK LEE AND THE DWARFS_


There once lived in a small town in China a man named Hok Lee. He was a
steady industrious man, who not only worked hard at his trade, but did
all his own house-work as well, for he had no wife to do it for him.
'What an excellent industrious man is this Hok Lee!' said his
neighbours; 'how hard he works: he never leaves his house to amuse
himself or to take a holiday as others do!'

But Hok Lee was by no means the virtuous person his neighbours thought
him. True, he worked hard enough by day, but at night, when all
respectable folk were fast asleep, he used to steal out and join a
dangerous band of robbers, who broke into rich people's houses and
carried off all they could lay hands on.

This state of things went on for some time, and, though a thief was
caught now and then and punished, no suspicion ever fell on Hok Lee, he
was such a _very_ respectable, hard-working man.

Hok Lee had already amassed a good store of money as his share of the
proceeds of these robberies when it happened one morning on going to
market that a neighbour said to him:

'Why, Hok Lee, what is the matter with your face? One side of it is all
swelled up.'

True enough, Hok Lee's right cheek was twice the size of his left, and
it soon began to feel very uncomfortable.

'I will bind up my face,' said Hok Lee; 'doubtless the warmth will cure
the swelling.' But no such thing. Next day it was worse, and day by day
it grew bigger and bigger till it was nearly as large as his head and
became very painful.

Hok Lee was at his wits' ends what to do. Not only was his cheek
unsightly and painful, but his neighbours began to jeer and make fun of
him, which hurt his feelings very much indeed.

One day, as luck would have it, a travelling doctor came to the town. He
sold not only all kinds of medicine, but also dealt in many strange
charms against witches and evil spirits.

Hok Lee determined to consult him, and asked him into his house.

After the doctor had examined him carefully, he spoke thus: 'This, O Hok
Lee, is no ordinary swelled face. I strongly suspect you have been doing
some wrong deed which has called down the anger of the spirits on you.
None of my drugs will avail to cure you, but, if you are willing to pay
me handsomely, I can tell you how you may be cured.'

Then Hok Lee and the doctor began to bargain together, and it was a long
time before they could come to terms. However, the doctor got the better
of it in the end, for he was determined not to part with his secret
under a certain price, and Hok Lee had no mind to carry his huge cheek
about with him to the end of his days. So he was obliged to part with
the greater portion of his ill-gotten gains.

When the Doctor had pocketed the money, he told Hok Lee to go on the
first night of the full moon to a certain wood and there to watch by a
particular tree. After a time he would see the dwarfs and little sprites
who live underground come out to dance. When they saw him they would be
sure to make him dance too. 'And mind you dance your very best,' added
the doctor. 'If you dance well and please them they will grant you a
petition and you can then beg to be cured; but if you dance badly they
will most likely do you some mischief out of spite.' With that he took
leave and departed.

Happily the first night of the full moon was near, and at the proper
time Hok Lee set out for the wood. With a little trouble he found the
tree the doctor had described, and, feeling nervous, he climbed up into
it.

He had hardly settled himself on a branch when he saw the little dwarfs
assembling in the moonlight. They came from all sides, till at length
there appeared to be hundreds of them. They seemed in high glee, and
danced and skipped and capered about, whilst Hok Lee grew so eager
watching them that he crept further and further along his branch till at
length it gave a loud crack. All the dwarfs stood still, and Hok Lee
felt as if his heart stood still also.

Then one of the dwarfs called out, 'Someone is up in that tree. Come
down at once, whoever you are, or we must come and fetch you.'

In great terror, Hok Lee proceeded to come down; but he was so nervous
that he tripped near the ground and came rolling down in the most absurd
manner. When he had picked himself up, he came forward with a low bow,
and the dwarf who had first spoken and who appeared to be the leader,
said, 'Now, then, who art thou, and what brings thee here?'

So Hok Lee told him the sad story of his swelled cheek, and how he had
been advised to come to the forest and beg the dwarfs to cure him.

'It is well,' replied the dwarf. 'We will see about that. First,
however, thou must dance before us. Should thy dancing please us,
perhaps we may be able to do something; but shouldst thou dance badly,
we shall assuredly punish thee, so now take warning and dance away.'

With that, he and all the other dwarfs sat down in a large ring, leaving
Hok Lee to dance alone in the middle. He felt half frightened to death,
and besides was a good deal shaken by his fall from the tree and did not
feel at all inclined to dance. But the dwarfs were not to be trifled
with.

'Begin!' cried their leader, and 'Begin!' shouted the rest in chorus.

So in despair Hok Lee began. First he hopped on one foot and then on the
other, but he was so stiff and so nervous that he made but a poor
attempt, and after a time sank down on the ground and vowed he could
dance no more.

The dwarfs were very angry. They crowded round Hok Lee and abused him.
'Thou to come here to be cured, indeed!' they cried, 'thou hast brought
one big cheek with thee, but thou shalt take away two.' And with that
they ran off and disappeared, leaving Hok Lee to find his way home as
best he might.

He hobbled away, weary and depressed, and not a little anxious on
account of the dwarfs' threat.

Nor were his fears unfounded, for when he rose next morning his left
cheek was swelled up as big as his right, and he could hardly see out of
his eyes. Hok Lee felt in despair, and his neighbours jeered at him more
than ever. The doctor, too, had disappeared, so there was nothing for it
but to try the dwarfs once more.

He waited a month till the first night of the full moon came round
again, and then he trudged back to the forest, and sat down under the
tree from which he had fallen. He had not long to wait. Ere long the
dwarfs came trooping out till all were assembled.

'I don't feel quite easy,' said one; 'I feel as if some horrid human
being were near us.'

When Hok Lee heard this he came forward and bent down to the ground
before the dwarfs, who came crowding round, and laughed heartily at his
comical appearance with his two big cheeks.

'What dost thou want?' they asked; and Hok Lee proceeded to tell them of
his fresh misfortunes, and begged so hard to be allowed one more trial
at dancing that the dwarfs consented, for there is nothing they love so
much as being amused.

[Illustration]

Now, Hok Lee knew how much depended on his dancing well, so he plucked
up a good spirit and began, first quite slowly, and faster by degrees,
and he danced so well and gracefully, and made such new and wonderful
steps, that the dwarfs were quite delighted with him.

They clapped their tiny hands, and shouted, 'Well done, Hok Lee, well
done; go on, dance more, for we are pleased.'

And Hok Lee danced on and on, till he really could dance no more, and
was obliged to stop.

Then the leader of the dwarfs said, 'We are well pleased, Hok Lee, and
as a recompense for thy dancing thy face shall be cured. Farewell.'

With these words he and the other dwarfs vanished, and Hok Lee, putting
his hands to his face, found to his great joy that his cheeks were
reduced to their natural size. The way home seemed short and easy to
him, and he went to bed happy, and resolved never to go out robbing
again.

Next day the whole town was full of the news of Hok's sudden cure. His
neighbours questioned him, but could get nothing from him, except the
fact that he had discovered a wonderful cure for all kinds of diseases.

After a time a rich neighbour, who had been ill for some years, came,
and offered to give Hok Lee a large sum of money if he would tell him
how he might get cured. Hok Lee consented on condition that he swore to
keep the secret. He did so, and Hok Lee told him of the dwarfs and their
dances.

The neighbour went off, carefully obeyed Hok Lee's directions, and was
duly cured by the dwarfs. Then another and another came to Hok Lee to
beg his secret, and from each he extracted a vow of secrecy and a large
sum of money. This went on for some years, so that at length Hok Lee
became a very wealthy man, and ended his days in peace and prosperity.

  From the Chinese.




  _THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS_


Once upon a time there were Three Bears, who lived together in a house
of their own in a wood. One of them was a Little, Small, Wee Bear; and
one was a Middle-sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear. They
had each a pot for their porridge, a little pot for the Little, Small,
Wee Bear; and a middle-sized pot for the Middle Bear; and a great pot
for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had each a chair to sit in; a little
chair for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized chair for the
Middle Bear; and a great chair for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had
each a bed to sleep in; a little bed for the Little, Small, Wee Bear;
and a middle-sized bed for the Middle Bear; and a great bed for the
Great, Huge Bear.

One day, after they had made the porridge for their breakfast, and
poured it into their porridge-pots, they walked out into the wood while
the porridge was cooling, that they might not burn their mouths by
beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking, a little old
woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old
woman; for, first, she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in
at the keyhole; and, seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch.
The door was not fastened, because the bears were good bears, who did
nobody any harm, and never suspected that anybody would harm them. So
the little old woman opened the door and went in; and well pleased she
was when she saw the porridge on the table. If she had been a good
little old woman she would have waited till the bears came home, and
then, perhaps, they would have asked her to breakfast; for they were
good bears--a little rough or so, as the manner of bears is, but for all
that very good-natured and hospitable. But she was an impudent, bad old
woman, and set about helping herself.

So first she tasted the porridge of the Great, Huge Bear, and that was
too hot for her; and she said a bad word about that. And then she tasted
the porridge of the Middle Bear; and that was too cold for her; and she
said a bad word about that too. And then she went to the porridge of the
Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that; and that was neither too hot
nor too cold, but just right; and she liked it so well, that she ate it
all up: but the naughty old woman said a bad word about the little
porridge-pot, because it did not hold enough for her.

Then the little old woman sate down in the chair of the Great, Huge
Bear, and that was too hard for her. And then she sate down in the chair
of the Middle Bear, and that was too soft for her. And then she sate
down in the chair of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and that was neither
too hard nor too soft, but just right. So she seated herself in it, and
there she sate till the bottom of the chair came out, and down came she,
plump upon the ground. And the naughty old woman said a wicked word
about that too.

Then the little old woman went up stairs into the bed-chamber in which
the three bears slept. And first she lay down upon the bed of the Great,
Hugh Bear; but that was too high at the head for her. And next she lay
down upon the bed of the Middle Bear; and that was too high at the foot
for her. And then she lay down upon the bed of the Little, Small, Wee
Bear; and that was neither too high at the head, nor at the foot, but
just right. So she covered herself up comfortably, and lay there till
she fell fast asleep.

By this time the three bears thought their porridge would be cool
enough; so they came home to breakfast. Now the little old woman had
left the spoon of the Great, Huge Bear, standing in his porridge.

  'SOMEBODY HAS BEEN AT MY PORRIDGE!'

said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great gruff voice. And when the Middle
Bear looked at his, he saw that the spoon was standing in it too. They
were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty old woman
would have put them in her pocket.

  'Somebody Has Been At My Porridge!'

said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.

Then the Little, Small, Wee Bear looked at his, and there was the spoon
in the porridge-pot, but the porridge was all gone.

  '_Somebody has been at my porridge, and has eaten it all up!_'

said the Little, Small Wee Bear, in his little, small wee voice.

Upon this the three bears, seeing that some one had entered their house,
and eaten up the Little, Small Wee Bear's breakfast, began to look about
them. Now the little old woman had not put the hard cushion straight
when she rose from the chair of the Great, Huge Bear.

  'SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY CHAIR!'

said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.

And the little old woman had squatted down the soft cushion of the
Middle Bear.

  'Somebody Has Been Sitting In My Chair!'

said the Middle Bear, in his middle voice.

And you know what the little old woman had done to the third chair.

  '_Somebody has been sitting in my chair, and has sate the bottom
  of it out!_'

said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.

Then the three bears thought it necessary that they should make farther
search; so they went up stairs into their bed-chamber. Now the little
old woman had pulled the pillow of the Great, Huge Bear out of its
place.

  'SOMEBODY HAS BEEN LYING IN MY BED!'

said the Great, Huge Bear, in his great, rough, gruff voice.

And the little old woman had pulled the bolster of the Middle Bear out
of its place.

  'Somebody Has Been Lying In My Bed!'

said the Middle Bear in his middle voice.

And when the Little, Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was
the bolster in its place, and the pillow in its place upon the bolster,
and upon the pillow was the little old woman's ugly, dirty head,--which
was not in its place, for she had no business there.

  '_Somebody has been lying in my bed,--and here she is!_'

said the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice.

The little old woman had heard in her sleep the great, rough, gruff
voice of the Great, Huge Bear; but she was so fast asleep that it was no
more to her than the roaring of wind or the rumbling of thunder. And she
had heard the middle voice of the Middle Bear, but it was only as if she
had heard someone speaking in a dream. But when she heard the little,
small, wee voice of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, it was so sharp, and so
shrill, that it awakened her at once. Up she started; and when she saw
the Three Bears on one side of the bed, she tumbled herself out at the
other, and ran to the window. Now the window was open, because the
bears, like good, tidy bears as they were, always opened their
bed-chamber window when they got up in the morning. Out the little old
woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall, or ran into
the wood and was lost there, or found her way out of the wood and was
taken up by the constable and sent to the House of Correction for a
vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw
anything more of her.

[Illustration]

  Southey.




  _PRINCE VIVIEN AND THE PRINCESS PLACIDA_


Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who loved one another
dearly. Indeed the Queen, whose name was Santorina, was so pretty and so
kind-hearted that it would have been a wonder if her husband had not
been fond of her, while King Gridelin himself was a perfect bundle of
good qualities, for the Fairy who presided at his christening had
summoned the shades of all his ancestors, and taken something good from
each of them to form his character. Unfortunately, though, she had given
him rather too much kindness of heart, which is a thing that generally
gets its possessor into trouble, but so far all things had prospered
with King Gridelin. However, it was not to be expected such good fortune
could last, and before very long the Queen had a lovely little daughter
who was named Placida. Now the King, who thought that if she resembled
her mother in face and mind she would need no other gift, never troubled
to ask any of the Fairies to her christening, and this offended them
mortally, so that they resolved to punish him severely for thus
depriving them of their rights. So, to the despair of King Gridelin, the
Queen first of all became very ill, and then disappeared altogether. If
it had not been for the little Princess there is no saying what would
have become of him, he was so miserable, but there she was to be brought
up, and luckily the good Fairy Lolotte, in spite of all that had passed,
was willing to come and take charge of her, and of her little cousin
Prince Vivien, who was an orphan and had been placed under the care of
his uncle, King Gridelin, when he was quite a baby. Although she
neglected nothing that could possibly have been done for them, their
characters, as they grew up, plainly proved that education only softens
down natural defects, but cannot entirely do away with them; for
Placida, who was perfectly lovely, and with a capacity and intelligence
which enabled her to learn and understand anything that presented
itself, was at the same time as lazy and indifferent as it is possible
for anyone to be, while Vivien on the contrary was only too lively, and
was for ever taking up some new thing and as promptly tiring of it, and
flying off to something else which held his fickle fancy an equally
short time. As these two children would possibly inherit the kingdom, it
was natural that their people should take a great interest in them, and
it fell out that all the tranquil and peace-loving citizens desired that
Placida should one day be their Queen, while the rash and quarrelsome
hoped great things for Vivien. Such a division of ideas seemed to
promise civil wars and all kinds of troubles to the State, and even in
the Palace the two parties frequently came into collision. As for the
children themselves, though they were too well brought up to quarrel,
still the difference in all their tastes and feelings made it impossible
for them to like one another, so there seemed no chance of their ever
consenting to be married, which was a pity, since that was the only
thing that would have satisfied both parties. Prince Vivien was fully
aware of the feeling in his favour, but being too honourable to wish to
injure his pretty cousin, and perhaps too impatient and volatile to care
to think seriously about anything, he suddenly took it into his head
that he would go off by himself in search of adventure. Luckily this
idea occurred to him when he was on horseback, for he would certainly
have set out on foot rather than lose an instant. As it was, he simply
turned his horse's head, without another thought than that of getting
out of the kingdom as soon as possible. This abrupt departure was a
great blow to the State, especially as no one had any idea what had
become of the Prince. Even King Gridelin, who had never cared for
anything since the disappearance of Queen Santorina, was roused by this
new loss, and though he could not so much as look at the Princess
Placida without shedding floods of tears, he resolved to see for himself
what talents and capabilities she showed. He very soon found out that in
addition to her natural indolence, she was being as much indulged and
spoilt day by day as if the Fairy had been her grandmother, and was
obliged to remonstrate very seriously upon the subject. Lolotte took his
reproaches meekly, and promised faithfully that she would not encourage
the Princess in her idleness and indifference any more. From this moment
poor Placida's troubles began! She was actually expected to choose her
own dresses, to take care of her jewels, and to find her own amusements;
but rather than take so much trouble she wore the same old frock from
morning till night, and never appeared in public if she could possibly
avoid it. However, this was not all, King Gridelin insisted that the
affairs of the kingdom should be explained to her, and that she should
attend all the councils and give her opinion upon the matter in hand
whenever it was asked of her, and this made her life such a burden to
her that she implored Lolotte to take her away from a country where too
much was required of an unhappy Princess.

The Fairy refused at first with a great show of firmness, but who could
resist the tears and entreaties of anyone so pretty as Placida? It came
to this in the end, that she transported the Princess just as she was,
cosily tucked up upon her favourite couch, to her own Grotto, and this
new disappearance left all the people in despair, and Gridelin went
about looking more distracted than ever. But now let us return to Prince
Vivien, and see what his restless spirit has brought him to. Though
Placida's kingdom was a large one, his horse had carried him gallantly
to the limit of it, but it could go no further, and the Prince was
obliged to dismount and continue his journey on foot, though this slow
mode of progress tired his patience severely.

[Illustration]

After what seemed to him a very long time, he found himself all alone in
a vast forest, so dark and gloomy that he secretly shuddered; however,
he chose the most promising looking path he could find, and marched
along it courageously at his best speed, but in spite of all his
efforts, night fell before he reached the edge of the wood.

For some time he stumbled along, keeping to the path as well as he could
in the darkness, and just as he was almost wearied out he saw before
him a gleam of light.

This sight revived his drooping spirits, and he made sure that he was
now close to the shelter and supper he needed so much, but the more he
walked towards the light the further away it seemed; sometimes he even
lost sight of it altogether, and you may imagine how provoked and
impatient he was by the time he finally arrived at the miserable cottage
from which the light proceeded. He gave a loud knock at the door, and an
old woman's voice answered from within, but as she did not seem to be
hurrying herself to open it he redoubled his blows, and demanded to be
let in imperiously, quite forgetting that he was no longer in his own
kingdom. But all this had no effect upon the old woman, who only noticed
all the uproar he was making by saying gently:

'You must have patience.'

He could hear that she really was coming to open the door to him, only
she was so very long about it. First she chased away her cat, lest it
should run away when the door was opened, then he heard her talking to
herself and made out that her lamp wanted trimming, that she might see
better who it was that knocked, and then that it lacked fresh oil, and
she must refill it. So what with one thing and another she was an
immense time trotting to and fro, and all the while she now and again
bade the Prince have patience. When at last he stood within the little
hut he saw with despair that it was a picture of poverty, and that not a
crumb of anything eatable was to be seen, and when he explained to the
old woman that he was dying of hunger and fatigue she only answered
tranquilly that he must have patience. However, she presently showed him
a bundle of straw on which he could sleep.

'But what can I have to eat?' cried Prince Vivien sharply.

'Wait a little, wait a little,' she replied. 'If you will only have
patience I am just going out into the garden to gather some peas: we
will shell them at our leisure, then I will light a fire and cook them,
and when they are thoroughly done, we can enjoy them peaceably; there is
no hurry.'

'I shall have died of starvation by the time all that is done,' said the
Prince ruefully.

'Patience, patience,' said the old woman looking at him with her slow
gentle smile, 'I can't be hurried. "All things come at last to him who
waits;" you must have heard that often.'

Prince Vivien was wild with aggravation, but there was nothing to be
done.

'Come then,' said the old woman, 'you shall hold the lamp to light me
while I pick the peas.'

The Prince in his haste snatched it up so quickly that it went out, and
it took him a long time to light it again with two little bits of
glowing charcoal which he had to dig out from the pile of ashes upon the
hearth. However, at last the peas were gathered and shelled, and the
fire lighted, but then they had to be carefully counted, since the old
woman declared that she would cook fifty-four, and no more. In vain did
the Prince represent to her that he was famished--that fifty-four peas
would go no way towards satisfying his hunger--that a few peas, more or
less, surely could not matter. It was quite useless, in the end he had
to count out the fifty-four, and worse than that, because he dropped one
or two in his hurry, he had to begin again from the very first, to be
sure the number was complete. As soon as they were cooked the old dame
took a pair of scales and a morsel of bread from the cupboard, and was
just about to divide it when Prince Vivien, who really could wait no
longer, seized the whole piece and ate it up, saying in his turn,
'Patience.'

'You mean that for a joke,' said the old woman, as gently as ever, 'but
that is really my name, and some day you will know more about me.'

Then they each ate their twenty-seven peas, and the Prince was surprised
to find that he wanted nothing more, and he slept as sweetly upon his
bed of straw as he had ever done in his palace.

In the morning the old woman gave him milk and bread for his breakfast,
which he ate contentedly, rejoicing that there was nothing to be
gathered, or counted, or cooked, and when he had finished he begged her
to tell him who she was.

'That I will, with pleasure,' she replied. 'But it will be a long
story.'

'Oh! if it's long, I can't listen,' cried the Prince.

'But,' said she, 'at your age, you should attend to what old people say,
and learn to have patience.'

'But, but,' said the Prince, in his most impatient tone, 'old people
should not be so long-winded! Tell me what country I have got into, and
nothing else.'

'With all my heart,' said she. 'You are in the Forest of the Black Bird;
it is here that he utters his oracles.'

'An Oracle,' cried the Prince. 'Oh! I must go and consult him.'
Thereupon he drew a handful of gold from his pocket, and offered it to
the old woman, and when she would not take it, he threw it down upon the
table and was off like a flash of lightning, without even staying to ask
the way. He took the first path that presented itself and followed it at
the top of his speed, often losing his way, or stumbling over some
stone, or running up against a tree, and leaving behind him without
regret the cottage which had been as little to his taste as the
character of its possessor. After some time he saw in the distance a
huge black castle which commanded a view of the whole forest. The Prince
felt certain that this must be the abode of the Oracle, and just as the
sun was setting he reached its outermost gates. The whole castle was
surrounded by a deep moat, and the drawbridge and the gates, and even
the water in the moat, were all of the same sombre hue as the walls and
towers. Upon the gate hung a huge bell, upon which was written in red
letters:

'Mortal, if thou art curious to know thy fate, strike this bell, and
submit to what shall befall thee.'

The Prince, without the smallest hesitation, snatched up a great stone,
and hammered vigorously upon the bell, which gave forth a deep and
terrible sound, the gate flew open, and closed again with a thundering
clang the moment the Prince had passed through it, while from every
tower and battlement rose a wheeling, screaming crowd of bats which
darkened the whole sky with their multitudes. Anyone but Prince Vivien
would have been terrified by such an uncanny sight, but he strode
stoutly forward till he reached the second gate, which was opened to him
by sixty black slaves covered from head to foot in long mantles.

[Illustration]

He wished to speak to them, but soon discovered that they spoke an
utterly unknown language, and did not seem to understand a word he said.
This was a great aggravation to the Prince, who was not accustomed to
keep his ideas to himself, and he positively found himself wishing for
his old friend Patience. However, he had to follow his guides in
silence, and they led him into a magnificent hall; the floor was of
ebony, the walls of jet, and all the hangings were of black velvet, but
the Prince looked round it in vain for something to eat, and then made
signs that he was hungry. In the same manner he was respectfully given
to understand that he must wait, and after several hours the sixty
hooded and shrouded figures re-appeared, and conducted him with great
ceremony, and also very very slowly, to a banqueting hall, where they
all placed themselves at a long table. The dishes were arranged down the
centre of it, and with his usual impetuosity the Prince seized the one
that stood in front of him to draw it nearer, but soon found that it was
firmly fixed in its place. Then he looked at his solemn and lugubrious
neighbours, and saw that each one was supplied with a long hollow reed
through which he slowly sucked up his portion, and the Prince was
obliged to do the same, though he found it a frightfully tedious
process. After supper, they returned as they had come to the ebony room,
where he was compelled to look on while his companions played
interminable games of chess, and not until he was nearly dying of
weariness did they, slowly and ceremoniously as before, conduct him to
his sleeping apartment. The hope of consulting the Oracle woke him very
early the next morning, and his first demand was to be allowed to
present himself before it, but, without replying, his attendants
conducted him to a huge marble bath, very shallow at one end, and quite
deep at the other, and gave him to understand that he was to go into it.
The Prince, nothing loth, was for springing at once into deep water, but
he was gently but forcibly held back and only allowed to stand where it
was about an inch deep, and he was nearly wild with impatience when he
found that this process was to be repeated every day in spite of all he
could say or do, the water rising higher and higher by inches, so that
for sixty days he had to live in perpetual silence, ceremoniously
conducted to and fro, supping all his meals through the long reed, and
looking on at innumerable games of chess, the game of all others which
he detested most. But at last the water rose as high as his chin, and
his bath was complete. And that day the slaves in their black robes, and
each having a large bat perched upon his head, marched in slow
procession with the Prince in their midst, chanting a melancholy song,
to the iron gate that led into a kind of Temple. At the sound of their
chanting, another band of slaves appeared, and took possession of the
unhappy Vivien.

They looked to him exactly like the ones he had left, except that they
moved more slowly still, and each one held a raven upon his wrist, and
their harsh croakings re-echoed through the dismal place. Holding the
Prince by the arms, not so much to do him honour as to restrain his
impatience, they proceeded by slow degrees up the steps of the Temple,
and when they at last reached the top he thought his long waiting must
be at an end. But on the contrary, after slowly enshrouding him in a
long black robe like their own, they led him into the Temple itself,
where he was forced to witness numbers of lengthy rites and ceremonies.
By this time Vivien's active impatience had subsided into passive
weariness, his yawns were continual and scandalous, but nobody heeded
him, he stared hopelessly at the thick black curtain which hung down
straight in front of him, and could hardly believe his eyes when it
presently began to slide back, and he saw before him the Black Bird. It
was of enormous size, and was perched upon a thick bar of iron which ran
across from one side of the Temple to the other. At the sight of it all
the slaves fell upon their knees and hid their faces, and when it had
three times flapped its mighty wings it uttered distinctly in Prince
Vivien's own language the words:

'Prince, your only chance of happiness depends upon that which is most
opposed to your own nature.'

Then the curtain fell before it once more, and the Prince, after many
ceremonies, was presented with a raven which perched upon his wrist, and
was conducted slowly back to the iron gate. Here the raven left him and
he was handed over once more to the care of the first band of slaves,
while a large bat flickered down and settled upon his head of its own
accord, and so he was taken back to the marble bath, and had to go
through the whole process again, only this time he began in deep water
which receded daily inch by inch. When this was over the slaves escorted
him to the outer gate, and took leave of him with every mark of esteem
and politeness, to which it is to be feared he responded but
indifferently, since the gate was no sooner opened than he took to his
heels, and fled away with all his might, his one idea being to put as
much space as possible between himself and the dreary place into which
he had ventured so rashly, just to consult a tedious Oracle who after
all had told him nothing. He actually reflected for about five seconds
on his folly, and came to the conclusion that it might sometimes be
advisable to think before one acted.

After wandering about for several days until he was weary and hungry, he
at last succeeded in finding a way out of the forest, and soon came to a
wide and rapid river, which he followed, hoping to find some means of
crossing it, and it happened that as the sun rose the next morning he
saw something of a dazzling whiteness moored out in the middle of the
stream. Upon looking more attentively at it he found that it was one of
the prettiest little ships he had ever seen, and the boat that belonged
to it was made fast to the bank quite close to him. The Prince was
immediately seized with the most ardent desire to go on board the ship,
and shouted loudly to attract the notice of her crew, but no one
answered. So he sprang into the little boat and rowed away without
finding it at all hard work, for the boat was made all of white paper
and was as light as a rose leaf. The ship was made of white paper too,
as the Prince presently discovered when he reached it. He found not a
soul on board, but there was a very cosy little bed in the cabin, and an
ample supply of all sorts of good things to eat and drink, which he made
up his mind to enjoy until something new happened. Having been
thoroughly well brought up at the court of King Gridelin, of course he
understood the art of navigation, but when once he had started, the
current carried the vessel down at such a pace that before he knew where
he was the Prince found himself out at sea, and a wind springing up
behind him just at this moment soon drove him out of sight of land. By
this time he was somewhat alarmed, and did his best to put the ship
about and get back to the river, but wind and tide were too strong for
him, and he began to think of the number of times, from his childhood
up, that he had been warned not to meddle with water. But it was too
late now to do anything but wish vainly that he had stayed on shore, and
to grow heartily weary of the boat and the sea and everything connected
with it. These two things, however, he did most thoroughly. To put the
finishing touch to his misfortunes he presently found himself becalmed
in mid-ocean, a state of affairs which would be considered trying by the
most patient of men, so you may imagine how it affected Prince Vivien!
He even came to wishing himself back at the Castle of the Black Bird,
for there at least he saw some living beings, whereas on board the
white-paper ship he was absolutely alone, and could not imagine how he
was ever to get away from his wearisome prison. However, after a very
long time, he did see land, and his impatience to be on shore was so
great that he at once flung himself over the ship's side that he might
reach it sooner by swimming. But this was quite useless, for spring as
far as he might from the vessel, it was always under his feet again
before he reached the water, and he had to resign himself to his fate,
and wait with what patience he could muster until the winds and waves
carried the ship into a kind of natural harbour which ran far into the
land. After his long imprisonment at sea the Prince was delighted with
the sight of the great trees which grew down to the very edge of the
water, and leaping lightly on shore he speedily lost himself in the
thick forest. When he had wandered a long way he stopped to rest beside
a clear spring of water, but scarcely had he thrown himself down upon
the mossy bank when there was a great rustling in the bushes close by,
and out sprang a pretty little gazelle panting and exhausted, which fell
at his feet gasping out--

'Oh! Vivien, save me!'

The Prince in great astonishment leapt to his feet, and had just time to
draw his sword before he found himself face to face with a large green
lion which had been hotly pursuing the poor little gazelle. Prince
Vivien attacked it gallantly and a fierce combat ensued, which, however,
ended before long in the Prince's dealing his adversary a terrific blow
which felled him to the earth. As he fell the lion whistled loudly
three times with such force that the forest rang again, and the sound
must have been heard for more than two leagues round, after which having
apparently nothing more to do in the world he rolled over on his side
and died. The Prince without paying any further heed to him or to his
whistling returned to the pretty gazelle, saying:

'Well! are you satisfied now? Since you can talk, pray tell me instantly
what all this is about, and how you happen to know my name.'

'Oh, I must rest for a long time before I can talk,' she replied, 'and
beside, I very much doubt if you will have leisure to listen, for the
affair is by no means finished. In fact,' she continued in the same
languid tone, 'you had better look behind you now.'

The Prince turned sharply round and to his horror saw a huge Giant
approaching with mighty strides, crying fiercely--

'Who has made my lion whistle I should like to know?'

'I have,' replied Prince Vivien boldly, 'but I can answer for it that he
will not do it again!'

At these words the Giant began to howl and lament.

'Alas, my poor Tiny, my sweet little pet,' he cried, 'but at least I can
avenge thy death.'

Thereupon he rushed at the Prince, brandishing an immense serpent which
was coiled about his wrist. Vivien, without losing his coolness, aimed a
terrific blow at it with his sword, but no sooner did he touch the snake
than it changed into a Giant and the Giant into a snake, with such
rapidity that the Prince felt perfectly giddy, and this happened at
least half-a-dozen times, until at last with a fortunate stroke he cut
the serpent in halves, and picking up one morsel flung it with all his
force at the nose of the Giant, who fell insensible on top of the lion,
and in an instant a thick black cloud rolled up which hid them from
view, and when it cleared away they had all disappeared.

Then the Prince, without even waiting to sheathe his sword, rushed back
to the gazelle, crying:

'Now you have had plenty of time to recover your wits, and you have
nothing more to fear, so tell me who you are, and what this horrible
Giant, with his lion and his serpent, have to do with you, and for
pity's sake be quick about it.'

[Illustration]

'I will tell you with pleasure,' she answered, 'but where is the hurry?
I want you to come back with me to the Green Castle, but I don't want to
walk there, it is so far, and walking is so fatiguing.'

'Let us set out at once then,' replied the Prince severely, 'or else
really I shall have to leave you where you are. Surely a young and
active gazelle like you ought to be ashamed of not being able to walk a
few steps. The further off this castle is the faster we ought to walk,
but as you don't appear to enjoy that, I will promise that we will go
gently, and we can talk by the way.'

[Illustration]

'It would be better still if you would carry me,' said she sweetly, 'but
as I don't like to see people giving themselves trouble, you may carry
me, and make that snail carry you.' So saying, she pointed languidly
with one tiny foot at what the Prince had taken for a block of stone,
but now he saw that it was a huge snail.

'What! I ride a snail!' cried the Prince; 'you are laughing at me, and
beside we should not get there for a year.'

'Oh! well then don't do it,' replied the gazelle, 'I am quite willing to
stay here. The grass is green, and the water clear. But if I were you I
should take the advice that was given me and ride the snail.'

So, though it did not please him at all, the Prince took the gazelle in
his arms, and mounted upon the back of the snail, which glided along
very peaceably, entirely declining to be hurried by frequent blows from
the Prince's heels. In vain did the gazelle represent to him that she
was enjoying herself very much, and that this was the easiest mode of
conveyance she had ever discovered. Prince Vivien was wild with
impatience, and thought that the Green Castle would never be reached.
However, at last, they did get there, and everyone who was in it ran to
see the Prince dismount from his singular steed.

But what was his surprise, when having at her request set the gazelle
gently down upon the steps which led up to the castle, he saw her
suddenly change into a charming Princess, and recognised in her his
pretty cousin Placida, who greeted him with her usual tranquil
sweetness. His delight knew no bounds, and he followed her eagerly up
into the castle, impatient to know what strange events had brought her
there. But after all he had to wait for the Princess's story, for the
inhabitants of the Green Lands, hearing that the Giant was dead, ran to
offer the kingdom to his vanquisher, and Prince Vivien had to listen to
various complimentary harangues, which took a great deal of time, though
he cut them as short as politeness allowed--if not shorter. But at last
he was free to rejoin Placida, who at once began the story of her
adventures.

'After you had gone away,' said she, 'they tried to make me learn how to
govern the kingdom, which wearied me to death, so that I begged and
prayed Lolotte to take me away with her, and this she presently did, but
very reluctantly. However, having been transported to her grotto upon my
favourite couch, I spent several delicious days, soothed by the soft
green light, which was like a beech wood in the spring, and by the
murmuring of bees and the tinkle of falling water. But alas! Lolotte was
forced to go away to a general assembly of the Fairies, and she came
back in great dismay, telling me that her indulgence to me had cost her
dear, for she had been severely reprimanded and ordered to hand me over
to the Fairy Mirlifiche, who was already taking charge of you, and who
had been much commended for her management of you.'

'Fine management, indeed,' interrupted the Prince, 'if it is to her I
owe all the adventures I have met with! But go on with your story, my
cousin. I can tell you all about my doings afterwards, and then you can
judge for yourself.'

'At first I was grieved to see Lolotte cry,' resumed the Princess, 'but
I soon found that grieving was very troublesome, so I thought it better
to be calm, and very soon afterwards I saw the Fairy Mirlifiche arrive,
mounted upon her great unicorn. She stopped before the grotto and bade
Lolotte bring me out to her, at which she cried worse than ever, and
kissed me a dozen times, but she dared not refuse. I was lifted up on to
the unicorn, behind Mirlifiche, who said to me--

'"Hold on tight, little girl, if you don't want to break your neck."

'And, indeed, I had to hold on with all my might, for her horrible steed
trotted so violently that it positively took my breath away. However, at
last we stopped at a large farm, and the farmer and his wife ran out as
soon as they saw the Fairy, and helped us to dismount.

'I knew that they were really a King and Queen, whom the Fairies were
punishing for their ignorance and idleness. You may imagine that I was
by this time half dead with fatigue, but Mirlifiche insisted upon my
feeding her unicorn before I did anything else. To accomplish this I had
to climb up a long ladder into the hayloft, and bring down, one after
another, twenty-four handfuls of hay. Never, never before, did I have
such a wearisome task! It makes me shudder to think of it now, and that
was not all. In the same way I had to carry the twenty-four handfuls of
hay to the stable, and then it was supper time, and I had to wait upon
all the others. After that I really thought I should be allowed to go
peaceably to my little bed, but, oh dear no! First of all I had to make
it, for it was all in confusion, and then I had to make one for the
Fairy, and tuck her in, and draw the curtains round her, beside
rendering her a dozen little services which I was not at all accustomed
to. Finally, when I was perfectly exhausted by all this toil, I was free
to go to bed myself, but as I had never before undressed myself, and
really did not know how to begin, I lay down as I was. Unfortunately,
the Fairy found this out, and just as I was falling into a sweet
slumber, she made me get up once more, but even then I managed to escape
her vigilance, and only took off my upper robe. Indeed, I may tell you
in confidence, that I always find disobedience answer very well. One is
often scolded, it is true, but then one has been saved some trouble.

'At the earliest dawn of day Mirlifiche woke me, and made me take many
journeys to the stable to bring her word how her unicorn had slept, and
how much hay he had eaten, and then to find out what time it was, and if
it was a fine day. I was so slow, and did my errands so badly, that
before she left she called the King and Queen and said to them:

'"I am much more pleased with you this year. Continue to make the best
of your farm, if you wish to get back to your kingdom, and also take
care of this little Princess for me, and teach her to be useful, that
when I come I may find her cured of her faults. If she is not----"

'Here she broke off with a significant look, and mounting my enemy the
unicorn, speedily disappeared.

'Then the King and Queen, turning to me, asked me what I could do.

'"Nothing at all, I assure you," I replied in a tone which really ought
to have convinced them, but they went on to describe various
employments, and tried to discover which of them would be most to my
taste. However, at last I persuaded them that to do nothing whatever
would be the only thing that would suit me, and that if they really
wanted to be kind to me, they would let me go to bed and to sleep, and
not tease me about doing anything. To my great joy, they not only
permitted this, but actually, when they had their own meals, the Queen
brought my portion up to me. But early the next morning she appeared at
my bedside, saying, with an apologetic air:

'"My pretty child, I am afraid you must really make up your mind to get
up to-day. I know quite well how delightful it is to be thoroughly idle,
for when my husband and I were King and Queen we did nothing at all from
morning to night, and I sincerely hope that it will not be long before
those happy days will come again for us. But at present we have not
reached them, nor have you, and you know from what the Fairy said that
perhaps worse things may happen to us if she is not obeyed. Make haste,
I beg of you, and come down to breakfast, for I have put by some
delicious cream for you."

'It was really very tiresome, but as there was no help for it I went
down!

'But the instant breakfast was over they began again their cuckoo-cry of
"What will you do?" In vain did I answer--

'"Nothing at all, if it please you, madam."

'The Queen at last gave me a spindle and about four pounds of hemp upon
a distaff, and sent me out to keep the sheep, assuring me that there
could not be a pleasanter occupation, and that I could take my ease as
much as I pleased. I was forced to set out, very unwillingly, as you may
imagine, but I had not walked far before I came to a shady bank in what
seemed to me a charming place. I stretched myself cosily upon the soft
grass, and with the bundle of hemp for a pillow slept as tranquilly as
if there were no such things as sheep in the world, while they for their
part wandered hither and thither at their own sweet will, as if there
were no such thing as a shepherdess, invading every field, and browsing
upon every kind of forbidden dainty, until the peasants, alarmed by the
havoc they were making, raised a clamour, which at last reached the ears
of the King and Queen, who ran out, and seeing the cause of the
commotion, hastily collected their flock. And, indeed, the sooner the
better, since they had to pay for all the damage they had done. As for
me I lay still and watched them run, for I was very comfortable, and
there I might be still if they had not come up, all panting and
breathless, and compelled me to get up and follow them; they also
reproached me bitterly, but I need hardly tell you that they did not
again entrust me with the flock.

'But whatever they found for me to do it was always the same thing, I
spoilt and mismanaged it all, and was so successful in provoking even
the most patient people, that one day I ran away from the farm, for I
was really afraid the Queen would be obliged to beat me. When I came to
the little river in which the King used to fish, I found the boat tied
to a tree, and stepping in I unfastened it, and floated gently down with
the current. The gliding of the boat was so soothing that I did not
trouble myself in the least when the Queen caught sight of me and ran
along the bank, crying--

'"My boat, my boat! Husband, come and catch the little Princess who is
running away with my boat!"

'The current soon carried me out of hearing of her cries, and I dreamed
to the song of the ripples and the whisper of the trees, until the boat
suddenly stopped, and I found it was stuck fast beside a fresh green
meadow, and that the sun was rising. In the distance I saw some little
houses which seemed to be built in a most singular fashion, but as I was
by this time very hungry I set out towards them, but before I had walked
many steps, I saw that the air was full of shining objects which seemed
to be fixed, and yet I could not see what they hung from.

'I went nearer, and saw a silken cord hanging down to the ground, and
pulled it just because it was so close to my hand. Instantly the whole
meadow resounded to the melodious chiming of a peal of silver bells, and
they sounded so pretty that I sat down to listen, and to watch them as
they swung shining in the sunbeams. Before they ceased to sound, came a
great flight of birds, and each one perching upon a bell added its
charming song to the concert. As they ended, I looked up and saw a tall
and stately dame advancing towards me, surrounded and followed by a
vast flock of every kind of bird.

[Illustration]

'"Who are you, little girl," said she, "who dares to come where I allow
no mortal to live, lest my birds should be disturbed? Still, if you are
clever at anything," she added, "I might be able to put up with your
presence."

'"Madam," I answered, rising, "you may be very sure that I shall not do
anything to alarm your birds. I only beg you, for pity's sake, to give
me something to eat."

'"I will do that," she replied, "before I send you where you deserve to
go."

'And thereupon she despatched six jays, who were her pages, to fetch me
all sorts of biscuits, while some of the other birds brought ripe
fruits. In fact, I had a delicious breakfast, though I do not like to be
waited upon so quickly. It is so disagreeable to be hurried. I began to
think I should like very well to stay in this pleasant country, and I
said so to the stately lady, but she answered with the greatest disdain:

'"Do you think I would keep you here? _You!_ Why what do you suppose
would be the good of you in this country, where everybody is wide-awake
and busy? No, no, I have shown you all the hospitality you will get from
me."

'With these words she turned and gave a vigorous pull to the silken rope
which I mentioned before, but instead of a melodious chime, there arose
a hideous clanging which quite terrified me, and in an instant a huge
Black Bird appeared, which alighted at the Fairy's feet, saying in a
frightful voice--

'"What do you want of me, my sister?"

'"I wish you to take this little Princess to my cousin, the Giant of the
Green Castle, at once," she replied, "and beg him from me to make her
work day and night upon his beautiful tapestry."

'At these words the great Bird snatched me up, regardless of my cries,
and flew off at a terrific pace----'

'Oh! you are joking, cousin,' interrupted Prince Vivien; 'you mean as
slowly as possible. I know that horrible Black Bird, and the lengthiness
of all his proceedings and surroundings.'

'Have it your own way,' replied Placida, tranquilly. 'I cannot bear
arguing. Perhaps, this was not even the same bird. At any rate, he
carried me off at a prodigious speed, and set me gently down in this
very castle of which you are now the master. We entered by one of the
windows, and when the Bird had handed me over to the Giant from whom you
have been good enough to deliver me, and given the Fairy's message, it
departed.

'Then the Giant turned to me, saying,

'"So you are an idler! Ah! well, we must teach you to work. You won't be
the first we have cured of laziness. See how busy all my guests are."

'I looked up as he spoke, and saw that an immense gallery ran all round
the hall, in which were tapestry frames, spindles, skeins of wool,
patterns, and all necessary things. Before each frame about a dozen
people were sitting, hard at work, at which terrible sight I fainted
away, and as soon as I recovered they began to ask me what I could do.

'It was in vain that I replied as before, and with the strongest desire
to be taken at my word, "Nothing at all."

'The Giant only said,

'"Then you must learn to do something; in this world there is enough
work for everybody."

'It appeared that they were working into the tapestry all the stories
the Fairies liked best, and they began to try and teach me to help them,
but from the first class, where they tried me to begin with, I sank
lower and lower, and not even the most simple stitches could I learn.

'In vain they punished me by all the usual methods. In vain the Giant
showed me his menagerie, which was entirely composed of children who
would not work! Nothing did me any good, and at last I was reduced to
drawing water for the dyeing of the wools, and even over that I was so
slow that this morning the Giant flew into a rage and changed me into a
gazelle. He was just putting me into the menagerie when I happened to
catch sight of a dog, and was seized with such terror that I fled away
at my utmost speed, and escaped through the outer court of the castle.
The Giant, fearing that I should be lost altogether, sent his green lion
after me, with orders to bring me back, cost what it might, and I should
certainly have let myself be caught, or eaten up, or anything, rather
than run any further, if I had not luckily met you by the fountain. And
oh!' concluded the Princess, 'how delightful it is once more to be able
to sit still in peace. I was so tired of trying to learn things.'

Prince Vivien said that, for his part, he had been kept a great deal too
still, and had not found it at all amusing, and then he recounted all
his adventures with breathless rapidity. How he had taken shelter with
Dame Patience, and consulted the Oracle, and voyaged in the paper ship.
Then they went hand in hand to release all the prisoners in the castle,
and all the Princes and Princesses who were in cages in the menagerie,
for the instant the Green Giant was dead they had resumed their natural
forms. As you may imagine, they were all very grateful, and Princess
Placida entreated them never, never to do another stitch of work so long
as they lived, and they promptly made a great bonfire in the courtyard,
and solemnly burnt all the embroidery frames and spinning wheels. Then
the Princess gave them splendid presents, or rather sat by while Prince
Vivien gave them, and there were great rejoicings in the Green Castle,
and everyone did his best to please the Prince and Princess. But with
all their good intentions, they often made mistakes, for Vivien and
Placida were never of one mind about their plans, so it was very
confusing, and they frequently found themselves obeying the Prince's
orders, very, very slowly, and rushing off with lightning speed to do
something that the Princess did not wish to have done at all, until,
by-and-by, the two cousins took to consulting with, and consoling one
another in all these little vexations, and at last came to be so fond of
each other that for Placida's sake Vivien became quite patient, and for
Vivien's sake Placida made the most unheard-of exertions. But now the
Fairies who had been watching all these proceedings with interest,
thought it was time to interfere, and ascertain by further trials if
this improvement was likely to continue, and if they really loved one
another. So they caused Placida to seem to have a violent fever, and
Vivien to languish and grow dull, and made each of them very uneasy
about the other, and then, finding a moment when they were apart, the
Fairy Mirlifiche suddenly appeared to Placida, and said--

'I have just seen Prince Vivien, and he seemed to me to be very ill.'

'Alas! yes, madam,' she answered, 'and if you will but cure him, you may
take me back to the farm, or bring the Green Giant to life again, and
you shall see how obedient I will be.'

'If you really wish him to recover,' said the Fairy, 'you have only to
catch the Trotting Mouse and the Chaffinch-on-the-Wing and bring them to
me. Only remember that time presses!'

She had hardly finished speaking before the Princess was rushing
headlong out of the castle gate, and the Fairy after watching her till
she was lost to sight, gave a little chuckle and went in search of the
Prince, who begged her earnestly to send him back to the Black Castle,
or to the paper boat if she would but save Placida's life. The Fairy
shook her head, and looked very grave. She quite agreed with him, the
Princess was in a bad way--'But,' said she, 'if you can find the Rosy
Mole, and give him to her she will recover.' So now it was the Prince's
turn to set off in a vast hurry, only as soon as he left the Castle he
happened to go in exactly the opposite direction to the one Placida had
taken. Now you can imagine these two devoted lovers hunting night and
day. The Princess in the woods, always running, always listening,
pursuing hotly after two creatures which seemed to her very hard to
catch, which she yet never ceased from pursuing. The Prince on the other
hand wandering continually across the meadows, his eyes fixed upon the
ground, attentive to every movement among the moles. He was forced to
walk slowly--slowly upon tip-toe, hardly venturing to breathe. Often he
stood for hours motionless as a statue, and if the desire to succeed
could have helped him he would soon have possessed the Rosy Mole. But
alas! all that he caught were black and ordinary, though strange to say
he never grew impatient, but always seemed ready to begin the tedious
hunt again. But this changing of character is one of the most ordinary
miracles which love works. Neither the Prince nor the Princess gave a
thought to anything but their quest. It never even occurred to them to
wonder what country they had reached. So you may guess how astonished
they were one day, when having at last been successful after their long
and weary chase, they cried aloud at the same instant: 'At last I have
saved my beloved,' and then recognising each other's voice looked up,
and rushed to meet one another with the wildest joy. Surprise kept them
silent while for one delicious moment they gazed into each other's eyes,
and just then who should come up but King Gridelin, for it was into his
kingdom they had accidentally strayed. He recognised them in his turn
and greeted them joyfully, but when they turned afterwards to look for
the Rosy Mole, the Chaffinch, and the Trotting-Mouse, they had vanished,
and in their places stood a lovely lady whom they did not know, the
Black Bird, and the Green Giant. King Gridelin had no sooner set eyes
upon the lady than with a cry of joy he clasped her in his arms, for it
was no other than his long-lost wife, Santorina, about whose
imprisonment in Fairyland you may perhaps read some day.

[Illustration]

Then the Black Bird and the Green Giant resumed their natural form, for
they were enchanters, and up flew Lolotte and Mirlifiche in their
chariots, and then there was a great kissing and congratulating, for
everybody had regained someone he loved, including the enchanters, who
loved their natural forms dearly. After this they repaired to the
Palace, and the wedding of Prince Vivien and Princess Placida was held
at once with all the splendour imaginable.

King Gridelin and Queen Santorina, after all their experiences, had no
further desire to reign, so they retired happily to a peaceful place,
leaving their kingdom to the Prince and Princess, who were beloved by
all their subjects, and found their greatest happiness all their lives
long in making other people happy.

  _Nonchalante et Papillon._




  _LITTLE ONE-EYE, LITTLE TWO-EYES, AND LITTLE THREE-EYES_


There was once a woman who had three daughters, of whom the eldest was
called Little One-eye, because she had only one eye in the middle of her
forehead; and the second, Little Two-eyes, because she had two eyes like
other people; and the youngest, Little Three-eyes, because she had three
eyes, and _her_ third eye was also in the middle of her forehead. But
because Little Two-eyes did not look any different from other children,
her sisters and mother could not bear her. They would say to her, 'You
with your two eyes are no better than common folk; you don't belong to
us.' They pushed her here, and threw her wretched clothes there, and
gave her to eat only what they left, and they were as unkind to her as
ever they could be.

It happened one day that Little Two-eyes had to go out into the fields
to take care of the goat, but she was still quite hungry because her
sisters had given her so little to eat. So she sat down in the meadow
and began to cry, and she cried so much that two little brooks ran out
of her eyes. But when she looked up once in her grief there stood a
woman beside her who asked, 'Little Two-eyes, what are you crying for?'
Little Two-eyes answered, 'Have I not reason to cry? Because I have two
eyes like other people, my sisters and my mother cannot bear me; they
push me out of one corner into another, and give me nothing to eat
except what they leave. To-day they have given me so little that I am
still quite hungry.' Then the wise woman said, 'Little Two-eyes, dry
your eyes, and I will tell you something so that you need never be
hungry again. Only say to your goat,

  "Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, appear,"

and a beautifully spread table will stand before you, with the most
delicious food on it, so that you can eat as much as you want. And when
you have had enough and don't want the little table any more, you have
only to say,

  "Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, away,"

and then it will vanish.' Then the wise woman went away.

But Little Two-eyes thought, 'I must try at once if what she has told me
is true, for I am more hungry than ever'; and she said,

  'Little goat, bleat,
  Little table appear,'

and scarcely had she uttered the words, when there stood a little table
before her covered with a white cloth, on which were arranged a plate,
with a knife and fork and a silver spoon, and the most beautiful dishes,
which were smoking hot, as if they had just come out of the kitchen.
Then Little Two-eyes said the shortest grace she knew, and set to work
and made a good dinner. And when she had had enough, she said, as the
wise woman had told her,

  'Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, away,'

and immediately the table and all that was on it disappeared again.
'That is a splendid way of housekeeping,' thought Little Two-eyes, and
she was quite happy and contented.

In the evening, when she went home with her goat, she found a little
earthenware dish with the food that her sisters had thrown to her, but
she did not touch it. The next day she went out again with her goat, and
left the few scraps which were given her. The first and second times her
sisters did not notice this, but when it happened continually, they
remarked it and said, 'Something is the matter with Little Two-eyes, for
she always leaves her food now, and she used to gobble up all that was
given her. She must have found other means of getting food.' So in order
to get at the truth, Little One-eye was told to go out with Little
Two-eyes when she drove the goat to pasture, and to notice particularly
what she got there, and whether anyone brought her food and drink.

Now when Little Two-eyes was setting out, Little One-eye came up to her
and said, 'I will go into the field with you and see if you take good
care of the goat, and if you drive him properly to get grass.' But
Little Two-eyes saw what Little One-eye had in her mind, and she drove
the goat into the long grass and said, 'Come, Little One-eye, we will
sit down here, and I will sing you something.' Little One-eye sat down,
and as she was very much tired by the long walk to which she was not
used, and by the hot day, and as Little Two-eyes went on singing

  'Little One-eye, are you awake?
  Little One-eye, are you asleep?'

she shut her one eye and fell asleep. When Little Two-eyes saw that
Little One-eye was asleep and could find out nothing, she said,

  'Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, appear,'

and sat down at her table and ate and drank as much as she wanted. Then
she said again,

  'Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, away.'

and in the twinkling of an eye all had vanished.

Little Two-eyes then woke Little One-eye and said, 'Little One-eye, you
meant to watch, and, instead, you went to sleep; in the meantime the
goat might have run far and wide. Come, we will go home.' So they went
home, and Little Two-eyes again left her little dish untouched, and
Little One-eye could not tell her mother why she would not eat, and said
as an excuse, 'I was so sleepy out-of-doors.'

The next day the mother said to Little Three-eyes, 'This time you shall
go with Little Two-eyes and watch whether she eats anything out in the
fields, and whether anyone brings her food and drink, for eat and drink
she must secretly.' So Little Three-eyes went to Little Two-eyes and
said, 'I will go with you and see if you take good care of the goat, and
if you drive him properly to get grass.' But little Two-eyes knew what
Little Three-eyes had in her mind, and she drove the goat out into the
tall grass and said, 'We will sit down here, Little Three-eyes, and I
will sing you something.' Little Three-eyes sat down; she was tired by
the walk and the hot day, and Little Two-eyes sang the same little song
again;

 'Little Three-eyes, are you awake?'

but instead of singing as she ought to have done,

  'Little Three-eyes, are you asleep?'

she sang, without thinking,

  'Little _Two-eyes_, are you asleep?'

She went on singing,

  'Little Three-eyes, are you awake?
  Little _Two-eyes_, are you asleep?'

so that the two eyes of Little Three-eyes fell asleep, but the third,
which was not spoken to in the little rhyme, did not fall asleep. Of
course Little Three-eyes shut that eye also out of cunning, to look as
if she were asleep, but it was blinking and could see everything quite
well.

[Illustration]

And when Little Two-eyes thought that Little Three-eyes was sound
asleep, she said her rhyme,

  'Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, appear,'

and ate and drank to her heart's content, and then made the table go
away again, by saying,

  'Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, away.'

But Little Three-eyes had seen everything. Then Little Two-eyes came to
her, and woke her and said, 'Well, Little Three-eyes, have you been
asleep? You watch well! Come, we will go home.' When they reached home,
Little Two-eyes did not eat again, and Little Three-eyes said to the
mother, 'I know now why that proud thing eats nothing. When she says to
the goat in the field,

  "Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, appear,"

a table stands before her, spread with the best food, much better than
we have; and when she has had enough, she says,

  "Little goat, bleat,
  Little table, away,"

and everything disappears again. I saw it all exactly. She made two of
my eyes go to sleep with a little rhyme, but the one in my forehead
remained awake, luckily!'

Then the envious mother cried out, 'Will you fare better than we do? you
shall not have the chance to do so again!' and she fetched a knife, and
killed the goat.

When Little Two-eyes saw this, she went out full of grief, and sat down
in the meadow and wept bitter tears. Then again the wise woman stood
before her, and said, 'Little Two-eyes, what are you crying for?' 'Have
I not reason to cry?' she answered, 'the goat, which when I said the
little rhyme, spread the table so beautifully, my mother has killed, and
now I must suffer hunger and want again.' The wise woman said, 'Little
Two-eyes, I will give you a good piece of advice. Ask your sisters to
give you the heart of the dead goat, and bury it in the earth before the
house-door; that will bring you good luck.' Then she disappeared, and
Little Two-eyes went home, and said to her sisters, 'Dear sisters, do
give me something of my goat; I ask nothing better than its heart.' Then
they laughed and said, 'You can have that if you want nothing more.' And
Little Two-eyes took the heart and buried it in the evening when all was
quiet, as the wise woman had told her, before the house-door. The next
morning when they all awoke and came to the house-door, there stood a
most wonderful tree, which had leaves of silver and fruit of gold
growing on it--you never saw anything more lovely and gorgeous in your
life! But they did not know how the tree had grown up in the night; only
Little Two-eyes knew that it had sprung from the heart of the goat, for
it was standing just where she had buried it in the ground. Then the
mother said to Little One-eye, 'Climb up, my child, and break us off the
fruit from the tree.' Little One-eye climbed up, but just when she was
going to take hold of one of the golden apples the bough sprang out of
her hands; and this happened every time, so that she could not break off
a single apple, however hard she tried. Then the mother said, 'Little
Three-eyes, do you climb up; you with your three eyes can see round
better than Little One-eye.' So Little One-eye slid down, and Little
Three-eyes climbed up; but she was not any more successful; look round
as she might, the golden apples bent themselves back. At last the mother
got impatient and climbed up herself, but she was even less
successful than Little One-eye and Little Three-eyes in catching hold of
the fruit, and only grasped at the empty air. Then Little Two-eyes said,
'I will just try once, perhaps I shall succeed better.' The sisters
called out, 'You with your two eyes will no doubt succeed!' But Little
Two-eyes climbed up, and the golden apples did not jump away from her,
but behaved quite properly, so that she could pluck them off, one after
the other, and brought a whole apron-full down with her. The mother took
them from her, and, instead of behaving better to poor Little Two-eyes,
as they ought to have done, they were jealous that she only could reach
the fruit and behaved still more unkindly to her.

[Illustration]

It happened one day that when they were all standing together by the
tree that a young knight came riding along. 'Be quick, Little Two-eyes,'
cried the two sisters, 'creep under this, so that you shall not disgrace
us,' and they put over poor Little Two-eyes as quickly as possible an
empty cask, which was standing close to the tree, and they pushed the
golden apples which she had broken off under with her. When the knight,
who was a very handsome young man, rode up, he wondered to see the
marvellous tree of gold and silver, and said to the two sisters, 'Whose
is this beautiful tree? Whoever will give me a twig of it shall have
whatever she wants.' Then Little One-eye and Little Three-eyes answered
that the tree belonged to them, and that they would certainly break him
off a twig. They gave themselves a great deal of trouble, but in vain;
the twigs and fruit bent back every time from their hands. Then the
knight said, 'It is very strange that the tree should belong to you, and
yet that you have not the power to break anything from it!' But they
would have that the tree was theirs; and while they were saying this,
Little Two-eyes rolled a couple of golden apples from under the cask, so
that they lay at the knight's feet, for she was angry with Little
One-eye and Little Three-eyes for not speaking the truth. When the
knight saw the apples he was astonished, and asked where they came from.
Little One-eye and Little Three-eyes answered that they had another
sister, but she could not be seen because she had only two eyes, like
ordinary people. But the knight demanded to see her, and called out,
'Little Two-eyes, come forth.' Then Little Two-eyes came out from under
the cask quite happily, and the knight was astonished at her great
beauty, and said, 'Little Two-eyes, I am sure you can break me off a
twig from the tree.' 'Yes,' answered Little Two-eyes, 'I can, for the
tree is mine.' So she climbed up and broke off a small branch with its
silver leaves and golden fruit without any trouble, and gave it to the
knight. Then he said, 'Little Two-eyes, what shall I give you for this?'
'Ah,' answered Little Two-eyes, 'I suffer hunger and thirst, want and
sorrow, from early morning till late in the evening; if you would take
me with you, and free me from this, I should be happy!' Then the knight
lifted Little Two-eyes on his horse, and took her home to his father's
castle. There he gave her beautiful clothes, and food and drink, and
because he loved her so much he married her, and the wedding was
celebrated with great joy.

When the handsome knight carried Little Two-eyes away with him, the two
sisters envied her good luck at first. 'But the wonderful tree is still
with us, after all,' they thought, 'and although we cannot break any
fruit from it, everyone will stop and look at it, and will come to us
and praise it; who knows whether _we_ may not reap a harvest from it?'
But the next morning the tree had flown, and their hopes with it; and
when Little Two-eyes looked out of her window there it stood underneath,
to her great delight. Little Two-eyes lived happily for a long time.
Once two poor women came to the castle to beg alms. Then Little Two-eyes
looked at them and recognised both her sisters, Little One-eye and
Little Three-eyes, who had become so poor that they came to beg bread at
her door. But Little Two-eyes bade them welcome, and was so good to them
that they both repented from their hearts of having been so unkind to
their sister.

  Grimm.




  _JORINDE AND JORINGEL_


There was once upon a time a castle in the middle of a thick wood where
lived an old woman quite alone, for she was an enchantress. In the
day-time she changed herself into a cat or a night-owl, but in the
evening she became like an ordinary woman again. She could entice
animals and birds to come to her, and then she would kill and cook them.
If any youth came within a hundred paces of the castle, he was obliged
to stand still, and could not stir from the spot till she set him free;
but if a pretty girl came within this boundary, the old enchantress
changed her into a bird, and shut her up in a wicker cage, which she put
in one of the rooms in the castle. She had quite seven thousand of such
cages in the castle with very rare birds in them.

Now, there was once a maiden called Jorinde, who was more beautiful than
other maidens. She and a youth named Joringel, who was just as
good-looking as she was, were betrothed to one another. Their greatest
delight was to be together, and so that they might get a good long talk,
they went one evening for a walk in the wood. 'Take care,' said
Joringel, 'not to come too close to the castle.' It was a beautiful
evening; the sun shone brightly between the stems of the trees among the
dark green leaves of the forest, and the turtle-dove sang clearly on the
old may bushes.

Jorinde wept from time to time, and she sat herself down in the sunshine
and lamented, and Joringel lamented too. They felt as sad as if they had
been condemned to die; they looked round and got quite confused, and did
not remember which was their way home. Half the sun was still above the
mountain and half was behind it when Joringel looked through the trees
and saw the old wall of the castle quite near them. He was terrified and
half dead with fright. Jorinde sang:

  'My little bird with throat so red
    Sings sorrow, sorrow, sorrow;
  He sings to the little dove that's dead,
    Sings sorrow, sor----jug, jug, jug.'

Joringel looked up at Jorinde. She had been changed into a nightingale,
who was singing 'jug, jug.' A night-owl with glowing eyes flew three
times round her, and screeched three times 'tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo.'
Joringel could not stir; he stood there like a stone; he could not weep,
or speak, or move hand or foot. Now the sun set; the owl flew into a
bush, and immediately an old, bent woman came out of it; she was
yellow-skinned and thin, and had large red eyes and a hooked nose, which
met her chin. She muttered to herself, caught the nightingale, and
carried her away in her hand. Joringel could say nothing; he could not
move from the spot, and the nightingale was gone. At last the woman came
back again, and said in a gruff voice, 'Good evening, Zachiel; when the
young moon shines in the basket, you are freed early, Zachiel.' Then
Joringel was free. He fell on his knees before the old woman and
implored her to give him back his Jorinde, but she said he should never
have her again, and then went away. He called after her, he wept and
lamented, but all in vain. 'What is to become of me!' he thought. Then
he went away, and came at last to a strange village, where he kept sheep
for a long time. He often went round the castle while he was there, but
never too close. At last he dreamt one night that he had found a
blood-red flower, which had in its centre a beautiful large pearl. He
plucked this flower and went with it to the castle; and there everything
which he touched with the flower was freed from the enchantment, and he
got his Jorinde back again through it. When he awoke in the morning he
began to seek mountain and valley to find such a flower. He sought it
for eight days, and on the ninth early in the morning he found the
blood-red flower. In its centre was a large dew-drop, as big as the most
lovely pearl. He travelled day and night with this flower till he
arrived at the castle. When he came within a hundred paces of it he did
not cease to be able to move, but he went on till he reached the gate.
He was delighted at his success, touched the great gate with the flower,
and it sprung open. He entered, passed through the courtyard, and then
stopped to listen for the singing of the birds; at last he heard it. He
went in and found the hall in which was the enchantress, and with her
seven thousand birds in their wicker cages. When she saw Joringel she
was furious, and breathed out poison and gall at him, but she could not
move a step towards him. He took no notice of her, and went and looked
over the cages of birds; but there were many hundred nightingales, and
how was he to find his Jorinde from among them? Whilst he was
considering, he observed the old witch take up a cage secretly and go
with it towards the door. Instantly he sprang after her, touched the
cage with the flower, and the old woman as well. Now she could no longer
work enchantments, and there stood Jorinde before him, with her arms
round his neck, and more beautiful than ever. Then he turned all the
other birds again into maidens, and he went home with his Jorinde, and
they lived a long and happy life.

[Illustration]

  Grimm.




  _ALLERLEIRAUH; OR, THE MANY-FURRED CREATURE_


There was once upon a time a King who had a wife with golden hair, and
she was so beautiful that you couldn't find anyone like her in the
world. It happened that she fell ill, and when she felt that she must
soon die, she sent for the King, and said, 'If you want to marry after
my death, make no one queen unless she is just as beautiful as I am, and
has just such golden hair as I have. Promise me this.' After the King
had promised her this, she closed her eyes and died.

For a long time the King was not to be comforted, and he did not even
think of taking a second wife. At last his councillors said, 'The King
_must_ marry again, so that we may have a queen.' So messengers were
sent far and wide to seek for a bride equal to the late Queen in beauty.
But there was no one in the wide world, and if there had been she could
not have had such golden hair. Then the messengers came home again, not
having been able to find a queen.

Now, the King had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her dead
mother, and had just such golden hair. One day when she had grown up,
her father looked at her, and saw that she was exactly like her mother,
so he said to his councillors, 'I will marry my daughter to one of you,
and she shall be queen, for she is exactly like her dead mother, and
when I die her husband shall be king.' But when the Princess heard of
her father's decision, she was not at all pleased, and said to him,
'Before I do your bidding, I must have three dresses; one as golden as
the sun, one as silver as the moon, and one as shining as the stars.
Besides these, I want a cloak made of a thousand different kinds of
skin; every animal in your kingdom must give a bit of his skin to it.'
But she thought to herself, 'This will be quite impossible, and I shall
not have to marry someone I do not care for.' The King, however, was not
to be turned from his purpose, and he commanded the most skilled maidens
in his kingdom to weave the three dresses, one as golden as the sun, and
one as silver as the moon, and one as shining as the stars; and he gave
orders to all his huntsmen to catch one of every kind of beast in the
kingdom, and to get a bit of its skin to make the cloak of a thousand
pieces of fur. At last, when all was ready, the King commanded the cloak
to be brought to him, and he spread it out before the Princess, and
said, 'To-morrow shall be your wedding-day.' When the Princess saw that
there was no more hope of changing her father's resolution, she
determined to flee away. In the night, when everyone else was sleeping,
she got up and took three things from her treasures, a gold ring, a
little gold spinning-wheel, and a gold reel; she put the sun, moon, and
star dresses in a nutshell, drew on the cloak of many skins, and made
her face and hands black with soot. Then she commended herself to God,
and went out and travelled the whole night till she came to a large
forest. And as she was very much tired she sat down inside a hollow tree
and fell asleep.

The sun rose and she still slept on and on, although it was nearly noon.
Now, it happened that the king to whom this wood belonged was hunting in
it. When his dogs came to the tree, they sniffed, and ran round and
round it, barking. The King said to the huntsmen, 'See what sort of a
wild beast is in there.' The huntsmen went in, and then came back and
said, 'In the hollow tree there lies a wonderful animal that we don't
know, and we have never seen one like it; its skin is made of a thousand
pieces of fur; but it is lying down asleep.' The King said, 'See if you
can catch it alive, and then fasten it to the cart, and we will take it
with us.' When the huntsmen seized the maiden, she awoke and was
frightened, and cried out to them, 'I am a poor child, forsaken by
father and mother; take pity on me, and let me go with you.' Then they
said to her, 'Many-furred Creature, you can work in the kitchen; come
with us and sweep the ashes together.' So they put her in the cart and
they went back to the palace. There they showed her a tiny room under
the stairs, where no daylight came, and said to her, 'Many-furred
Creature, you can live and sleep here.' Then she was sent into the
kitchen, where she carried wood and water, poked the fire, washed
vegetables, plucked fowls, swept up the ashes, and did all the dirty
work.

So the Many-furred Creature lived for a long time in great poverty. Ah,
beautiful King's daughter, what is going to befall you now?

[Illustration]

It happened once when a great feast was being held in the palace, that
she said to the cook, 'Can I go upstairs for a little bit and look on?
I will stand outside the doors.' The cook replied, 'Yes, you can go up,
but in half-an-hour you must be back here to sweep up the ashes.' Then
she took her little oil-lamp, and went into her little room, drew off
her fur cloak, and washed off the soot from her face and hands, so that
her beauty shone forth, and it was as if one sunbeam after another were
coming out of a black cloud. Then she opened the nut, and took out the
dress as golden as the sun. And when she had done this, she went up to
the feast, and everyone stepped out of her way, for nobody knew her, and
they thought she must be a King's daughter. But the King came towards
her and gave her his hand, and danced with her, thinking to himself, 'My
eyes have never beheld anyone so fair!' When the dance was ended, she
curtseyed to him, and when the King looked round she had disappeared, no
one knew whither. The guards who were standing before the palace were
called and questioned, but no one had seen her.

She had run to her little room and had quickly taken off her dress, made
her face and hands black, put on the fur cloak, and was once more the
Many-furred Creature. When she came into the kitchen and was setting
about her work of sweeping the ashes together, the cook said to her,
'Let that wait till to-morrow, and just cook the King's soup for me; I
want to have a little peep at the company upstairs; but be sure that you
do not let a hair fall into it, otherwise you will get nothing to eat in
future!' So the cook went away, and the Many-furred Creature cooked the
soup for the King. She made a bread-soup as well as she possibly could,
and when it was done, she fetched her gold ring from her little room,
and laid it in the tureen in which the soup was to be served up.

When the dance was ended, the King had his soup brought to him and ate
it, and it was so good that he thought he had never tasted such soup in
his life. But when he came to the bottom of the dish he saw a gold ring
lying there, and he could not imagine how it got in. Then he commanded
the cook to be brought before him. The cook was terrified when he heard
the command, and said to the Many-furred Creature, 'You must have let a
hair fall into the soup, and if you have you deserve a good beating!'
When he came before the King, the King asked who had cooked the soup.
The cook answered, 'I cooked it.' But the King said, 'That's not true,
for it was quite different and much better soup than you have ever
cooked.' Then the cook said, 'I must confess; _I_ did not cook the soup;
the Many-furred Creature did.' 'Let her be brought before me,' said the
King. When the Many-furred Creature came, the King asked her who she
was. 'I am a poor child without father or mother.' Then he asked her,
'What do you do in my palace?' 'I am of no use except to have boots
thrown at my head.' 'How did you get the ring which was in the soup?' he
asked. 'I know nothing at all about the ring,' she answered. So the King
could find out nothing, and was obliged to send her away.

After a time there was another feast, and the Many-furred Creature
begged the cook as at the last one to let her go and look on. He
answered, 'Yes, but come back again in half-an-hour and cook the King
the bread-soup that he likes so much.' So she ran away to her little
room, washed herself quickly, took out of the nut the dress as silver as
the moon and put it on. Then she went upstairs looking just like a
King's daughter, and the King came towards her, delighted to see her
again, and as the dance had just begun, they danced together. But when
the dance was ended, she disappeared again so quickly that the King
could not see which way she went. She ran to her little room and changed
herself once more into the Many-furred Creature, and went into the
kitchen to cook the bread-soup. When the cook was upstairs, she fetched
the golden spinning-wheel and put it in the dish so that the soup was
poured over it. It was brought to the King, who ate it, and liked it as
much as the last time. He had the cook sent to him, and again he had to
confess that the Many-furred Creature had cooked the soup. Then the
Many-furred Creature came before the King, but she said again that she
was of no use except to have boots thrown at her head, and that she knew
nothing at all of the golden spinning-wheel.

When the King had a feast for the third time, things did not turn out
quite the same as at the other two. The cook said, 'You must be a witch,
Many-furred Creature, for you always put something in the soup, so that
it is much better and tastes nicer to the King than any that I cook.'
But because she begged hard, he let her go up for the usual time. Now
she put on the dress as shining as the stars, and stepped into the hall
in it.

The King danced again with the beautiful maiden, and thought she had
never looked so beautiful. And while he was dancing, he put a gold ring
on her finger without her seeing it, and he commanded that the dance
should last longer than usual. When it was finished he wanted to keep
her hands in his, but she broke from him, and sprang so quickly away
among the people that she vanished from his sight. She ran as fast as
she could to her little room under the stairs, but because she had
stayed too long beyond the half-hour, she could not stop to take off the
beautiful dress, but only threw the fur cloak over it, and in her haste
she did not make herself quite black with the soot, one finger remaining
white. The Many-furred Creature now ran into the kitchen, cooked the
King's bread-soup, and when the cook had gone, she laid the gold reel in
the dish. When the King found the reel at the bottom, he had the
Many-furred Creature brought to him, and then he saw the white finger,
and the ring which he had put on her hand in the dance. Then he took her
hand and held her tightly, and as she was trying to get away, she undid
the fur-cloak a little bit and the star-dress shone out. The King seized
the cloak and tore it off her. Her golden hair came down, and she stood
there in her full splendour, and could not hide herself away any more.
And when the soot and ashes had been washed from her face, she looked
more beautiful than anyone in the world. But the King said, 'You are my
dear bride, and we will never be separated from one another.' So the
wedding was celebrated and they lived happily ever after.

[Illustration]

  Grimm.




  _THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN_


Once upon a time there was a King's son who was engaged to a Princess
whom he dearly loved. One day as he sat by her side feeling very happy,
he received news that his father was lying at the point of death, and
desired to see him before his end. So he said to his love: 'Alas! I must
go off and leave you, but take this ring and wear it as a remembrance of
me, and when I am King I will return and fetch you home.'

Then he rode off, and when he reached his father he found him mortally
ill and very near death.

The King said: 'Dearest son, I have desired to see you again before my
end. Promise me, I beg of you, that you will marry according to my
wishes'; and he then named the daughter of a neighbouring King who he
was anxious should be his son's wife. The Prince was so overwhelmed with
grief that he could think of nothing but his father, and exclaimed:
'Yes, yes, dear father, whatever you desire shall be done.' Thereupon
the King closed his eyes and died.

After the Prince had been proclaimed King, and the usual time of
mourning had elapsed, he felt that he must keep the promise he had made
to his father, so he sent to ask for the hand of the King's daughter,
which was granted to him at once.

Now, his first love heard of this, and the thought of her lover's
desertion grieved her so sadly that she pined away and nearly died. Her
father said to her: 'My dearest child, why are you so unhappy? If there
is anything you wish for, say so, and you shall have it.'

His daughter reflected for a moment, and then said: 'Dear father, I wish
for eleven girls as nearly as possible of the same height, age, and
appearance as myself.'

Said the King: 'If the thing is possible your wish shall be fulfilled';
and he had his kingdom searched till he found eleven maidens of the same
height, size, and appearance as his daughter.

Then the Princess desired twelve complete huntsmen's suits to be made,
all exactly alike, and the eleven maidens had to dress themselves in
eleven of the suits, while she herself put on the twelfth. After this
she took leave of her father, and rode off with her girls to the court
of her former lover.

Here she enquired whether the King did not want some huntsmen, and if he
would not take them all into his service. The King saw her but did not
recognise her, and as he thought them very good-looking young people, he
said, 'Yes, he would gladly engage them all.' So they became the twelve
royal huntsmen.

Now, the King had a most remarkable Lion, for it knew every hidden or
secret thing.

One evening the Lion said to the King: 'So you think you have got twelve
huntsmen, do you?'

'Yes, certainly,' said the King, 'they _are_ twelve huntsmen.'

'There you are mistaken,' said the Lion; 'they are twelve maidens.'

'That cannot possibly be,' replied the King; 'how do you mean to prove
that?'

'Just have a number of peas strewed over the floor of your
ante-chamber,' said the Lion, 'and you will soon see. Men have a strong,
firm tread, so that if they happen to walk over peas not one will stir,
but girls trip, and slip, and slide, so that the peas roll all about.'

The King was pleased with the Lion's advice, and ordered the peas to be
strewn in his ante-room.

Fortunately one of the King's servants had become very partial to the
young huntsmen, and hearing of the trial they were to be put to, he went
to them and said: 'The Lion wants to persuade the King that you are only
girls'; and then told them all the plot.

The King's daughter thanked him for the hint, and after he was gone she
said to her maidens: 'Now make every effort to tread firmly on the
peas.'

Next morning, when the King sent for his twelve huntsmen, and they
passed through the ante-room which was plentifully strewn with peas,
they trod so firmly and walked with such a steady, strong step that not
a single pea rolled away or even so much as stirred. After they were
gone the King said to the Lion: 'There now--you have been telling
lies--you see yourself they walk like men.'

'Because they knew they were being put to the test,' answered the Lion;
'and so they made an effort; but just have a dozen spinning-wheels
placed in the ante-room. When they pass through you'll see how pleased
they will be, quite unlike any man.'

[Illustration]

The King was pleased with the advice, and desired twelve
spinning-wheels to be placed in his ante-chamber.

But the good-natured servant went to the huntsmen and told them all
about this fresh plot. Then, as soon as the King's daughter was alone
with her maidens, she exclaimed: 'Now, pray make a great effort and
don't even _look_ at those spinning-wheels.'

When the King sent for his twelve huntsmen next morning they walked
through the ante-room without even casting a glance at the
spinning-wheels.'

Then the King said once more to the Lion: 'You have deceived me again;
they _are_ men, for they never once looked at the spinning-wheels.'

The Lion replied: 'They knew they were being tried, and they did
violence to their feelings.' But the King declined to believe in the
Lion any longer.

So the twelve huntsmen continued to follow the King, and he grew daily
fonder of them. One day whilst they were all out hunting it so happened
that news was brought that the King's intended bride was on her way and
might soon be expected. When the true bride heard of this she felt as
though a knife had pierced her heart, and she fell fainting to the
ground. The King, fearing something had happened to his dear huntsman,
ran up to help, and began drawing off his gloves. Then he saw the ring
which he had given to his first love, and as he gazed into her face he
knew her again, and his heart was so touched that he kissed her, and as
she opened her eyes, he cried: 'I am thine and thou art mine, and no
power on earth can alter that.'

To the other Princess he despatched a messenger to beg her to return to
her own kingdom with all speed. 'For,' said he, 'I have got a wife, and
he who finds an old key again does not require a new one.'

Thereupon the wedding was celebrated with great pomp, and the Lion was
restored to the royal favour, for after all he had told the truth.

  Grimm.




  _SPINDLE, SHUTTLE, AND NEEDLE_


Once upon a time there lived a girl who lost her father and mother when
she was quite a tiny child. Her godmother lived all alone in a little
cottage at the far end of the village, and there she earned her living
by spinning, weaving, and sewing. The old woman took the little orphan
home with her and brought her up in good, pious, industrious habits.

When the girl was fifteen years old, her godmother fell ill, and,
calling the child to her bedside, she said: 'My dear daughter, I feel
that my end is near. I leave you my cottage, which will, at least,
shelter you, and also my spindle, my weaver's shuttle, and my needle,
with which to earn your bread.'

Then she laid her hands on the girl's head, blessed her, and added:
'Mind and be good, and then all will go well with you.' With that she
closed her eyes for the last time, and when she was carried to her grave
the girl walked behind her coffin weeping bitterly, and paid her all the
last honours.

After this the girl lived all alone in the little cottage. She worked
hard, spinning, weaving, and sewing, and her old godmother's blessing
seemed to prosper all she did. The flax seemed to spread and increase;
and when she wove a carpet or a piece of linen, or made a shirt, she was
sure to find a customer who paid her well, so that not only did she feel
no want herself, but she was able to help those who did.

Now, it happened that about this time the King's son was making a tour
through the entire country to look out for a bride. He could not marry a
poor woman, and he did not wish for a rich one.

'She shall be my wife,' said he, 'who is at once the poorest and the
richest.'

When he reached the village where the girl lived, he inquired who was
the richest and who the poorest woman in it. The richest was named
first; the poorest, he was told, was a young girl who lived alone in a
little cottage at the far end of the village.

The rich girl sat at her door dressed out in all her best clothes, and
when the King's son came near she got up, went to meet him, and made him
a low curtsey. He looked well at her, said nothing, but rode on
further.

When he reached the poor girl's house he did not find her at her door,
for she was at work in her room. The Prince reined in his horse, looked
in at the window through which the sun was shining brightly, and saw the
girl sitting at her wheel busily spinning away.

She looked up, and when she saw the King's son gazing in at her, she
blushed red all over, cast down her eyes and span on. Whether the thread
was quite as even as usual I really cannot say, but she went on spinning
till the King's son had ridden off. Then she stepped to the window and
opened the lattice, saying, 'The room is so hot,' but she looked after
him as long as she could see the white plumes in his hat.

Then she sat down to her work once more and span on, and as she did so
an old saying which, she had often heard her godmother repeat whilst at
work, came into her head, and she began to sing:

  'Spindle, spindle, go and see,
  If my love will come to me.'

Lo, and behold! the spindle leapt from her hand and rushed out of the
room, and when she had sufficiently recovered from her surprise to look
after it she saw it dancing merrily through the fields, dragging a long
golden thread after it, and soon it was lost to sight.

The girl, having lost her spindle, took up the shuttle and, seating
herself at her loom, began to weave. Meantime the spindle danced on and
on, and just as it had come to the end of the golden thread, it reached
the King's son.

'What do I see?' he cried; 'this spindle seems to wish to point out the
way to me.' So he turned his horse's head and rode back beside the
golden thread.

Meantime the girl sat weaving, and sang:

  'Shuttle, weave both web and woof,
  Bring my love beneath my roof.'

The shuttle instantly escaped from her hand, and with one bound was out
at the door. On the threshold it began weaving the loveliest carpet that
was ever seen. Roses and lilies bloomed on both sides, and in the centre
a thicket seemed to grow with rabbits and hares running through it,
stags and fawns peeping through the branches, whilst on the topmost
boughs sat birds of brilliant plumage and so life-like one almost
expected to hear them sing. The shuttle flew from side to side and the
carpet seemed almost to grow of itself.

[Illustration]

As the shuttle had run away the girl sat down to sew. She took her
needle and sang:

  'Needle, needle, stitch away,
  Make my chamber bright and gay,'

and the needle promptly slipped from her fingers and flew about the room
like lightning. You would have thought invisible spirits were at work,
for in next to no time the table and benches were covered with green
cloth, the chairs with velvet, and elegant silk curtains hung before the
windows. The needle had barely put in its last stitch when the girl,
glancing at the window, spied the white plumed hat of the King's son who
was being led back by the spindle with the golden thread.

He dismounted and walked over the carpet into the house, and when he
entered the room there stood the girl blushing like any rose. 'You are
the poorest and yet the richest,' said he: 'come with me, you shall be
my bride.'

She said nothing, but she held out her hand. Then he kissed her, and led
her out, lifted her on his horse and took her to his royal palace, where
the wedding was celebrated with great rejoicings.

The spindle, the shuttle, and the needle were carefully placed in the
treasury, and were always held in the very highest honour.

  Grimm.




  _THE CRYSTAL COFFIN_


Now let no one say that a poor tailor can't get on in the world, and,
indeed, even attain to very high honour. Nothing is required but to set
the right way to work, but of course the really important thing is to
succeed.

A very bright active young tailor once set off on his travels, which led
him into a wood, and as he did not know the way he soon lost himself.
Night came on, and there seemed to be nothing for it but to seek out the
best resting-place he could find. He could have made himself quite
comfortable with a bed of soft moss, but the fear of wild beasts
disturbed his mind, and at last he determined to spend the night in a
tree.

He sought out a tall oak tree, climbed up to the top, and felt devoutly
thankful that his big smoothing-iron was in his pocket, for the wind in
the tree-tops was so high that he might easily have been blown away
altogether.

After passing some hours of the night, not without considerable fear and
trembling, he noticed a light shining at a little distance, and hoping
it might proceed from some house where he could find a better shelter
than in the top of the tree, he cautiously descended and went towards
the light. It led him to a little hut all woven together of reeds and
rushes. He knocked bravely at the door, which opened, and by the light
which shone from within he saw an old grey-haired man dressed in a coat
made of bright-coloured patches. 'Who are you, and what do you want?'
asked the old man roughly.

'I am a poor tailor,' replied the youth. 'I have been benighted in the
forest, and I entreat you to let me take shelter in your hut till
morning.'

'Go your way,' said the old man in a sulky tone, 'I'll have nothing to
do with tramps. You must just go elsewhere.'

With these words he tried to slip back into his house, but the tailor
laid hold of his coat-tails, and begged so hard to be allowed to stay
that the old fellow, who was by no means as cross as he appeared, was at
length touched by his entreaties, let him come in, and after giving him
some food, showed him quite a nice bed in one corner of the room. The
weary tailor required no rocking to rest, but slept sound till early
morning, when he was roused from his slumbers by a tremendous noise.
Loud screams and shouts pierced the thin walls of the little hut. The
tailor, with new-born courage, sprang up, threw on his clothes with all
speed and hurried out. There he saw a huge black bull engaged in a
terrible fight with a fine large stag. They rushed at each other with
such fury that the ground seemed to tremble under them and the whole air
to be filled with their cries. For some time it appeared quite uncertain
which would be the victor, but at length the stag drove his antlers with
such force into his opponent's body that the bull fell to the ground
with a terrific roar, and a few more strokes finished him.

The tailor, who had been watching the fight with amazement, was still
standing motionless when the stag bounded up to him, and before he had
time to escape forked him up with its great antlers, and set off at full
gallop over hedges and ditches, hill and dale, through wood and water.
The tailor could do nothing but hold on tight with both hands to the
stag's horns and resign himself to his fate. He felt as if he were
flying along. At length the stag paused before a steep rock and gently
let the tailor down to the ground.

Feeling more dead than alive, he paused for a while to collect his
scattered senses, but when he seemed somewhat restored the stag struck
such a blow on a door in the rock that it flew open. Flames of fire
rushed forth, and such clouds of steam followed that the stag had to
avert its eyes. The tailor could not think what to do or which way to
turn to get away from this awful wilderness, and to find his way back
amongst human beings once more.

As he stood hesitating, a voice from the rock cried to him: 'Step in
without fear, no harm shall befall you.'

He still lingered, but some mysterious power seemed to impel him, and
passing through the door he found himself in a spacious hall, whose
ceiling, walls, and floor were covered with polished tiles carved all
over with unknown figures. He gazed about, full of wonder, and was just
preparing to walk out again when the same voice bade him: 'Tread on the
stone in the middle of the hall, and good luck will attend you.'

By this time he had grown so courageous that he did not hesitate to obey
the order, and hardly had he stepped on the stone than it began to sink
gently with him into the depths below. On reaching firm ground he found
himself in a hall of much the same size as the upper one, but with much
more in it to wonder at and admire. Round the walls were several niches,
in each of which stood glass vessels filled with some bright-coloured
spirit or bluish smoke. On the floor stood two large crystal boxes
opposite each other, and these attracted his curiosity at once.

[Illustration]

Stepping up to one of them, he saw within it what looked like a model in
miniature of a fine castle surrounded by farms, barns, stables, and a
number of other buildings. Everything was quite tiny, but so beautifully
and carefully finished that it might have been the work of an
accomplished artist. He would have continued gazing much longer at this
remarkable curiosity had not the voice desired him to turn round and
look at the crystal coffin which stood opposite.

What was his amazement at seeing a girl of surpassing loveliness lying
in it! She lay as though sleeping, and her long, fair hair seemed to
wrap her round like some costly mantle. Her eyes were closed, but the
bright colour in her face, and the movement of a ribbon, which rose and
fell with her breath, left no doubt as to her being alive.

As the tailor stood gazing at her with a beating heart, the maiden
suddenly opened her eyes, and started with delighted surprise.

'Great heavens!' she cried, 'my deliverance approaches! Quick, quick,
help me out of my prison; only push back the bolt of this coffin and I
am free.'

The tailor promptly obeyed, when she quickly pushed back the crystal
lid, stepped out of the coffin and hurried to a corner of the hall, when
she proceeded to wrap herself in a large cloak. Then she sat down on a
stone, desired the young man to come near, and, giving him an
affectionate kiss, she said, 'My long-hoped-for deliverer, kind heaven
has led you to me, and has at length put an end to all my sufferings.
You are my destined husband, and, beloved by me, and endowed with every
kind of riches and power, you shall spend the remainder of your life in
peace and happiness. Now sit down and hear my story. I am the daughter
of a wealthy nobleman. My parents died when I was very young, and they
left me to the care of my eldest brother, by whom I was carefully
educated. We loved each other so tenderly, and our tastes and interests
were so much alike that we determined never to marry, but to spend our
entire lives together. There was no lack of society at our home. Friends
and neighbours paid us frequent visits, and we kept open house for all.
Thus it happened that one evening a stranger rode up to the castle and
asked for hospitality, as he could not reach the nearest town that
night. We granted his request with ready courtesy, and during supper he
entertained us with most agreeable conversation, mingled with amusing
anecdotes. My brother took such a fancy to him that he pressed him to
spend a couple of days with us, which, after a little hesitation, the
stranger consented to do. We rose late from table, and whilst my brother
was showing our guest to his room I hurried to mine, for I was very
tired and longed to get to bed. I had hardly dropped off to sleep when I
was roused by the sound of some soft and charming music. Wondering
whence it could come, I was about to call to my maid who slept in the
room next mine, when, to my surprise, I felt as if some heavy weight on
my chest had taken all power from me, and I lay there unable to utter
the slightest sound. Meantime, by the light of the night lamp, I saw the
stranger enter my room, though the double doors had been securely
locked. He drew near and told me that through the power of his magic
arts he had caused the soft music to waken me, and had made his way
through bolts and bars to offer me his hand and heart. My repugnance to
his magic was so great that I would not condescend to give any answer.
He waited motionless for some time, hoping no doubt for a favourable
reply, but as I continued silent he angrily declared that he would find
means to punish my pride, and therewith he left the room in a rage.

'I spent the night in the greatest agitation, and only fell into a doze
towards morning. As soon as I awoke I jumped up, and hurried to tell my
brother all that had happened, but he had left his room, and his servant
told me that he had gone out at daybreak to hunt with the stranger.

'My mind misgave me. I dressed in all haste, had my palfrey saddled, and
rode of at full gallop towards the forest, attended by one servant only.
I pushed on without pausing, and ere long I saw the stranger coming
towards me, and leading a fine stag. I asked him where he had left my
brother, and how he had got the stag, whose great eyes were overflowing
with tears. Instead of answering he began to laugh, and I flew into such
a rage that I drew a pistol and fired at him; but the bullet rebounded
from his breast and struck my horse in the forehead. I fell to the
ground, and the stranger muttered some words, which robbed me of my
senses.

'When I came to myself I was lying in a crystal coffin in this
subterranean vault. The Magician appeared again, and told me that he had
transformed my brother into a stag, had reduced our castle and all its
defences to miniature and locked them up in a glass box, and after
turning all our household into different vapours had banished them into
glass phials. If I would only yield to his wishes he could easily open
these vessels, and all would then resume their former shapes.

'I would not say a word more than I had done previously, and he
vanished, leaving me in my prison, where a deep sleep soon fell on me.
Amongst the many dreams which floated through my brain was a cheering
one of a young man who was to come and release me, and to-day, when I
opened my eyes, I recognised you and saw that my dream was fulfilled.
Now help me to carry out the rest of my vision. The first thing is to
place the glass box which contains my castle on this large stone.'

[Illustration]

As soon as this was done the stone gently rose through the air and
transported them into the upper hall, whence they easily carried the box
into the outer air. The lady then removed the lid, and it was marvellous
to watch the castle, houses, and farmyards begin to grow and spread
themselves till they had regained their proper size. Then the young
couple returned by means of the movable stone, and brought up all the
glass vessels filled with smoke. No sooner were they uncorked than the
blue vapours poured out and became transformed to living people, in whom
the lady joyfully recognised her many servants and attendants.

Her delight was complete when her brother (who had killed the Magician
under the form of a bull) was seen coming from the forest in his proper
shape, and that very day, according to her promise, she gave her hand in
marriage to the happy young tailor.

  Grimm.




  _THE THREE SNAKE-LEAVES_


There was once a poor man who could no longer afford to keep his only
son at home. So the son said to him, 'Dear father, you are so poor that
I am only a burden to you; I would rather go out into the world and see
if I can earn my own living.' The father gave him his blessing and took
leave of him with much sorrow. About this time the King of a very
powerful kingdom was carrying on a war; the youth therefore took service
under him and went on the campaign. When they came before the enemy, a
battle took place, there was some hot fighting, and it rained bullets so
thickly that his comrades fell around him on all sides. And when their
leader fell too the rest wished to take to flight; but the youth stepped
forward and encouraged them and called out, 'We must not let our country
be ruined!' Then others followed him, and he pressed on and defeated the
enemy. When the King heard that he had to thank him alone for the
victory, he raised him higher than anyone else in rank, gave him great
treasures and made him the first in the kingdom.

The King had a daughter who was very beautiful, but she was also very
capricious. She had made a vow to marry no one who would not promise her
that if she died first, he would allow himself to be buried alive with
her. 'If he loves me truly,' she used to say, 'what use would life be to
him then?' At the same time she was willing to do the same, and if he
died first to be buried with him. This curious vow had up to this time
frightened away all suitors, but the young man was so captivated by her
beauty, that he hesitated at nothing and asked her hand of her father.
'Do you know,' asked the King, 'what you have to promise?' 'I shall have
to go into her grave with her,' he answered, 'if I outlive her, but my
love is so great that I do not think of the risk.' So the King
consented, and the wedding was celebrated with great splendour.

Now, they lived for a long time very happily with one another, but then
it came to pass that the young Queen fell seriously ill, and no doctor
could save her. And when she lay dead, the young King remembered what he
had promised, and it made him shudder to think of lying in her grave
alive, but there was no escape. The King had set guards before all the
gates, and it was not possible to avoid his fate.

When the day arrived on which the corpse was to be laid in the royal
vault, he was led thither, then the entrance was bolted and closed up.

Near the coffin stood a table on which were placed four candles, four
loaves of bread, and four bottles of wine. As soon as this provision
came to an end he would have to die. So he sat there full of grief and
misery, eating every day only a tiny bit of bread, and drinking only a
mouthful of wine, and he watched death creeping nearer and nearer to
him. One day as he was sitting staring moodily in front of him, he saw a
snake creep out of the corner towards the corpse. Thinking it was going
to touch it, he drew his sword and saying, 'As long as I am alive you
shall not harm her,' he cut it in three pieces. After a little time a
second snake crept out of the corner, but when it saw the first one
lying dead and in pieces it went back and came again soon, holding three
green leaves in its mouth. Then it took the three bits of the snake and
laid them in order, and put one of the leaves on each wound. Immediately
the pieces joined together, the snake moved itself and became alive and
then both hurried away. The leaves remained lying on the ground, and it
suddenly occurred to the unfortunate man who had seen everything, that
the wonderful power of the leaves might also be exercised upon a human
being.

So he picked up the leaves and laid one of them on the mouth and the
other two on the eyes of the dead woman. And scarcely had he done this,
before the blood began to circulate in her veins, then it mounted and
brought colour back to her white face. Then she drew her breath, opened
her eyes, and said, 'Ah! where am I?' 'You are with me, dear lady,' he
answered, and told her all that had happened, and how he had brought her
to life again. He then gave her some wine and bread, and when all her
strength had returned she got up, and they went to the door and knocked
and called so loudly that the guards heard them, and told the King. The
King came himself to open the door, and there he found both happy and
well, and he rejoiced with them that now all trouble was over. But the
young King gave the three snake-leaves to a servant, saying to him,
'Keep them carefully for me, and always carry them with you; who knows
but that they may help us in a time of need!'

[Illustration]

It seemed, however, as if a change had come over the young Queen after
she had been restored to life, and as if all her love for her husband
had faded from her heart. Some time afterwards, when he wanted to take a
journey over the sea to his old father, and they were on board the ship,
she forgot the great love and faithfulness he had shown her and how he
had saved her from death, and fell in love with the captain. And one day
when the young King was lying asleep, she called the captain to her, and
seized the head of the sleeping King and made him take his feet, and
together they threw him into the sea. When they had done this wicked
deed, she said to him, 'Now let us go home and say that he died on the
journey. I will praise you so much to my father that he will marry me to
you and make you the heir to the throne.' But the faithful servant, who
had seen everything, let down a little boat into the sea, unobserved by
them, and rowed after his master while the traitors sailed on. He took
the drowned man out of the water, and with the help of the three
snake-leaves which he carried with him, placing them on his mouth and
eyes, he brought him to life again.

They both rowed as hard as they could night and day, and their little
boat went so quickly that they reached the old King before the other two
did. He was much astonished to see them come back alone, and asked what
had happened to them. When he heard the wickedness of his daughter, he
said, 'I cannot believe that she has acted so wrongly, but the truth
will soon come to light.' He made them both go into a secret chamber,
and let no one see them.

Soon after this the large ship came in, and the wicked lady appeared
before her father with a very sad face. He said to her, 'Why have you
come back alone? Where is your husband?'

'Ah, dear father,' she replied, 'I have come home in great grief; my
husband fell ill on the voyage quite suddenly, and died, and if the good
captain had not given me help, I should have died too. He was at his
death-bed and can tell you everything.'

The King said, 'I will bring the dead to life again,' and he opened the
door of the room and called them both out. The lady was as if
thunderstruck when she caught sight of her husband; she fell on her
knees and begged for mercy. But the King said, 'You shall have no mercy.
He was ready to die with you, and restored you to life again; but you
killed him when he was sleeping, and shall receive your deserts.'

So she and her accomplice were put in a ship which was bored through
with holes, and were drawn out into the sea, where they soon perished in
the waves.

  Grimm.




  _THE RIDDLE_


A King's son once had a great desire to travel through the world, so he
started off, taking no one with him but one trusty servant. One day he
came to a great forest, and as evening drew on he could find no shelter,
and could not think where to spend the night. All of a sudden he saw a
girl going towards a little house, and as he drew nearer he remarked
that she was both young and pretty. He spoke to her, and said, 'Dear
child, could I and my servant spend the night in this house?'

'Oh yes,' said the girl in a sad tone, 'you can if you like, but I
should not advise you to do so. Better not go in.'

'Why not?' asked the King's son.

The girl sighed and answered, 'My stepmother deals in black arts, and
she is not very friendly to strangers.'

The Prince guessed easily that he had fallen on a witch's house, but as
by this time it was quite dark and he could go no further, and as
moreover he was not at all afraid, he stepped in.

An old woman sat in an arm-chair near the fire, and as the strangers
entered she turned her red eyes on them. 'Good evening,' she muttered,
and pretending to be quite friendly. 'Won't you sit down?'

She blew up the fire on which she was cooking something in a little pot,
and her daughter secretly warned the travellers to be very careful not
to eat or drink anything, as the old woman's brews were apt to be
dangerous.

They went to bed, and slept soundly till morning. When they were ready
to start and the King's son had already mounted his horse the old woman
said: 'Wait a minute, I must give you a stirrup cup.' Whilst she went to
fetch it the King's son rode off, and the servant who had waited to
tighten his saddle-girths was alone when the witch returned.

'Take that to your master,' she said; but as she spoke the glass cracked
and the poison spurted over the horse, and it was so powerful that the
poor creature sank down dead. The servant ran after his master and told
him what had happened, and then, not wishing to lose the saddle as well
as the horse, he went back to fetch it. When he got to the spot he saw
that a raven had perched on the carcase and was pecking at it. 'Who
knows whether we shall get anything better to eat to-day!' said the
servant, and he shot the raven and carried it off.

[Illustration]

Then they rode on all day through the forest without coming to the end.
At night-fall they reached an inn, which they entered, and the servant
gave the landlord the raven to dress for their supper. Now, as it
happened, this inn was a regular resort of a band of murderers, and the
old witch too was in the habit of frequenting it.

As soon as it was dark twelve murderers arrived, with the full intention
of killing and robbing the strangers. Before they set to work, however,
they sat down to table, and the landlord and the old witch joined them,
and they all ate some broth in which the flesh of the raven had been
stewed down. They had hardly taken a couple of spoonfuls when they all
fell down dead, for the poison had passed from the horse to the raven
and so into the broth. So there was no one left belonging to the house
but the landlord's daughter, who was a good, well-meaning girl, and had
taken no part in all the evil doings.

She opened all the doors, and showed the strangers the treasures the
robbers had gathered together; but the Prince bade her keep them all for
herself, as he wanted none of them, and so he rode further with his
servant.

After travelling about for some length of time they reached a town where
lived a lovely but most arrogant Princess. She had given out that anyone
who asked her a riddle which she found herself unable to guess should be
her husband, but should she guess it he must forfeit his head. She
claimed three days in which to think over the riddles, but she was so
very clever that she invariably guessed them in a much shorter time.
Nine suitors had already lost their lives when the King's son arrived,
and, dazzled by her beauty, determined to risk his life in hopes of
winning her.

So he came before her and propounded his riddle. 'What is this?' he
asked. 'One slew none and yet killed twelve.'

She could not think what it was! She thought, and thought, and looked
through all her books of riddles and puzzles, but she found nothing to
help her, and could not guess; in fact, she was at her wits' end. As she
could think of no way to guess the riddle, she ordered her maid to steal
at night into the Prince's bedroom and to listen, for she thought that
he might perhaps talk aloud in his dreams and so betray the secret. But
the clever servant had taken his master's place, and when the maid came
he tore off the cloak she had wrapped herself in and hunted her off with
a whip.

On the second night the Princess sent her lady-in-waiting, hoping that
she might succeed better, but the servant took away her mantle and
chased her away also.

On the third night the King's son thought he really might feel safe, so
he went to bed. But in the middle of the night the Princess came
herself, all huddled up in a misty grey mantle, and sat down near him.
When she thought he was fast asleep, she spoke to him, hoping he would
answer in the midst of his dreams, as many people do; but he was wide
awake all the time, and heard and understood everything very well.

Then she asked: 'One slew none--what is that?' and he answered: 'A raven
which fed on the carcase of a poisoned horse.'

She went on: 'And yet killed twelve--what is that?' 'Those are twelve
murderers who ate the raven and died of it.'

As soon as she knew the riddle she tried to slip away, but he held her
mantle so tightly that she was obliged to leave it behind.

Next morning the Princess announced that she had guessed the riddle, and
sent for the twelve judges, before whom she declared it. But the young
man begged to be heard, too, and said: 'She came by night to question
me, otherwise she never could have guessed it.'

The judges said: 'Bring us some proof.' So the servant brought out the
three cloaks, and when the judges saw the grey one, which the Princess
was in the habit of wearing, they said: 'Let it be embroidered with gold
and silver; it shall be your wedding mantle.'

  Grimm.




  _JACK MY HEDGEHOG_


There was once a farmer who lived in great comfort. He had both lands
and money, but, though he was so well off, one thing was wanting to
complete his happiness; he had no children. Many and many a time, when
he met other farmers at the nearest market town, they would teaze him,
asking how it came about that he was childless. At length he grew so
angry that he exclaimed: 'I must and will have a child of some sort or
kind, even should it only be a hedgehog!'

Not long after this his wife gave birth to a child, but though the lower
half of the little creature was a fine boy, from the waist upwards it
was a hedgehog, so that when his mother first saw him she was quite
frightened, and said to her husband, 'There now, you have cursed the
child yourself.' The farmer said, 'What's the use of making a fuss? I
suppose the creature must be christened, but I don't see how we are to
ask anyone to be sponsor to him, and what are we to call him?'

'There is nothing we can possibly call him but Jack my Hedgehog,'
replied the wife.

So they took him to be christened, and the parson said: You'll never be
able to put that child in a decent bed on account of his prickles.'
Which was true, but they shook down some straw for him behind the stove,
and there he lay for eight years. His father grew very tired of him and
often wished him dead, but he did not die, but lay on there year after
year.

Now one day there was a big fair at the market town to which the farmer
meant to go, so he asked his wife what he should bring her from it.
'Some meat and a couple of big loaves for the house,' said she. Then he
asked the maid what she wanted, and she said a pair of slippers and some
stockings. Lastly he said, 'Well, Jack my Hedgehog, and what shall I
bring you?'

'Daddy,' said he, 'do bring me a bagpipe.' When the farmer came home he
gave his wife and the maid the things they had asked for, and then he
went behind the stove and gave Jack my Hedgehog the bagpipes.

When Jack had got his bagpipes he said, 'Daddy, do go to the smithy and
have the house cock shod for me; then I'll ride off and trouble you no
more.' His father, who was delighted at the prospect of getting rid of
him, had the cock shod, and when it was ready Jack my Hedgehog mounted
on its back and rode off to the forest, followed by all the pigs and
asses which he had promised to look after.

[Illustration]

Having reached the forest he made the cock fly up to the top of a very
tall tree with him, and there he sat looking after his pigs and donkeys,
and he sat on and on for several years till he had quite a big herd; but
all this time his father knew nothing about him.

As he sat up in his tree he played away on his pipes and drew the
loveliest music from them. As he was playing one day a King, who had
lost his way, happened to pass close by, and hearing the music he was
much surprised, and sent one of his servants to find out where it came
from. The man peered about, but he could see nothing but a little
creature which looked like a cock with a hedgehog sitting on it, perched
up in a tree. The King desired the servant to ask the strange creature
why it sat there, and if it knew the shortest way to his kingdom.

On this Jack my Hedgehog stepped down from his tree and said he would
undertake to show the King his way home if the King on his part would
give him his written promise to let him have whatever first met him on
his return.

The King thought to himself, 'That's easy enough to promise. The
creature won't understand a word about it, so I can just write what I
choose.'

[Illustration]

So he took pen and ink and wrote something, and when he had done Jack my
Hedgehog pointed out the way and the King got safely home.

Now when the King's daughter saw her father returning in the distance
she was so delighted that she ran to meet him and threw herself into his
arms. Then the King remembered Jack my Hedgehog, and he told his
daughter how he had been obliged to give a written promise to bestow
whatever he first met when he got home on an extraordinary creature
which had shown him the way. The creature, said he, rode on a cock as
though it had been a horse, and it made lovely music, but as it
certainly could not read he had just written that he would _not_ give it
anything at all. At this the Princess was quite pleased, and said how
cleverly her father had managed, for that of course nothing would induce
her to have gone off with Jack my Hedgehog.

Meantime Jack minded his asses and pigs, sat aloft in his tree, played
his bagpipes, and was always merry and cheery. After a time it so
happened that another King, having lost his way, passed by with his
servants and escort, wondering how he could find his way home, for the
forest was very vast. He too heard the music, and told one of his men to
find out whence it came. The man came under the tree, and looking up to
the top there he saw Jack my Hedgehog astride on the cock.

The servant asked Jack what he was doing up there. 'I'm minding my pigs
and donkeys; but what do you want?' was the reply. Then the servant told
him they had lost their way, and wanted some one to show it them. Down
came Jack my Hedgehog with his cock, and told the old King he would show
him the right way if he would solemnly promise to give him the first
thing he met in front of his royal castle.

The King said 'Yes,' and gave Jack a written promise to that effect.

Then Jack rode on in front pointing out the way, and the King reached
his own country in safety.

Now he had an only daughter who was extremely beautiful, and who,
delighted at her father's return, ran to meet him, threw her arms round
his neck and kissed him heartily. Then she asked where he had been
wandering so long, and he told her how he had lost his way and might
never have reached home at all but for a strange creature, half-man,
half-hedgehog, which rode a cock and sat up in a tree making lovely
music, and which had shown him the right way. He also told her how he
had been obliged to pledge his word to give the creature the first thing
which met him outside his castle gate, and he felt very sad at the
thought that she had been the first thing to meet him.

But the Princess comforted him, and said she should be quite willing to
go with Jack my Hedgehog whenever he came to fetch her, because of the
great love she bore to her dear old father.

Jack my Hedgehog continued to herd his pigs, and they increased in
number till there were so many that the forest seemed full of them. So
he made up his mind to live there no longer, and sent a message to his
father telling him to have all the stables and outhouses in the village
cleared, as he was going to bring such an enormous herd that all who
would might kill what they chose. His father was much vexed at this
news, for he thought Jack had died long ago. Jack my Hedgehog mounted
his cock, and driving his pigs before him into the village, he let every
one kill as many as they chose, and such a hacking and hewing of pork
went on as you might have heard for miles off.

Then said Jack, 'Daddy, let the blacksmith shoe my cock once more; then
I'll ride off, and I promise you I'll never come back again as long as I
live.' So the father had the cock shod, and rejoiced at the idea of
getting rid of his son.

Then Jack my Hedgehog set off for the first kingdom, and there the King
had given strict orders that if anyone should be seen riding a cock and
carrying a bagpipe he was to be chased away and shot at, and on no
account to be allowed to enter the palace. So when Jack my Hedgehog rode
up the guards charged him with their bayonets, but he put spurs to his
cock, flew up over the gate right to the King's windows, let himself
down on the sill, and called out that if he was not given what had been
promised him, both the King and his daughter should pay for it with
their lives. Then the King coaxed and entreated his daughter to go with
Jack and so save both their lives.

The Princess dressed herself all in white, and her father gave her a
coach with six horses and servants in gorgeous liveries and quantities
of money. She stepped into the coach, and Jack my Hedgehog with his cock
and pipes took his place beside her. They both took leave, and the King
fully expected never to set eyes on them again. But matters turned out
very differently from what he had expected, for when they had got a
certain distance from the town Jack tore all the Princess's smart
clothes off her, and pricked her all over with his bristles, saying:
'That's what you get for treachery. Now go back, I'll have no more to
say to you.' And with that he hunted her home, and she felt she had been
disgraced and put to shame till her life's end.

Then Jack my Hedgehog rode on with his cock and bagpipes to the country
of the second King to whom he had shown the way. Now this King had given
orders that, in the event of Jack's coming the guards were to present
arms, the people to cheer, and he was to be conducted in triumph to the
royal palace.

When the King's daughter saw Jack my Hedgehog, she was a good deal
startled, for he certainly was very peculiar looking; but after all she
considered that she had given her word and it couldn't be helped. So she
made Jack welcome and they were betrothed to each other, and at dinner
he sat next her at the royal table, and they ate and drank together.

[Illustration]

When they retired to rest the Princess feared lest Jack should kiss her
because of his prickles, but he told her not to be alarmed as no harm
should befall her. Then he begged the old King to place a watch of four
men just outside his bedroom door, and to desire them to make a big
fire. When he was about to lie down in bed he would creep out of his
hedgehog skin, and leave it lying at the bedside; then the men must rush
in, throw the skin into the fire, and stand by till it was entirely
burnt up.

And so it was, for when it struck eleven, Jack my Hedgehog went to his
room, took off his skin and left it at the foot of the bed. The men
rushed in, quickly seized the skin and threw it on the fire, and
directly it was all burnt Jack was released from his enchantment and lay
in his bed a man from head to foot, but quite black as though he had
been severely scorched.

The King sent off for his physician in ordinary, who washed Jack all
over with various essences and salves, so that he became white and was a
remarkably handsome young man. When the King's daughter saw him she was
greatly pleased, and next day the marriage ceremony was performed, and
the old King bestowed his kingdom on Jack my Hedgehog.

After some years Jack and his wife went to visit his father, but the
farmer did not recognise him, and declared he had no son; he had had
one, but that one was born with bristles like a hedgehog, and had gone
off into the wide world. Then Jack told his story, and his old father
rejoiced and returned to live with him in his kingdom.

  Grimm.




  _THE GOLDEN LADS_


A poor man and his wife lived in a little cottage, where they supported
themselves by catching fish in the nearest river, and got on as best
they could, living from hand to mouth. One day it happened that when the
fisherman drew in his net he found in it a remarkable fish, for it was
entirely of gold. As he was inspecting it with some surprise, the fish
opened its mouth and said: 'Listen to me, fisher; if you will just throw
me back into the water I'll turn your poor little cottage into a
splendid castle.'

The fisher replied: 'What good, pray, will a castle be to me if I have
nothing to eat in it?'

'Oh,' said the gold fish, 'I'll take care of that. There will be a
cupboard in the castle, in which you will find dishes of every kind of
food you can wish for most.'

'If that's the case,' said the man, 'I've no objection to oblige you.'

'Yes,' observed the fish, 'but there is one condition attached to my
offer, and that is that you are not to reveal to a soul where your good
fortune comes from. If you say a word about it, it will all vanish.'

The man threw the fish back into the water, and went home. But on the
spot where his cottage used to stand he found a spacious castle. He
opened his eyes wide, went in and found his wife dressed out in smart
clothes, sitting in a splendidly furnished drawing-room. She was in high
spirits, and cried out: 'Oh husband! how can this all have happened? I
am so pleased!'

'Yes,' said her husband, 'so am I pleased; but I'm uncommonly hungry,
and I want something to eat at once.'

Said his wife, 'I've got nothing, and I don't know where anything is in
this new house.'

'Never mind,' replied the man. 'I see a big cupboard there. Suppose you
unlock it.'

When the cupboard was opened they found meat, cakes, fruit, and wine,
all spread out in the most tempting fashions. The wife clapped her hands
with joy, and cried: 'Dear heart! what more can one wish for?' and they
sat down and ate and drank.

When they had finished the wife asked, 'But husband, where do all these
riches come from?'

[Illustration]

'Ah!' said he, 'don't ask me. I dare not tell you. If I reveal the
secret to anyone, it will be all up with us.'

'Very well,' she replied, 'if I'm not to be told, of course I don't want
to know anything about it.'

But she was not really in earnest, for her curiosity never left her a
moment's peace by day or night, and she teazed and worried her husband
to such a pitch, that at length he quite lost patience and blurted out
that it all came from a wonderful golden fish which he had caught and
set free again. Hardly were the words well out of his mouth, when
castle, cupboard, and all vanished, and there they were sitting in their
poor little fishing hut once more.

The man had to betake himself to his former trade, and set to fishing
again. As luck would have it, he caught the golden fish a second time.

'Now listen,' said the fish, 'if you'll throw me back into the water,
I'll give you back the castle and the cupboard with all its good things;
but now take care, and don't for your life betray where you got them, or
you'll just lose them again.'

'I'll be very careful,' promised the fisher, and threw the fish back
into the water. When he went home he found all their former splendour
restored, and his wife overjoyed at their good fortune. But her
curiosity still continued to torment her, and after restraining it with
a great effort for a couple of days, she began questioning her husband
again, as to what had happened, and how he had managed.

The man kept silence for some time, but at last she irritated him so
much that he burst out with the secret, and in one moment the castle was
gone, and they sat once more in their wretched old hut.

'There!' exclaimed the man, 'you _would_ have it--now we may just go on
short commons.'

'Ah!' said his wife, 'after all I'd rather not have all the riches in
the world if I can't know where they come from--I shall not have a
moment's peace.'

The man took to his fishing again, and one day fate brought the gold
fish into his net for the third time. 'Well,' said the fish, 'I see that
I am evidently destined to fall into your hands. Now take me home, and
cut me into six pieces. Give two bits to your wife to eat, two to your
horse, and plant the remaining two in your garden, and they will bring
you a blessing.'

The man carried the fish home, and did exactly as he had been told.
After a time, it came to pass that from the two pieces he had planted in
the garden two golden lilies grew up, and that his horse had two golden
foals, whilst his wife gave birth to twin boys who were all golden.

The children grew up both tall and handsome, and the foals and the
lilies grew with them.

One day the children came to their father and said, 'Father, we want to
mount on golden steeds, and ride forth to see the world.'

Their father answered sadly, 'How can I bear it if, when you are far
away, I know nothing about you?' and they said, 'The golden lilies will
tell you all about us if you look at them. If they seem to droop, you
will know we are ill, and if they fall down and fade away, it will be a
sign we are dead.'

So off they rode, and came to an inn where were a number of people who,
as soon as they saw the two golden lads, began to laugh and jeer at
them. When one of them heard this, his heart failed him, and he thought
he would go no further into the world, so he turned back and rode home
to his father, but his brother rode on till he reached the outskirts of
a huge forest. Here he was told, 'It will never do for you to ride
through the forest, it is full of robbers, and you're sure to come to
grief, especially when they see that you and your horse are golden. They
will certainly fall on you and kill you.' However, he was not to be
intimidated, but said, 'I must and will ride on.'

So he procured some bears' skins, and covered himself and his horse with
them, so that not a particle of gold could be seen, and then rode
bravely on into the heart of the forest.

When he had got some way he heard a rustling through the bushes and
presently a sound of voices. Someone whispered on one side of him:
'There goes someone,' and was answered from the other side: 'Oh, let him
pass. He's only a bear-keeper, and as poor as any church mouse.' So
golden lad rode through the forest and no harm befell him.

One day he came to a village, where he saw a girl who struck him as
being the loveliest creature in the whole world, and as he felt a great
love for her, he went up to her and said: 'I love you with all my heart;
will you be my wife?' And the girl liked him so much that she put her
hand in his and replied: 'Yes, I will be your wife, and will be true to
you as long as I live.'

So they were married, and in the middle of all the festivities and
rejoicings the bride's father came home and was not a little surprised
at finding his daughter celebrating her wedding. He enquired: 'And who
is the bridegroom?'

Then someone pointed out to him the golden lad, who was still wrapped up
in the bear's skin, and the father exclaimed angrily: 'Never shall a
mere bear-keeper have my daughter,' and tried to rush at him and kill
him. But the bride did all she could to pacify him, and begged hard,
saying: 'After all he is my husband, and I love him with all my heart,'
so that at length he gave in.

[Illustration]

However, he could not dismiss the thought from his mind, and next
morning he rose very early, for he felt he must go and look at his
daughter's husband and see whether he really was nothing better than a
mere ragged beggar. So he went to his son-in-law's room, and who should
he see lying in the bed but a splendid golden man, and the rough
bearskin thrown on the ground close by. Then he slipped quietly away,
and thought to himself, 'How lucky that I managed to control my rage! I
should certainly have committed a great crime.'

Meantime the golden lad dreamt that he was out hunting and was giving
chase to a noble stag, and when he woke he said to his bride: 'I must go
off and hunt.' She felt very anxious, and begged he would stay at home,
adding: 'Some mishap might so easily befall you,' but he answered, 'I
must and will go.'

So he went off into the forest, and before long a fine stag, such as he
had seen in his dream, stopped just in front of him. He took aim, and
was about to fire when the stag bounded away. Then he started off in
pursuit, making his way through bushes and briars, and never stopped all
day; but in the evening the stag entirely disappeared, and when golden
lad came to look about him he found himself just opposite a hut in which
lived a witch. He knocked at the door, which was opened by a little old
woman who asked, 'What do you want at this late hour in the midst of
this great forest?'

He said, 'Haven't you seen a stag about here?'

'Yes,' said she, 'I know the stag well,' and as she spoke a little dog
ran out of the house and began barking and snapping at the stranger.

'Be quiet, you little toad,' he cried, 'or I'll shoot you dead.'

Then the witch flew into a great rage, and screamed out, 'What! you'll
kill my dog, will you?' and the next moment he was turned to stone and
lay there immovable, whilst his bride waited for him in vain and thought
to herself, 'Alas! no doubt the evil I feared, and which has made my
heart so heavy, has befallen him.'

Meantime, the other brother was standing near the golden lilies at home,
when suddenly one of them bent over and fell to the ground. 'Good
heavens!' cried he, 'some great misfortune has befallen my brother. I
must set off at once; perhaps I may still be in time to save him.'

His father entreated him, 'Stay at home. If I should lose you too, what
would become of me?'

But his son replied, 'I must and will go.'

Then he mounted his golden horse, and rode off till he reached the
forest where his brother lay transformed to stone. The old witch came
out of her house and called to him, for she would gladly have cast her
spells on him too, but he took care not to go near her, and called out:
'Restore my brother to life at once, or I'll shoot you down on the
spot.'

Reluctantly she touched the stone with her finger, and in a moment it
resumed its human shape. The two golden lads fell into each other's arms
and kissed each other with joy, and then rode off together to the edge
of the forest, where they parted, one to return to his old father, and
the other to his bride.

When the former got home his father said, 'I knew you had delivered your
brother, for all of a sudden the golden lily reared itself up and burst
into blossom.'

Then they all lived happily to their lives' ends, and all things went
well with them.

Grimm.




  _THE WHITE SNAKE_


Not very long ago there lived a King, the fame of whose wisdom was
spread far and wide. Nothing appeared to be unknown to him, and it
really seemed as if tidings of the most secret matters must be borne to
him by the winds. He had one very peculiar habit. Every day, after the
dinner table had been cleared, and everyone had retired, a confidential
servant brought in a dish. It was covered, and neither the servant nor
anyone else had any idea what was on it, for the King never removed the
cover or partook of the dish, till he was quite alone.

This went on for some time till, one day, the servant who removed the
dish was so overcome with curiosity, that he could not resist carrying
it off to his own room. After carefully locking the door, he lifted the
cover, and there he saw a white snake lying on the dish. On seeing it he
could not restrain his desire to taste it, so he cut off a small piece
and put it in his mouth.

Hardly had it touched his tongue than he heard a strange sort of
whispering of tiny voices outside his window. He stepped to the casement
to listen, and found that the sound proceeded from the sparrows, who
were talking together and telling each other all they had seen in the
fields and woods. The piece of the white snake which he had eaten had
enabled him to understand the language of animals.

Now on this particular day, it so happened that the Queen lost her
favourite ring, and suspicion fell on the confidential servant who had
access to all parts of the palace. The King sent for him, and threatened
him angrily, saying that if he had not found the thief by the next day,
he should himself be taken up and tried.

It was useless to assert his innocence; he was dismissed without
ceremony. In his agitation and distress, he went down to the yard to
think over what he could do in this trouble. Here were a number of ducks
resting near a little stream, and pluming themselves with their bills,
whilst they kept up an animated conversation amongst themselves. The
servant stood still listening to them. They were talking of where they
had been waddling about all the morning, and of the good food they had
found, but one of them remarked rather sadly, 'There's something lying
very heavy on my stomach, for in my haste I've swallowed a ring, which
was lying just under the Queen's window.'

[Illustration]

No sooner did the servant hear this than he seized the duck by the neck,
carried it off to the kitchen, and said to the cook, 'Suppose you kill
this duck; you see she's nice and fat.'

'Yes, indeed,' said the cook, weighing the duck in his hand, 'she
certainly has spared no pains to stuff herself well, and must have been
waiting for the spit for some time.' So he chopped off her head, and
when she was opened there was the Queen's ring in her stomach.

It was easy enough now for the servant to prove his innocence, and the
King, feeling he had done him an injustice, and anxious to make some
amends, desired him to ask any favour he chose, and promised to give him
the highest post at Court he could wish for.

The servant, however, declined everything, and only begged for a horse
and some money to enable him to travel, as he was anxious to see
something of the world.

When his request was granted, he set off on his journey, and in the
course of it he one day came to a large pond, on the edge of which he
noticed three fishes which had got entangled in the reeds and were
gasping for water. Though fish are generally supposed to be quite mute,
he heard them grieving aloud at the prospect of dying in this wretched
manner. Having a very kind heart he dismounted and soon set the
prisoners free, and in the water once more. They flapped with joy, and
stretching up their heads cried to him: 'We will remember, and reward
you for saving us.'

He rode further, and after a while he thought he heard a voice in the
sand under his feet. He paused to listen, and heard the King of the Ants
complaining: 'If only men with their awkward beasts would keep clear of
us! That stupid horse is crushing my people mercilessly to death with
his great hoofs.' The servant at once turned into a side path, and the
Ant-King called after him, 'We'll remember and reward you.'

The road next led through a wood, where he saw a father and a mother
raven standing by their nest and throwing out their young: 'Away with
you, you young rascals!' they cried, 'we can't feed you any longer. You
are quite big enough to support yourselves now.' The poor little birds
lay on the ground flapping and beating their wings, and shrieked, 'We
poor helpless children, feed ourselves indeed! Why, we can't even fly
yet; what can we do but die of hunger?' Then the kind youth dismounted,
drew his sword, and killing his horse left it there as food for the
young ravens. They hopped up, satisfied their hunger, and piped: 'We'll
remember, and reward you!'

He was now obliged to trust to his own legs, and after walking a long
way he reached a big town. Here he found a great crowd and much
commotion in the streets, and a herald rode about announcing, 'The
King's daughter seeks a husband, but whoever would woo her must first
execute a difficult task, and if he does not succeed he must be content
to forfeit his life.' Many had risked their lives, but in vain. When the
youth saw the King's daughter, he was so dazzled by her beauty, that he
forgot all idea of danger, and went to the King to announce himself a
suitor.

On this he was led out to a large lake, and a gold ring was thrown into
it before his eyes. The King desired him to dive after it, adding, 'If
you return without it you will be thrown back into the lake time after
time, till you are drowned in its depths.'

Everyone felt sorry for the handsome young fellow, and left him alone on
the shore. There he stood thinking and wondering what he could do, when
all of a sudden he saw three fishes swimming along, and recognised them
as the very same whose lives he had saved. The middle fish held a mussel
in its mouth, which it laid at the young man's feet, and when he picked
it up and opened it, there was the golden ring inside.

Full of delight he brought it to the King's daughter, expecting to
receive his promised reward. The haughty Princess, however, on hearing
that he was not her equal by birth despised him, and exacted the
fulfilment of a second task.

She went into the garden, and with her own hands she strewed ten sacks
full of millet all over the grass. 'He must pick all that up to-morrow
morning before sunrise,' she said; 'not a grain must be lost.'

The youth sat down in the garden and wondered how it would be possible
for him to accomplish such a task, but he could think of no expedient,
and sat there sadly expecting to meet his death at daybreak.

But when the first rays of the rising sun fell on the garden, he saw the
ten sacks all completely filled, standing there in a row, and not a
single grain missing. The Ant-King, with his thousands and thousands of
followers, had come during the night, and the grateful creatures had
industriously gathered all the millet together and put it in the sacks.

The King's daughter came down to the garden herself, and saw to her
amazement that her suitor had accomplished the task she had given him.
But even now she could not bend her proud heart, and she said, 'Though
he has executed these two tasks, yet he shall not be my husband till he
brings me an apple from the tree of life.'

The young man did not even know where the tree of life grew, but he set
off, determined to walk as far as his legs would carry him, though he
had no hope of ever finding it.

After journeying through three different kingdoms he reached a wood one
night, and lying down under a tree prepared to go to sleep there.
Suddenly he heard a sound in the boughs, and a golden apple fell right
into his hand. At the same moment three ravens flew down to him,
perched on his knee and said, 'We are the three young ravens whom you
saved from starvation. When we grew up and heard you were searching for
the golden apple, we flew far away over the seas to the end of the
world, where the tree of life grows, and fetched the golden apple for
you.'

[Illustration]

Full of joy the young man started on his way back and brought the golden
apple to the lovely Princess, whose objections were now entirely
silenced. They divided the apple of life and ate it together, and her
heart grew full of love for him, so they lived together to a great age
in undisturbed happiness.

  Grimm.




  _THE STORY OF A CLEVER TAILOR_


Once upon a time there lived an exceedingly proud Princess. If any
suitor for her hand ventured to present himself, she would give him some
riddle or conundrum to guess, and if he failed to do so, he was hunted
out of the town with scorn and derision. She gave out publicly that all
comers were welcome to try their skill, and that whoever could solve her
riddle should be her husband.

Now it happened that three tailors had met together, and the two elder
thought, that after having successfully put in so many fine and strong
stitches with never a wrong one amongst them, they were certain to do
the right thing here too. The third tailor was a lazy young scamp who
did not even know his own trade properly, but who thought that surely
luck would stand by him now, just for once, for, if not, what _was_ to
become of him?

The two others said to him, 'You just stay at home, you'll never get on
much with your small allowance of brains.' But the little tailor was not
to be daunted, and said he had set his mind on it and meant to shift for
himself, so off he started as though the whole world belonged to him.

The three tailors arrived at Court, where they had themselves duly
presented to the Princess, and begged she would propound her riddles,
'for,' said they, 'here were the right men at last, with wits so sharp
and so fine you might almost thread a needle with them.'

Then said the Princess, 'I have on my head two different kinds of hair.
Of what colours are they?'

'If that's all,' said the first tailor, 'they are most likely black and
white, like the kind of cloth we call pepper-and-salt.'

'Wrong,' said the Princess.

'Then,' said the second tailor, 'if they are not black and white, no
doubt they are red and brown, like my father's Sunday coat.'

'Wrong again,' said the Princess; 'now let the third speak. I see he
thinks he knows all about it.'

Then the young tailor stepped boldly to the front and said, 'The
Princess has one silver and one golden hair on her head, and those are
the two colours.'

When the Princess heard this she turned quite pale, and almost fainted
away with fear, for the little tailor had hit the mark, and she had
firmly believed that not a soul could guess it. When she had recovered
herself she said, 'Don't fancy you have won me yet, there is something
else you must do first. Below in the stable is a bear with whom you must
spend the night, and if when I get up in the morning I find you still
alive you shall marry me.'

She quite expected to rid herself of the tailor in this way, for the
bear had never left anyone alive who had once come within reach of his
claws. The tailor, however, had no notion of being scared, but said
cheerily, 'Bravely dared is half won.'

When evening came on he was taken to the stable. The bear tried to get
at him at once and to give him a warm welcome with his great paws.
'Gently, gently,' said the tailor, 'I'll soon teach you to be quiet,'
and he coolly drew a handful of walnuts from his pocket and began
cracking and eating them as though he had not a care or anxiety in the
world. When the bear saw this he began to long for some nuts himself.
The tailor dived into his pocket and gave him a handful, but they were
pebbles, not nuts. The bear thrust them into his mouth, but try as he
might he could not manage to crack them. 'Dear me,' thought he, 'what a
stupid fool I must be--can't even crack a nut,' and he said to the
tailor, 'I say, crack my nuts for me, will you?'

'You're a nice sort of fellow,' said the tailor; 'the idea of having
those great jaws and not being able even to crack a walnut!' So he took
the stone, quickly changed it for a nut, and crack! it split open in a
moment.

'Let me try again,' said the bear; 'when I see the thing done it looks
so easy I fancy I _must_ be able to manage it myself.'

So the tailor gave him some more pebbles, and the bear bit and gnawed
away as hard as he could, but I need hardly say that he did not succeed
in cracking one of them.

Presently the tailor took out a little fiddle and began playing on it.
When the bear heard the music he could not help dancing, and after he
had danced some time he was so pleased that he said to the tailor, 'I
say, is fiddling difficult?' 'Mere child's play,' replied the tailor;
'look here! you press the strings with the fingers of the left hand, and
with the right you draw the bow across them, so--then it goes as easily
as possible, up and down, tra la la la la--'

'Oh,' cried the bear, 'I do wish I could play like that, then I could
dance whenever the fancy took me. What do you think? Would you give me
some lessons?'

[Illustration]

'With all my heart,' said the tailor, 'if you are sharp about it. But
just let me look at your paws. Dear me, your nails are terribly long; I
must really cut them first.' Then he fetched a pair of stocks, and the
bear laid his paws on them, and the tailor screwed them up tight. 'Now
just wait whilst I fetch my scissors,' said he, and left the bear
growling away to his heart's content, whilst he lay down in a corner and
fell fast asleep.

When the Princess heard the bear growling so loud that night, she made
sure he was roaring with delight as he worried the tailor. Next morning
she rose feeling quite cheerful and free from care, but when she looked
across towards the stables, there stood the tailor in front of the door
looking as fresh and lively as a fish in the water.

After this it was impossible to break the promise she had made so
publicly, so the King ordered out the state coach to take her and the
tailor to church to be married.

As they were starting, the two bad-hearted other tailors, who were
envious of the younger one's happiness, went to the stable and unscrewed
the bear. Off he tore after the carriage, foaming with rage. The
Princess heard his puffing and roaring, and growing frightened she
cried: 'Oh dear! the bear is after us and will certainly catch us up!'
The tailor remained quite unmoved. He quietly stood on his head, stuck
his legs out at the carriage window and called out to the bear, 'Do you
see my stocks? If you don't go home this minute I'll screw you tight
into them.'

When the bear saw and heard this he turned right round and ran off as
fast as his legs would carry him. The tailor drove on unmolested to
church, where he and the Princess were married, and he lived with her
many years as happy and merry as a lark. Whoever does not believe this
story must pay a dollar.

  Grimm.




  _THE GOLDEN MERMAID_


A powerful king had, among many other treasures, a wonderful tree in his
garden, which bore every year beautiful golden apples. But the King was
never able to enjoy his treasure, for he might watch and guard them as
he liked, as soon as they began to get ripe they were always stolen. At
last, in despair, he sent for his three sons, and said to the two
eldest, 'Get yourselves ready for a journey. Take gold and silver with
you, and a large retinue of servants, as beseems two noble princes, and
go through the world till you find out who it is that steals my golden
apples, and, if possible, bring the thief to me that I may punish him as
he deserves.' His sons were delighted at this proposal, for they had
long wished to see something of the world, so they got ready for their
journey with all haste, bade their father farewell, and left the town.

[Illustration]

The youngest Prince was much disappointed that he too was not sent out
on his travels; but his father wouldn't hear of his going, for he had
always been looked upon as the stupid one of the family, and the King
was afraid of something happening to him. But the Prince begged and
implored so long, that at last his father consented to let him go, and
furnished him with gold and silver as he had done his brothers. But he
gave him the most wretched horse in his stable, because the foolish
youth hadn't asked for a better. So he too set out on his journey to
secure the thief, amid the jeers and laughter of the whole court and
town.

His path led him first through a wood, and he hadn't gone very far when
he met a lean-looking wolf who stood still as he approached. The Prince
asked him if he were hungry, and when the wolf said he was, he got down
from his horse and said, 'If you are really as you say and look, you may
take my horse and eat it.'

The wolf didn't wait to have the offer repeated, but set to work, and
soon made an end of the poor beast. When the Prince saw how different
the wolf looked when he had finished his meal, he said to him, 'Now, my
friend, since you have eaten up my horse, and I have such a long way to
go, that, with the best will in the world, I couldn't manage it on foot,
the least you can do for me is to act as my horse and to take me on your
back.'

'Most certainly,' said the wolf, and, letting the Prince mount him, he
trotted gaily through the wood. After they had gone a little way he
turned round and asked his rider where he wanted to go to, and the
Prince proceeded to tell him the whole story of the golden apples that
had been stolen out of the King's garden, and how his other two brothers
had set forth with many followers to find the thief. When he had
finished his story, the wolf, who was in reality no wolf but a mighty
magician, said he thought he could tell him who the thief was, and could
help him to secure him. 'There lives,' he said, 'in a neighbouring
country, a mighty emperor who has a beautiful golden bird in a cage, and
this is the creature who steals the golden apples, but it flies so fast
that it is impossible to catch it at its theft. You must slip into the
Emperor's palace by night and steal the bird with the cage; but be very
careful not to touch the walls as you go out.'

The following night the Prince stole into the Emperor's palace, and
found the bird in its cage as the wolf had told him he would. He took
hold of it carefully, but in spite of all his caution he touched the
wall in trying to pass by some sleeping watchmen. They awoke at once,
and, seizing him, beat him and put him into chains. Next day he was led
before the Emperor, who at once condemned him to death and to be thrown
into a dark dungeon till the day of his execution arrived.

The wolf, who, of course, knew by his magic arts all that had happened
to the Prince, turned himself at once into a mighty monarch with a large
train of followers, and proceeded to the Court of the Emperor, where he
was received with every show of honour. The Emperor and he conversed on
many subjects, and, among other things, the stranger asked his host if
he had many slaves. The Emperor told him he had more than he knew what
to do with, and that a new one had been captured that very night for
trying to steal his magic bird, but that as he had already more than
enough to feed and support, he was going to have this last captive
hanged next morning.

'He must have been a most daring thief,' said the King, 'to try and
steal the magic bird, for depend upon it the creature must have been
well guarded. I would really like to see this bold rascal.' 'By all
means,' said the Emperor; and he himself led his guest down to the
dungeon where the unfortunate Prince was kept prisoner. When the Emperor
stepped out of the cell with the King, the latter turned to him and
said, 'Most mighty Emperor, I have been much disappointed. I had thought
to find a powerful robber, and instead of that I have seen the most
miserable creature I can imagine. Hanging is far too good for him. If I
had to sentence him I should make him perform some very difficult task,
under pain of death. If he did it so much the better for you, and if he
didn't, matters would just be as they are now and he could still be
hanged.' 'Your counsel,' said the Emperor, 'is excellent, and, as it
happens, I've got the very thing for him to do. My nearest neighbour,
who is also a mighty Emperor, possesses a golden horse which he guards
most carefully. The prisoner shall be told to steal this horse and bring
it to me.'

The Prince was then let out of his dungeon, and told his life would be
spared if he succeeded in bringing the golden horse to the Emperor. He
did not feel very elated at this announcement, for he did not know how
in the world he was to set about the task, and he started on his way
weeping bitterly, and wondering what had made him leave his father's
house and kingdom. But before he had gone far his friend the wolf stood
before him and said, 'Dear Prince, why are you so cast down? It is true
you didn't succeed in catching the bird; but don't let that discourage
you, for this time you will be all the more careful, and will doubtless
catch the horse.' With these and like words the wolf comforted the
Prince, and warned him specially not to touch the wall or let the horse
touch it as he led it out, or he would fail in the same way as he had
done with the bird.

[Illustration]

After a somewhat lengthy journey the Prince and the wolf came to the
kingdom ruled over by the Emperor who possessed the golden horse. One
evening late they reached the capital, and the wolf advised the Prince
to set to work at once, before their presence in the city had aroused
the watchfulness of the guards. They slipped unnoticed into the
Emperor's stables and into the very place where there were the most
guards, for there the wolf rightly surmised they would find the horse.
When they came to a certain inner door the wolf told the Prince to
remain outside, while he went in. In a short time he returned and said,
'My dear Prince, the horse is most securely watched, but I have
bewitched all the guards, and if you will only be careful not to touch
the wall yourself, or let the horse touch it as you go out, there is no
danger and the game is yours.' The Prince, who had made up his mind to
be more than cautious this time, went cheerfully to work. He found all
the guards fast asleep, and, slipping into the horse's stall, he seized
it by the bridle and led it out; but, unfortunately, before they had got
quite clear of the stables a gadfly stung the horse and caused it to
switch its tail, whereby it touched the wall. In a moment all the guards
awoke, seized the Prince and beat him mercilessly with their
horse-whips, after which they bound him with chains, and flung him into
a dungeon. Next morning they brought him before the Emperor, who treated
him exactly as the King with the golden bird had done, and commanded him
to be beheaded on the following day.

When the wolf-magician saw that the Prince had failed this time too, he
transformed himself again into a mighty king, and proceeded with an even
more gorgeous retinue than the first time to the Court of the Emperor.
He was courteously received and entertained, and once more after dinner
he led the conversation on to the subject of slaves, and in the course
of it again requested to be allowed to see the bold robber who had dared
to break into the Emperor's stable to steal his most valuable
possession. The Emperor consented, and all happened exactly as it had
done at the court of the Emperor with the golden bird; the prisoner's
life was to be spared only on condition that within three days he should
obtain possession of the golden mermaid, whom hitherto no mortal had
ever approached.

Very depressed by his dangerous and difficult task, the Prince left his
gloomy prison; but, to his great joy, he met his friend the wolf before
he had gone many miles on his journey. The cunning creature pretended he
knew nothing of what had happened to the Prince, and asked him how he
had fared with the horse. The Prince told him all about his
misadventure, and the condition on which the Emperor had promised to
spare his life. Then the wolf reminded him that he had twice got him out
of prison, and that if he would only trust in him, and do exactly as he
told him, he would certainly succeed in this last undertaking. Thereupon
they bent their steps towards the sea, which stretched out before them,
as far as their eyes could see, all the waves dancing and glittering in
the bright sunshine. 'Now,' continued the wolf, 'I am going to turn
myself into a boat full of the most beautiful silken merchandise, and
you must jump boldly into the boat, and steer with my tail in your
hand right out into the open sea. You will soon come upon the golden
mermaid. Whatever you do, don't follow her if she calls you, but on the
contrary say to her, "The buyer comes to the seller, not the seller to
the buyer." After which you must steer towards the land, and she will
follow you, for she won't be able to resist the beautiful wares you have
on board your ship.'

[Illustration]

The Prince promised faithfully to do all he had been told, whereupon the
wolf changed himself into a ship full of most exquisite silks, of every
shade and colour imaginable. The astonished Prince stepped into the
boat, and, holding the wolf's tail in his hand, he steered boldly out
into the open sea, where the sun was gilding the blue waves with its
golden rays. Soon he saw the golden mermaid swimming near the ship,
beckoning and calling to him to follow her; but, mindful of the wolf's
warning, he told her in a loud voice that if she wished to buy anything
she must come to him. With these words he turned his magic ship round
and steered back towards the land. The mermaid called out to him to
stand still, but he refused to listen to her and never paused till he
reached the sand of the shore. Here he stopped and waited for the
mermaid, who had swum after him. When she drew near the boat he saw that
she was far more beautiful than any mortal he had ever beheld. She swam
round the ship for some time, and then swung herself gracefully on
board, in order to examine the beautiful silken stuffs more closely.
Then the Prince seized her in his arms, and kissing her tenderly on the
cheeks and lips, he told her she was his for ever; at the same moment
the boat turned into a wolf again, which so terrified the mermaid that
she clung to the Prince for protection.

So the golden mermaid was successfully caught, and she soon felt quite
happy in her new life when she saw she had nothing to fear either from
the Prince or the wolf--she rode on the back of the latter, and the
Prince rode behind her. When they reached the country ruled over by the
Emperor with the golden horse, the Prince jumped down, and, helping the
mermaid to alight, he led her before the Emperor. At the sight of the
beautiful mermaid and of the grim wolf, who stuck close to the Prince
this time, the guards all made respectful obeisance, and soon the three
stood before his Imperial Majesty. When the Emperor heard from the
Prince how he had gained possession of his fair prize, he at once
recognised that he had been helped by some magic art, and on the spot
gave up all claim to the beautiful mermaid. 'Dear youth,' he said,
'forgive me for my shameful conduct to you, and, as a sign that you
pardon me, accept the golden horse as a present. I acknowledge your
power to be greater even than I can understand, for you have succeeded
in gaining possession of the golden mermaid, whom hitherto no mortal has
ever been able to approach.' Then they all sat down to a huge feast, and
the Prince had to relate his adventures all over again, to the wonder
and astonishment of the whole company.

But the Prince was wearying now to return to his own kingdom, so as soon
as the feast was over he took farewell of the Emperor, and set out on
his homeward way. He lifted the mermaid on to the golden horse, and
swung himself up behind her--and so they rode on merrily, with the wolf
trotting behind, till they came to the country of the Emperor with the
golden bird. The renown of the Prince and his adventure had gone before
him, and the Emperor sat on his throne awaiting the arrival of the
Prince and his companions. When the three rode into the courtyard of the
palace, they were surprised and delighted to find everything festively
illuminated and decorated for their reception. When the Prince and the
golden mermaid, with the wolf behind them, mounted the steps of the
palace, the Emperor came forward to meet them, and led them to the
throne room. At the same moment a servant appeared with the golden bird
in its golden cage, and the Emperor begged the Prince to accept it with
his love, and to forgive him the indignity he had suffered at his hands.
Then the Emperor bent low before the beautiful mermaid, and, offering
her his arm, he led her into dinner, closely followed by the Prince and
her friend the wolf; the latter seating himself at table, not the least
embarrassed that no one had invited him to do so.

As soon as the sumptuous meal was over, the Prince and his mermaid took
leave of the Emperor, and, seating themselves on the golden horse,
continued their homeward journey. On the way the wolf turned to the
Prince and said, 'Dear friends, I must now bid you farewell, but I leave
you under such happy circumstances that I cannot feel our parting to be
a sad one.' The Prince was very unhappy when he heard these words, and
begged the wolf to stay with them always; but this the good creature
refused to do, though he thanked the Prince kindly for his invitation,
and called out as he disappeared into the thicket, 'Should any evil
befall you, dear Prince, at any time, you may rely on my friendship and
gratitude.' These were the wolf's parting words, and the Prince could
not restrain his tears when he saw his friend vanishing in the
distance; but one glance at his beloved mermaid soon cheered him up
again, and they continued on their journey merrily.

The news of his son's adventures had already reached his father's Court,
and everyone was more than astonished at the success of the once
despised Prince. His elder brothers, who had in vain gone in pursuit of
the thief of the golden apples, were furious over their younger
brother's good fortune, and plotted and planned how they were to kill
him. They hid themselves in the wood through which the Prince had to
pass on his way to the palace, and there fell on him, and, having beaten
him to death, they carried off the golden horse and the golden bird. But
nothing they could do would persuade the golden mermaid to go with them
or move from the spot, for ever since she had left the sea, she had so
attached herself to her Prince that she asked nothing else than to live
or die with him.

For many weeks the poor mermaid sat and watched over the dead body of
her lover, weeping salt tears over his loss, when suddenly one day their
old friend the wolf appeared and said, 'Cover the Prince's body with all
the leaves and flowers you can find in the wood.' The maiden did as he
told her, and then the wolf breathed over the flowery grave, and, lo and
behold! the Prince lay there sleeping as peacefully as a child. 'Now you
may wake him if you like,' said the wolf, and the mermaid bent over him
and gently kissed the wounds his brothers had made on his forehead, and
the Prince awoke, and you may imagine how delighted he was to find his
beautiful mermaid beside him, though he felt a little depressed when he
thought of the loss of the golden bird and the golden horse. After a
time the wolf, who had likewise fallen on the Prince's neck, advised
them to continue their journey, and once more the Prince and his lovely
bride mounted on the faithful beast's back.

The King's joy was great when he embraced his youngest son, for he had
long since despaired of his return. He received the wolf and the
beautiful golden mermaid most cordially too, and the Prince was made to
tell his adventures all over from the beginning. The poor old father
grew very sad when he heard of the shameful conduct of his elder sons,
and had them called before him. They turned as white as death when they
saw their brother, whom they thought they had murdered, standing beside
them alive and well, and so startled were they that when the King asked
them why they had behaved so wickedly to their brother they could think
of no lie, but confessed at once that they had slain the young Prince in
order to obtain possession of the golden horse and the golden bird.
Their father's wrath knew no bounds, and he ordered them both to be
banished, but he could not do enough to honour his youngest son and his
marriage with the beautiful mermaid was celebrated with much pomp and
magnificence. When the festivities were over, the wolf bade them all
farewell, and returned once more to his life in the woods, much to the
regret of the old King and the young Prince and his bride.

[Illustration]

And so ended the adventures of the Prince with his friend the wolf.

  Grimm.




  _THE WAR OF THE WOLF AND THE FOX_


There was once upon a time a man and his wife who had an old cat and an
old dog. One day the man, whose name was Simon, said to his wife, whose
name was Susan, 'Why should we keep our old cat any longer? She never
catches any mice nowadays, and is so useless that I have made up my
mind to drown her.'

But his wife replied, 'Don't do that, for I'm sure she could still catch
mice.'

'Rubbish,' said Simon. 'The mice might dance on her and she would never
catch one. I've quite made up my mind that the next time I see her, I
shall put her in the water.'

Susan was very unhappy when she heard this, and so was the cat, who had
been listening to the conversation behind the stove. When Simon went off
to his work, the poor cat miawed so pitifully, and looked up so
pathetically into Susan's face, that the woman quickly opened the door
and said, 'Fly for your life, my poor little beast, and get well away
from here before your master returns.'

The cat took her advice, and ran as quickly as her poor old legs would
carry her into the wood, and when Simon came home, his wife told him
that the cat had vanished.

'So much the better for her,' said Simon. 'And now we have got rid of
her, we must consider what we are to do with the old dog. He is quite
deaf and blind, and invariably barks when there is no need, and makes no
sound when there is. I think the best thing I can do with him is to hang
him.'

But soft-hearted Susan replied, 'Please don't do so; he's surely not so
useless as all that.'

'Don't be foolish,' said her husband. 'The courtyard might be full of
thieves and he'd never discover it. No, the first time I see him, it's
all up with him, I can tell you.'

Susan was very unhappy at his words, and so was the dog, who was lying
in the corner of the room and had heard everything. As soon as Simon had
gone to his work, he stood up and howled so touchingly that Susan
quickly opened the door, and said 'Fly for your life, poor beast, before
your master gets home.' And the dog ran into the wood with his tail
between his legs.

When her husband returned, his wife told him that the dog had
disappeared.

'That's lucky for him,' said Simon, but Susan sighed, for she had been
very fond of the poor creature.

Now it happened that the cat and dog met each other on their travels,
and though they had not been the best of friends at home, they were
quite glad to meet among strangers. They sat down under a holly tree and
both poured forth their woes.

Presently a fox passed by, and seeing the pair sitting together in a
disconsolate fashion, he asked them why they sat there, and what they
were grumbling about.

The cat replied, 'I have caught many a mouse in my day, but now that I
am old and past work, my master wants to drown me.'

And the dog said, 'Many a night have I watched and guarded my master's
house, and now that I am old and deaf, he wants to hang me.'

The fox answered, 'That's the way of the world. But I'll help you to get
back into your master's favour, only you must first help me in my own
troubles.'

They promised to do their best, and the fox continued, 'The wolf has
declared war against me, and is at this moment marching to meet me in
company with the bear and the wild boar, and to-morrow there will be a
fierce battle between us.'

'All right,' said the dog and the cat, 'we will stand by you, and if we
are killed, it is at any rate better to die on the field of battle than
to perish ignobly at home,' and they shook paws and concluded the
bargain. The fox sent word to the wolf to meet him at a certain place,
and the three set forth to encounter him and his friends.

The wolf, the bear, and the wild boar arrived on the spot first, and
when they had waited some time for the fox, the dog, and the cat, the
bear said, 'I'll climb up into the oak tree, and look if I can see them
coming.'

The first time he looked round he said, 'I can see nothing,' and the
second time he looked round he said, 'I can still see nothing.' But the
third time he said, 'I see a mighty army in the distance, and one of the
warriors has the biggest lance you ever saw!'

This was the cat, who was marching along with her tail erect.

And so they laughed and jeered, and it was so hot that the bear said,
'The enemy won't be here at this rate for many hours to come, so I'll
just curl myself up in the fork of the tree and have a little sleep.'

And the wolf lay down under the oak, and the wild boar buried himself in
some straw, so that nothing was seen of him but one ear.

[Illustration]

And while they were lying there, the fox, the cat and the dog arrived.
When the cat saw the wild boar's ear, she pounced upon it, thinking it
was a mouse in the straw.

The wild boar got up in a dreadful fright, gave one loud grunt and
disappeared into the wood. But the cat was even more startled than the
boar, and, spitting with terror, she scrambled up into the fork of the
tree, and as it happened right into the bear's face. Now it was the
bear's turn to be alarmed, and with a mighty growl he jumped down from
the oak and fell right on the top of the wolf and killed him as dead as
a stone.

On their way home from the war the fox caught a score of mice, and when
they reached Simon's cottage he put them all on the stove and said to
the cat, 'Now go and fetch one mouse after the other, and lay them down
before your master.'

'All right,' said the cat, and did exactly as the fox told her.

When Susan saw this she said to her husband, 'Just look, here is our old
cat back again, and see what a lot of mice she has caught.'

'Wonders will never cease,' cried Simon. 'I certainly never thought the
old cat would ever catch another mouse.'

But Susan answered, 'There, you see, I always said our cat was a most
excellent creature--but you men always think you know best.'

In the meantime the fox said to the dog, 'Our friend Simon has just
killed a pig; when it gets a little darker, you must go into the
courtyard and bark with all your might.'

'All right,' said the dog, and as soon as it grew dusk he began to bark
loudly.

Susan, who heard him first, said to her husband, 'Our dog must have come
back, for I hear him barking lustily. Do go out and see what's the
matter; perhaps thieves may be stealing our sausages.'

But Simon answered, 'The foolish brute is as deaf as a post and is
always barking at nothing,' and he refused to get up.

The next morning Susan got up early to go to church at the neighbouring
town, and she thought she would take some sausages to her aunt who lived
there. But when she went to her larder, she found all the sausages gone,
and a great hole in the floor. She called out to her husband, 'I was
perfectly right. Thieves have been here last night, and they have not
left a single sausage. Oh! if you had only got up when I asked you to!'

Then Simon scratched his head and said, 'I can't understand it at all. I
certainly never believed the old dog was so quick at hearing.'

But Susan replied, 'I always told you our old dog was the best dog in
the world--but as usual you thought you knew so much better. Men are the
same all the world over.'

And the fox scored a point too, for he had carried away the sausages
himself!

  Grimm.




  _THE STORY OF THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE_


There was once a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a little
hut close to the sea, and the fisherman used to go down every day to
fish; and he would fish and fish. So he used to sit with his rod and
gaze into the shining water; and he would gaze and gaze.

[Illustration]

Now, once the line was pulled deep under the water, and when he hauled
it up he hauled a large flounder with it. The flounder said to him,
'Listen, fisherman. I pray you to let me go; I am not a real flounder, I
am an enchanted Prince. What good will it do you if you kill me--I shall
not taste nice? Put me back into the water and let me swim away.'

'Well,' said the man, 'you need not make so much noise about it; I am
sure I had much better let a flounder that can talk swim away.' With
these words he put him back again into the shining water, and the
flounder sank to the bottom, leaving a long streak of blood behind. Then
the fisherman got up, and went home to his wife in the hut.

'Husband,' said his wife, 'have you caught nothing to-day?'

'No,' said the man. 'I caught a flounder who said he was an enchanted
prince, so I let him swim away again.'

'Did you wish nothing from him?' said his wife.

'No,' said the man; 'what should I have wished from him?'

'Ah!' said the woman, 'it's dreadful to have to live all one's life in
this hut that is so small and dirty; you ought to have wished for a
cottage. Go now and call him; say to him that we choose to have a
cottage, and he will certainly give it you.'

'Alas!' said the man, 'why should I go down there again?'

'Why,' said his wife, 'you caught him, and then let him go again, so he
is sure to give you what you ask. Go down quickly.'

The man did not like going at all, but as his wife was not to be
persuaded, he went down to the sea.

When he came there the sea was quite green and yellow, and was no longer
shining. So he stood on the shore and said:

  'Once a prince, but changed you be
  Into a flounder in the sea.
  Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
  Wishes what I dare not tell.'

Then the flounder came swimming up and said, 'Well, what does she want?'

'Alas!' said the man, 'my wife says I ought to have kept you and wished
something from you. She does not want to live any longer in the hut; she
would like a cottage.'

'Go home, then,' said the flounder; 'she has it.'

So the man went home, and there was his wife no longer in the hut, but
in its place was a beautiful cottage, and his wife was sitting in front
of the door on a bench. She took him by the hand and said to him, 'Come
inside, and see if this is not much better.' They went in, and inside
the cottage was a tiny hall, and a beautiful sitting-room, and a bedroom
in which stood a bed, a kitchen and a dining-room all furnished with the
best of everything, and fitted up with every kind of tin and copper
utensil. And outside was a little yard in which were chickens and ducks,
and also a little garden with vegetables and fruit trees.

'See,' said the wife, 'isn't this nice?'

'Yes,' answered her husband; 'here we shall remain and live very
happily.'

'We will think about that,' said his wife.

With these words they had their supper and went to bed. All went well
for a week or a fortnight, then the wife said:

'Listen, husband; the cottage is much too small, and so is the yard and
the garden; the flounder might just as well have sent us a larger house.
I should like to live in a great stone castle. Go down to the flounder,
and tell him to send us a castle.'

'Ah, wife!' said the fisherman, 'the cottage is quite good enough; why
do we choose to live in a castle?'

'Why?' said the wife. 'You go down; the flounder can quite well do
that.'

'No, wife,' said the man; 'the flounder gave us the cottage. I do not
like to go to him again; he might take it amiss.'

'Go,' said his wife. 'He can certainly give it us, and ought to do so
willingly. Go at once.'

The fisherman's heart was very heavy, and he did not like going. He said
to himself, 'It is not right.' Still, he went down.

When he came to the sea, the water was all violet and dark-blue, and
dull and thick, and no longer green and yellow, but it was still smooth.

So he stood there and said:

  'Once a prince, but changed you be
  Into a flounder in the sea.
  Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
  Wishes what I dare not tell.'

'What does she want now?' said the flounder.

'Ah!' said the fisherman, half-ashamed, 'she wants to live in a great
stone castle.'

'Go home; she is standing before the door,' said the flounder.

The fisherman went home and thought he would find no house. When he came
near, there stood a great stone palace, and his wife was standing on the
steps, about to enter. She took him by the hand and said, 'Come inside.'

Then he went with her, and inside the castle was a large hall with a
marble floor, and there were heaps of servants who threw open the great
doors, and the walls were covered with beautiful tapestry, and in the
apartments were gilded chairs and tables, and crystal chandeliers hung
from the ceiling, and all the rooms were beautifully carpeted. The best
of food and drink also was set before them when they wished to dine. And
outside the house was a large courtyard with horse and cow stables and a
coach-house--all fine buildings; and a splendid garden with most
beautiful flowers and fruit, and in a park quite a league long were deer
and roe and hares, and everything one could wish for,

'Now,' said the wife, 'isn't this beautiful?'

'Yes, indeed,' said the fisherman. 'Now we will stay here and live in
this beautiful castle, and be very happy.'

'We will consider the matter,' said his wife, and they went to bed.

The next morning the wife woke up first at daybreak, and looked out of
the bed at the beautiful country stretched before her. Her husband was
still sleeping, so she dug her elbows into his side and said:

'Husband, get up and look out of the window. Could we not become the
king of all this land? Go down to the flounder and tell him we choose to
be king.'

'Ah, wife!' replied her husband, 'why should we be king? _I_ don't want
to be king.'

'Well,' said his wife, 'if you don't want to be king, _I_ will be king.
Go down to the flounder; I will be king.'

'Alas! wife,' said the fisherman, 'why do you want to be king? I can't
ask him that.'

'And why not?' said his wife. 'Go down at once. I must be king.'

So the fisherman went, though much vexed that his wife wanted to be
king. 'It is not right! It is not right,' he thought. He did not wish to
go, yet he went.

When he came to the sea, the water was a dark-grey colour, and it was
heaving against the shore. So he stood and said:

  'Once a prince, but changed you be
  Into a flounder in the sea.
  Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
  Wishes what I dare not tell.'

'What does she want now?' asked the flounder.

'Alas!' said the fisherman, 'she wants to be king.'

'Go home; she is that already,' said the flounder.

The fisherman went home, and when he came near the palace he saw that it
had become much larger, and that it had great towers and splendid
ornamental carving on it. A sentinel was standing before the gate, and
there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets. And when
he went into the palace, he found everything was of pure marble and
gold, and the curtains of damask with tassels of gold. Then the doors of
the hall flew open, and there stood the whole Court round his wife, who
was sitting on a high throne of gold and diamonds; she wore a great
golden crown, and had a sceptre of gold and precious stones in her hand,
and by her on either side stood six pages in a row, each one a head
taller than the other. Then he went before her and said:

'Ah, wife! are you king now?'

'Yes,' said his wife; 'now I am king.'

He stood looking at her, and when he had looked for some time, he said:

'Let that be enough, wife, now that you are king! Now we have nothing
more to wish for.'

'Nay, husband,' said his wife restlessly, 'my wishing powers are
boundless; I cannot restrain them any longer. Go down to the flounder;
king I am, now I must be emperor.'

'Alas! wife,' said the fisherman, 'why do you want to be emperor?'

'Husband,' said she, 'go to the flounder; I _will_ be emperor.'

'Ah, wife,' he said, 'he cannot make you emperor; I don't like to ask
him that. There is only one emperor in the kingdom. Indeed and indeed he
cannot make you emperor.'

'What!' said his wife. 'I am king, and you are my husband. Will you go
at once? Go! If he can make king he can make emperor, and emperor I must
and will be. Go!'

So he had to go. But as he went, he felt quite frightened, and he
thought to himself, 'This can't be right; to be emperor is too
ambitious; the flounder will be tired out at last.'

Thinking this he came to the shore. The sea was quite black and thick,
and it was breaking high on the beach; the foam was flying about, and
the wind was blowing; everything looked bleak. The fisherman was chilled
with fear. He stood and said:

  'Once a prince, but changed you be
  Into a flounder in the sea.
  Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
  Wishes what I dare not tell.'

'What does she want now?' asked the flounder.

'Alas! flounder,' he said, 'my wife wants to be emperor.'

'Go home,' said the flounder; 'she is that already.'

So the fisherman went home, and when he came there he saw the whole
castle was made of polished marble, ornamented with alabaster statues
and gold. Before the gate soldiers were marching, blowing trumpets and
beating drums. Inside the palace were walking barons, counts, and dukes,
acting as servants; they opened the door, which was of beaten gold. And
when he entered, he saw his wife upon a throne which was made out of a
single block of gold, and which was quite six cubits high. She had on a
great golden crown which was three yards high and set with brilliants
and sparkling gems. In one hand she held a sceptre, and in the other the
imperial globe, and on either side of her stood two rows of halberdiers,
each smaller than the other, from a seven-foot giant to the tiniest
little dwarf no higher than my little finger. Many princes and dukes
were standing before her. The fisherman went up to her quietly and said:

'Wife, are you emperor now?'

'Yes,' she said, 'I am emperor.'

He stood looking at her magnificence, and when he had watched her for
some time, said:

'Ah, wife, let that be enough, now that you are emperor.'

'Husband,' said she, 'why are you standing there? I am emperor now, and
I want to be pope too; go down to the flounder.'

'Alas! wife,' said the fisherman, 'what more do you want? You cannot be
pope; there is only one pope in Christendom, and he cannot make you
that.'

'Husband,' she said, 'I _will_ be pope. Go down quickly; I must be pope
to-day.'

'No, wife,' said the fisherman; 'I can't ask him that. It is not right;
it is too much. The flounder cannot make you pope.'

'Husband, what nonsense!' said his wife. 'If he can make emperor, he can
make pope too. Go down this instant; I am emperor and you are my
husband. Will you be off at once?'

So he was frightened and went out; but he felt quite faint, and trembled
and shook, and his knees and legs began to give way under him. The wind
was blowing fiercely across the land, and the clouds flying across the
sky looked as gloomy as if it were night; the leaves were being blown
from the trees; the water was foaming and seething and dashing upon the
shore, and in the distance he saw the ships in great distress, dancing
and tossing on the waves. Still the sky was very blue in the middle,
although at the sides it was an angry red as in a great storm. So he
stood shuddering in anxiety, and said:

  'Once a prince, but changed you be
  Into a flounder in the sea.
  Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
  Wishes what I dare not tell.'

'Well, what does she want now?' asked the flounder.

'Alas!' said the fisherman, 'she wants to be pope.'

'Go home, then; she is that already,' said the flounder.

Then he went home, and when he came there he saw, as it were, a large
church surrounded by palaces. He pushed his way through the people. The
interior was lit up with thousands and thousands of candles, and his
wife was dressed in cloth of gold and was sitting on a much higher
throne, and she wore three great golden crowns. Round her were numbers
of Church dignitaries, and on either side were standing two rows of
tapers, the largest of them as tall as a steeple, and the smallest as
tiny as a Christmas-tree candle. All the emperors and kings were on
their knees before her, and were kissing her foot.

'Wife,' said the fisherman looking at her, 'are you pope now?'

'Yes,' said she; 'I am pope.'

So he stood staring at her, and it was as if he were looking at the
bright sun. When he had watched her for some time he said:

'Ah, wife, let it be enough now that you are pope.'

But she sat as straight as a tree, and did not move or bend the least
bit. He said again:

'Wife, be content now that you are pope. You cannot become anything
more.'

'We will think about that,' said his wife.

With these words they went to bed. But the woman was not content; her
greed would not allow her to sleep, and she kept on thinking and
thinking what she could still become. The fisherman slept well and
soundly, for he had done a great deal that day, but his wife could not
sleep at all, and turned from one side to another the whole night long,
and thought, till she could think no longer, what more she could become.
Then the sun began to rise, and when she saw the red dawn she went to
the end of the bed and looked at it, and as she was watching the sun
rise, out of the window, she thought, 'Ha! could I not make the sun and
man rise?'

[Illustration]

'Husband,' said she, poking him in the ribs with her elbows, 'wake up.
Go down to the flounder; I will be a god.'

The fisherman was still half asleep, yet he was so frightened that he
fell out of bed. He thought he had not heard aright, and opened his eyes
wide and said:

'What did you say, wife?'

'Husband,' she said, 'if I cannot make the sun and man rise when I
appear I cannot rest. I shall never have a quiet moment till I can make
the sun and man rise.'

He looked at her in horror, and a shudder ran over him.

'Go down at once; I will be a god.'

[Illustration]

'Alas! wife,' said the fisherman, falling on his knees before her, 'the
flounder cannot do that. Emperor and pope he can make you. I implore
you, be content and remain pope.'

Then she flew into a passion, her hair hung wildly about her face, she
pushed him with her foot and screamed:

'I am not contented, and I shall not be contented! Will you go?'

So he hurried on his clothes as fast as possible, and ran away as if he
were mad.

But the storm was raging so fiercely that he could scarcely stand.
Houses and trees were being blown down, the mountains were being shaken,
and pieces of rock were rolling in the sea. The sky was as black as ink,
it was thundering and lightening, and the sea was tossing in great waves
as high as church towers and mountains, and each had a white crest of
foam.

So he shouted, not able to hear his own voice:

  'Once a prince, but changed you be
  Into a flounder in the sea.
  Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
  Wishes what I dare not tell.'

'Well, what does she want now?' asked the flounder.

'Alas!' said he, 'she wants to be a god.'

'Go home, then; she is sitting again in the hut.'

And there they are sitting to this day.

  Grimm.




  _THE THREE MUSICIANS_


Once upon a time three musicians left their home and set out on their
travels. They had all learnt music from the same master, and they
determined to stick together and to seek their fortune in foreign lands.
They wandered merrily from place to place and made quite a good living,
and were much appreciated by everyone who heard them play. One evening
they came to a village where they delighted all the company with their
beautiful music. At last they ceased playing, and began to eat and drink
and listen to the talk that was going on around them. They heard all the
gossip of the place, and many wonderful things were related and
discussed. At last the conversation fell on a castle in the
neighbourhood, about which many strange and marvellous things were told.
One person said that hidden treasure was to be found there; another that
the richest food was always to be had there, although the castle was
uninhabited; and a third, that an evil spirit dwelt within the walls, so
terrible, that anyone who forced his way into the castle came out of it
more dead than alive.

As soon as the three musicians were alone in their bedroom they agreed
to go and examine the mysterious castle, and, if possible, to find and
carry away the hidden treasure. They determined, too, to make the
attempt separately, one after the other, according to age, and they
settled that a whole day was to be given to each adventurer in which to
try his luck.

The fiddler was the first to set out on his adventures, and did so in
the best of spirits and full of courage. When he reached the castle he
found the outer gate open, quite as if he were an expected guest, but no
sooner had he stepped across the entry than the heavy door closed behind
him with a bang, and was bolted with a huge iron bar, exactly as if a
sentinel were doing his office and keeping watch, but no human being was
to be seen anywhere. An awful terror overcame the fiddler; but it was
hopeless to think of turning back or of standing still, and the hopes of
finding gold and other treasures gave him strength and courage to force
his way further into the castle. Upstairs and downstairs he wandered,
through lofty halls, splendid rooms, and lovely little boudoirs,
everything beautifully arranged, and all kept in the most perfect order.
But the silence of death reigned everywhere, and no living thing, not
even a fly, was to be seen. Notwithstanding, the youth felt his spirits
return to him when he entered the lower regions of the castle, for in
the kitchen the most tempting and delicious food was spread out, the
cellars were full of the most costly wine, and the store-room crammed
with pots of every sort of jam you can imagine. A cheerful fire was
burning in the kitchen, before which a roast was being basted by unseen
hands, and all kinds of vegetables and other dainty dishes were being
prepared in like manner. Before the fiddler had time to think, he was
ushered into a little room by invisible hands, and there a table was
spread for him with all the delicious food he had seen cooking in the
kitchen.

The youth first seized his fiddle and played a beautiful air on it which
echoed through the silent halls, and then he fell to and began to eat a
hearty meal. Before long, however, the door opened and a tiny man
stepped into the room, not more than three feet high, clothed in a
dressing-gown, and with a small wrinkled face, and a grey beard which
reached down to the silver buckles of his shoes. And the little man sat
down beside the fiddler and shared his meal. When they got to the game
course the fiddler handed the dwarf a knife and fork, and begged him to
help himself first, and then to pass the dish on. The little creature
nodded, but helped himself so clumsily that he dropped the piece of meat
he had carved on to the floor.

The good-natured fiddler bent down to pick it up, but in the twinkling
of an eye the little man had jumped on to his back, and beat him till he
was black and blue all over his head and body. At last, when the fiddler
was nearly dead, the little wretch left off, and shoved the poor fellow
out of the iron gate which he had entered in such good spirits a few
hours before. The fresh air revived him a little, and in a short time he
was able to stagger with aching limbs back to the inn where his
companions were staying. It was night when he reached the place, and the
other two musicians were fast asleep. The next morning they were much
astonished at finding the fiddler in bed beside them, and overwhelmed
him with questions; but their friend hid his back and face, and answered
them very shortly, saying, 'Go there yourselves, and see what's to be
seen! It is a ticklish matter, that I can assure you.'

[Illustration]

The second musician, who was a trumpeter, now made his way to the
castle, and everything happened to him exactly as it had to the fiddler.
He was just as hospitably entertained at first, and then just as
cruelly beaten and belaboured, so that next morning he too lay in his
bed like a wounded hare, assuring his friends that the task of getting
into the haunted castle was no enviable one. Notwithstanding the warning
of his companions, the third musician, who played the flute, was still
determined to try his luck, and, full of courage and daring, he set out,
resolved, if possible, to find and secure the hidden treasure.

Fearlessly he wandered through the whole castle, and as he roamed
through the splendid empty apartments he thought to himself how nice it
would be to live there always, especially with a full larder and cellar
at his disposal. A table was spread for him too, and when he had
wandered about for some time, singing and playing the flute, he sat
down as his companions had done, prepared to enjoy the delicious food
that was spread out in front of him. Then the little man with the beard
entered as before and seated himself beside the flute-player, who wasn't
the least startled at his appearance, but chatted away to him as if he
had known him all his life. But he didn't find his companion very
communicative. At last they came to the game, and, as usual, the little
man let his piece fall on the ground. The flute-player was
good-naturedly just going to pick it up, when he perceived that the
little dwarf was in the act of springing on his back. Then he turned
round sharply, and, seizing the little creature by his beard, he gave
him such a shaking that he tore his beard out, and the dwarf sank
groaning to the ground.

But as soon as the youth had the beard in his hands he felt so strong
that he was fit for anything, and he perceived all sorts of things in
the castle that he had not noticed before, but, on the other hand, all
strength seemed to have gone from the little man. He whined and sobbed
out: 'Give, oh give me my beard again, and I will instruct you in all
the magic art that surrounds this castle, and will help you to carry-off
the hidden treasure, which will make you rich and happy for ever.'

But the cunning flute-player replied: 'I will give you back your beard,
but you must first help me as you have promised to do. Till you have
done so, I don't let your beard out of my hands.'

Then the old man found himself obliged to fulfil his promise, though he
had had no intention of doing so, and had only desired to get his beard
back. He made the youth follow him through dark secret passages,
underground vaults, and grey rocks till at last they came to an open
field, which looked as if it belonged to a more beautiful world than
ours. Then they came to a stream of rushing water; but the little man
drew out a wand and touched the waves, whereupon the waters parted and
stood still, and the two crossed the river with dry feet. And how
beautiful everything on the other side was! lovely green paths leading
through woods and fields covered with flowers, birds with gold and
silver feathers singing on the trees, lovely butterflies and glittering
beetles fluttered and crawled about, and dear little beasts hid in the
bushes and hedges. The sky above them was not blue, but like rays of
pure gold, and the stars looked twice their usual size, and far more
brilliant than on our earth.

[Illustration]

The youth grew more and more astonished when the little grey man led him
into a castle far bigger and more splendid than the one they had left.
Here, too, the deepest silence reigned. They wandered all through the
castle, and came at last to a room in the middle of which stood a bed
hung all round with heavy curtains. Over the bed hung a bird's cage, and
the bird inside it was singing beautiful songs into the silent space.
The little grey man lifted the curtains from the bed and beckoned the
youth to approach. On the rich silk cushions embroidered with gold a
lovely maiden lay sleeping. She was as beautiful as an angel, with
golden hair which fell in curls over her marble shoulders, and a diamond
crown sparkled on her forehead. But a sleep as of death held her in its
spell, and no noise seemed able to waken the sleeper.

Then the little man turned to the wondering youth and said: 'See, here
is the sleeping child! She is a mighty Princess. This splendid castle
and this enchanted land are hers, but for hundreds of years she has
slept this magic sleep, and during all that time no human being has been
able to find their way here. I alone have kept guard over her, and have
gone daily to my own castle to get food and to beat the greedy
gold-seekers who forced their way into my dwelling. I have watched over
the Princess carefully all these years and saw that no stranger came
near her, but all my magic power lay in my beard, and now that you have
taken it away I am helpless, and can no longer hold the beautiful
Princess in her enchanted sleep, but am forced to reveal my treasured
secret to you. So set to work and do as I tell you. Take the bird which
hangs over the Princess's head, and which by its song sang her into this
enchanted sleep--a song which it has had to continue ever since; take it
and kill it, and cut its little heart out and burn it to a powder, and
then put it into the Princess's mouth; then she will instantly awaken,
and will bestow on you her heart and hand, her kingdom and castle, and
all her treasures.

The little dwarf paused, quite worn out, and the youth did not wait long
to do his bidding. He did all he was told carefully and promptly, and
having cut the little bird's heart out he proceeded to make it into a
powder. No sooner had he placed it in the Princess's mouth than she
opened her lovely eyes, and, looking up into the happy youth's face, she
kissed him tenderly, thanked him for freeing her from her magic sleep,
and promised to be his wife. At the same moment a sound as of thunder
was heard all over the castle, and on all the staircases and in every
room sounds were to be heard. Then a troop of servants, male and female,
flocked into the apartment where the happy couple sat, and after wishing
the Princess and her bridegroom joy, they dispersed all over the castle
to their different occupations.

But the little grey dwarf began now to demand his beard again from the
youth, for in his wicked heart he was determined to make an end of all
their happiness; he knew that if only his beard were once more on his
chin, he would be able to do what he liked with them all. But the clever
flute-player was quite a match for the little man in cunning, and said:
'All right, you needn't be afraid, you shall get your beard back before
we part; but you must allow my bride and me to accompany you a bit on
your homeward way.'

The dwarf could not refuse this request, and so they all went together
through the beautiful green paths and flowery meadows, and came at last
to the river which flowed for miles round the Princess's land and formed
the boundary of her kingdom. There was no bridge or ferry-boat to be
seen anywhere, and it was impossible to get over to the other side, for
the boldest swimmer would not have dared to brave the fierce current and
roaring waters. Then the youth said to the dwarf: 'Give me your wand in
order that I may part the waves.'

[Illustration]

And the dwarf was forced to do as he was told because the youth still
kept his beard from him; but the wicked little creature chuckled with
joy and thought to himself: 'The foolish youth will hand me my beard as
soon as we have crossed the river, and then my power will return, and I
will seize my wand and prevent them both ever returning to their
beautiful country.'

But the dwarf's wicked intentions were doomed to disappointment. The
happy youth struck the water with his wand, and the waves at once parted
and stood still, and the dwarf went on in front and crossed the stream.
No sooner had he done so than the waters closed behind him, and the
youth and his lovely bride stood safe on the other side. Then they threw
his beard to the old man across the river, but they kept his wand, so
that the wicked dwarf could never again enter their kingdom. So the
happy couple returned to their castle, and lived there in peace and
plenty for ever after. But the other two musicians waited in vain for
the return of their companion; and when he never came they said: 'Ah,
he's gone to play the flute,' till the saying passed into a proverb, and
was always said of anyone who set out to perform a task from which he
never returned.

  Grimm.




  _THE THREE DOGS_


There was once upon a time a shepherd who had two children, a son and a
daughter. When he was on his death-bed he turned to them and said, 'I
have nothing to leave you but three sheep and a small house; divide them
between you, as you like, but don't quarrel over them whatever you do.'

When the shepherd was dead, the brother asked his sister which she would
like best, the sheep or the little house; and when she had chosen the
house he said, 'Then I'll take the sheep and go out to seek my fortune
in the wide world. I don't see why I shouldn't be as lucky as many
another who has set out on the same search, and it wasn't for nothing
that I was born on a Sunday.'

And so he started on his travels, driving his three sheep in front of
him, and for a long time it seemed as if fortune didn't mean to favour
him at all. One day he was sitting disconsolately at a cross road, when
a man suddenly appeared before him with three black dogs, each one
bigger than the other.

'Hullo, my fine fellow,' said the man, 'I see you have three fat sheep.
I'll tell you what; if you'll give them to me, I'll give you my three
dogs.'

In spite of his sadness, the youth smiled and replied, 'What would I do
with your dogs? My sheep at least feed themselves, but I should have to
find food for the dogs.'

'My dogs are not like other dogs,' said the stranger; 'they will feed
you instead of you them, and will make your fortune. The smallest one is
called "Salt," and will bring you food whenever you wish; the second is
called "Pepper," and will tear anyone to pieces who offers to hurt you;
and the great big strong one is called "Mustard," and is so powerful
that it will break iron or steel with its teeth.'

The shepherd at last let himself be persuaded, and gave the stranger his
sheep. In order to test the truth of his statement about the dogs, he
said at once, 'Salt, I am hungry,' and before the words were out of his
mouth the dog had disappeared, and returned in a few minutes with a
large basket full of the most delicious food. Then the youth
congratulated himself on the bargain he had made, and continued his
journey in the best of spirits.

[Illustration]

One day he met a carriage and pair, all draped in black; even the
horses were covered with black trappings, and the coachman was clothed
in crape from top to toe. Inside the carriage sat a beautiful girl in a
black dress crying bitterly. The horses advanced slowly and mournfully,
with their heads bent on the ground.

'Coachman, what's the meaning of all this grief?' asked the shepherd.

At first the coachman wouldn't say anything, but when the youth pressed
him he told him that a huge dragon dwelt in the neighbourhood, and
required yearly the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden. This year the lot
had fallen on the King's daughter, and the whole country was filled with
woe and lamentation in consequence.

The shepherd felt very sorry for the lovely maiden, and determined to
follow the carriage. In a little it halted at the foot of a high
mountain. The girl got out, and walked slowly and sadly to meet her
terrible fate. The coachman perceived that the shepherd wished to follow
her, and warned him not to do so if he valued his life; but the shepherd
wouldn't listen to his advice. When they had climbed about half-way up
the hill they saw a terrible-looking monster with the body of a snake,
and with huge wings and claws, coming towards them, breathing forth
flames of fire, and preparing to seize its victim. Then the shepherd
called, 'Pepper, come to the rescue,' and the second dog set upon the
dragon, and after a fierce struggle bit it so sharply in the neck that
the monster rolled over, and in a few moments breathed its last. Then
the dog ate up the body, all except its two front teeth, which the
shepherd picked up and put in his pocket.

The Princess was quite overcome with terror and joy, and fell fainting
at the feet of her deliverer. When she recovered her consciousness she
begged the shepherd to return with her to her father, who would reward
him richly. But the youth answered that he wanted to see something of
the world, and that he would return again in three years, and nothing
would make him change this resolve. The Princess seated herself once
more in her carriage, and, bidding each other farewell, she and the
shepherd separated, she to return home, and he to see the world.

But while the Princess was driving over a bridge the carriage suddenly
stood still, and the coachman turned round to her and said, 'Your
deliverer has gone, and doesn't thank you for your gratitude. It would
be nice of you to make a poor fellow happy; therefore you may tell your
father that it was I who slew the dragon, and if you refuse to, I will
throw you into the river, and no one will be any the wiser, for they
will think the dragon has devoured you.'

The maiden was in a dreadful state when she heard these words; but there
was nothing for her to do but to swear that she would give out the
coachman as her deliverer, and not to divulge the secret to anyone. So
they returned to the capital, and everyone was delighted when they saw
the Princess had returned unharmed; the black flags were taken down from
all the palace towers, and gay-coloured ones put up in their place, and
the King embraced his daughter and her supposed rescuer with tears of
joy, and, turning to the coachman, he said, 'You have not only saved the
life of my child, but you have also freed the country from a terrible
scourge; therefore, it is only fitting that you should be richly
rewarded. Take, therefore, my daughter for your wife; but as she is
still so young, do not let the marriage be celebrated for another year.'

The coachman thanked the King for his graciousness, and was then led
away to be richly dressed and instructed in all the arts and graces that
befitted his new position. But the poor Princess wept bitterly, though
she did not dare to confide her grief to anyone. When the year was over,
she begged so hard for another year's respite that it was granted to
her. But this year passed also, and she threw herself at her father's
feet, and begged so piteously for one more year that the King's heart
was melted, and he yielded to her request, much to the Princess's joy,
for she knew that her real deliverer would appear at the end of the
third year. And so the year passed away like the other two, and the
wedding-day was fixed, and all the people were prepared to feast and
make merry.

But on the wedding-day it happened that a stranger came to the town with
three black dogs. He asked what the meaning of all the feasting and fuss
was, and they told him that the King's daughter was just going to be
married to the man who had slain the terrible dragon. The stranger at
once denounced the coachman as a liar; but no one would listen to him,
and he was seized and thrown into a cell with iron doors.

[Illustration]

While he was lying on his straw pallet, pondering mournfully on his
fate, he thought he heard the low whining of his dogs outside; then an
idea dawned on him, and he called out as loudly as he could, 'Mustard,
come to my help,' and in a second he saw the paws of his biggest dog at
the window of his cell, and before he could count two the creature had
bitten through the iron bars and stood beside him. Then they both let
themselves out of the prison by the window, and the poor youth was free
once more, though he felt very sad when he thought that another was to
enjoy the reward that rightfully belonged to him. He felt hungry too, so
he called his dog 'Salt,' and asked him to bring home some food. The
faithful creature trotted off, and soon returned with a table-napkin
full of the most delicious food, and the napkin itself was embroidered
with a kingly crown.

The King had just seated himself at the wedding-feast with all his
Court, when the dog appeared and licked the Princess's hand in an
appealing manner. With a joyful start she recognised the beast, and
bound her own table-napkin round his neck. Then she plucked up her
courage and told her father the whole story. The King at once sent a
servant to follow the dog, and in a short time the stranger was led into
the King's presence. The former coachman grew as white as a sheet when
he saw the shepherd, and, falling on his knees, begged for mercy and
pardon. The Princess recognised her deliverer at once, and did not need
the proof of the two dragon's teeth which he drew from his pocket. The
coachman was thrown into a dark dungeon, and the shepherd took his place
at the Princess's side, and this time, you may be sure, she did not beg
for the wedding to be put off.

The young couple lived for some time in great peace and happiness, when
suddenly one day the former shepherd bethought himself of his poor
sister and expressed a wish to see her again, and to let her share in
his good fortune. So they sent a carriage to fetch her, and soon she
arrived at the court, and found herself once more in her brother's arms.
Then one of the dogs spoke and said, 'Our task is done; you have no more
need of us. We only waited to see that you did not forget your sister in
your prosperity.' And with these words the three dogs became three birds
and flew away into the heavens.

  Grimm.The Project Gutenberg EBook of More Celtic Fairy Tales, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: More Celtic Fairy Tales

Author: Various

Editor: Joseph Jacobs

Illustrator: John D. Batten

Release Date: November 27, 2010 [EBook #34453]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE CELTIC FAIRY TALES ***




Produced by David Edwards, Christine Aldridge and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive)





Transcriber's Notes:

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_;
       "    in bold are surrounded by single =equals=;
       "    in bold Gothic font are surrounded by double ==equals==;

2. A detailed list of typographical corrections and other transcription
   notes appears at the end of this e-text.

3. A translation of the celtic passage below is thought to be:
   "I sense the smell of a sweet lying Irishman on my home turf."




[Illustration: MORE CELTIC FAIRY TALES]


MORE CELTIC
FAIRY TALES


_SAY THIS_

_Three times, with your eyes shut_

==Mothuighim boladh an Éireannaigh bhinn bhreugaigh
faoi m'fhóidín dúthaigh.==

_And you will see_
_What you will see_


[Illustration: ·THE·GOLDEN·BIRD·FLIES·AWAY·WITH·THE·APPLE·]




MORE CELTIC
FAIRY TALES

_SELECTED AND EDITED BY_
JOSEPH JACOBS
LATE EDITOR OF "FOLK-LORE"

_ILLUSTRATED BY_
JOHN D. BATTEN

[Illustration]

NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: D. NUTT
1895


[_Rights of translation and reproduction reserved_]




_To
THE MANY UNKNOWN
LITTLE FRIENDS
I HAVE MADE
BY THE FORMER BOOKS
OF THIS SERIES_




Preface


For the last time, for the present, I give the children of the British
Isles a selection of Fairy Tales once or still existing among them. The
story store of Great Britain and Ireland is, I hope, now adequately
represented in the four volumes which have won me so many little
friends, and of which this is the last.

My collections have dealt with the two folk-lore regions of these Isles
on different scales. The "English" region, including Lowland Scotland
and running up to the Highland line, is, I fancy, as fully represented
in "English" and "More English Fairy Tales" as it is ever likely to be.
But the Celtic district, including the whole of Ireland and the
Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, still offers a rich harvest to the
collector, and will not be exhausted for many a long day. The materials
already collected are far richer than those which the "English" region
afford, and it has accordingly been my aim in the two volumes devoted
to the Celts, rather to offer specimens of the crop than to exhaust the
field.

In the present volume I have proceeded on much the same lines as those
which I laid down for myself in compiling its predecessor. In making my
selection I have attempted to select the tales common both to Erin and
Alba. I have included, as specimen of the Irish mediæval hero tales, one
of the three sorrowful tales of Erin: "The Tale of the Children of Lir."
For the "drolls" or "comic relief" of the volume, I have again drawn
upon the inexhaustible Kennedy, while the great J. F. Campbell still
stands out as the most prominent figure in the history of the Celtic
Fairy Tale.

In my method of telling I have continued the practice which I adopted in
the previous volume: where I considered the language too complicated for
children, I have simplified; where an incident from another parallel
version seemed to add force to the narrative I have inserted it; and in
each case mentioned the fact in the corresponding notes. As former
statements of mine on this point have somewhat misled my folk-lore
friends, I should, perhaps, add that the alterations on this score have
been much slighter than they have seemed, and have not affected anything
of value to the science of folk-lore.

I fear I am somewhat of a heretic with regard to the evidential value of
folk-tales regarded as _capita mortua_ of anthropology. The ready
transit of a folk-tale from one district to another of the same
linguistic area, robs it to my mind of any anthropological or
ethnographical value; but on this high topic I have discoursed
elsewhere.

This book, like the others of this series, has only been rendered
possible by the courtesy and complaisance of the various collectors from
whom I have culled my treasures. In particular, I have to thank Mr.
Larminie and Mr. Eliot Stock for permission to include that fine tale
"Morraha" from the former's "West Irish Folk-tales," the chief addition
to the Celtic store since the appearance of my last volume. I have again
to thank Dr. Hyde for permission to use another tale from his delightful
collection. Mr. Curtin has been good enough to place at my disposal
another of the tales collected by him in Connaught, and my colleague,
Mr. Duncan, has translated for me a droll from the Erse. Above all, I
have to thank Mr. Alfred Nutt for constant supervision over my selection
and over my comments upon it. Mr. Nutt, by his own researches, and by
the encouragement and aid he has given to the researches of others on
Celtic folk-lore, has done much to replace the otherwise irreparable
loss of Campbell.

With this volume I part, at any rate for a time, from the pleasant task
which has engaged my attention for the last four years. For the
"English" folk-lore district I have attempted to do what the brothers
Grimm did for Germany, so far as that was possible at this late day. But
for the Celtic area I can claim no such high function; here the
materials are so rich that it would tax the resources of a whole clan of
Grimms to exhaust the field, and those Celtic Grimms must be Celts
themselves, or at any rate fully familiar with the Gaelic. Here then is
a task for the newly revived local patriotism of Ireland and the
Highlands. I have done little more than spy the land, and bring back
some specimen bunches from the Celtic vine. It must be for others, Celts
themselves, to enter in and possess the promised land.

                                                      JOSEPH JACOBS.




Contents

(FOR NOS. I.-XXVI., SEE "CELTIC FAIRY TALES")
                                                             PAGE

    XXVII. THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR                      1

   XXVIII. JACK THE CUNNING THIEF                              11

     XXIX. POWEL, PRINCE OF DYFED                              26

      XXX. PADDY O'KELLY AND THE WEASEL                        46

     XXXI. THE BLACK HORSE                                     57

    XXXII. THE VISION OF MACCONGLINNEY                         67

   XXXIII. DREAM OF OWEN O'MULREADY                            75

    XXXIV. MORRAHA                                             80

     XXXV. THE STORY OF THE MACANDREW FAMILY                   97

    XXXVI. THE FARMER OF LIDDESDALE                           106

   XXXVII. THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER          110

  XXXVIII. THE RUSSET DOG                                     125

    XXXIX. SMALLHEAD AND THE KING'S SONS                      135

       XL. THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON                         156

      XLI. ELIDORE                                            164

     XLII. THE LEECHING OF KAYN'S LEG                         169

    XLIII. HOW FIN WENT TO THE KINGDOM OF THE BIG MEN         194

     XLIV. HOW CORMAC MAC ART WENT TO FAERY                   204

      XLV. THE RIDERE OF RIDDLES                              210

     XLVI. THE TAIL                                           217


  NOTES AND REFERENCES                                        219




Full-page Illustrations


  THE GOLDEN BIRD                                  _Frontispiece_

  THE CHILDREN OF LIR                        _To face page_     4

  THE BLACK HORSE                                    "         62

  MORRAHA                                            "         90

  THE GREEK PRINCESS                                 "        120

  THE BRIDGE OF BLOOD                                "        138

  KOISHA KAYN                                        "        190

  WARNING TO READERS                                 "        218


[Full-page illustrations, initials, and cuts from blocks supplied by
Messrs. J. C. Drummond & Co.]




[Illustration]

The Fate of the Children of Lir


[Illustration: I]

It happened that the five Kings of Ireland met to determine who should
have the head kingship over them, and King Lir of the Hill of the White
Field expected surely he would be elected. When the nobles went into
council together they chose for head king, Dearg, son of Daghda, because
his father had been so great a Druid and he was the eldest of his
father's sons. But Lir left the Assembly of the Kings and went home to
the Hill of the White Field. The other kings would have followed after
Lir to give him wounds of spear and wounds of sword for not yielding
obedience to the man to whom they had given the over-lordship. But Dearg
the king would not hear of it and said: "Rather let us bind him to us
by the bonds of kinship, so that peace may dwell in the land. Send over
to him for wife the choice of the three maidens of the fairest form and
best repute in Erin, the three daughters of Oilell of Aran, my own three
bosom-nurslings."

So the messengers brought word to Lir that Dearg the king would give him
a foster-child of his foster-children. Lir thought well of it, and set
out next day with fifty chariots from the Hill of the White Field. And
he came to the Lake of the Red Eye near Killaloe. And when Lir saw the
three daughters of Oilell, Dearg the king said to him: "Take thy choice
of the maidens, Lir." "I know not," said Lir, "which is the choicest of
them all; but the eldest of them is the noblest, it is she I had best
take." "If so," said Dearg the king, "Ove is the eldest, and she shall
be given to thee, if thou willest." So Lir and Ove were married and went
back to the Hill of the White Field.

And after this there came to them twins, a son and a daughter, and they
gave them for names Fingula and Aod. And two more sons came to them,
Fiachra and Conn. When they came Ove died, and Lir mourned bitterly for
her, and but for his great love for his children he would have died of
his grief. And Dearg the king grieved for Lir and sent to him and said:
"We grieve for Ove for thy sake; but, that our friendship may not be
rent asunder, I will give unto thee her sister, Oifa, for a wife." So
Lir agreed, and they were united, and he took her with him to his own
house. And at first Oifa felt affection and honour for the children of
Lir and her sister, and indeed every one who saw the four children could
not help giving them the love of his soul. Lir doted upon the children,
and they always slept in beds in front of their father, who used to rise
at early dawn every morning and lie down among his children. But
thereupon the dart of jealousy passed into Oifa on account of this and
she came to regard the children with hatred and enmity. One day her
chariot was yoked for her and she took with her the four children of Lir
in it. Fingula was not willing to go with her on the journey, for she
had dreamed a dream in the night warning her against Oifa: but she was
not to avoid her fate. And when the chariot came to the Lake of the
Oaks, Oifa said to the people: "Kill the four children of Lir and I will
give you your own reward of every kind in the world." But they refused
and told her it was an evil thought she had. Then she would have raised
a sword herself to kill and destroy the children, but her own womanhood
and her weakness prevented her; so she drove the children of Lir into
the lake to bathe, and they did as Oifa told them. As soon as they were
upon the lake she struck them with a Druid's wand of spells and wizardry
and put them into the forms of four beautiful, perfectly white swans,
and she sang this song over them:

    "Out with you upon the wild waves, children of the king!
     Henceforth your cries shall be with the flocks of birds."

And Fingula answered:

    "Thou witch! we know thee by thy right name!
     Thou mayest drive us from wave to wave,
     But sometimes we shall rest on the headlands;
     We shall receive relief, but thou punishment.
     Though our bodies may be upon the lake,
     Our minds at least shall fly homewards."

And again she spoke: "Assign an end for the ruin and woe which thou hast
brought upon us."

Oifa laughed and said: "Never shall ye be free until the woman from the
south be united to the man from the north, until Lairgnen of Connaught
wed Deoch of Munster; nor shall any have power to bring you out of these
forms. Nine hundred years shall you wander over the lakes and streams of
Erin. This only I will grant unto you: that you retain your own speech,
and there shall be no music in the world equal to yours, the plaintive
music you shall sing." This she said because repentance seized her for
the evil she had done.

And then she spake this lay:

    "Away from me, ye children of Lir,
     Henceforth the sport of the wild winds
     Until Lairgnen and Deoch come together,
     Until ye are on the north-west of Red Erin.

    "A sword of treachery is through the heart of Lir,
     Of Lir the mighty champion,
     Yet though I have driven a sword.
     My victory cuts me to the heart."

Then she turned her steeds and went on to the Hall of Dearg the king.
The nobles of the court asked her where were the children of Lir, and
Oifa said: "Lir will not trust them to Dearg the king." But Dearg
thought in his own mind that the woman had played some treachery upon
them, and he accordingly sent messengers to the Hall of the White Field.

Lir asked the messengers: "Wherefore are ye come?"

"To fetch thy children, Lir," said they.

"Have they not reached you with Oifa?" said Lir.

[Illustration: CHILDREN OF LIR]

"They have not," said the messengers; "and Oifa said it was you would
not let the children go with her."

Then was Lir melancholy and sad at heart, hearing these things, for he
knew that Oifa had done wrong upon his children, and he set out towards
the Lake of the Red Eye. And when the children of Lir saw him coming
Fingula sang the lay:

    "Welcome the cavalcade of steeds
     Approaching the Lake of the Red Eye,
     A company dread and magical
     Surely seek after us.

    "Let us move to the shore, O Aod,
     Fiachra and comely Conn,
     No host under heaven can those horsemen be
     But King Lir with his mighty household."

Now as she said this King Lir had come to the shores of the lake and
heard the swans speaking with human voices. And he spake to the swans
and asked them who they were. Fingula answered and said: "We are thy own
children, ruined by thy wife, sister of our own mother, through her ill
mind and her jealousy." "For how long is the spell to be upon you?" said
Lir. "None can relieve us till the woman from the south and the man from
the north come together, till Lairgnen of Connaught wed Deoch of
Munster."

Then Lir and his people raised their shouts of grief, crying, and
lamentation, and they stayed by the shore of the lake listening to the
wild music of the swans until the swans flew away, and King Lir went on
to the Hall of Dearg the king. He told Dearg the king what Oifa had done
to his children. And Dearg put his power upon Oifa and bade her say
what shape on earth she would think the worst of all. She said it would
be in the form of an air-demon. "It is into that form I shall put you,"
said Dearg the king, and he struck her with a Druid's wand of spells and
wizardry and put her into the form of an air-demon. And she flew away at
once, and she is still an air-demon, and shall be so for ever.

But the children of Lir continued to delight the Milesian clans with the
very sweet fairy music of their songs, so that no delight was ever heard
in Erin to compare with their music until the time came appointed for
the leaving the Lake of the Red Eye.

Then Fingula sang this parting lay:

    "Farewell to thee, Dearg the king,
     Master of all Druid's lore!
     Farewell to thee, our father dear,
     Lir of the Hill of the White Field!

    "We go to pass the appointed time
     Away and apart from the haunts of men
     In the current of the Moyle,
     Our garb shall be bitter and briny,

    "Until Deoch come to Lairgnen.
     So come, ye brothers of once ruddy cheeks;
     Let us depart from this Lake of the Red Eye,
     Let us separate in sorrow from the tribe that has loved us."

And after they took to flight, flying highly, lightly, aerially till
they reached the Moyle, between Erin and Albain.

The men of Erin were grieved at their leaving, and it was proclaimed
throughout Erin that henceforth no swan should be killed. Then they
stayed all solitary, all alone, filled with cold and grief and regret,
until a thick tempest came upon them and Fingula said: "Brothers, let
us appoint a place to meet again if the power of the winds separate us."
And they said: "Let us appoint to meet, O sister, at the Rock of the
Seals." Then the waves rose up and the thunder roared, the lightnings
flashed, the sweeping tempest passed over the sea, so that the children
of Lir were scattered from each other over the great sea. There came,
however, a placid calm after the great tempest and Fingula found herself
alone, and she said this lay:

    "Woe upon me that I am alive!
     My wings are frozen to my sides.
     O beloved three, O beloved three,
     Who hid under the shelter of my feathers,
     Until the dead come back to the living
     I and the three shall never meet again!"

And she flew to the Lake of the Seals and soon saw Conn coming towards
her with heavy step and drenched feathers, and Fiachra also, cold and
wet and faint, and no word could they tell, so cold and faint were they:
but she nestled them under her wings and said: "If Aod could come to us
now our happiness would be complete." But soon they saw Aod coming
towards them with dry head and preened feathers: Fingula put him under
the feathers of her breast, and Fiachra under her right wing, and Conn
under her left: and they made this lay:

    "Bad was our stepmother with us,
     She played her magic on us,
     Sending us north on the sea
     In the shapes of magical swans.

    "Our bath upon the shore's ridge
     Is the foam of the brine-crested tide,
     Our share of the ale feast
     Is the brine of the blue-crested sea."

One day they saw a splendid cavalcade of pure white steeds coming
towards them, and when they came near they were the two sons of Dearg
the king who had been seeking for them to give them news of Dearg the
king and Lir their father. "They are well," they said, "and live
together happy in all except that ye are not with them, and for not
knowing where ye have gone since the day ye left the Lake of the Red
Eye." "Happy are not we," said Fingula, and she sang this song:

    "Happy this night the household of Lir,
     Abundant their meat and their wine.
     But the children of Lir--what is their lot?
     For bed-clothes we have our feathers,
     And as for our food and our wine--
     The white sand and the bitter brine,
     Fiachra's bed and Conn's place
     Under the cover of my wings on the Moyle,
     Aod has the shelter of my breast,
     And so side by side we rest."

So the sons of Dearg the king came to the Hall of Lir and told the king
the condition of his children.

Then the time came for the children of Lir to fulfil their lot, and they
flew in the current of the Moyle to the Bay of Erris, and remained there
till the time of their fate, and then they flew to the Hill of the White
Field and found all desolate and empty, with nothing but unroofed green
raths and forests of nettles--no house, no fire, no dwelling-place. The
four came close together, and they raised three shouts of lamentation
aloud, and Fingula sang this lay:

    "Uchone! it is bitterness to my heart
     To see my father's place forlorn--
     No hounds, no packs of dogs,
     No women, and no valiant kings.

    "No drinking-horns, no cups of wood,
     No drinking in its lightsome halls.
     Uchone! I see the state of this house
     That its lord our father lives no more.

    "Much have we suffered in our wandering years,
     By winds buffeted, by cold frozen;
     Now has come the greatest of our pain--
     There lives no man who knoweth us in the house
     where we were born."

So the children of Lir flew away to the Glory Isle of Brandan the saint,
and they settled upon the Lake of the Birds until the holy Patrick came
to Erin and the holy Mac Howg came to Glory Isle.

And the first night he came to the island the children of Lir heard the
voice of his bell ringing for matins, so that they started and leaped
about in terror at hearing it; and her brothers left Fingula alone.
"What is it, beloved brothers?" said she. "We know not what faint,
fearful voice it is we have heard." Then Fingula recited this lay:

    "Listen to the Cleric's bell,
     Poise your wings and raise
     Thanks to God for his coming,
     Be grateful that you hear him.

    "He shall free you from pain,
     And bring you from the rocks and stones.
     Ye comely children of Lir
     Listen to the bell of the Cleric."

And Mac Howg came down to the brink of the shore and said to them: "Are
ye the children of Lir?" "We are indeed," said they. "Thanks be to God!"
said the saint; "it is for your sakes I have come to this Isle beyond
every other island in Erin. Come ye to land now and put your trust in
me." So they came to land, and he made for them chains of bright white
silver, and put a chain between Aod and Fingula and a chain between Conn
and Fiachra.

It happened at this time that Lairgnen was prince of Connaught and he
was to wed Deoch the daughter of the king of Munster. She had heard the
account of the birds and she became filled with love and affection for
them, and she said she would not wed till she had the wondrous birds of
Glory Isle. Lairgnen sent for them to the Saint Mac Howg. But the Saint
would not give them, and both Lairgnen and Deoch went to Glory Isle. And
Lairgnen went to seize the birds from the altar: but as soon as he had
laid hands on them their feathery coats fell off, and the three sons of
Lir became three withered bony old men, and Fingula, a lean withered old
woman without blood or flesh. Lairgnen started at this and left the
place hastily, but Fingula chanted this lay:

    "Come and baptise us, O Cleric,
     Clear away our stains!
     This day I see our grave--
     Fiachra and Conn on each side,
     And in my lap, between my two arms,
     Place Aod, my beauteous brother."

After this lay, the children of Lir were baptised. And they died, and
were buried as Fingula had said, Fiachra and Conn on either side, and
Aod before her face. A cairn was raised for them, and on it their names
were written in runes. And that is the fate of the children of Lir.




Jack the Cunning Thief


[Illustration: T]

There was a poor farmer who had three sons, and on the same day the
three boys went to seek their fortune. The eldest two were sensible,
industrious young men; the youngest never did much at home that was any
use. He loved to be setting snares for rabbits, and tracing hares in the
snow, and inventing all sorts of funny tricks to annoy people at first
and then set them laughing.

The three parted at cross-roads, and Jack took the lonesomest. The day
turned out rainy, and he was wet and weary, you may depend, at
nightfall, when he came to a lonesome house a little off the road.

"What do you want?" said a blear-eyed old woman, that was sitting at the
fire.

"My supper and a bed to be sure," said he.

"You can't get it," said she.

"What's to hinder me?" said he.

"The owners of the house is," said she, "six honest men that does be out
mostly till three or four o'clock in the morning, and if they find you
here they'll skin you alive at the very least."

"Well, I think," said Jack, "that their very most couldn't be much
worse. Come, give me something out of the cupboard, for here I'll stay.
Skinning is not much worse than catching your death of cold in a ditch
or under a tree such a night as this."

_Begonins_ she got afraid, and gave him a good supper; and when he was
going to bed he said if she let any of the six honest men disturb him
when they came home she'd sup sorrow for it. When he awoke in the
morning, there were six ugly-looking spalpeens standing round his bed.
He leaned on his elbow, and looked at them with great contempt.

"Who are you," said the chief, "and what's your business?"

"My name," says he, "is Master Thief, and my business just now is to
find apprentices and workmen. If I find you any good, maybe I'll give
you a few lessons."

Bedad they were a little cowed, and says the head man, "Well, get up,
and after breakfast, we'll see who is to be the master, and who the
journeyman."

They were just done breakfast, when what should they see but a farmer
driving a fine large goat to market. "Will any of you," says Jack,
"undertake to steal that goat from the owner before he gets out of the
wood, and that without the smallest violence?"

"I couldn't do it," says one; and "I couldn't do it," says another.

"I'm your master," says Jack, "and I'll do it."

He slipped out, went through the trees to where there was a bend in the
road, and laid down his right brogue in the very middle of it. Then he
ran on to another bend, and laid down his left brogue and went and hid
himself.

When the farmer sees the first brogue, he says to himself, "That would
be worth something if it had the fellow, but it is worth nothing by
itself."

He goes on till he comes to the second brogue.

"What a fool I was," says he, "not to pick up the other! I'll go back
for it."

So he tied the goat to a sapling in the hedge, and returned for the
brogue. But Jack, who was behind a tree had it already on his foot, and
when the man was beyond the bend he picked up the other and loosened the
goat, and led him off through the wood.

Ochone! the poor man couldn't find the first brogue, and when he came
back he couldn't find the second, nor neither his goat.

"_Mile mollacht_!" says he, "what will I do after promising Johanna to
buy her a shawl. I must only go and drive another beast to the market
unknownst. I'd never hear the last of it if Joan found out what a fool I
made of myself."

The thieves were in great admiration at Jack, and wanted him to tell
them how he had done the farmer, but he wouldn't tell them.

By-and-by, they see the poor man driving a fine fat wether the same way.

"Who'll steal that wether," says Jack, "before it's out of the wood, and
no roughness used?"

"I couldn't," says one; and "I couldn't," says another.

"I'll try," says Jack. "Give me a good rope."

The poor farmer was jogging along and thinking of his misfortune, when
he sees a man hanging from the bough of a tree. "Lord save us!" says he,
"the corpse wasn't there an hour ago." He went on about half a quarter
of a mile, and, there was another corpse again hanging over the road.
"God between us and harm," said he, "am I in my right senses?" There was
another turn about the same distance, and just beyond it the third
corpse was hanging. "Oh, murdher!" said he; "I'm beside myself. What
would bring three hung men so near one another? I must be mad. I'll go
back and see if the others are there still."

He tied the wether to a sapling, and back he went. But when he was round
the bend, down came the corpse, and loosened the wether, and drove it
home through the wood to the robbers' house. You all may think how the
poor farmer felt when he could find no one dead or alive going or
coming, nor his wether, nor the rope that fastened him. "Oh,
misfortunate day!" cried he, "what'll Joan say to me now? My morning
gone, and the goat and wether lost! I must sell something to make the
price of the shawl. Well, the fat bullock is in the nearest field. She
won't see me taking it."

Well, if the robbers were not surprised when Jack came into the bawn
with the wether! "If you do another trick like this," said the captain,
"I'll resign the command to you."

They soon saw the farmer going by again, driving a fat bullock this
time.

"Who'll bring that fat bullock here," says Jack, "and use no violence?"

"I couldn't," says one; and "I couldn't," says another.

"I'll try," says Jack, and away he went into the wood.

The farmer was about the spot where he saw the first brogue, when he
heard the bleating of a goat off at his right in the wood.

He cocked his ears, and the next thing he heard was the maaing of a
sheep.

"Blood alive!" says he, "maybe these are my own that I lost." There was
more bleating and more maaing. "There they are as sure as a gun," says
he, and he tied his bullock to a sapling that grew in the hedge, and
away he went into the wood. When he got near the place where the cries
came from, he heard them a little before him, and on he followed them.
At last, when he was about half a mile from the spot where he tied the
beast, the cries stopped altogether. After searching and searching till
he was tired, he returned for his bullock; but there wasn't the ghost of
a bullock there, nor any where else that he searched.

This time, when the thieves saw Jack and his prize coming into the bawn,
they couldn't help shouting out, "Jack must be our chief." So there was
nothing but feasting and drinking hand to fist the rest of the day.
Before they went to bed, they showed Jack the cave where their money was
hid, and all their disguises in another cave, and swore obedience to
him.

One morning, when they were at breakfast, about a week after, said they
to Jack, "Will you mind the house for us to-day while we are at the fair
of Mochurry? We hadn't a spree for ever so long: you must get your turn
whenever you like."

"Never say't twice," says Jack, and off they went. After they were gone
says Jack to the wicked housekeeper, "Do these fellows ever make you a
present?"

"Ah, catch them at it! indeed, and they don't, purshuin to 'em."

"Well, come along with me, and I'll make you a rich woman."

[Illustration]

He took her to the treasure cave; and while she was in raptures, gazing
at the heaps of gold and silver, Jack filled his pockets as full as they
could hold, put more into a little bag, and walked out, locking the door
on the old hag, and leaving the key in the lock. He then put on a rich
suit of clothes, took the goat, and the wether, and the bullock, and
drove them before him to the farmer's house.

Joan and her husband were at the door; and when they saw the animals,
they clapped their hands and laughed for joy.

"Do you know who owns them bastes, neighbours?"

"Maybe we don't! sure they're ours."

"I found them straying in the wood. Is that bag with ten guineas in it
that's hung round the goat's neck yours?"

"Faith, it isn't."

"Well, you may as well keep it for a Godsend; I don't want it."

"Heaven be in your road, good gentleman!"

Jack travelled on till he came to his father's house in the dusk of the
evening. He went in. "God save all here!"

"God save you kindly, sir!"

"Could I have a night's lodging here?"

"Oh, sir, our place isn't fit for the likes of a gentleman such as you."

"Oh, _musha_, don't you know your own son?"

Well, they opened their eyes, and it was only a strife to see who'd have
him in their arms first.

"But, Jack asthore, where did you get the fine clothes?"

"Oh, you may as well ask me where I got all that money?" said he,
emptying his pockets on the table.

Well, they got in a great fright, but when he told them his adventures,
they were easier in mind, and all went to bed in great content.

"Father," says Jack, next morning, "go over to the landlord, and tell
him I wish to be married to his daughter."

"Faith, I'm afraid he'd only set the dogs at me. If he asks me how you
made your money, what'll I say?"

"Tell him I am a master thief, and that there is no one equal to me in
the three kingdoms; that I am worth a thousand pounds, and all taken
from the biggest rogues unhanged. Speak to him when the young lady is
by."

"It's a droll message you're sending me on: I'm afraid it won't end
well."

The old man came back in two hours.

"Well, what news?"

"Droll news, enough. The lady didn't seem a bit unwilling: I suppose
it's not the first time you spoke to her; and the squire laughed, and
said you would have to steal the goose off o' the spit in his kitchen
next Sunday, and he'd see about it."

"O! that won't be hard, any way."

Next Sunday, after the people came from early Mass, the squire and all
his people were in the kitchen, and the goose turning before the fire.
The kitchen door opened, and a miserable old beggar man with a big
wallet on his back put in his head.

"Would the mistress have anything for me when dinner is over, your
honour?"

"To be sure. We have no room here for you just now; sit in the porch for
a while."

"God bless your honour's family, and yourself!"

Soon some one that was sitting near the window cried out, "Oh, sir,
there's a big hare scampering like the divil round the bawn. Will we run
out and pin him?"

"Pin a hare indeed! much chance you'd have; sit where you are."

That hare made his escape into the garden, but Jack that was in the
beggar's clothes soon let another out of the bag.

"Oh, master, there he is still pegging round. He can't make his escape:
let us have a chase. The hall door is locked on the inside, and Mr. Jack
can't get in."

"Stay quiet, I tell you."

In a few minutes he shouted out again that the hare was there still, but
it was the third that Jack was just after giving its liberty. Well, by
the laws, they couldn't be kept in any longer. Out pegged every mother's
son of them, and the squire after them.

"Will I turn the spit, your honour, while they're catching the
_hareyeen_?" says the beggar.

"Do, and don't let any one in for your life."

"Faith, an' I won't, you may depend on it."

The third hare got away after the others, and when they all came back
from the hunt, there was neither beggar nor goose in the kitchen.

"Purshuin' to you, Jack," says the landlord, "you've come over me this
time."

Well, while they were thinking of making out another dinner, a messenger
came from Jack's father to beg that the squire, and the mistress, and
the young lady would step across the fields, and take share of what God
sent. There was no dirty mean pride about the family, and they walked
over, and got a dinner with roast turkey, and roast beef, and their own
roast goose; and the squire had like to burst his waistcoat with
laughing at the trick, and Jack's good clothes and good manners did not
take away any liking the young lady had for him already.

While they were taking their punch at the old oak table in the nice
clean little parlour with the sanded floor, says the squire, "You can't
be sure of my daughter, Jack, unless you steal away my six horses from
under the six men that will be watching them to-morrow night in the
stable."

"I'll do more than that," says Jack, "for a pleasant look from the young
lady"; and the young lady's cheeks turned as red as fire.

Monday night the six horses were in their stalls, and a man on every
horse, and a good glass of whisky under every man's waistcoat, and the
door was left wide open for Jack. They were merry enough for a long
time, and joked and sung, and were pitying the poor fellow. But the
small hours crept on, and the whisky lost its power, and they began to
shiver and wish it was morning. A miserable old colliach, with half a
dozen bags round her, and a beard half an inch long on her chin came to
the door.

"Ah, then, tendher-hearted Christians," says she, "would you let me in,
and allow me a wisp of straw in the corner; the life will be froze out
of me, if you don't give me shelter."

Well, they didn't see any harm in that, and she made herself as snug as
she could, and they soon saw her pull out a big black bottle, and take a
sup. She coughed and smacked her lips, and seemed a little more
comfortable, and the men couldn't take their eyes off her.

"Gorsoon," says she, "I'd offer you a drop of this, only you might think
it too free-making."

"Oh, hang all impedent pride," says one, "we'll take it, and thankee."

So she gave them the bottle, and they passed it round, and the last man
had the manners to leave half a glass in the bottom for the old woman.
They all thanked her, and said it was the best drop ever passed their
tongue.

"In throth, agras," said she, "it's myself that's glad to show how I
value your kindness in giving me shelter; I'm not without another
_buideal_, and you may pass it round while myself finishes what the
dasent man left me."

Well, what they drank out of the other bottle only gave them a relish
for more, and by the time the last man got to the bottom, the first man
was dead asleep in the saddle, for the second bottle had a sleepy posset
mixed with the whisky. The beggar woman lifted each man down, and laid
him in the manger, or under the manger, snug and sausty, drew a stocking
over every horse's hoof, and led them away without any noise to one of
Jack's father's outhouses. The first thing the squire saw next morning
was Jack riding up the avenue, and five horses stepping after the one he
rode.

"Confound you, Jack!" says he, "and confound the numskulls that let you
outwit them!"

He went out to the stable, and didn't the poor fellows look very lewd o'
themselves, when they could be woke up in earnest!

"After all," says the squire, when they were sitting at breakfast, "it
was no great thing to outwit such ninny-hammers. I'll be riding out on
the common from one to three to-day, and if you can outwit me of the
beast I'll be riding, I'll say you deserve to be my son-in-law."

"I'd do more than that," says Jack, "for the honour, if there was no
love at all in the matter," and the young lady held up her saucer before
her face.

Well, the squire kept riding about and riding about till he was tired,
and no sign of Jack. He was thinking of going home at last, when what
should he see but one of his servants running from the house as if he
was mad.

"Oh masther, masther," says he, as far as he could be heard, "fly home
if you wish to see the poor mistress alive! I'm running for the surgeon.
She fell down two flights of stairs, and her neck, or her hips, or both
her arms are broke, and she's speechless, and it's a mercy if you find
the breath in her. Fly as fast as the baste will carry you."

"But hadn't you better take the horse? It's a mile and a half to the
surgeon's."

"Oh, anything you like, master. Oh, _Vuya, Vuya!_ misthress _alanna_,
that I should ever see the day! and your purty body disfigured as it
is!"

"Here, stop your noise, and be off like wildfire! Oh, my darling, my
darling, isn't this a trial?"

He tore home like a fury, and wondered to see no stir outside, and when
he flew into the hall, and from that to the parlour, his wife and
daughter that were sewing at the table screeched out at the rush he
made, and the wild look that was on his face.

"Oh, my darling!" said he, when he could speak, "how's this? Are you
hurt? Didn't you fall down the stairs? What happened at all? Tell me!"

"Why, nothing at all happened, thank God, since you rode out; where did
you leave the horse?"

Well, no one could describe the state he was in for about a quarter of
an hour, between joy for his wife and anger with Jack, and _sharoose_
for being tricked. He saw the beast coming up the avenue, and a little
gorsoon in the saddle with his feet in the stirrup leathers. The servant
didn't make his appearance for a week; but what did he care with Jack's
ten golden guineas in his pocket.

Jack didn't show his nose till next morning, and it was a queer
reception he met.

[Illustration]

"That was all foul play you gave," says the squire. "I'll never forgive
you for the shock you gave me. But then I am so happy ever since, that I
think I'll give you only one trial more. If you will take away the sheet
from under my wife and myself to-night, the marriage may take place
to-morrow."

"We'll try," says Jack, "but if you keep my bride from me any longer,
I'll steal her away if she was minded by fiery dragons."

When the squire and his wife were in bed, and the moon shining in
through the window, he saw a head rising over the sill to have a peep,
and then bobbing down again.

"That's Jack," says the squire; "I'll astonish him a bit," says the
squire, pointing a gun at the lower pane.

"Oh Lord, my dear!" says the wife, "sure, you wouldn't shoot the brave
fellow?"

"Indeed, an' I wouldn't for a kingdom; there's nothing but powder in
it."

Up went the head, bang went the gun, down dropped the body, and a great
souse was heard on the gravel walk.

"Oh, Lord," says the lady, "poor Jack is killed or disabled for life."

"I hope not," says the squire, and down the stairs he ran. He never
minded to shut the door, but opened the gate and ran into the garden.
His wife heard his voice at the room door, before he could be under the
window and back, as she thought.

"Wife, wife," says he from the door, "the sheet, the sheet! He is not
killed, I hope, but he is bleeding like a pig. I must wipe it away as
well as I can, and get some one to carry him in with me." She pulled it
off the bed, and threw it to him. Down he ran like lightning, and he had
hardly time to be in the garden, when he was back, and this time he came
back in his shirt, as he went out.

"High hanging to you, Jack," says he, "for an arrant rogue!"

"Arrant rogue?" says she, "isn't the poor fellow all cut and bruised?"

"I didn't much care if he was. What do you think was bobbing up and
down at the window, and sossed down so heavy on the walk? A man's
clothes stuffed with straw, and a couple of stones."

"And what did you want with the sheet just now, to wipe his blood if he
was only a man of straw?"

"Sheet, woman! I wanted no sheet."

"Well, whether you wanted it or not, I threw it to you, and you standing
outside o' the door."

"Oh, Jack, Jack, you terrible tinker!" says the squire, "there's no use
in striving with you. We must do without the sheet for one night. We'll
have the marriage to-morrow to get ourselves out of trouble."

So married they were, and Jack turned out a real good husband. And the
squire and his lady were never tired of praising their son-in-law, "Jack
the Cunning Thief."




Powel, Prince of Dyfed.


[Illustration: P]

Powel, Prince of Dyfed, was lord of the seven Cantrevs of Dyfed; and
once upon a time Powel was at Narberth, his chief palace, where a feast
had been prepared for him, and with him was a great host of men. And
after the first meal, Powel arose to walk, and he went to the top of a
mound that was above the palace, and was called Gorseth Arberth.

"Lord," said one of the court, "it is peculiar to the mound that
whosoever sits upon it cannot go thence without either receiving wounds
or blows, or else seeing a wonder."

"I fear not to receive wounds and blows in the midst of such a host as
this; but as to the wonder, gladly would I see it. I will go, therefore,
and sit upon the mound."

And upon the mound he sat. And while he sat there, they saw a lady, on a
pure white horse of large size, with a garment of shining gold around
her, coming along the highway that led from the mound; and the horse
seemed to move at a slow and even pace, and to be coming up towards the
mound.

"My men," said Powel, "is there any among you who knows yonder lady?"

"There is not, lord," said they.

"Go one of you and meet her, that we may know who she is."

And one of them arose; and as he came upon the road to meet her she
passed by, and he followed as fast as he could, being on foot; and the
greater was his speed, the farther was she from him. And when he saw
that it profited him nothing to follow her, he returned to Powel, and
said unto him, "Lord, it is idle for any one in the world to follow her
on foot."

"Verily," said Powel, "go unto the palace, and take the fleetest horse
that thou seest, and go after her."

And he took a horse and went forward. And he came to an open level
plain, and put spurs to his horse; and the more he urged his horse, the
farther was she from him. Yet she held the same pace as at first. And
his horse began to fail; and when his horse's feet failed him, he
returned to the place where Powel was.

"Lord," said he, "it will avail nothing for any one to follow yonder
lady. I know of no horse in these realms swifter than this, and it
availed me not to pursue her."

"Of a truth," said Powel, "there must be some illusion here. Let us go
towards the palace." So to the palace they went, and they spent that
day. And the next day they arose, and that also they spent until it was
time to go to meat. And after the first meal, "Verily," said Powel, "we
will go, the same party as yesterday, to the top of the mound. Do thou,"
said he to one of his young men, "take the swiftest horse that thou
knowest in the field." And thus did the young man. They went towards the
mound, taking the horse with them. And as they were sitting down they
beheld the lady on the same horse, and in the same apparel, coming along
the same road. "Behold," said Powel, "here is the lady of yesterday.
Make ready, youth, to learn who she is."

"My lord," said he "that will I gladly do." And thereupon the lady came
opposite to them. So the youth mounted his horse; and before he had
settled himself in his saddle, she passed by, and there was a clear
space between them. But her speed was no greater than it had been the
day before. Then he put his horse into an amble, and thought, that,
notwithstanding the gentle pace at which his horse went, he should soon
overtake her. But this availed him not: so he gave his horse the reins.
And still he came no nearer to her than when he went at a foot's pace.
The more he urged his horse, the farther was she from him. Yet she rode
not faster than before. When he saw that it availed not to follow her,
he returned to the place where Powel was. "Lord," said he, "the horse
can no more than thou hast seen."

"I see indeed that it avails not that any one should follow her. And by
Heaven," said he, "she must needs have an errand to some one in this
plain, if her haste would allow her to declare it. Let us go back to the
palace." And to the palace they went, and they spent that night in songs
and feasting, as it pleased them.

The next day they amused themselves until it was time to go to meat. And
when meat was ended, Powel said, "Where are the hosts that went
yesterday and the day before to the top of the mound?"

"Behold, lord, we are here," said they.

"Let us go," said he, "to the mound to sit there. And do thou," said he
to the page who tended his horse, "saddle my horse well, and hasten with
him to the road, and bring also my spurs with thee." And the youth did
thus. They went and sat upon the mound. And ere they had been there but
a short time, they beheld the lady coming by the same road, and in the
same manner, and at the same pace. "Young man," said Powel, "I see the
lady coming: give me my horse." And no sooner had he mounted his horse
than she passed him. And he turned after her, and followed her. And he
let his horse go bounding playfully, and thought that at the second step
or the third he should come up with her. But he came no nearer to her
than at first. Then he urged his horse to his utmost speed, yet he found
that it availed nothing to follow her. Then said Powel, "O maiden, for
the sake of him who thou best lovest, stay for me."

"I will stay gladly," said she, "and it were better for thy horse hadst
thou asked it long since." So the maiden stopped, and she threw back
that part of her head-dress which covered her face. And she fixed her
eyes upon him, and began to talk with him.

"Lady," asked he, "whence comest thou, and whereunto dost thou journey?"

"I journey on mine own errand," said she, "and right glad am I to see
thee."

"My greeting be unto thee," said he. Then he thought that the beauty of
all the maidens, and all the ladies that he had ever seen, was as
nothing compared to her beauty. "Lady," he said, "wilt thou tell me
aught concerning thy purpose?"

"I will tell thee," said she. "My chief quest was to seek thee."

"Behold," said Powel, "this is to me the most pleasing quest on which
thou couldst have come. And wilt thou tell me who thou art?"

[Illustration: ·I·JOURNEY·ON·MINE·OWN·ERRAND·]

"I will tell thee, lord," said she. "I am Rhiannon, the daughter of
Heveyth Hên, and they sought to give me to a husband against my will.
But no husband would I have, and that because of my love for thee,
neither will I yet have one unless thou reject me. And hither have I
come to hear thy answer."

"By Heaven," said Powel, "behold this is my answer. If I might choose
among all the ladies and damsels in the world, thee would I choose."

"Verily," said she, "if thou art thus minded, make a pledge to meet me
ere I am given to another."

"The sooner I may do so, the more pleasing will it be unto me," said
Powel, "and wheresoever thou wilt, there will I meet with thee."

"I will that thou meet me this day twelvemonth, at the palace of
Heveyth. And I will cause a feast to be prepared, so that it be ready
against thou come."

"Gladly," said he, "will I keep this tryst."

"Lord," said she, "remain in health, and be mindful that thou keep thy
promise. And now I will go hence."

So they parted, and he went back to his hosts and to them of his
household. And whatsoever questions they asked him respecting the
damsel, he always turned the discourse upon other matters. And when a
year from that time was gone, he caused a hundred knights to equip
themselves, and to go with him to the palace of Heveyth Hên. And he came
to the palace, and there was great joy concerning him, with much
concourse of people, and great rejoicing, and vast preparations for his
coming. And the whole court was placed under his orders.

And the hall was garnished, and they went to meat, and thus did they
sit; Heveyth Hên was on one side of Powel, and Rhiannon on the other.
And all the rest according to their rank. And they ate and feasted and
talked, one with another; and at the beginning of the carousal after
the meat, there entered a tall auburn-haired youth, of royal bearing,
clothed in a garment of satin. And when he came into the hall he saluted
Powel and his companions.

"The greeting of Heaven be unto thee, my soul," said Powel. "Come thou
and sit down."

"Nay," said he, "a suitor am I; and I will do mine errand."

"Do so willingly," said Powel.

"Lord," said he, "my errand is unto thee; and it is to crave a boon of
thee that I come."

"What boon soever thou mayest ask of me, as far as I am able, thou shalt
have."

"Ah," said Rhiannon, "wherefore didst thou give that answer?"

"Has he not given it before the presence of these nobles?" asked the
youth.

"My soul," said Powel, "what is the boon thou askest?"

"The lady whom best I love is to be thy bride this night; I come to ask
her of thee, with the feast and the banquet that are in this place."

And Powel was silent because of the answer which he had given.

"Be silent as long as thou wilt," said Rhiannon. "Never did man make
worse use of his wits than thou hast done."

"Lady," said he, "I knew not who he was."

"Behold, this is the man to whom they would have given me against my
will," said she. "And he is Gwawl the son of Clud, a man of great power
and wealth; and because of the word thou hast spoken, bestow me upon
him, lest shame befall thee."

"Lady," said he, "I understand not thine answer. Never can I do as thou
sayest."

"Bestow me upon him," said she, "and I will cause that I shall never be
his."

"By what means will that be?" said Powel.

"In thy hand will I give thee a small bag," said she. "See that thou
keep it well, and he will ask of thee the banquet and the feast, and the
preparations, which are not in thy power. Unto the hosts and the
household will I give the feast. And such will be thy answer respecting
this. And as concerns myself, I will engage to become his bride this
night twelvemonth. And at the end of the year be thou here," said she,
"and bring this bag with thee and let thy hundred knights be in the
orchard up yonder. And when he is in the midst of joy and feasting, come
thou in by thyself, clad in ragged garments, and holding thy bag in thy
hand, and ask nothing but a bagful of food: and I will cause that if all
the meat and liquor that are in these seven cantrevs were put into it,
it would be no fuller than before. And after a great deal has been put
therein, he will ask thee whether thy bag will ever be full. Say thou
then that it never will, until a man of noble birth and of great wealth
arise and press the food in the bag with both his feet, saying, 'Enough
has been put therein.' And I will cause him to go and tread down the
food in the bag, and when he does so, turn thou the bag, so that he
shall be up over his head in it, and then slip a knot upon the thongs of
the bag. Let there be also a good bugle-horn about thy neck, and as soon
as thou hast bound him in the bag, wind thy horn, and let it be a signal
between thee and thy knights. And when they hear the sound of the horn,
let them come down upon the palace."

"Lord," said Gwawl, "it is meet that I have an answer to my request."

"As much of that thou hast asked as it is in my power to give, thou
shalt have," replied Powel.

"My soul," said Rhiannon unto him, "as for the feast and the banquet
that are here, I have bestowed them upon the men of Dyved, and the
household, and the warriors that are with us. These can I not suffer to
be given to any. In a year from to-night a banquet shall be prepared for
thee in this palace, that I may become thy bride."

So Gwawl went forth to his possessions, and Powel went also back to
Dyved. And they both spent that year until it was the time for the feast
at the palace of Heveyth Hên. Then Gwawl the son of Clud set out to the
feast that was prepared for him, and he came to the palace and was
received there with rejoicing. Powel also, the chief of Annuvyn, came to
the orchard with his hundred knights, as Rhiannon had commanded him,
having the bag with him. And Powel was clad in coarse and ragged
garments, and wore large clumsy old shoes upon his feet. And when he
knew that the carousal after the meat had begun, he went towards the
hall, and when he came into the hall, he saluted Gwawl the son of Clud,
and his company, both men and women.

"Heaven prosper thee!" said Gwawl, "and the greeting of Heaven be unto
thee!"

"Lord," said he, "may Heaven reward thee! I have an errand unto thee."

"Welcome be thine errand, and, if thou ask of me that which is just,
thou shalt have it gladly."

"It is fitting," answered he. "I crave but from want; and the boon that
I ask is to have this small bag that thou seest filled with meat."

"A request within reason is this," said he, "and gladly shalt thou have
it. Bring him food."

[Illustration]

A great number of attendants arose, and began to fill the bag; but for
all that they put into it, it was no fuller than at first.

"My soul," said Gwawl, "will thy bag be ever full?"

"It will not, I declare to Heaven," said he, "for all that may be put
into it, unless one possessed of lands and domains and treasure shall
arise, and tread down with both his feet the food which is within the
bag, and shall say, 'Enough has been put herein.'"

Then said Rhiannon unto Gwawl the son of Clud, "Rise up quickly."

"I will willingly arise," said he. So he rose up, and put his two feet
into the bag. And Powel turned up the sides of the bag, so that Gwawl
was over his head in it. And he shut it up quickly, and slipped a knot
upon the thongs, and blew his horn. And thereupon behold his household
came down upon the palace. And they seized all the host that had come
with Gwawl, and cast them into his own prison. And Powel threw off his
rags, and his old shoes, and his tattered array. And as they came in,
every one of Powel's knights struck a blow upon the bag, and asked,
"What is here?"

"A badger," said they. And in this manner they played, each of them
striking the bag, either with his foot or with a staff. And thus played
they with the bag. Every one as he came in asked, "What game are you
playing at thus?"

"The game of Badger in the Bag," said they. And then was the game of
Badger in the Bag first played.

"Lord," said the man in the bag, "if thou wouldest but hear me, I merit
not to be slain in a bag."

Said Heveyth Hên, "Lord, he speaks truth. It were fitting that thou
listen to him; for he deserves not this."

"Verily," said Powel, "I will do thy counsel concerning him."

"Behold, this is my counsel then," said Rhiannon. "Thou art now in a
position in which it behoves thee to satisfy suitors and minstrels: let
him give unto them in thy stead, and take a pledge from him that he will
never seek to revenge that which has been done to him. And this will be
punishment enough."

"I will do this gladly," said the man in the bag.

"And gladly will I accept it," said Powel, "since it is the counsel of
Heveyth and Rhiannon."

"Such, then, is our counsel," answered they.

"I accept it," said Powel.

"Seek thyself sureties."

"We will be for him," said Heveyth, "until his men be free to answer for
him." And upon this he was let out of the bag, and his liege-men were
liberated. "Demand now of Gwawl his sureties," said Heveyth; "we know
which should be taken for him." And Heveyth numbered the sureties.

Said Gwawl, "Do thou thyself draw up the covenant."

"It will suffice me that it be as Rhiannon said," answered Powel. So
unto that covenant were all the sureties pledged.

"Verily, lord," said Gwawl, "I am greatly hurt, and I have many bruises.
I have need to be anointed; with thy leave I will go forth. I will leave
nobles in my stead to answer for me in all that thou shalt require."

"Willingly," said Powel, "mayest thou do thus." So Gwawl went towards
his own possessions.

And the hall was set in order for Powel and the men of his host, and for
them also of the palace, and they went to the tables and sat down. And
as they had sat that time twelvemonth, so sat they that night. And they
ate and feasted, and spent the night in mirth and tranquillity.

And next morning, at the break of day, "My lord," said Rhiannon, "arise
and begin to give thy gifts unto the minstrels. Refuse no one to-day
that may claim thy bounty."

"Thus shall it be, gladly," said Powel, "both to-day and every day while
the feast shall last." So Powel arose, and he caused silence to be
proclaimed, and desired all the suitors and the minstrels to show and to
point out what gifts were to their wish and desire. And this being done,
the feast went on, and he denied no one while it lasted. And when the
feast was ended, Powel said unto Heveyth, "My lord, with thy permission,
I will set out for Dyved to-morrow."

"Certainly," said Heveyth. "May Heaven prosper thee! Fix also a time
when Rhiannon may follow thee."

Said Powel, "We will go hence together."

"Willest thou this, lord?" said Heveyth.

"Yes," answered Powel.

And the next day they set forward towards Dyved, and journeyed to the
palace of Narberth, where a feast was made ready for them. And there
came to them great numbers of the chief men and the most noble ladies of
the land, and of these there was none to whom Rhiannon did not give some
rich gift, either a bracelet, or a ring, or a precious stone. And they
ruled the land prosperously both that year and the next.

And in the fourth year a son was born to them, and women were brought to
watch the babe at night. And the women slept, as did also Rhiannon. And
when they awoke they looked where they had put the boy, and behold he
was not there. And the women were frightened; and, having plotted
together, they accused Rhiannon of having murdered her child before
their eyes.

"For pity's sake," said Rhiannon, "the Lord God knows all things. Charge
me not falsely. If you tell me this from fear, I assert before Heaven
that I will defend you."

"Truly," said they, "we would not bring evil on ourselves for any one in
the world."

"For pity's sake," said Rhiannon, "you will receive no evil by telling
the truth." But for all her words, whether fair or harsh, she received
but the same answer from the women.

And Powel the chief of Annuvyn arose, and his household and his hosts.
And this occurrence could not be concealed; but the story went forth
throughout the land, and all the nobles heard it. Then the nobles came
to Powel, and besought him to put away his wife because of the great
crime which she had done. But Powel answered them that they had no cause
wherefore they might ask him to put away his wife.

So Rhiannon sent for the teachers and the wise men, and as she preferred
doing penance to contending with the women, she took upon her a penance.
And the penance that was imposed upon her was that she should remain in
that palace of Narberth until the end of seven years, and that she
should sit every day near unto a horse-block that was without the gate;
and that she should relate the story to all who should come there whom
she might suppose not to know it already; and that she should offer the
guests and strangers, if they would permit her, to carry them upon her
back into the palace. But it rarely happened that any would permit. And
thus did she spend part of the year.

Now at that time Teirnyon Twryv Vliant was lord of Gwent Is Coed, and
he was the best man in the world. And unto his house there belonged a
mare than which neither mare nor horse in the kingdom was more
beautiful. And on the night of every first of May she foaled, and no one
ever knew what became of the colt. And one night Teirnyon talked with
his wife: "Wife," said he, "it is very simple of us that our mare should
foal every year, and that we should have none of her colts."

"What can be done in the matter?" said she.

"This is the night of the first of May," said he. "The vengeance of
Heaven be upon me, if I learn not what it is that takes away the colts."
So he armed himself, and began to watch that night. Teirnyon heard a
great tumult, and after the tumult behold a claw came through the window
into the house, and it seized the colt by the mane. Then Teirnyon drew
his sword, and struck off the arm at the elbow: so that portion of the
arm, together with the colt, was in the house with him. And then, did he
hear a tumult and wailing both at once. And he opened the door, and
rushed out in the direction of the noise, and he could not see the cause
of the tumult because of the darkness of the night; but he rushed after
it and followed it. Then he remembered that he had left the door open,
and he returned. And at the door behold there was an infant-boy in
swaddling clothes, wrapped around in a mantle of satin. And he took up
the boy, and behold he was very strong for the age that he was of.

Then he shut the door, and went into the chamber where his wife was.
"Lady," said he, "art thou sleeping?"

"No, lord," said she: "I was asleep, but as thou camest in I did
awake."

"Behold, here is a boy for thee, if thou wilt," said he, "since thou
hast never had one."

"My lord," said she, "what adventure is this?"

"It was thus," said Teirnyon. And he told her how it all befell.

"Verily, lord," said she, "what sort of garments are there upon the
boy?"

"A mantle of satin," said he.

[Illustration]

"He is then a boy of gentle lineage," she replied.

And they caused the boy to be baptised, and the ceremony was performed
there. And the name which they gave unto him was Goldenlocks, because
what hair was upon his head was as yellow as gold. And they had the boy
nursed in the court until he was a year old. And before the year was
over he could walk stoutly; and he was larger than a boy of three years
old, even one of great growth and size. And the boy was nursed the
second year, and then he was as large as a child six years old. And
before the end of the fourth year, he would bribe the grooms to allow
him to take the horses to water.

"My lord," said his wife unto Teirnyon, "where is the colt which thou
didst save on the night that thou didst find the boy?"

"I have commanded the grooms of the horses," said he, "that they take
care of him."

"Would it not be well, lord," said she, "if thou wert to cause him to be
broken in, and given to the boy, seeing that on the same night that thou
didst find the boy, the colt was foaled, and thou didst save him?"

"I will not oppose thee in this matter," said Teirnyon. "I will allow
thee to give him the colt."

"Lord," said she, "may Heaven reward thee! I will give it him." So the
horse was given to the boy. Then she went to the grooms and those who
tended the horses, and commanded them to be careful of the horse, so
that he might be broken in by the time that the boy could ride him.

And while these things were going forward, they heard tidings of
Rhiannon and her punishment. And Teirnyon Twryv Vliant, by reason of the
pity that he felt on hearing this story of Rhiannon and her punishment,
inquired closely concerning it, until he had heard from many of those
who came to his court. Then did Teirnyon, often lamenting the sad
history, ponder with himself; and he looked steadfastly on the boy, and
as he looked upon him, it seemed to him that he had never beheld so
great a likeness between father and son as between the boy and Powel the
chief of Annuvyn. Now the semblance of Powel was well known to him, for
he had of yore been one of his followers. And thereupon he became
grieved for the wrong that he did in keeping with him a boy whom he knew
to be the son of another man. And the first time that he was alone with
his wife he told her that it was not right that they should keep the boy
with them, and suffer so excellent a lady as Rhiannon to be punished so
greatly on his account, whereas the boy was the son of Powel the chief
of Annuvyn. And Teirnyon's wife agreed with him that they should send
the boy to Powel. "And three things, lord," said she, "shall we gain
thereby--thanks and gifts for releasing Rhiannon from her punishment,
and thanks from Powel for nursing his son and restoring him unto him;
and, thirdly, if the boy is of gentle nature, he will be our foster-son,
and he will do for us all the good in his power." So it was settled
according to this counsel.

And no later than the next day was Teirnyon equipped and two other
knights with him. And the boy, as a fourth in their company, went with
them upon the horse which Teirnyon had given him. And they journeyed
towards Narberth, and it was not long before they reached that place.
And as they drew near to the palace, they beheld Rhiannon sitting beside
the horse-block. And when they were opposite to her, "Chieftain," said
she, "go not farther thus: I will bear every one of you into the palace.
And this is my penance for slaying my own son, and devouring him."

"Oh, fair lady," said Teirnyon, "think not that I will be one to be
carried upon thy back."

"Neither will I," said the boy.

"Truly, my soul," said Teirnyon, "we will not go." So they went forward
to the palace, and there was great joy at their coming. And at the
palace a feast was prepared because Powel was come back from the
confines of Dyfed. And they went into the hall and washed, and Powel
rejoiced to see Teirnyon. And in this order they sat: Teirnyon between
Powel and Rhiannon, and Teirnyon's two companions on the other side of
Powel, with the boy between them. And after meat they began to carouse
and discourse. And Teirnyon's discourse was concerning the adventure of
the mare and the boy, and how he and his wife had nursed and reared the
child as their own. "Behold here is thy son, lady," said Teirnyon. "And
whosoever told that lie concerning thee has done wrong. When I heard of
thy sorrow, I was troubled and grieved. And I believe that there is none
of this host who will not perceive that the boy is the son of Powel,"
said Teirnyon.

"There is none," said they all, "who is not certain thereof."

"I declare to Heaven," said Rhiannon, "that if this be true, there is
indeed an end to my trouble."

"Lady," said Pendaran Dyfed, "well hast thou named thy son Pryderi (end
of trouble), and well becomes him the name of Pryderi son of Powel chief
of Annuvyn."

"Look you," said Rhiannon: "will not his own name become him better?"

"What name has he?" asked Pendaran Dyfed.

"Goldenlocks is the name that we gave him."

"Pryderi," said Pendaran, "shall his name be."

"It were more proper," said Powel, "that the boy should take his name
from the word his mother spoke when she received the joyful tidings of
him." And thus was it arranged.

"Teirnyon," said Powel, "Heaven reward thee that thou hast reared the
boy up to this time, and, being of gentle lineage, it were fitting that
he repay thee for it."

"My lord," said Teirnyon, "it was my wife who nursed him, and there is
no one in the world so afflicted as she at parting with him. It were
well that he should bear in mind what I and my wife have done for him."

"I call Heaven to witness," said Powel, "that while I live I will
support thee and thy possessions as long as I am able to preserve my
own. And when he shall have power, he will more fitly maintain them than
I. And if this counsel be pleasing unto thee and to my nobles, it shall
be, that, as thou hast reared him up to the present time, I will give
him to be brought up by Pendaran Dyfed from henceforth. And you shall be
companions, and shall both be foster-fathers unto him."

"This is good counsel," said they all. So the boy was given to Pendaran
Dyfed, and the nobles of the land were sent with him. And Teirnyon Twryv
Vliant and his companions set out for his country and his possessions,
with love and gladness. And he went not without being offered the
fairest jewels, and the fairest horses, and the choicest dogs; but he
would take none of them.

Thereupon they all remained in their own dominions. And Pryderi the son
of Powel the chief of Annuvyn was brought up carefully, as was fit, so
that he became the fairest youth, and the most comely, and the best
skilled in all good games, of any in the kingdom. And thus passed years
and years until the end of Powel the chief of Annuvyn's life came, and
he died.




Paddy O'Kelly and the Weasel


[Illustration: A]

A long time ago there was once a man of the name of Paddy O'Kelly,
living near Tuam, in the county Galway. He rose up one morning early,
and he did not know what time of day it was, for there was fine light
coming from the moon. He wanted to go to the fair of Cauher-na-mart to
sell a _sturk_ of an ass that he had.

He had not gone more than three miles of the road when a great darkness
came on, and a shower began falling. He saw a large house among trees
about five hundred yards in from the road, and he said to himself that
he would go to that house till the shower would be over. When he got to
the house he found the door open before him, and in with him. He saw a
large room to his left, and a fine fire in the grate. He sat down on a
stool that was beside the wall, and began falling asleep, when he saw a
big weasel coming to the fire with something yellow in his mouth, which
it dropped on the hearth-stone, and then it went away. She soon came
back again with the same thing in her mouth, and he saw that it was a
guinea she had. She dropped it on the hearth-stone, and went away again.
She was coming and going, until there was a great heap of guineas on the
hearth. But at last, when she got her gone, Paddy rose up, thrust all
the gold she had gathered into his pockets, and out with him.

He had not gone far till he heard the weasel coming after him, and she
screeching as loud as a bag-pipes. She went before Paddy and got on the
road, and she was twisting herself back and forwards, and trying to get
a hold of his throat. Paddy had a good oak stick, and he kept her from
him, until two men came up who were going to the same fair, and one of
them had a good dog, and it routed the weasel into a hole in the wall.

Paddy went to the fair, and instead of coming home with the money he got
for his old ass, as he thought would be the way with him in the morning,
he went and bought a horse with some of the money he took from the
weasel, and he came home riding. When he came to the place where the dog
had routed the weasel into the hole in the wall, she came out before
him, gave a leap, and caught the horse by the throat. The horse made
off, and Paddy could not stop him, till at last he gave a leap into a
big drain that was full up of water and black mud, and he was drowning
and choking as fast as he could, until men who were coming from Galway
came up and drove away the weasel.

Paddy brought the horse home with him, and put him into the cow's byre
and fell asleep.

Next morning, the day on the morrow, Paddy rose up early, and went out
to give his horse hay and oats. When he got to the door he saw the
weasel coming out of the byre and she covered with blood.

"My seven thousand curses on you," said Paddy, "but I'm afraid you've
done harm."

[Illustration]

He went in and found the horse, a pair of milch cows, and two calves
dead. He came out and set a dog he had after the weasel. The dog got a
hold of her, and she got a hold of the dog. The dog was a good one, but
he was forced to loose his hold of her before Paddy could come up. He
kept his eye on her, however, all through, until he saw her creeping
into a little hovel that was on the brink of a lake. Paddy came running,
and when he got to the little hut he gave the dog a shake to rouse him
up and put anger on him, and then he sent him in. When the dog went in
he began barking. Paddy went in after him, and saw an old hag in the
corner. He asked her if she saw a weasel coming in there.

"I did not," said she; "I'm all destroyed with a plague of sickness, and
if you don't go out quick, you'll catch it from me."

While Paddy and the hag were talking, the dog kept moving in all the
time, till at last he gave a leap and caught the hag by the throat. She
screeched and said:

"Paddy Kelly, take off your dog, and I'll make you a rich man."

Paddy made the dog loose his hold, and said:

"Tell me who you are, or why did you kill my horse and my cows?"

"And why did you bring away my gold that I was gathering for five
hundred years throughout the hills and hollows of the world?"

"I thought you were a weasel," said Paddy, "or I wouldn't touch your
gold; and another thing," says he, "if you're for five hundred years in
this world, it's time for you to go to rest now."

"I committed a great crime in my youth," said the hag, "and now I am to
be released from my sufferings if you can pay twenty pounds for a
hundred and three-score masses for me."

"Where's the money?" said Paddy.

"Go and dig under a bush that's over a little well in the corner of that
field there without, and you'll get a pot filled with gold. Pay the
twenty pounds for the masses, and yourself shall have the rest. When
you'll lift the flag off the pot, you'll see a big black dog coming out;
but don't be afraid before him; he is a son of mine. When you get the
gold, buy the house in which you saw me at first. You'll get it cheap,
for it has the name of there being a ghost in it. My son will be down in
the cellar. He'll do you no harm, but he'll be a good friend to you. I
shall be dead a month from this day, and when you get me dead, put a
coal under this little hut and burn it. Don't tell a living soul
anything about me--and the luck will be on you."

"What is your name?" said Paddy.

"Mary Kerwan," said the hag.

Paddy went home, and when the darkness of the night came on, he took
with him a spade and went to the bush that was in the corner of the
field, and began digging. It was not long till he found the pot, and
when he took the flag off of it a big black dog leaped out, and off and
away with him, and Paddy's dog after him.

Paddy brought home the gold, and hid it in the cow-house. About a month
after that he went to the fair of Galway, and bought a pair of cows, a
horse, and a dozen sheep. The neighbours did not know where he had got
all the money; they said that he had a share with the good people.

One day Paddy dressed himself, and went to the gentleman who owned the
large house where he first saw the weasel, and asked to buy the house of
him, and the land that was round about.

"You can have the house without paying any rent at all; but there is a
ghost in it, and I wouldn't like you to go to live in it without my
telling you, but I couldn't part with the land without getting a hundred
pounds more than you have to offer me."

"Perhaps I have as much as you have yourself," said Paddy. "I'll be here
to-morrow with the money, if you're ready to give me possession."

"I'll be ready," said the gentleman.

Paddy went home and told his wife that he had bought a large house and a
holding of land.

"Where did you get the money?" says the wife.

"Isn't it all one to you where I got it?" says Paddy.

The day on the morrow Paddy went to the gentleman, gave him the money,
and got possession of the house and land; and the gentleman left him the
furniture and everything that was in the house, into the bargain.

Paddy remained in the house that night, and when darkness came he went
down to the cellar, and he saw a little man with his two legs spread on
a barrel.

"God save you, honest man," says he to Paddy.

"The same to you," says Paddy.

"Don't be afraid of me, at all," says the little man. "I'll be a friend
to you, if you are able to keep a secret."

"I am able, indeed; I kept your mother's secret, and I'll keep yours as
well."

"Maybe you're thirsty?" said the little man.

"I'm not free from it," said Paddy.

The little man put a hand in his bosom and drew out a gold goblet. He
gave it to Paddy, and said: "Draw wine out of that barrel under me."

Paddy drew the full up of the goblet, and handed it to the little man.

"Drink yourself first," says he.

Paddy drank, drew another goblet, and handed it to the little man, and
he drank it.

"Fill up and drink again," said the little man. "I have a mind to be
merry to-night."

The pair of them sat there drinking until they were half drunk. Then the
little man gave a leap down to the floor, and said to Paddy:

"Don't you like music?"

"I do, surely," said Paddy, "and I'm a good dancer, too."

"Lift up the big flag over there in the corner, and you'll get my pipes
under it."

Paddy lifted the flag, got the pipes, and gave them to the little man.
He squeezed the pipes on him, and began playing melodious music. Paddy
began dancing till he was tired. Then they had another drink, and the
little man said:

"Do as my mother told you, and I'll show you great riches. You can bring
your wife in here, but don't tell her that I'm there, and she won't see
me. Any time at all that ale or wine are wanting, come here and draw.
Farewell, now; go to sleep, and come again to me to-morrow night."

Paddy went to bed, and it wasn't long till he fell asleep.

On the morning of the day on the morrow, Paddy went home, and brought
his wife and children to the big house, and they were very comfortable.
That night Paddy went down to the cellar; the little man welcomed him
and asked him did he wish to dance?

"Not till I get a drink," said Paddy.

"Drink your fill," said the little man; "that barrel will never be empty
as long as you live."

Paddy drank the full of the goblet, and gave a drink to the little man.
Then the little man said to him:

"I am going to the Fortress of the Fairies to-night, to play music for
the good people, and if you come with me you'll see fine fun. I'll give
you a horse that you never saw the like of him before."

"I'll go with you, and welcome," said Paddy; "but what excuse will I
make to my wife?"

"I'll bring you away from her side without her knowing it, when you are
both asleep together, and I'll bring you back to her the same way," said
the little man.

"I'm obedient," says Paddy; "we'll have another drink before I leave
you."

He drank drink after drink, till he was half drunk, and he went to bed
with his wife.

When he awoke he found himself riding on a broom near Doon-na-shee, and
the little man riding on another besom by his side. When they came as
far as the green hill of the Doon, the little man said a couple of words
that Paddy did not understand. The green hill opened, and the pair went
into a fine chamber.

Paddy never saw before a gathering like that which was in the Doon. The
whole place was full up of little people, men and women, young and old.
They all welcomed little Donal--that was the name of the piper--and
Paddy O'Kelly. The king and queen of the fairies came up to them, and
said:

"We are all going on a visit to-night to Cnoc Matha, to the high king
and queen of our people."

They all rose up then and went out. There were horses ready for each one
of them, and the _coash-t'ya bower_ for the king and queen. The king and
queen got into the coach, each man leaped on his own horse, and be
certain that Paddy was not behind. The piper went out before them, and
began playing them music, and then off and away with them. It was not
long till they came to Cnoc Matha. The hill opened, and the king of the
fairy host passed in.

Finvara and Nuala were there, the arch-king and queen of the fairy host
of Connacht, and thousands of little persons. Finvara came up and said:

[Illustration]

"We are going to play a hurling match to-night against the fairy host of
Munster, and unless we beat them our fame is gone for ever. The match is
to be fought out on Moytura, under Slieve Belgadaun."

The Connacht host cried out: "We are all ready, and we have no doubt but
we'll beat them."

"Out with ye all," cried the high king; "the men of the hill of Nephin
will be on the ground before us."

They all went out, and little Donal and twelve pipers more before them,
playing melodious music. When they came to Moytura, the fairy host of
Munster and the fairy men of the hill of Nephin were there before them.

Now it is necessary for the fairy host to have two live men beside them
when they are fighting or at a hurling match, and that was the reason
that little Donal took Paddy O'Kelly with him. There was a man they
called the "_Yellow Stongirya_" with the fairy host of Munster, from
Ennis, in the County Clare.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

It was not long till the two hosts took sides; the ball was thrown up
between them, and the fun began in earnest. They were hurling away, and
the pipers playing music, until Paddy O'Kelly saw the host of Munster
getting the strong hand, and he began helping the fairy host of
Connacht. The _Stongirya_ came up and he made at Paddy O'Kelly, but
Paddy turned him head over heels. From hurling the two hosts began at
fighting, but it was not long until the host of Connacht beat the other
host. Then the host of Munster made flying beetles of themselves, and
they began eating every green thing that they came up to. They were
destroying the country before them until they came as far as Cong. Then
there rose up thousands of doves out of the hole, and they swallowed
down the beetles. That hole has no other name until this day but
Pull-na-gullam, the dove's hole.

When the fairy host of Connacht won their battle, they came back to Cnoc
Matha joyous enough, and the king Finvara gave Paddy O'Kelly a purse of
gold, and the little piper brought him home, and put him into bed beside
his wife, and left him sleeping there.

A month went by after that without anything worth mentioning, until one
night Paddy went down to the cellar, and the little man said to him: "My
mother is dead; burn the house over her."

"It is true for you," said Paddy. "She told me that she hadn't but a
month to be in the world, and the month was up yesterday."

On the next morning of the next day Paddy went to the hut and he found
the hag dead. He put a coal under the hut and burned it. He came home
and told the little man that the hag was burnt. The little man gave him
a purse and said to him: "This purse will never be empty as long as you
are alive. Now, you will never see me more; but have a loving
remembrance of the weasel. She was the beginning and the prime cause of
your riches." Then he went away and Paddy never saw him again.

Paddy O'Kelly and his wife lived for years after this in the large
house, and when he died he left great wealth behind him, and a large
family to spend it.

There now is the story for you, from the first word to the last, as I
heard it from my grandmother.




The Black Horse


[Illustration: O]

Once there was a king and he had three sons, and when the king died,
they did not give a shade of anything to the youngest son, but an old
white limping garron.

"If I get but this," quoth he, "it seems that I had best go with this
same."

He was going with it right before him, sometimes walking, sometimes
riding. When he had been riding a good while he thought that the garron
would need a while of eating, so he came down to earth, and what should
he see coming out of the heart of the western airt towards him but a
rider riding high, well, and right well.

"All hail, my lad," said he.

"Hail, king's son," said the other.

"What's your news?" said the king's son.

"I have got that," said the lad who came. "I am after breaking my heart
riding this ass of a horse; but will you give me the limping white
garron for him?"

"No," said the prince; "it would be a bad business for me."

"You need not fear," said the man that came, "there is no saying but
that you might make better use of him than I. He has one value, there is
no single place that you can think of in the four parts of the wheel of
the world that the black horse will not take you there."

So the king's son got the black horse, and he gave the limping white
garron.

Where should he think of being when he mounted but in the Realm
Underwaves. He went, and before sunrise on the morrow he was there. What
should he find when he got there but the son of the King Underwaves
holding a Court, and the people of the realm gathered to see if there
was any one who would undertake to go to seek the daughter of the King
of the Greeks to be the prince's wife. No one came forward, when who
should come up but the rider of the black horse.

"You, rider of the black horse," said the prince, "I lay you under
crosses and under spells to have the daughter of the King of the Greeks
here before the sun rises to-morrow."

He went out and he reached the black horse and leaned his elbow on his
mane, and he heaved a sigh.

"Sigh of a king's son under spells!" said the horse; "but have no care;
we shall do the thing that was set before you." And so off they went.

"Now," said the horse, "when we get near the great town of the Greeks,
you will notice that the four feet of a horse never went to the town
before. The king's daughter will see me from the top of the castle
looking out of a window, and she will not be content without a turn of a
ride upon me. Say that she may have that, but the horse will suffer no
man but you to ride before a woman on him."

They came near the big town, and he fell to horsemanship; and the
princess was looking out of the windows, and noticed the horse. The
horsemanship pleased her, and she came out just as the horse had come.

[Illustration]

"Give me a ride on the horse," said she.

"You shall have that," said he, "but the horse will let no man ride him
before a woman but me."

"I have a horseman of my own," said she.

"If so, set him in front," said he.

Before the horseman mounted at all, when he tried to get up, the horse
lifted his legs and kicked him off.

"Come then yourself and mount before me," said she; "I won't leave the
matter so."

He mounted the horse and she behind him, and before she glanced from her
she was nearer sky than earth. He was in Realm Underwaves with her
before sunrise.

"You are come," said Prince Underwaves.

"I am come," said he.

"There you are, my hero," said the prince. "You are the son of a king,
but I am a son of success. Anyhow, we shall have no delay or neglect
now, but a wedding."

"Just gently," said the princess; "your wedding is not so short a way
off as you suppose. Till I get the silver cup that my grandmother had at
her wedding, and that my mother had as well, I will not marry, for I
need to have it at my own wedding."

"You, rider of the black horse," said the Prince Underwaves, "I set you
under spells and under crosses unless the silver cup is here before dawn
to-morrow."

Out he went and reached the horse and leaned his elbow on his mane, and
he heaved a sigh.

"Sigh of a king's son under spells!" said the horse; "mount and you
shall get the silver cup. The people of the realm are gathered about the
king to-night, for he has missed his daughter, and when you get to the
palace go in and leave me without; they will have the cup there going
round the company. Go in and sit in their midst. Say nothing, and seem
to be as one of the people of the place. But when the cup comes round to
you, take it under your oxter, and come out to me with it, and we'll
go."

Away they went and they got to Greece, and he went in to the palace and
did as the black horse bade. He took the cup and came out and mounted,
and before sunrise he was in the Realm Underwaves.

"You are come," said Prince Underwaves.

"I am come," said he.

"We had better get married now," said the prince to the Greek princess.

"Slowly and softly," said she. "I will not marry till I get the silver
ring that my grandmother and my mother wore when they were wedded."

"You, rider of the black horse," said the Prince Underwaves, "do that.
Let's have that ring here to-morrow at sunrise."

The lad went to the black horse and put his elbow on his crest and told
him how it was.

"There never was a matter set before me harder than this matter which
has now been set in front of me," said the horse, "but there is no help
for it at any rate. Mount me. There is a snow mountain and an ice
mountain and a mountain of fire between us and the winning of that ring.
It is right hard for us to pass them."

Thus they went as they were, and about a mile from the snow mountain
they were in a bad case with cold. As they came near it he struck the
horse, and with the bound he gave the black horse was on the top of the
snow mountain; at the next bound he was on the top of the ice mountain;
at the third bound he went through the mountain of fire. When he had
passed the mountains he was dragging at the horse's neck, as though he
were about to lose himself. He went on before him down to a town below.

"Go down," said the black horse, "to a smithy; make an iron spike for
every bone end in me."

Down he went as the horse desired, and he got the spikes made, and back
he came with them.

"Stick them into me," said the horse, "every spike of them in every bone
end that I have."

That he did; he stuck the spikes into the horse.

"There is a loch here," said the horse, "four miles long and four miles
wide, and when I go out into it the loch will take fire and blaze. If
you see the Loch of Fire going out before the sun rises, expect me, and
if not, go your way."

Out went the black horse into the lake, and the lake became flame. Long
was he stretched about the lake, beating his palms and roaring. Day
came, and the loch did not go out.

But at the hour when the sun was rising out of the water the lake went
out.

And the black horse rose in the middle of the water with one single
spike in him, and the ring upon its end.

[Illustration: ·THE·BLACK·HORSE·]

He came on shore, and down he fell beside the loch.

Then down went the rider. He got the ring, and he dragged the horse down
to the side of a hill. He fell to sheltering him with his arms about
him, and as the sun was rising he got better and better, till about
midday, when he rose on his feet.

"Mount," said the horse, "and let us begone."

He mounted on the black horse, and away they went.

He reached the mountains, and he leaped the horse at the fire mountain
and was on the top. From the mountain of fire he leaped to the mountain
of ice, and from the mountain of ice to the mountain of snow. He put the
mountains past him, and by morning he was in realm under the waves.

"You are come," said the prince.

"I am," said he.

"That's true," said Prince Underwaves. "A king's son are you, but a son
of success am I. We shall have no more mistakes and delays, but a
wedding this time."

"Go easy," said the Princess of the Greeks. "Your wedding is not so near
as you think yet. Till you make a castle, I won't marry you. Not to your
father's castle nor to your mother's will I go to dwell; but make me a
castle for which your father's castle will not make washing water."

"You, rider of the black horse, make that," said Prince Underwaves,
"before the morrow's sun rises."

The lad went out to the horse and leaned his elbow on his neck and
sighed, thinking that this castle never could be made for ever.

"There never came a turn in my road yet that is easier for me to pass
than this," said the black horse.

Glance that the lad gave from him he saw all that there were, and ever
so many wrights and stone masons at work, and the castle was ready
before the sun rose.

He shouted at the Prince Underwaves, and he saw the castle. He tried to
pluck out his eye, thinking that it was a false sight.

"Son of King Underwaves," said the rider of the black horse, "don't
think that you have a false sight; this is a true sight."

"That's true," said the prince. "You are a son of success, but I am a
son of success too. There will be no more mistakes and delays, but a
wedding now."

"No," said she. "The time is come. Should we not go to look at the
castle? There's time enough to get married before the night comes."

They went to the castle and the castle was without a "but"----

"I see one," said the prince. "One want at least to be made good. A well
to be made inside, so that water may not be far to fetch when there is a
feast or a wedding in the castle."

"That won't be long undone," said the rider of the black horse.

The well was made, and it was seven fathoms deep and two or three
fathoms wide, and they looked at the well on the way to the wedding.

"It is very well made," said she, "but for one little fault yonder."

"Where is it?" said Prince Underwaves.

"There," said she.

He bent him down to look. She came out, and she put her two hands at his
back, and cast him in.

"Be thou there," said she. "If I go to be married, thou art not the man;
but the man who did each exploit that has been done, and, if he chooses,
him will I have."

Away she went with the rider of the little black horse to the wedding.

And at the end of three years after that so it was that he first
remembered the black horse or where he left him.

He got up and went out, and he was very sorry for his neglect of the
black horse. He found him just where he left him.

"Good luck to you, gentleman," said the horse. "You seem as if you had
got something that you like better than me."

"I have not got that, and I won't; but it came over me to forget you,"
said he.

"I don't mind," said the horse, "it will make no difference. Raise your
sword and smite off my head."

"Fortune will now allow that I should do that," said he.

"Do it instantly, or I will do it to you," said the horse.

So the lad drew his sword and smote off the horse's head; then he lifted
his two palms and uttered a doleful cry.

What should he hear behind him but "All hail, my brother-in-law."

He looked behind him, and there was the finest man he ever set eyes
upon.

"What set you weeping for the black horse?" said he.

"This," said the lad, "that there never was born of man or beast a
creature in this world that I was fonder of."

"Would you take me for him?" said the stranger.

"If I could think you the horse, I would; but if not, I would rather the
horse," said the rider.

"I am the black horse," said the lad, "and if I were not, how should you
have all these things that you went to seek in my father's house. Since
I went under spells, many a man have I ran at before you met me. They
had but one word amongst them: they could not keep me, nor manage me,
and they never kept me a couple of days. But when I fell in with you,
you kept me till the time ran out that was to come from the spells. And
now you shall go home with me, and we will make a wedding in my father's
house."




The Vision of MacConglinney


[Illustration: C]

Cathal, King of Munster, was a good king and a great warrior. But there
came to dwell within him a lawless evil beast, that afflicted him with
hunger that ceased not, and might not be satisfied, so that he would
devour a pig, a cow, and a bull calf and three-score cakes of pure
wheat, and a vat of new ale, for his breakfast, whilst as for his great
feast, what he ate there passes account or reckoning. He was like this
for three half-years, and during that time it was the ruin of Munster he
was, and it is likely he would have ruined all Ireland in another
half-year.

Now there lived in Armagh a famous young scholar and his name was Anier
MacConglinney. He heard of the strange disease of King Cathal, and of
the abundance of food and drink, of whitemeats, ale and mead, there were
always to be found at the king's court. Thither then was he minded to go
to try his own fortune, and to see of what help he could be to the king.

He arose early in the morning and tucked up his shirt and wrapped him
in the folds of his white cloak. In his right hand he grasped his
even-poised knotty staff, and going right-hand-wise round his home, he
bade farewell to his tutors and started off.

He journeyed across all Ireland till he came to the house of Pichan. And
there he stayed and told tales, and made all merry. But Pichan said:

"Though great thy mirth, son of learning, it does not make me glad."

"And why?" asked MacConglinney.

"Knowest thou not, scholar, that Cathal is coming here to-night with all
his host. And if the great host is troublesome, the king's first meal is
more troublesome still; and troublesome though the first be, most
troublesome of all is the great feast. Three things are wanted for this
last: a bushel of oats, and a bushel of wild apples, and a bushel of
flour cakes."

"What reward would you give me if I shield you from the king from this
hour to the same hour to-morrow?"

"A white sheep from every fold between Carn and Cork."

"I will take that," said MacConglinney.

Cathal, the king, came with the companies, and a host of horse of the
Munster men. But Cathal did not let the thong of his shoe be half loosed
before he began supplying his mouth with both hands from the apples
round about him. Pichan and all the men of Munster looked on sadly and
sorrowfully. Then rose MacConglinney, hastily and impatiently, and
seized a stone, against which swords were used to be sharpened; this he
thrust into his mouth and began grinding his teeth against the stone.

"What makes thee mad, son of learning?" asked Cathal.

"I grieve to see you eating alone," said the scholar.

Then the king was ashamed and flung him the apples, and it is said that
for three half-years he had not performed such an act of humanity.

"Grant me a further boon," said MacConglinney.

"It is granted, on my troth," said the king.

"Fast with me the whole night," said the scholar.

And grievous though it was to the king, he did so, for he had passed his
princely troth, and no King of Munster might transgress that.

In the morning MacConglinney called for juicy old bacon, and tender
corned beef, honey in the comb, and English salt on a beautiful polished
dish of white silver. A fire he lighted of oak wood without smoke,
without fumes, without sparks.

And sticking spits into the portion of meat, he set to work to roast
them. Then he shouted, "Ropes and cords here."

Ropes and cords were given to him, and the strongest of the warriors.

And they seized the king and bound him securely, and made him fast with
knots and hooks and staples. When the king was thus fastened,
MacConglinney sat himself down before him, and taking his knife out of
his girdle, he carved the portion of meat that was on the spits, and
every morsel he dipped in the honey, and, passing it in front of the
king's mouth, put it in his own.

When the king saw that he was getting nothing, and he had been fasting
for twenty-four hours, he roared and bellowed, and commanded the
killing of the scholar. But that was not done for him.

"Listen, King of Munster," said MacConglinney, "a vision appeared to me
last night, and I will relate it to you."

He then began his vision, and as he related it he put morsel after
morsel past Cathal's mouth into his own.

    "A lake of new milk I beheld
     In the midst of a fair plain,
     Therein a well-appointed house,
     Thatched with butter.
     Puddings fresh boiled,
     Such were its thatch-rods,
     Its two soft door posts of custard,
     Its beds of glorious bacon.
     Cheeses were the palisades,
     Sausages the rafters.
     Truly 'twas a rich filled house,
     In which was great store of good feed.

"Such was the vision I beheld, and a voice sounded into my ears. 'Go
now, thither, MacConglinney, for you have no power of eating in you.'
'What must I do,' said I, for the sight of that had made me greedy. Then
the voice bade me go to the hermitage of the Wizard Doctor, and there I
should find appetite for all kinds of savoury tender sweet food,
acceptable to the body.

"There in the harbour of the lake before me I saw a juicy little coracle
of beef; its thwarts were of curds, its prow of lard; its stern of
butter; its oars were flitches of venison. Then I rowed across the wide
expanse of the New Milk Lake, through seas of broth, past river mouths
of meat, over swelling boisterous waves of butter milk, by perpetual
pools of savoury lard, by islands of cheese, by headlands of old curds,
until I reached the firm level land between Butter Mount and Milk Lake,
in the land of O'Early-eating, in front of the hermitage of the Wizard
Doctor.

"Marvellous, indeed, was the hermitage. Around it were seven-score
hundred smooth stakes of old bacon, and instead of thorns above the top
of every stake was fixed juicy lard. There was a gate of cream, whereon
was a bolt of sausage. And there I saw the doorkeeper, Bacon Lad, son of
Butterkins, son of Lardipole, with his smooth sandals of old bacon, his
legging of pot-meat round his shins, his tunic of corned beef, his
girdle of salmon skin round him, his hood of flummery about him, his
steed of bacon under him, with its four legs of custard, its four hoofs
of oaten bread, its ears of curds, its two eyes of honey in its head; in
his hand a whip, the cords whereof were four-and-twenty fair white
puddings, and every juicy drop that fell from each of these puddings
would have made a meal for an ordinary man.

"On going in I beheld the Wizard Doctor with his two gloves of rump
steak on his hands, setting in order the house, which was hung all round
with tripe, from roof to floor.

"I went into the kitchen, and there I saw the Wizard Doctor's son, with
his fishing hook of lard in his hand, and the line was made of marrow,
and he was angling in a lake of whey. Now he would bring up a flitch of
ham, and now a fillet of corned beef. And as he was angling, he fell in,
and was drowned.

"As I set my foot across the threshold into the house, I saw a pure
white bed of butter, on which I sat down, but I sank down into it up to
the tips of my hair. Hard work had the eight strongest men in the house
to pull me out by the top of the crown of my head.

"Then I was taken in to the Wizard Doctor. 'What aileth thee?' said he.

"My wish would be, that all the many wonderful viands of the world were
before me, that I might eat my fill and satisfy my greed. But alas!
great is the misfortune to me, who cannot obtain any of these.

"'On my word,' said the Doctor, 'the disease is grievous. But thou shall
take home with thee a medicine to cure thy disease, and shalt be for
ever healed therefrom.'

"'What is that?' asked I.

"'When thou goest home to-night, warm thyself before a glowing red fire
of oak, made up on a dry hearth, so that its embers may warm thee, its
blaze may not burn thee, its smoke may not touch thee. And make for
thyself thrice nine morsels, and every morsel as big as an heath fowl's
egg, and in each morsel eight kinds of grain, wheat and barley, oats and
rye, and therewith eight condiments, and to every condiment eight
sauces. And when thou hast prepared thy food, take a drop of drink, a
tiny drop, only as much as twenty men will drink, and let it be of thick
milk, of yellow bubbling milk, of milk that will gurgle as it rushes
down thy throat.'

"'And when thou hast done this, whatever disease thou hast, shall be
removed. Go now,' said he, 'in the name of cheese, and may the smooth
juicy bacon protect thee, may yellow curdy cream protect, may the
cauldron full of pottage protect thee.'"

Now, as MacConglinney recited his vision, what with the pleasure of the
recital and the recounting of these many pleasant viands, and the sweet
savour of the honeyed morsels roasting on the spits, the lawless beast
that dwelt within the king, came forth until it was licking its lips
outside its head.

[Illustration]

Then MacConglinney bent his hand with the two spits of food, and put
them to the lips of the king, who longed to swallow them, wood, food,
and all. So he took them an arm's length away from the king, and the
lawless beast jumped from the throat of Cathal onto the spit.
MacConglinney put the spit into the embers, and upset the cauldron of
the royal house over the spit. The house was emptied, so that not the
value of a cockchafer's leg was left in it, and four huge fires were
kindled here and there in it. When the house was a tower of red flame
and a huge blaze, the lawless beast sprang to the rooftree of the
palace, and from thence he vanished, and was seen no more.

As for the king, a bed was prepared for him on a downy quilt, and
musicians and singers entertained him going from noon till twilight. And
when he awoke, this is what he bestowed upon the scholar--a cow from
every farm, and a sheep from every house in Munster. Moreover, that so
long as he lived, he should carve the king's food, and sit at his right
hand.

Thus was Cathal, King of Munster, cured of his craving, and
MacConglinney honoured.




Dream of Owen O'Mulready


[Illustration: T]

There was a man long ago living near Ballaghadereen named Owen
O'Mulready, who was a workman for the gentleman of the place, and was a
prosperous, quiet, contented man. There was no one but himself and his
wife Margaret, and they had a nice little house and enough potatoes in
the year, in addition to their share of wages, from their master. There
wasn't a want or anxiety on Owen, except one desire, and that was to
have a dream--for he had never had one.

One day when he was digging potatoes, his master--James Taafe--came out
to his ridge, and they began talking, as was the custom with them. The
talk fell on dreams, and said Owen that he would like better than
anything if he could only have one.

"You'll have one to-night," says his master, "if you do as I tell you."

"Musha, I'll do it, and welcome," says Owen.

"Now," says his master, "when you go home to-night, draw the fire from
the hearth, put it out, make your bed in its place and sleep there
to-night, and you'll get your enough of dreaming before the morning."

Owen promised to do this. When, however, he began to draw the fire out,
Margaret thought that he had lost his senses, so he explained everything
James Taafe had said to him, had his own way, and they went to lie down
together on the hearth.

Not long was Owen asleep when there came a knock at the door.

"Get up, Owen O'Mulready, and go with a letter from the master to
America."

Owen got up, and put his feet into his boots, saying to himself, "It's
late you come, messenger."

He took the letter, and he went forward and never tarried till he came
to the foot of Sliabh Charn, where he met a cow-boy, and he herding
cows.

"The blessing of God be with you, Owen O'Mulready," says the boy.

"The blessing of God and Mary be with you, my boy," says Owen. "Every
one knows me, and I don't know any one at all."

"Where are you going this time of night?" says the boy.

"I'm going to America, with a letter from the master; is this the right
road?" says Owen.

"It is; keep straight to the west; but how are you going to get over the
water?" says the boy.

"Time enough to think of that when I get to it," replied Owen.

He went on the road again, till he came to the brink of the sea; there
he saw a crane standing on one foot on the shore.

"The blessing of God be with you, Owen O'Mulready," says the crane.

"The blessing of God and Mary be with you, Mrs. Crane," says Owen.
"Everybody knows me, and I don't know any one."

"What are you doing here?"

Owen told her his business, and that he didn't know how he'd get over
the water.

"Leave your two feet on my two wings, and sit on my back, and I'll take
you to the other side," says the crane.

"What would I do if tiredness should come on you before we got over?"
says Owen.

"Don't be afraid, I won't be tired or wearied till I fly over."

Then Owen went on the back of the crane, and she arose over the sea and
went forward, but she hadn't flown more than half-way, when she cried
out:

"Owen O'Mulready get off me; I'm tired."

"That you may be seven times worse this day twelvemonths, you rogue of a
crane," says Owen; "I can't get off you now, so don't ask me."

"I don't care," replied the crane, "if you'll rise off me a while till
I'll take a rest."

With that they saw threshers over their heads, and Owen shouted:

"Och! thresher, thresher, leave down your flail at me, that I may give
the crane a rest!"

The thresher left down the flail, but when Owen took a hold with his two
hands, the crane went from him laughing and mocking.

"My share of misfortunes go with you!" said Owen, "It's you've left me
in a fix hanging between the heavens and the water in the middle of the
great sea."

[Illustration]

It wasn't long till the thresher shouted to him to leave go the flail.

"I won't let it go," said Owen; "shan't I be drowned?"

"If you don't let it go, I'll cut the whang."

"I don't care," says Owen; "I have the flail"; and with that he looked
away from him, and what should he see but a boat a long way off.

"O sailor dear, sailor, come, come; perhaps you'll take my lot of
bones," said Owen.

"Are we under you now?" says the sailor.

"Not yet, not yet," says Owen.

"Fling down one of your shoes, till we see the way it falls," says the
captain.

Owen shook one foot, and down fell the shoe.

"Uill, uill, puil, uil liu--who is killing me?" came a scream from
Margaret in the bed. "Where are you, Owen?"

"I didn't know whether 'twas you were in it, Margaret."

"Indeed, then it is," says she, "who else would it be?"

She got up and lit the candle. She found Owen half-way up the chimney,
climbing by the hands on the crook, and he black with soot! He had one
shoe on, but the point of the other struck Margaret, and 'twas that
which awoke her.

Owen came down off the crook and washed himself, and from that out there
was no envy on him ever to have a dream again.




Morraha


[Illustration: M]

Morraha rose in the morning and washed his hands and face, and said his
prayers, and ate his food; and he asked God to prosper the day for him.
So he went down to the brink of the sea, and he saw a currach, short and
green, coming towards him; and in it there was but one youthful
champion, and he was playing hurly from prow to stern of the currach. He
had a hurl of gold and a ball of silver; and he stopped not till the
currach was in on the shore; and he drew her up on the green grass, and
put fastenings on her for a year and a day, whether he should be there
all that time or should only be on land for an hour by the clock. And
Morraha saluted the young man courteously; and the other saluted him in
the same fashion, and asked him would he play a game of cards with him;
and Morraha said that he had not the wherewithal; and the other answered
that he was never without a candle or the making of it; and he put his
hand in his pocket and drew out a table and two chairs and a pack of
cards, and they sat down on the chairs and went to card-playing. The
first game Morraha won, and the Slender Red Champion bade him make his
claim; and he asked that the land above him should be filled with stock
of sheep in the morning. It was well; and he played no second game, but
home he went.

The next day Morraha went to the brink of the sea, and the young man
came in the currach and asked him would he play cards; they played, and
Morraha won. The young man bade him make his claim; and he asked that
the land above should be filled with cattle in the morning. It was well;
and he played no other game, but went home.

On the third morning Morraha went to the brink of the sea, and he saw
the young man coming. He drew up his boat on the shore and asked him
would he play cards. They played, and Morraha won the game; and the
young man bade him give his claim. And he said he would have a castle
and a wife, the finest and fairest in the world; and they were his. It
was well; and the Red Champion went away.

On the fourth day his wife asked him how he had found her. And he told
her. "And I am going out," said he, "to play again to-day."

"I forbid you to go again to him. If you have won so much, you will lose
more; have no more to do with him."

But he went against her will, and he saw the currach coming; and the Red
Champion was driving his balls from end to end of the currach; he had
balls of silver and a hurl of gold, and he stopped not till he drew his
boat on the shore, and made her fast for a year and a day. Morraha and
he saluted each other; and he asked Morraha if he would play a game of
cards, and they played, and he won. Morraha said to him, "Give your
claim now."

Said he, "You will hear it too soon. I lay on you bonds of the art of
the Druid, not to sleep two nights in one house, nor finish a second
meal at the one table, till you bring me the sword of light and news of
the death of Anshgayliacht."

He went home to his wife and sat down in a chair, and gave a groan, and
the chair broke in pieces.

"That is the groan of the son of a king under spells," said his wife;
"and you had better have taken my counsel than that the spells should be
on you."

He told her he had to bring news of the death of Anshgayliacht and the
sword of light to the Slender Red Champion.

"Go out," said she, "in the morning of the morrow, and take the bridle
in the window, and shake it; and whatever beast, handsome or ugly, puts
its head in it, take that one with you. Do not speak a word to her till
she speaks to you; and take with you three pint bottles of ale and three
sixpenny loaves, and do the thing she tells you; and when she runs to my
father's land, on a height above the castle, she will shake herself, and
the bells will ring, and my father will say, 'Brown Allree is in the
land. And if the son of a king or queen is there, bring him to me on
your shoulders; but if it is the son of a poor man, let him come no
further.'"

He rose in the morning, and took the bridle that was in the window, and
went out and shook it; and Brown Allree came and put her head in it. He
took the three loaves and three bottles of ale, and went riding; and
when he was riding she bent her head down to take hold of her feet with
her mouth, in hopes he would speak in ignorance; but he spoke not a word
during the time, and the mare at last spoke to him, and told him to
dismount and give her her dinner. He gave her the sixpenny loaf toasted,
and a bottle of ale to drink.

"Sit up now riding, and take good heed of yourself: there are three
miles of fire I have to clear at a leap."

She cleared the three miles of fire at a leap, and asked if he were
still riding, and he said he was. Then they went on, and she told him to
dismount and give her a meal; and he did so, and gave her a sixpenny
loaf and a bottle; she consumed them and said to him there were before
them three miles of hill covered with steel thistles, and that she must
clear it. She cleared the hill with a leap, and she asked him if he were
still riding, and he said he was. They went on, and she went not far
before she told him to give her a meal, and he gave her the bread and
the bottleful. She went over three miles of sea with a leap, and she
came then to the land of the King of France; she went up on a height
above the castle, and she shook herself and neighed, and the bells rang;
and the king said that it was Brown Allree was in the land.

"Go out," said he; "and if it is the son of a king or queen, carry him
in on your shoulders; if it is not, leave him there."

They went out; and the stars of the son of a king were on his breast;
they lifted him high on their shoulders and bore him in to the king.
They passed the night cheerfully, playing and drinking, with sport and
with diversion, till the whiteness of the day came upon the morrow
morning.

Then the young king told the cause of his journey, and he asked the
queen to give him counsel and good luck, and she told him everything he
was to do.

"Go now," said she, "and take with you the best mare in the stable, and
go to the door of Rough Niall of the Speckled Rock, and knock, and call
on him to give you news of the death of Anshgayliacht and the sword of
light: and let the horse's back be to the door, and apply the spurs, and
away with you."

In the morning he did so, and he took the best horse from the stable and
rode to the door of Niall, and turned the horse's back to the door, and
demanded news of the death of Anshgayliacht and the sword of light; then
he applied the spurs, and away with him. Niall followed him hard, and,
as he was passing the gate, cut the horse in two. His wife was there
with a dish of puddings and flesh, and she threw it in his eyes and
blinded him, and said, "Fool! whatever kind of man it is that's mocking
you, isn't that a fine condition you have got your father's horse into?"

On the morning of the next day Morraha rose, and took another horse from
the stable, and went again to the door of Niall, and knocked and
demanded news of the death of Anshgayliacht and the sword of light, and
applied the spurs to the horse and away with him. Niall followed, and as
Morraha was passing, the gate cut the horse in two and took half the
saddle with him; but his wife met him and threw flesh in his eyes and
blinded him.

On the third day, Morraha went again to the door of Niall; and Niall
followed him, and as he was passing the gate, cut away the saddle from
under him and the clothes from his back. Then his wife said to Niall:

"The fool that's mocking you, is out yonder in the little currach, going
home; and take good heed to yourself, and don't sleep one wink for three
days."

For three days the little currach kept in sight, but then Niall's wife
came to him and said:

"Sleep as much as you want now. He is gone."

He went to sleep, and there was heavy sleep on him, and Morraha went in
and took hold of the sword that was on the bed at his head. And the
sword thought to draw itself out of the hand of Morraha; but it failed.
Then it gave a cry, and it wakened Niall, and Niall said it was a rude
and rough thing to come into his house like that; and said Morraha to
him:

"Leave your much talking, or I will cut the head off you. Tell me the
news of the death of Anshgayliacht."

"Oh, you can have my head."

"But your head is no good to me; tell me the story."

"Oh," said Niall's wife, "you must get the story."

"Well," said Niall, "let us sit down together till I tell the story. I
thought no one would ever get it; but now it will be heard by all."


                             THE STORY.

  When I was growing up, my mother taught me the language of the
  birds; and when I got married, I used to be listening to their
  conversation; and I would be laughing; and my wife would be asking
  me what was the reason of my laughing, but I did not like to tell
  her, as women are always asking questions. We went out walking
  one fine morning, and the birds were arguing with one another. One
  of them said to another:

  "Why should you be comparing yourself with me, when there is not a
  king nor knight that does not come to look at my tree?"

  "What advantage has your tree over mine, on which there are three
  rods of magic mastery growing?"

  When I heard them arguing, and knew that the rods were there, I
  began to laugh.

  "Oh," asked my wife, "why are you always laughing? I believe it is
  at myself you are jesting, and I'll walk with you no more."

  "Oh, it is not about you I am laughing. It is because I understand
  the language of the birds."

  Then I had to tell her what the birds were saying to one another;
  and she was greatly delighted, and she asked me to go home, and
  she gave orders to the cook to have breakfast ready at six o'clock
  in the morning. I did not know why she was going out early, and
  breakfast was ready in the morning at the hour she appointed. She
  asked me to go out walking. I went with her. She went to the tree,
  and asked me to cut a rod for her.

  "Oh, I will not cut it. Are we not better without it?"

  "I will not leave this until I get the rod, to see if there is any
  good in it."

  I cut the rod and gave it to her. She turned from me and struck a
  blow on a stone, and changed it; and she struck a second blow on
  me, and made of me a black raven, and she went home and left me
  after her. I thought she would come back; she did not come, and I
  had to go into a tree till morning. In the morning, at six
  o'clock, there was a bellman out, proclaiming that every one who
  killed a raven would get a fourpenny-bit. At last you could not
  find man or boy without a gun, nor, if you were to walk three
  miles, a raven that was not killed. I had to make a nest in the
  top of the parlour chimney, and hide myself all day till night
  came, and go out to pick up a bit to support me, till I spent a
  month. Here she is herself to say if it is a lie I am telling.

  [Illustration]

  "It is not," said she.

  Then I saw her out walking. I went up to her, and I thought she
  would turn me back to my own shape, and she struck me with the rod
  and made of me an old white horse, and she ordered me to be put to
  a cart with a man, to draw stones from morning till night. I was
  worse off then. She spread abroad a report that I had died
  suddenly in my bed, and prepared a coffin, and waked and buried
  me. Then she had no trouble. But when I got tired I began to kill
  every one who came near me, and I used to go into the haggard
  every night and destroy the stacks of corn; and when a man came
  near me in the morning I would follow him till I broke his bones.
  Every one got afraid of me. When she saw I was doing mischief she
  came to meet me, and I thought she would change me. And she did
  change me, and made a fox of me. When I saw she was doing me every
  sort of damage I went away from her. I knew there was a badger's
  hole in the garden, and I went there till night came, and I made
  great slaughter among the geese and ducks. There she is herself to
  say if I am telling a lie.

  "Oh! you are telling nothing but the truth, only less than the
  truth."

  When she had enough of my killing the fowl she came out into the
  garden, for she knew I was in the badger's hole. She came to me
  and made me a wolf. I had to be off, and go to an island, where no
  one at all would see me, and now and then I used to be killing
  sheep, for there were not many of them, and I was afraid of being
  seen and hunted; and so I passed a year, till a shepherd saw me
  among the sheep and a pursuit was made after me. And when the dogs
  came near me there was no place for me to escape to from them; but
  I recognised the sign of the king among the men, and I made for
  him, and the king cried out to stop the hounds. I took a leap upon
  the front of the king's saddle, and the woman behind cried out,
  "My king and my lord, kill him, or he will kill you!"

  "Oh! he will not kill me. He knew me; he must be pardoned."

  The king took me home with him, and gave orders I should be well
  cared for. I was so wise, when I got food, I would not eat one
  morsel until I got a knife and fork. The man told the king, and
  the king came to see if it was true, and I got a knife and fork,
  and I took the knife in one paw and the fork in the other, and I
  bowed to the king. The king gave orders to bring him drink, and it
  came; and the king filled a glass of wine and gave it to me.

  I took hold of it in my paw and drank it, and thanked the king.

  "On my honour," said he, "it is some king or other has lost him,
  when he came on the island; and I will keep him, as he is trained;
  and perhaps he will serve us yet."

  And this is the sort of king he was,--a king who had not a child
  living. Eight sons were born to him and three daughters, and they
  were stolen the same night they were born. No matter what guard
  was placed over them, the child would be gone in the morning. A
  twelfth child now came to the queen, and the king took me with him
  to watch the baby. The women were not satisfied with me.

  "Oh," said the king, "what was all your watching ever good for?
  One that was born to me I have not; I will leave this one in the
  dog's care, and he will not let it go."

  A coupling was put between me and the cradle, and when every one
  went to sleep I was watching till the person woke who attended in
  the daytime; but I was there only two nights; when it was near the
  day, I saw a hand coming down through the chimney, and the hand
  was so big that it took round the child altogether, and thought to
  take him away. I caught hold of the hand above the wrist, and as I
  was fastened to the cradle, I did not let go my hold till I cut
  the hand from the wrist, and there was a howl from the person
  without. I laid the hand in the cradle with the child, and as I
  was tired I fell asleep; and when I awoke, I had neither child nor
  hand; and I began to howl, and the king heard me, and he cried out
  that something was wrong with me, and he sent servants to see what
  was the matter with me, and when the messenger came he saw me
  covered with blood, and he could not see the child; and he went to
  the king and told him the child was not to be got. The king came
  and saw the cradle coloured with the blood, and he cried out
  "where was the child gone?" and every one said it was the dog had
  eaten it.

  The king said: "It is not: loose him, and he will get the pursuit
  himself."

  [Illustration: MORRAHA]

  When I was loosed, I found the scent of the blood till I came to a
  door of the room in which the child was. I went back to the king
  and took hold of him, and went back again and began to tear at the
  door. The king followed me and asked for the key. The servant said
  it was in the room of the stranger woman. The king caused search
  to be made for her, and she was not to be found. "I will break the
  door," said the king, "as I can't get the key." The king broke
  the door, and I went in, and went to the trunk, and the king asked
  for a key to unlock it. He got no key, and he broke the lock. When
  he opened the trunk, the child and the hand were stretched side by
  side, and the child was asleep. The king took the hand and ordered
  a woman to come for the child, and he showed the hand to every one
  in the house. But the stranger woman was gone, and she did not see
  the king;--and here she is herself to say if I am telling lies of
  her.

  "Oh, it's nothing but the truth you have!"

  The king did not allow me to be tied any more. He said there was
  nothing so much to wonder at as that I cut the hand off, as I was
  tied.

  The child was growing till he was a year old. He was beginning to
  walk, and no one cared for him more than I did. He was growing
  till he was three, and he was running out every minute; so the
  king ordered a silver chain to be put between me and the child,
  that he might not go away from me. I was out with him in the
  garden every day, and the king was as proud as the world of the
  child. He would be watching him everywhere we went, till the child
  grew so wise that he would loose the chain and get off. But one
  day that he loosed it I failed to find him; and I ran into the
  house and searched the house, but there was no getting him for me.
  The king cried to go out and find the child, that had got loose
  from the dog. They went searching for him, but could not find him.
  When they failed altogether to find him, there remained no more
  favour with the king towards me, and every one disliked me, and I
  grew weak, for I did not get a morsel to eat half the time. When
  summer came, I said I would try and go home to my own country. I
  went away one fine morning, and I went swimming, and God helped me
  till I came home. I went into the garden, for I knew there was a
  place in the garden where I could hide myself, for fear my wife
  should see me. In the morning I saw her out walking, and the child
  with her, held by the hand. I pushed out to see the child, and as
  he was looking about him everywhere, he saw me and called out, "I
  see my shaggy papa. Oh!" said he; "oh, my heart's love, my shaggy
  papa, come here till I see you!"

  [Illustration]

  I was afraid the woman would see me, as she was asking the child
  where he saw me, and he said I was up in a tree; and the more the
  child called me, the more I hid myself. The woman took the child
  home with her, but I knew he would be up early in the morning.

  I went to the parlour-window, and the child was within, and he
  playing. When he saw me he cried out, "Oh! my heart's love, come
  here till I see you, shaggy papa." I broke the window and went in,
  and he began to kiss me. I saw the rod in front of the chimney,
  and I jumped up at the rod and knocked it down. "Oh! my heart's
  love, no one would give me the pretty rod," said he. I hoped he
  would strike me with the rod, but he did not. When I saw the time
  was short I raised my paw, and I gave him a scratch below the
  knee. "Oh! you naughty, dirty, shaggy papa, you have hurt me so
  much, I'll give you a blow of the rod." He struck me a light blow,
  and so I came back to my own shape again. When he saw a man
  standing before him he gave a cry, and I took him up in my arms.
  The servants heard the child. A maid came in to see what was the
  matter with him. When she saw me she gave a cry out of her, and
  she said, "Oh, if the master isn't come to life again!"

  Another came in, and said it was he really. When the mistress
  heard of it, she came to see with her own eyes, for she would not
  believe I was there; and when she saw me she said she'd drown
  herself. But I said to her, "If you yourself will keep the secret,
  no living man will ever get the story from me until I lose my
  head." Here she is herself to say if I am telling the truth. "Oh,
  it's nothing but truth you are telling."

  When I saw I was in a man's shape, I said I would take the child
  back to his father and mother, as I knew the grief they were in
  after him. I got a ship, and took the child with me; and as I
  journeyed I came to land on an island, and I saw not a living soul
  on it, only a castle dark and gloomy. I went in to see was there
  any one in it. There was no one but an old hag, tall and
  frightful, and she asked me, "What sort of person are you?" I
  heard some one groaning in another room, and I said I was a
  doctor, and I asked her what ailed the person who was groaning.

  "Oh," said she, "it is my son, whose hand has been bitten from his
  wrist by a dog."

  I knew then that it was he who had taken the child from me, and I
  said I would cure him if I got a good reward.

  "I have nothing; but there are eight young lads and three young
  women, as handsome as any one ever laid eyes on, and if you cure
  him I will give you them."

  "Tell me first in what place his hand was cut from him?"

  "Oh, it was out in another country, twelve years ago."

  "Show me the way, that I may see him."

  She brought me into a room, so that I saw him, and his arm was
  swelled up to the shoulder. He asked me if I would cure him; and I
  said I would cure him if he would give me the reward his mother
  promised.

  "Oh, I will give it; but cure me."

  "Well, bring them out to me."

  The hag brought them out of the room. I said I should burn the
  flesh that was on his arm. When I looked on him he was howling
  with pain. I said that I would not leave him in pain long. The
  wretch had only one eye in his forehead. I took a bar of iron, and
  put it in the fire till it was red, and I said to the hag, "He
  will be howling at first, but will fall asleep presently, and do
  not wake him till he has slept as much as he wants. I will close
  the door when I am going out." I took the bar with me, and I stood
  over him, and I turned it across through his eye as far as I
  could. He began to bellow, and tried to catch me, but I was out
  and away, having closed the door. The hag asked me, "Why is he
  bellowing?"

  "Oh, he will be quiet presently, and will sleep for a good while,
  and I'll come again to have a look at him; but bring me out the
  young men and the young women."

  I took them with me, and I said to her, "Tell me where you got
  them."

  "My son brought them with him, and they are all the children of
  one king."

  I was well satisfied, and I had no wish for delay to get myself
  free from the hag, so I took them on board the ship, and the child
  I had myself. I thought the king might leave me the child I nursed
  myself; but when I came to land, and all those young people with
  me, the king and queen were out walking. The king was very aged,
  and the queen aged likewise. When I came to converse with them,
  and the twelve with me, the king and queen began to cry. I asked,
  "Why are you crying?"

  "It is for good cause I am crying. As many children as these I
  should have, and now I am withered, grey, at the end of my life,
  and I have not one at all."

  I told him all I went through, and I gave him the child in his
  hand, and "These are your other children who were stolen from you,
  whom I am giving to you safe. They are gently reared."

  When the king heard who they were he smothered them with kisses
  and drowned them with tears, and dried them with fine cloths
  silken and the hair of his own head, and so also did their mother,
  and great was his welcome for me, as it was I who found them all.
  The king said to me, "I will give you the last child, as it is you
  who have earned him best; but you must come to my court every
  year, and the child with you, and I will share with you my
  possessions."

  "I have enough of my own, and after my death I will leave it to
  the child."

  I spent a time, till my visit was over, and I told the king all
  the troubles I went through, only I said nothing about my wife.
  And now you have the story.

       *       *       *       *       *

And now when you go home, and the Slender Red Champion asks you for news
of the death of Anshgayliacht and for the sword of light, tell him the
way in which his brother was killed, and say you have the sword; and he
will ask the sword from you. Say you to him, "If I promised to bring it
to you, I did not promise to bring it for you"; and then throw the sword
into the air and it will come back to me.

       *       *       *       *       *

He went home, and he told the story of the death of Anshgayliacht to the
Slender Red Champion, "And here," said he, "is the sword." The Slender
Red Champion asked for the sword; but he said: "If I promised to bring
it to you, I did not promise to bring it for you"; and he threw it into
the air and it returned to Blue Niall.




[Illustration]

The Story of the McAndrew Family


[Illustration: A]

A long time ago, in the County Mayo, there lived a rich
man of the name of McAndrew. He owned cows and horses without number,
not to mention ducks and geese and pigs; and his land extended as far as
the eye could reach on the four sides of you.

McAndrew was a lucky man, the neighbours all said; but as for himself,
when he looked on his seven big sons growing up like weeds and with
scarcely any more sense, he felt sore enough, for of all the stupid
omadhauns the seven McAndrew brothers were the stupidest.

When the youngest grew to be a man, the father built a house for each of
them, and gave every one a piece of land and a few cows, hoping to make
men of them before he died, for, as the old man said:

"While God spares my life, I'll be able to have an eye to them, and
maybe they will learn from experience."

The seven young McAndrews were happy enough. Their fields were green,
their cows were fat and sleek, and they thought they would never see a
poor day.

All went well for a time, and the day of the Fair of Killalla was as
fine a day as ever shone in Ireland, when the whole seven got ready to
be off, bright and early, in the morning.

Each one of them drove before him three fine cows, and a finer herd,
when they were all together, was never seen in the country far or near.

Now, there was a smart farmer, named O'Toole, whose fields were nearing
on the McAndrews', and he had many a time set his heart on the fine
cattle belonging to his easy-going neighbours; so when he saw them
passing with their twenty-one cows he went out and hailed them.

"Where are ye going to, this fine morning?"

"It's to the Fair of Killalla we're going, to sell these fine cows our
father gave us," they all answered together.

"And are ye going to sell cows that the Evil Eye has long been set on?
Oh, Con and Shamus, I would never belave it of ye, even if that spalpeen
of a Pat would do such a thing; any one would think that the spirit of
the good mother that bore ye would stretch out a hand and kape ye from
committing such a mortal sin."

This O'Toole said to the three eldest, who stood trembling, while the
four younger ones stuck their knuckles into their eyes and began to cry.

"Oh, indade, Mr. O'Toole, we never knew that the cows were under the
Evil Eye. How did ye find it out? Oh, sorra the day when such a fine
lot of cattle should go to the bad," answered Con.

[Illustration]

"Indade ye may well ask it, whin it's meself that was always a good
neighbour and kept watch on auld Judy, the witch, when she used to stand
over there laughing at the ravens flying over the cows. Do ye mind the
time yer father spoke ugly to her down by the cross-roads? She never
forgot it, and now yer twenty-one fine cows will never be worth the
hides on their backs."

"Worra, worra, worra," roared the seven McAndrews, so loud that pretty
Katie O'Toole bobbed her head out of the window, and the hindermost cows
began to caper like mad.

"The spell has come upon them!" cried Shamus. "Oh! what'll we do?
What'll we do?"

"Hould yer whist, man alive," said O'Toole. "I'm a good neighbour, as I
said before, so to give ye a lift in the world I'll take the risk on
meself and buy the cows from ye for the price of their hides. Sure no
harm can be done to the hides for making leather, so I'll give ye a
shilling apiece, and that's better than nothing. Twenty-one bright
shillings going to the fair may make yer fortune."

[Illustration]

It seemed neck or nothing with the McAndrews, and they accepted the
offer, thanking O'Toole for his generosity, and helped him drive the
cows into his field. Then they set off for the fair.

They had never been in a fair before, and when they saw the fine sights
they forgot all about the cows, and only remembered that they had each a
shilling to spend.

Every one knew the McAndrews, and soon a crowd gathered round them,
praising their fine looks and telling them what a fine father they had
to give them so much money, so that the seven omadhauns lost their heads
entirely, and treated right and left until there wasn't a farthing left
of the twenty-one shillings. Then they staggered home a little the worse
for the fine whisky they drank with the boys.

It was a sorry day for old McAndrew when his seven sons came home
without a penny of the price of their twenty-one fine cows, and he vowed
he'd never give them any more.

So one day passed with another, and the seven young McAndrews were as
happy as could be until the fine old father fell sick and died.

The eldest son came in for all the father had, so he felt like a lord.
To see him strut and swagger was a sight to make a grum growdy laugh.

One day, to show how fine he could be, he dressed in his best, and with
a purse filled with gold pieces started off for the market town.

When he got there, in he walked to a public-house, and called for the
best of everything, and to make a fine fellow of himself he tripled the
price of everything to the landlord. As soon as he got through his eye
suddenly caught sight of a little keg, all gilded over to look like
gold, that hung outside the door for a sign. Con had never heeded it
before, and he asked the landlord what it was.

Now the landlord, like many another, had it in mind that he might as
well get all he could out of a McAndrew, and he answered quickly:

"You stupid omadhaun, don't you know what that is? It's a mare's egg."

"And will a foal come out of it?"

"Of course; what a question to ask a dacent man!"

"I niver saw one before," said the amazed McAndrew.

"Well, ye see one now, Con, and take a good look at it."

"Will ye sell it?"

"Och, Con McAndrew, do ye think I want to sell that fine egg afther
kaping it so long hung up there before the sun--when it is ready to
hatch out a foal that will be worth twenty good guineas to me?"

"I'll give ye twenty guineas for it," answered Con.

"Thin it's a bargain," said the landlord; and he took down the keg and
handed it to Con, who handed out the twenty guineas, all the money he
had.

"Be careful of it, and carry it as aisy as ye can, and when ye get home
hang it up in the sun."

Con promised, and set off home with his prize.

Near the rise of a hill he met his brothers.

"What have ye, Con?"

"The most wonderful thing in the world--a mare's egg."

"Faith, what is it like?" asked Pat, taking it from Con.

"Go aisy, can't ye? It's very careful ye have to be."

But the brothers took no heed to Con, and before one could say, "whist,"
away rolled the keg down the hill, while all seven ran after it; but
before any one could catch it, it rolled into a clump of bushes, and in
an instant out hopped a hare.

[Illustration]

"Bedad, there's the foal," cried Con, and all seven gave chase; but
there was no use trying to catch a hare.

"That's the foinest foal that ever was, if he was five year old the
devil himself could not catch him," Con said; and with that the seven
omadhauns gave up the chase and went quietly home.

As I said before, every one had it in mind to get all he could get out
of the McAndrews.

Every one said, "One man might as well have it as another, for they're
bound to spend every penny they have."

So their money dwindled away; then a fine horse would go for a few bits
of glass they took for precious stones, and by-and-by a couple of pigs
or a pair of fine geese for a bit of ribbon to tie on a hat; and at last
their land began to go.

One day Shamus was sitting by his fireplace warming himself, and to make
a good fire he threw on a big heap of turf so that by-and-by it got
roaring hot, and instead of feeling chilly as he had before, Shamus got
as hot as a spare-rib on a spit. Just then in came his youngest brother.

"That's a great fire ye have here, Shamus."

"It is, indade, and too near it is to me; run like a good boy to Giblin,
the mason, and see if he can't move the chimney to the other side of the
room."

The youngest McAndrew did as he was bid, and soon in came Giblin, the
mason.

"Ye're in a sad plight, Shamus, roasting alive; what can I do for ye?"

"Can ye move the chimney over beyant?"

"Faith, I can, but ye will have to move a bit; just go out for a walk
with yer brother, and the job will be done when ye come back."

Shamus did as he was bid, and Giblin took the chair the omadhaun was
sitting on and moved it away from the fire, and then sat down for a
quiet laugh for himself and to consider on the price he'd charge for the
job.

When Shamus came back, Giblin led him to the chair, saying:

"Now, isn't that a great deal better?"

"Ye're a fine man, Giblin, and ye did it without making a bit of dirt;
what'll I give ye for so fine a job?"

"If ye wouldn't mind, I'd like the meadow field nearing on mine. It's
little enough for a job like that."

"It's yours and welcome, Giblin"; and without another word the deed was
drawn.

That was the finest of the McAndrew fields, and the only pasture land
left to Shamus.

It was not long before it came about that first one and then another
lost the house he lived in, until all had to live together in the
father's old place.

O'Toole and Giblin had encroached field by field, and there was nothing
left but the old house and a strip of garden that none of them knew how
to till.

It was hard times for the seven McAndrews, but they were happy and
contented as long as they had enough to eat, and that they had surely,
for the wives of the men who got away all their fine lands and cattle,
had sore hearts when they saw their men enriched at the expense of the
omadhauns, and every day, unbeknown to their husbands, they carried them
meat and drink.

O'Toole and Giblin now had their avaricious eyes set on the house and
garden, and they were on the watch for a chance to clutch them, when
luck, or something worse, threw the chance in the way of O'Toole.

He was returning from town one day just in the cool of the afternoon,
when he spied the seven brothers by the roadside, sitting in a circle
facing each other.

"What may ye be doing here instead of earning yer salt, ye seven big
sturks?"

"We're in a bad fix, Mr. O'Toole," answered Pat. "We can't get up."

"What's to hinder ye from getting up? I'd like to know."

"Don't ye see our feet are all here together in the middle, and not for
the life of us can we each tell our own. You see if one of us gets up he
don't know what pair of feet to take with him."

O'Toole was never so ready to laugh before in his life, but he thought:

"Now's me chance to get the house and garden before Giblin, the mason,
comes round"; so he looked very grave and said: "I suppose it is hard to
tell one man's feet from another's when they're all there in a heap, but
I think I can help you as I have many a time before. It would be a sorry
day for ye if ye did not have me for a neighbour. What will ye give me
if I help you find yer feet?"

"Anything, anything we have, so that we can get up from here," answered
the whole seven together.

"Will ye give me the house and garden?"

"Indade we will; what good is a house and garden, if we have to sit here
all the rest of our lives?"

"Then it's a bargain," said O'Toole; and with that he went over to the
side of the road and pulled a good stout rod. Then he commenced to
belabour the poor McAndrews over the heads, feet, shoulders, and any
place he could get in a stroke, until with screeches of pain they all
jumped up, every one finding his own feet, and away they ran.

So O'Toole got the last of the property of the McAndrews, and there was
nothing left for them but to go and beg.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

The Farmer of Liddesdale


[Illustration: T]

There was in Liddesdale (in Morven) a Farmer who suffered great loss
within the space of one year. In the first place, his wife and children
died, and shortly after their death the Ploughman left him. The
hiring-markets were then over, and there was no way of getting another
ploughman in place of the one that left. When spring came his neighbours
began ploughing; but he had not a man to hold the plough, and he knew
not what he should do. The time was passing, and he was therefore losing
patience. At last he said to himself, in a fit of passion, that he would
engage the first man that came his way, whoever he should be.

Shortly after that a man came to the house. The Farmer met him at the
door, and asked him whither was he going, or what was he seeking? He
answered that he was a ploughman, and that he wanted an engagement. "I
want a ploughman, and if we agree about the wages, I will engage thee.
What dost thou ask from this day to the day when the crop will be
gathered in?" "Only as much of the corn when it shall be dry as I can
carry with me in one burden-withe." "Thou shalt get that," said the
Farmer, and they agreed.

Next morning the Farmer went out with the Ploughman, and showed him the
fields which he had to plough. Before they returned, the Ploughman went
to the wood, and having cut three stakes, came back with them, and
placed one of them at the head of each one of the fields. After he had
done that he said to the Farmer, "I will do the work now alone, and the
ploughing need no longer give thee anxiety."

Having said this, he went home and remained idle all that day. The next
day came, but he remained idle as on the day before. After he had spent
a good while in that manner, the Farmer said to him that it was time for
him to begin work now, because the spring was passing away, and the
neighbours had half their work finished. He replied, "Oh, our land is
not ready yet." "How dost thou think that?" "Oh, I know it by the
stakes."

If the delay of the Ploughman made the Farmer wonder, this answer made
him wonder more. He resolved that he would keep his eye on him, and see
what he was doing.

The Farmer rose early next morning, and saw the Ploughman going to the
first field. When he reached the field, he pulled the stake at its end
out of the ground, and put it to his nose. He shook his head and put the
stake back in the ground. He then left the first field and went to the
rest. He tried the stakes, shook his head, and returned home. In the
dusk he went out the second time to the fields, tried the stakes, shook
his head, and after putting them again in the ground, went home. Next
morning he went out to the fields the third time. When he reached the
first stake he pulled it out of the ground and put it to his nose as he
did on the foregoing days. But no sooner had he done that than he threw
the stake from him, and stretched away for the houses with all his
might.

He got the horses, the withes, and the plough, and when he reached the
end of the first field with them, he thrust the plough into the ground,
and cried:

    "My horses and my leather-traces, and mettlesome lads,
     The earth is coming up!"

He then began ploughing, kept at it all day at a terrible rate, and
before the sun went down that night there was not a palm-breadth of the
three fields which he had not ploughed, sowed, and harrowed. When the
Farmer saw this he was exceedingly well pleased, for he had his work
finished as soon as his neighbours.

The Ploughman was quick and ready to do everything that he was told, and
so he and the Farmer agreed well until the harvest came. But on a
certain day when the reaping was over, the Farmer said to him that he
thought the corn was dry enough for putting in. The Ploughman tried a
sheaf or two, and answered that it was not dry yet. But shortly after
that day he said that it was now ready. "If it is," said the Farmer, "we
better begin putting it in." "We will not until I get my share out of it
first," said the Ploughman. He then went off to the wood, and in a short
time returned, having in his hand a withe scraped and twisted. He
stretched the withe on the field, and began to put the corn in it. He
continued putting sheaf after sheaf in the withe until he had taken
almost all the sheaves that were on the field. The Farmer asked of him
what he meant? "Thou didst promise me as wages as much corn as I could
carry with me in one burden-withe, and here I have it now," said the
Ploughman, as he was shutting the withe.

The Farmer saw that he would be ruined by the Ploughman, and therefore
said:

    "'Twas in the Màrt I sowed,
     'Twas in the Màrt I baked,
     'Twas in the Màrt I harrowed.
     Thou Who hast ordained the three Màrts,
     Let not my share go in one burden-withe."

Instantly the withe broke, and it made a loud report, which echo
answered from every rock far and near. Then the corn spread over the
field, and the Ploughman went away in a white mist in the skies, and was
seen no more.




The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener


[Illustration: T]

There was once a king, but I didn't hear what country he was over, and
he had one very beautiful daughter. Well, he was getting old and sickly,
and the doctors found out that the finest medicine in the world for him
was the apples of a tree that grew in the orchard just under his window.
So you may be sure he had the tree well minded, and used to get the
apples counted from the time they were the size of small marbles. One
harvest, just as they were beginning to turn ripe, the king was awakened
one night by the flapping of wings outside in the orchard; and when he
looked out, what did he see but a bird among the branches of his tree.
Its feathers were so bright that they made a light all round them, and
the minute it saw the king in his night-cap and night-shirt it picked
off an apple, and flew away. "Oh, botheration to that thief of a
gardener!" says the king, "this is a nice way he's watching my precious
fruit."

He didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night; and as soon as any one was
stirring in the palace, he sent for the gardener, and abused him for his
neglect.

"Please your Majesty!" says he, "not another apple you shall lose. My
three sons are the best shots at the bow and arrow in the kingdom, and
they and myself will watch in turn every night."

When the night came, the gardener's eldest son took his post in the
garden, with his bow strung and his arrow between his fingers, and
watched, and watched. But at the dead hour, the king, that was wide
awake, heard the flapping of wings, and ran to the window. There was the
bright bird in the tree, and the boy fast asleep, sitting with his back
to the wall, and his bow on his lap.

"Rise, you lazy thief!" says the king, "there's the bird again,
botheration to her!"

Up jumped the poor fellow; but while he was fumbling with the arrow and
the string, away was the bird with the nicest apple on the tree. Well,
to be sure, how the king fumed and fretted, and how he abused the
gardener and the boy, and what a twenty-four hours he spent till
midnight came again!

He had his eye this time on the second son of the gardener; but though
he was up and lively enough when the clock began to strike twelve, it
wasn't done with the last bang when he saw him stretched like one dead
on the long grass, and saw the bright bird again, and heard the flap of
her wings, and saw her carry away the third apple. The poor fellow woke
with the roar the king let at him, and even was in time enough to let
fly an arrow after the bird. He did not hit her, you may depend; and
though the king was mad enough, he saw the poor fellows were under
_pishtrogues_, and could not help it.

Well, he had some hopes out of the youngest, for he was a brave, active
young fellow, that had everybody's good word. There he was ready, and
there was the king watching him, and talking to him at the first stroke
of twelve. At the last clang, the brightness coming before the bird
lighted up the wall and the trees, and the rushing of the wings was
heard as it flew into the branches; but at the same instant the crack of
the arrow on her side might be heard a quarter of a mile off. Down came
the arrow and a large bright feather along with it, and away was the
bird, with a screech that was enough to break the drum of your ear. She
hadn't time to carry off an apple; and bedad, when the feather was
thrown up into the king's room it was heavier than lead, and turned out
to be the finest beaten gold.

Well, there was great _cooramuch_ made about the youngest boy next day,
and he watched night after night for a week, but not a mite of a bird or
bird's feather was to be seen, and then the king told him to go home and
sleep. Every one admired the beauty of the gold feather beyond anything,
but the king was fairly bewitched. He was turning it round and round,
and rubbing it against his forehead and his nose the live-long day; and
at last he proclaimed that he'd give his daughter and half his kingdom
to whoever would bring him the bird with the gold feathers, dead or
alive.

The gardener's eldest son had great conceit of himself, and away he went
to look for the bird. In the afternoon he sat down under a tree to rest
himself, and eat a bit of bread and cold meat that he had in his
wallet, when up comes as fine a looking fox as you'd see in the burrow
of Munfin. "Musha, sir," says he, "would you spare a bit of that meat to
a poor body that's hungry?"

"Well," says the other, "you must have the divil's own assurance, you
common robber, to ask me such a question. Here's the answer," and he let
fly at the _moddhereen rua_.

The arrow scraped from his side up over his back, as if he was made of
hammered iron, and stuck in a tree a couple of perches off.

"Foul play," says the fox; "but I respect your young brother, and will
give a bit of advice. At nightfall you'll come into a village. One side
of the street you'll see a large room lighted up, and filled with young
men and women, dancing and drinking. The other side you'll see a house
with no light, only from the fire in the front room, and no one near it
but a man and his wife, and their child. Take a fool's advice, and get
lodging there." With that he curled his tail over his crupper, and
trotted off.

The boy found things as the fox said, but _begonies_ he chose the
dancing and drinking, and there we'll leave him. In a week's time, when
they got tired at home waiting for him, the second son said he'd try his
fortune, and off he set. He was just as ill-natured and foolish as his
brother, and the same thing happened to him. Well, when a week was over,
away went the youngest of all, and as sure as the hearth-money, he sat
under the same tree, and pulled out his bread and meat, and the same fox
came up and saluted him. Well, the young fellow shared his dinner with
the _moddhereen_, and he wasn't long beating about the bush, but told
the other he knew all about his business.

"I'll help you," says he, "if I find you're biddable. So just at
nightfall you'll come into a village.... Good-bye till to-morrow."

It was just as the fox said, but the boy took care not to go near
dancer, drinker, fiddler, or piper. He got welcome in the quiet house to
supper and bed, and was on his journey next morning before the sun was
the height of the trees.

He wasn't gone a quarter of a mile when he saw the fox coming out of a
wood that was by the roadside.

"Good-morrow, fox," says one.

"Good-morrow, sir," says the other.

"Have you any notion how far you have to travel till you find the golden
bird?"

"Dickens a notion have I;--how could I?"

"Well, I have. She's in the King of Spain's palace, and that's a good
two hundred miles off."

"Oh, dear! we'll be a week going."

"No, we won't. Sit down on my tail, and we'll soon make the road short."

"Tail, indeed! that 'ud be the droll saddle, my poor _moddhereen_."

"Do as I tell you, or I'll leave you to yourself."

Well, rather than vex him he sat down on the tail that was spread out
level like a wing, and away they went like thought. They overtook the
wind that was before them, and the wind that came after didn't overtake
them. In the afternoon, they stopped in a wood near the King of Spain's
palace, and there they stayed till nightfall.

"Now," says the fox, "I'll go before you to make the minds of the guards
easy, and you'll have nothing to do but go from lighted hall to another
lighted hall till you find the golden bird in the last. If you have a
head on you, you'll bring himself and his cage outside the door, and no
one then can lay hands on him or you. If you haven't a head I can't help
you, nor no one else." So he went over to the gates.

In a quarter of an hour the boy followed, and in the first hall he
passed he saw a score of armed guards standing upright, but all dead
asleep. In the next he saw a dozen, and in the next half a dozen, and in
the next three, and in the room beyond that there was no guard at all,
nor lamp, nor candle, but it was as bright as day; for there was the
golden bird in a common wood and wire cage, and on the table were the
three apples turned into solid gold.

On the same table was the most lovely golden cage eye ever beheld, and
it entered the boy's head that it would be a thousand pities not to put
the precious bird into it, the common cage was so unfit for her. Maybe
he thought of the money it was worth; anyhow he made the exchange, and
he had soon good reason to be sorry for it. The instant the shoulder of
the bird's wing touched the golden wires, he let such a _squawk_ out of
him as was enough to break all the panes of glass in the windows, and at
the same minute the three men, and the half-dozen, and the dozen, and
the score men, woke up and clattered their swords and spears, and
surrounded the poor boy, and jibed, and cursed, and swore at home, till
he didn't know whether it's his foot or head he was standing on. They
called the king, and told him what happened, and he put on a very grim
face. "It's on a gibbet you ought to be this moment," says he, "but I'll
give you a chance of your life, and of the golden bird, too. I lay you
under prohibitions, and restrictions, and death, and destruction, to go
and bring me the King of _Moroco's_ bay filly that outruns the wind,
and leaps over the walls of castle-bawns. When you fetch her into the
bawn of this palace, you must get the golden bird, and liberty to go
where you please."

[Illustration]

Out passed the boy, very down-hearted, but as he went along, who should
come out of a brake but the fox again.

"Ah, my friend," says he, "I was right when I suspected you hadn't a
head on you; but I won't rub your hair again' the grain. Get on my tail
again, and when we come to the King of Moroco's palace, we'll see
what we can do."

So away they went like thought. The wind that was before them they would
overtake; the wind that was behind them would not overtake them.

Well, the nightfall came on them in a wood near the palace, and says the
fox, "I'll go and make things easy for you at the stables, and when you
are leading out the filly, don't let her touch the door, nor doorposts,
nor anything but the ground, and that with her hoofs; and if you haven't
a head on you once you are in the stable, you'll be worse off than
before."

So the boy delayed for a quarter of an hour, and then he went into the
big bawn of the palace. There were two rows of armed men reaching from
the gate to the stable, and every man was in the depth of deep sleep,
and through them went the boy till he got into the stable. There was the
filly, as handsome a beast as ever stretched leg, and there was one
stable-boy with a currycomb in his hand, and another with a bridle, and
another with a sieve of oats, and another with an armful of hay, and all
as if they were cut out of stone. The filly was the only live thing in
the place except himself. She had a common wood and leather saddle on
her back, but a golden saddle with the nicest work on it was hung from
the post, and he thought it the greatest pity not to put it in place of
the other. Well, I believe there was some _pishrogues_ over it for a
saddle; anyhow, he took off the other, and put the gold one in its
place.

Out came a squeal from the filly's throat when she felt the strange
article, that might be heard from Tombrick to Bunclody, and all as
ready were the armed men and the stable-boys to run and surround the
_omadhan_ of a boy, and the King of Moroco was soon there along with
the rest, with a face on him as black as the sole of your foot. After he
stood enjoying the abuse the poor boy got from everybody for some time,
he says to him, "You deserve high hanging for your impudence, but I'll
give you a chance for your life and the filly, too. I lay on you all
sorts of prohibitions, and restrictions, and death, and destruction to
go bring me Princess Golden Locks, the King of Greek's daughter. When
you deliver her into my hand, you may have the 'daughter of the wind,'
and welcome. Come in and take your supper and your rest, and be off at
the flight of night."

The poor boy was down in the mouth, you may suppose, as he was walking
away next morning, and very much ashamed when the fox looked up in his
face after coming out of the wood.

"What a thing it is," says he, "not to have a head when a body wants it
worst; and here we have a fine long journey before us to the King of
Greek's palace. The worse luck now, the same always. Here, get on my
tail, and we'll be making the road shorter."

So he sat on the fox's tail, and swift as thought they went. The wind
that was before them they would overtake it, the wind that was behind
them would not overtake them, and in the evening they were eating their
bread and cold meat in the wood near the castle.

"Now," says the fox, when they were done, "I'll go before you to make
things easy. Follow me in a quarter of an hour. Don't let Princess
Golden Locks touch the jambs of the doors with her hands, or hair, or
clothes, and if you're asked any favour, mind how you answer. Once she's
outside the door, no one can take her from you."

Into the palace walked the boy at the proper time, and there were the
score, and the dozen, and the half-dozen, and the three guards all
standing up or leaning on their arms, and all dead asleep, and in the
farthest room of all was the Princess Golden Locks, as lovely as Venus
herself. She was asleep in one chair, and her father, the King of Greek,
in another. He stood before her for ever so long with the love sinking
deeper into his heart every minute, till at last he went down on one
knee, and took her darling white hand in his hand, and kissed it.

When she opened her eyes, she was a little frightened, but I believe not
very angry, for the boy, as I call him, was a fine handsome young
fellow, and all the respect and love that ever you could think of was in
his face. She asked him what he wanted, and he stammered, and blushed,
and began his story six times, before she understood it.

"And would you give me up to that ugly black King of Moroco?" says
she.

"I am obliged to do so," says he, "by prohibitions, and restrictions,
and death, and destruction, but I'll have his life and free you, or lose
my own. If I can't get you for my wife, my days on the earth will be
short."

"Well," says she, "let me take leave of my father at any rate."

"Ah, I can't do that," says he, "or they'd all waken, and myself would
be put to death, or sent to some task worse than any I got yet."

But she asked leave at any rate to kiss the old man; that wouldn't
waken him, and then she'd go. How could he refuse her, and his heart
tied up in every curl of her hair? But, bedad, the moment her lips
touched her father's, he let a cry, and every one of the score, the
dozen guards woke up, and clashed their arms, and were going to make
_gibbets_ of the foolish boy.

But the king ordered them to hold their hands, till he'd be _insensed_
of what it was all about, and when he heard the boy's story he gave him
a chance for his life.

"There is," says he, "a great heap of clay in front of the palace, that
won't let the sun shine on the walls in the middle of summer. Every one
that ever worked at it found two shovelfuls added to it for every one
they threw away. Remove it, and I'll let my daughter go with you. If
you're the man I suspect you to be, I think she'll be in no danger of
being wife to that yellow _Molott_."

Early next morning was the boy tackled to his work, and for every
shovelful he flung away two came back on him, and at last he could
hardly get out of the heap that gathered round him. Well, the poor
fellow scrambled out some way, and sat down on a sod, and he'd have
cried only for the shame of it. He began at it in ever so many places,
and one was still worse than the other, and in the heel of the evening,
when he was sitting with his head between his hands, who should be
standing before him but the fox.

"Well, my poor fellow," says he, "you're low enough. Go in: I won't say
anything to add to your trouble. Take your supper and your rest:
to-morrow will be a new day."

"How is the work going off?" says the king, when they were at supper.

[Illustration: THE GREEK PRINCESS]

"Faith, your Majesty," says the poor boy, "it's not going off, but
coming on it is. I suppose you'll have the trouble of digging me out at
sunset to-morrow, and waking me."

"I hope not," says the princess, with a smile on her kind face; and the
boy was as happy as anything the rest of the evening.

He was wakened up next morning with voices shouting, and bugles blowing,
and drums beating, and such a hullibulloo he never heard in his life
before. He ran out to see what was the matter, and there, where the heap
of clay was the evening before, were soldiers, and servants, and lords,
and ladies, dancing like mad for joy that it was gone.

"Ah, my poor fox!" says he to himself, "this is your work."

Well, there was little delay about his return. The king was going to
send a great retinue with the princess and himself, but he wouldn't let
him take the trouble.

"I have a friend," says he, "that will bring us both to the King of
Moroco's palace in a day, d---- fly away with him!"

There was great crying when she was parting from her father.

"Ah!" says he, "what a lonesome life I'll have now! Your poor brother in
the power of that wicked witch, and kept away from us, and now you taken
from me in my old age!"

Well, they both were walking on through the wood, and he telling her how
much he loved her; out walked the fox from behind a brake, and in a
short time he and she were sitting on the brush, and holding one another
fast for fear of slipping off, and away they went like thought. The
wind that was before them they would overtake it, and in the evening he
and she were in the big bawn of the King of Moroco's castle.

"Well," says he to the boy, "you've done your duty well; bring out the
bay filly. I'd give the full of the bawn of such fillies, if I had them,
for this handsome princess. Get on your steed, and here is a good purse
of guineas for the road."

[Illustration]

"Thank you," says he. "I suppose you'll let me shake hands with the
princess before I start."

"Yes, indeed, and welcome."

Well, he was some little time about the hand-shaking, and before it was
over he had her fixed snug behind him; and while you could count three,
he, and she, and the filly were through all the guards, and a hundred
perches away. On they went, and next morning they were in the wood near
the King of Spain's palace, and there was the fox before them.

"Leave your princess here with me," says he, "and go get the golden bird
and the three apples. If you don't bring us back the filly along with
the bird, I must carry you both home myself."

Well, when the King of Spain saw the boy and the filly in the bawn, he
made the golden bird, and the golden cage, and the golden apples be
brought out and handed to him, and was very thankful and very glad of
his prize. But the boy could not part with the nice beast without
petting it and rubbing it; and while no one was expecting such a thing,
he was up on its back, and through the guards, and a hundred perches
away, and he wasn't long till he came to where he left his princess and
the fox.

They hurried away till they were safe out of the King of Spain's land,
and then they went on easier; and if I was to tell you all the loving
things they said to one another, the story wouldn't be over till
morning. When they were passing the village of the dance house, they
found his two brothers begging, and they brought them along. When they
came to where the fox appeared first, he begged the young man to cut off
his head and his tail. He would not do it for him; he shivered at the
very thought, but the eldest brother was ready enough. The head and tail
vanished with the blows, and the body changed into the finest young man
you could see, and who was he but the princess's brother that was
bewitched. Whatever joy they had before, they had twice as much now, and
when they arrived at the palace bonfires were set blazing, oxes
roasting, and puncheons of wine put out in the lawn. The young Prince
of Greece was married to the king's daughter, and the prince's sister to
the gardener's son. He and she went a shorter way back to her father's
house, with many attendants, and the king was so glad of the golden bird
and the golden apples, that he had sent a waggon full of gold and a
waggon full of silver along with them.




[Illustration]

The Russet Dog


[Illustration: O]

Oh, he's a rare clever fellow, is the Russet Dog, the Fox, I suppose you
call him. Have you ever heard the way he gets rid of his fleas? He hunts
about and he hunts about till he finds a lock of wool: then he takes it
in his mouth, and down he goes to the river and turns his tail to the
stream, and goes in backwards. And as the water comes up to his haunches
the little fleas come forward, and the more he dips into the river the
more they come forward, till at last he has got nothing but his snout
and the lock of wool above water; then the little fleas rush into his
snout and into the lock of wool. Down he dips his nose, and as soon as
he feels his nose free of them, he lets go the lock of wool, and so he
is free of his fleas. Ah, but that is nothing to the way in which he
catches ducks for his dinner. He will gather some heather, and put his
head in the midst of it, and then will slip down stream to the place
where the ducks are swimming, for all the world like a piece of
floating heather. Then he lets go, and--gobble, gobble, gobble, till not
a duck is left alive. And he is as brave as he is clever. It is said
that once he found the bagpipes lying all alone, and being very hungry
began to gnaw at them: but as soon as he made a hole in the bag, out
came a squeal. Was the Russet Dog afraid? Never a bit: all he said was:
"Here's music with my dinner."

Now a Russet Dog had noticed for some days a family of wrens, off which
he wished to dine. He might have been satisfied with one, but he was
determined to have the whole lot--father and eighteen sons--but all so
like that he could not tell one from the other, or the father from the
children.

"It is no use to kill one son," he said to himself, "because the old
cock will take warning and fly away with the seventeen. I wish I knew
which is the old gentleman."

He set his wits to work to find out, and one day seeing them all
threshing in a barn, he sat down to watch them; still he could not be
sure.

"Now I have it," he said; "well done the old man's stroke! He hits
true," he cried.

"Oh!" replied the one he suspected of being the head of the family, "if
you had seen my grandfather's strokes, you might have said that."

The sly fox pounced on the cock, ate him up in a trice, and then soon
caught and disposed of the eighteen sons, all flying in terror about the
barn.

For a long time a Tod-hunter had been very anxious to catch our friend
the fox, and had stopped all the earths in cold weather. One evening he
fell asleep in his hut; and when he opened his eyes he saw the fox
sitting very demurely at the side of the fire. It had entered by the
hole under the door provided for the convenience of the dog, the cat,
the pig, and the hen.

"Oh! ho!" said the Tod-hunter, "now I have you." And he went and sat
down at the hole to prevent Reynard's escape.

"Oh! ho!" said the fox, "I will soon make that stupid fellow get up." So
he found the man's shoes, and putting them into the fire, wondered if
that would make the enemy move.

[Illustration]

"I shan't get up for that, my fine gentleman," cried the Tod-hunter.

Stockings followed the shoes, coat and trousers shared the same fate,
but still the man sat over the hole. At last the fox having set the bed
and bedding on fire, put a light to the straw on which his jailer lay,
and it blazed up to the ceiling.

"No! that I cannot stand," shouted the man, jumping up; and the fox,
taking advantage of the smoke and confusion, made good his exit.

But Master Rory did not always have it his own way. One day he met a
cock, and they began talking.

"How many tricks canst thou do?" said the fox.

[Illustration]

"Well," said the cock, "I could do three; how many canst thou do
thyself?"

"I could do three score and thirteen," said the fox.

"What tricks canst thou do?" said the cock.

"Well," said the fox, "my grandfather used to shut one eye and give a
great shout."

"I could do that myself," said the cock.

"Do it," said the fox. And the cock shut one eye and crowed as loud as
ever he could, but he shut the eye that was next the fox, and the fox
gripped him by the neck and ran away with him. But the wife to whom the
cock belonged saw him and cried out, "Let go the cock; he's mine."

"Say, 'Oh sweet-tongued singer, it is my own cock,' wilt thou not?" said
the cock to the fox.

Then the fox opened his mouth to say as the cock did, and he dropped the
cock, and he sprung up on the top of a house, and shut one eye and gave
a loud crow.

But it was through that very fox that Master Wolf lost his tail. Have
you never heard about that?

One day the wolf and the fox were out together, and they stole a dish of
crowdie. Now in those days the wolf was the biggest beast of the two,
and he had a long tail like a greyhound and great teeth.

The fox was afraid of him, and did not dare to say a word when the wolf
ate the most of the crowdie, and left only a little at the bottom of the
dish for him, but he determined to punish him for it; so the next night
when they were out together the fox pointed to the image of the moon in
a pool left in the ice, and said:

"I smell a very nice cheese, and there it is, too."

"And how will you get it?" said the wolf.

"Well, stop you here till I see if the farmer is asleep, and if you keep
your tail on it, nobody will see you or know that it is there. Keep it
steady. I may be some time coming back."

So the wolf lay down and laid his tail on the moonshine in the ice, and
kept it for an hour till it was fast. Then the fox, who had been
watching, ran in to the farmer and said: "The wolf is there; he will eat
up the children--the wolf! the wolf!"

Then the farmer and his wife came out with sticks to kill the wolf, but
the wolf ran off leaving his tail behind him, and that's why the wolf is
stumpy-tailed to this day, though the fox has a long brush.

One day shortly after this Master Rory chanced to see a fine cock and
fat hen, off which he wished to dine, but at his approach they both
jumped up into a tree. He did not lose heart, but soon began to make
talk with them, inviting them at last to go a little way with him.

"There was no danger," he said, "nor fear of his hurting them, for there
was peace between men and beasts, and among all animals."

At last after much parleying the cock said to the hen, "My dear, do you
not see a couple of hounds coming across the field?"

"Yes," said the hen, "and they will soon be here."

"If that is the case, it is time I should be off," said the sly fox,
"for I am afraid these stupid hounds may not have heard of the peace."

And with that he took to his heels and never drew breath till he reached
his den.

Now Master Rory had not finished with his friend the wolf. So he went
round to see him when his stump got better.

"It is lucky you are," he said to the wolf. "How much better you will be
able to run now you haven't got all that to carry behind you."

"Away from me, traitor!" said the wolf.

But Master Rory said: "Is it a traitor I am, when all I have come to see
you for is to tell you about a keg of butter I have found?"

After much grumbling the wolf agreed to go with Master Rory.

So the Russet Dog and the wild dog, the fox and the wolf, were going
together; and they went round about the sea-shore, and they found the
keg of butter, and they buried it.

On the morrow the fox went out, and when he returned in he said that a
man had come to ask him to a baptism. He arrayed himself in excellent
attire, and he went away, and where should he go but to the butter keg;
and when he came home the wolf asked him what the child's name was; and
he said it was HEAD OFF.

On the morrow he said that a man had sent to ask him to a baptism, and
he reached the keg and he took out about half. The wolf asked when he
came home what the child's name was.

"Well," said he, "it is a queer name that I myself would not give to my
child, if I had him; it is HALF AND HALF."

On the morrow he said that there was a man there came to ask him to a
baptism again; off he went and he reached the keg, and he ate it all up.
When he came home the wolf asked him what the child's name was, and he
said it was ALL GONE.

On the morrow he said to the wolf that they ought to bring the keg home.
They went, and when they reached the keg there was not a shadow of the
butter in it.

"Well, thou wert surely coming here to watch this, though I was not,"
quoth the fox.

The other one swore that he had not come near it.

"Thou needst not be swearing that thou didst not come here; I know that
thou didst come, and that it was thou that took it out; but I will know
it from thee when thou goest home, if it was thou that ate the butter,"
said the fox.

Off they went, and when they got home he hung the wolf by his hind legs,
with his head dangling below him, and he had a dab of the butter and he
put it under the wolf's mouth, as if it was out of the wolf's belly that
it came.

"Thou red thief!" said he, "I said before that it was thou that ate the
butter."

They slept that night, and on the morrow when they rose the fox said:

"Well, then, it is silly for ourselves to be starving to death in this
way merely for laziness; we will go to a town-land, and we will take a
piece of land in it."

They reached the town-land, and the man to whom it belonged gave them a
piece of land the worth of seven Saxon pounds.

It was oats that they set that year, and they reaped it and they began
to divide it.

"Well, then," said the fox, "wouldst thou rather have the root or the
tip? thou shalt have thy choice."

"I'd rather the root," said the wolf.

Then the fox had fine oaten bread all the year, and the other one had
fodder.

On the next year they set a crop; and it was potatoes that they set, and
they grew well.

"Which wouldst thou like best, the root or the crop this year?" said the
fox.

"Indeed, thou shalt not take the twist out of me any more; I will have
the top this year," quoth the wolf.

"Good enough, my hero," said the fox.

Thus the wolf had the potato tops, and the fox the potatoes. But the
wolf used to keep stealing the potatoes from the fox.

"Thou hadst best go yonder, and read the name that I have in the hoofs
of the grey mare," quoth the fox.

Away went the wolf, and he begun to read the name; and on a time of
these times the white mare drew up her leg, and she broke the wolf's
head.

"Oh!" said the fox, "it is long since I heard my name. Better to catch
geese than to read books."

He went home, and the wolf was not troubling him any more.

But the Russet Dog found his match at last, as I shall tell you.

One day the fox was once going over a loch, and there met him a little
bonnach, and the fox asked him where he was going. The little bonnach
told him he was going to such a place.

"And whence camest thou?" said the fox.

"I came from Geeogan, and I came from Cooaigean, and I came from the
slab of the bonnach stone, and I came from the eye of the quern, and I
will come from thee if I may," quoth the little bonnach.

"Well, I myself will take thee over on my back," said the fox.

"Thou'lt eat me, thou'lt eat me," quoth the little bonnach.

"Come then on the tip of my tail," said the fox.

"Oh no! I will not; thou wilt eat me," said the little bonnach.

"Come into my ear," said the fox.

"I will not go; thou wilt eat me," said the little bonnach.

"Come into my mouth," said the fox.

"Thou wilt eat me that way at all events," said the little bonnach.

"Oh no, I will not eat thee," said the fox. "When I am swimming I cannot
eat anything at all."

He went into the fox's mouth.

"Oh! ho!" said the fox, "I may do my own pleasure on thee now. It was
long ago said that a hard morsel is no good in the mouth."

The fox ate the little bonnach. Then he went to a loch, and he caught
hold of a duck that was in it, and he ate that.

He went up to a hillside, and he began to stroke his sides on the hill.

"Oh, king! how finely a bullet would spank upon my rib just now."

Who was listening but a hunter.

"I'll try that upon thee directly," said the hunter.

"Bad luck to this place," quoth the fox, "in which a creature dares not
say a word in fun that is not taken in earnest."

The hunter put a bullet in his gun, and he fired at him and killed him,
and that was the end of the Russet Dog.




[Illustration]

Smallhead and the King's Sons


[Illustration: L]

Long ago there lived in Erin a woman who married a man of high degree
and had one daughter. Soon after the birth of the daughter the husband
died.

The woman was not long a widow when she married a second time, and had
two daughters. These two daughters hated their half-sister, thought she
was not so wise as another, and nicknamed her Smallhead. When the elder
of the two sisters was fourteen years old their father died. The mother
was in great grief then, and began to pine away. She used to sit at home
in the corner and never left the house. Smallhead was kind to her
mother, and the mother was fonder of her eldest daughter than of the
other two, who were ashamed of her.

At last the two sisters made up in their minds to kill their mother.
One day, while their half-sister was gone, they put the mother in a pot,
boiled her, and threw the bones outside. When Smallhead came home there
was no sign of the mother.

"Where is my mother?" asked she of the other two.

"She went out somewhere. How should we know where she is?"

"Oh, wicked girls! you have killed my mother," said Smallhead.

Smallhead wouldn't leave the house now at all, and the sisters were very
angry.

"No man will marry either one of us," said they, "if he sees our fool of
a sister."

Since they could not drive Smallhead from the house they made up their
minds to go away themselves. One fine morning they left home unknown to
their half-sister and travelled on many miles. When Smallhead discovered
that her sisters were gone she hurried after them and never stopped till
she came up with the two. They had to go home with her that day, but
they scolded her bitterly.

The two settled then to kill Smallhead, so one day they took twenty
needles and scattered them outside in a pile of straw. "We are going to
that hill beyond," said they, "to stay till evening, and if you have not
all the needles that are in that straw outside gathered and on the
tables before us, we'll have your life."

Away they went to the hill. Smallhead sat down, and was crying bitterly
when a short grey cat walked in and spoke to her.

"Why do you cry and lament so?" asked the cat.

"My sisters abuse me and beat me," answered Smallhead. "This morning
they said they would kill me in the evening unless I had all the needles
in the straw outside gathered before them."

"Sit down here," said the cat, "and dry your tears."

The cat soon found the twenty needles and brought them to Smallhead.
"Stop there now," said the cat, "and listen to what I tell you. I am
your mother; your sisters killed me and destroyed my body, but don't
harm them; do them good, do the best you can for them, save them: obey
my words and it will be better for you in the end."

The cat went away for herself, and the sisters came home in the evening.
The needles were on the table before them. Oh, but they were vexed and
angry when they saw the twenty needles, and they said some one was
helping their sister!

One night when Smallhead was in bed and asleep they started away again,
resolved this time never to return. Smallhead slept till morning. When
she saw that the sisters were gone she followed, traced them from place
to place, inquired here and there day after day, till one evening some
person told her that they were in the house of an old hag, a terrible
enchantress, who had one son and three daughters: that the house was a
bad place to be in, for the old hag had more power of witchcraft than
any one and was very wicked.

Smallhead hurried away to save her sisters, and facing the house knocked
at the door, and asked lodgings for God's sake.

"Oh, then," said the hag, "it is hard to refuse any one lodgings, and
besides on such a wild, stormy night. I wonder if you are anything to
the young ladies who came the way this evening?"

The two sisters heard this and were angry enough that Smallhead was in
it, but they said nothing, not wishing the old hag to know their
relationship. After supper the hag told the three strangers to sleep in
a room on the right side of the house. When her own daughters were going
to bed Smallhead saw her tie a ribbon around the neck of each one of
them, and heard her say: "Do you sleep in the left-hand bed." Smallhead
hurried and said to her sisters: "Come quickly, or I'll tell the woman
who you are."

They took the bed in the left-hand room and were in it before the hag's
daughters came.

"Oh," said the daughters, "the other bed is as good." So they took the
bed in the right-hand room. When Smallhead knew that the hag's daughters
were asleep she rose, took the ribbons off their necks, and put them on
her sister's necks and on her own. She lay awake and watched them. After
a while she heard the hag say to her son:

"Go, now, and kill the three girls; they have the clothes and money."

"You have killed enough in your life and so let these go," said the son.

But the old woman would not listen. The boy rose up, fearing his mother,
and taking a long knife, went to the right-hand room and cut the throats
of the three girls without ribbons. He went to bed then for himself, and
when Smallhead found that the old hag was asleep she roused her sisters,
told what had happened, made them dress quickly and follow her.
Believe me, they were willing and glad to follow her this time.

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF BLOOD]

The three travelled briskly and came soon to a bridge, called at that
time "The Bridge of Blood." Whoever had killed a person could not cross
the bridge. When the three girls came to the bridge the two sisters
stopped: they could not go a step further. Smallhead ran across and went
back again.

"If I did not know that you killed our mother," said she, "I might know
it now, for this is the Bridge of Blood."

She carried one sister over the bridge on her back and then the other.
Hardly was this done when the hag was at the bridge.

"Bad luck to you, Smallhead!" said she, "I did not know that it was you
that was in it last evening. You have killed my three daughters."

"It wasn't I that killed them, but yourself," said Smallhead.

The old hag could not cross the bridge, so she began to curse, and she
put every curse on Smallhead that she could remember. The sisters
travelled on till they came to a King's castle. They heard that two
servants were needed in the castle.

"Go now," said Smallhead to the two sisters, "and ask for service. Be
faithful and do well. You can never go back by the road you came."

The two found employment at the King's castle. Smallhead took lodgings
in the house of a blacksmith near by.

"I should be glad to find a place as kitchen-maid in the castle," said
Smallhead to the blacksmith's wife.

"I will go to the castle and find a place for you if I can," said the
woman.

The blacksmith's wife found a place for Smallhead as kitchen-maid in the
castle, and she went there next day.

"I must be careful," thought Smallhead, "and do my best. I am in a
strange place. My two sisters are here in the King's castle. Who knows,
we may have great fortune yet."

She dressed neatly and was cheerful. Every one liked her, liked her
better than her sisters, though they were beautiful. The King had two
sons, one at home and the other abroad. Smallhead thought to herself one
day: "It is time for the son who is here in the castle to marry. I will
speak to him the first time I can." One day she saw him alone in the
garden, went up to him, and said:

"Why are you not getting married, it is high time for you?"

He only laughed and thought she was too bold, but then thinking that she
was a simple-minded girl who wished to be pleasant, he said:

"I will tell you the reason: My grandfather bound my father by an oath
never to let his oldest son marry until he could get the Sword of Light,
and I am afraid that I shall be long without marrying."

"Do you know where the Sword of Light is, or who has it?" asked
Smallhead.

"I do," said the King's son, "an old hag who has great power and
enchantment, and she lives a long distance from this, beyond the Bridge
of Blood. I cannot go there myself, I cannot cross the bridge, for I
have killed men in battle. Even if I could cross the bridge I would not
go, for many is the King's son that hag has destroyed or enchanted."

"Suppose some person were to bring the Sword of Light, and that person a
woman, would you marry her?"

"I would, indeed," said the King's son.

"If you promise to marry my elder sister I will strive to bring the
Sword of Light."

"I will promise most willingly," said the King's son.

Next morning early, Smallhead set out on her journey. Calling at the
first shop she bought a stone weight of salt, and went on her way, never
stopping or resting till she reached the hag's house at nightfall. She
climbed to the gable, looked down, and saw the son making a great pot of
stirabout for his mother, and she hurrying him. "I am as hungry as a
hawk!" cried she.

Whenever the boy looked away, Smallhead dropped salt down, dropped it
when he was not looking, dropped it till she had the whole stone of salt
in the stirabout. The old hag waited and waited till at last she cried
out: "Bring the stirabout. I am starving! Bring the pot. I will eat from
the pot. Give the milk here as well."

The boy brought the stirabout and the milk, the old woman began to eat,
but the first taste she got she spat out and screamed: "You put salt in
the pot in place of meal!"

"I did not, mother."

"You did, and it's a mean trick that you played on me. Throw this
stirabout to the pig outside and go for water to the well in the field."

"I cannot go," said the boy, "the night is too dark; I might fall into
the well."

"You must go and bring the water; I cannot live till morning without
eating."

"I am as hungry as yourself," said the boy, "but how can I go to the
well without a light? I will not go unless you give me a light."

"If I give you the Sword of Light there is no knowing who may follow
you; maybe that devil of a Smallhead is outside."

But sooner than fast till morning the old hag gave the Sword of Light to
her son, warning him to take good care of it. He took the Sword of Light
and went out. As he saw no one when he came to the well he left the
sword on the top of the steps going down to the water, so as to have
good light. He had not gone down many steps when Smallhead had the
sword, and away she ran over hills, dales, and valleys towards the
Bridge of Blood.

The boy shouted and screamed with all his might. Out ran the hag. "Where
is the sword?" cried she.

"Some one took it from the step."

Off rushed the hag, following the light, but she didn't come near
Smallhead till she was over the bridge.

"Give me the Sword of Light, or bad luck to you," cried the hag.

"Indeed, then, I will not; I will keep it, and bad luck to yourself,"
answered Smallhead.

On the following morning she walked up to the King's son and said:

"I have the Sword of Light; now will you marry my sister?"

"I will," said he.

The King's son married Smallhead's sister and got the Sword of Light.
Smallhead stayed no longer in the kitchen--the sister didn't care to
have her in kitchen or parlour.

The King's second son came home. He was not long in the castle when
Smallhead said to herself, "Maybe he will marry my second sister."

She saw him one day in the garden, went toward him; he said something,
she answered, then asked: "Is it not time for you to be getting married
like your brother?"

"When my grandfather was dying," said the young man, "he bound my father
not to let his second son marry till he had the Black Book. This book
used to shine and give brighter light than ever the Sword of Light did,
and I suppose it does yet. The old hag beyond the Bridge of Blood has
the book, and no one dares to go near her, for many is the King's son
killed or enchanted by that woman."

"Would you marry my second sister if you were to get the Black Book?"

"I would, indeed; I would marry any woman if I got the Black Book with
her. The Sword of Light and the Black Book were in our family till my
grandfather's time, then they were stolen by that cursed old hag."

"I will have the book," said Smallhead, "or die in the trial to get it."

Knowing that stirabout was the main food of the hag, Smallhead settled
in her mind to play another trick. Taking a bag she scraped the chimney,
gathered about a stone of soot, and took it with her. The night was dark
and rainy. When she reached the hag's house, she climbed up the gable to
the chimney and found that the son was making stirabout for his mother.
She dropped the soot down by degrees till at last the whole stone of
soot was in the pot; then she scraped around the top of the chimney till
a lump of soot fell on the boy's hand.

"Oh, mother," said he, "the night is wet and soft, the soot is falling."

"Cover the pot," said the hag. "Be quick with that stirabout, I am
starving."

The boy took the pot to his mother.

"Bad luck to you," cried the hag the moment she tasted the stirabout,
"this is full of soot; throw it out to the pig."

"If I throw it out there is no water inside to make more, and I'll not
go in the dark and rain to the well."

"You must go!" screamed she.

"I'll not stir a foot out of this unless I get a light," said the boy.

"Is it the book you are thinking of, you fool, to take it and lose it as
you did the sword? Smallhead is watching you."

"How could Smallhead, the creature, be outside all the time? If you have
no use for the water you can do without it."

Sooner than stop fasting till morning, the hag gave her son the book,
saying: "Do not put this down or let it from your hand till you come in,
or I'll have your life."

The boy took the book and went to the well. Smallhead followed him
carefully. He took the book down into the well with him, and when he was
stooping to dip water she snatched the book and pushed him into the
well, where he came very near drowning.

Smallhead was far away when the boy recovered, and began to scream and
shout to his mother. She came in a hurry, and finding that the book was
gone, fell into such a rage that she thrust a knife into her son's heart
and ran after Smallhead, who had crossed the bridge before the hag could
come up with her.

When the old woman saw Smallhead on the other side of the bridge facing
her and dancing with delight, she screamed:

"You took the Sword of Light and the Black Book, and your two sisters
are married. Oh, then, bad luck to you. I will put my curse on you
wherever you go. You have all my children killed, and I a poor, feeble,
old woman."

"Bad luck to yourself," said Smallhead. "I am not afraid of a curse from
the like of you. If you had lived an honest life you wouldn't be as you
are to-day."

"Now, Smallhead," said the old hag, "you have me robbed of everything,
and my children destroyed. Your two sisters are well married. Your
fortune began with my ruin. Come, now, and take care of me in my old
age. I'll take my curse from you, and you will have good luck. I bind
myself never to harm a hair of your head."

Smallhead thought awhile, promised to do this, and said: "If you harm
me, or try to harm me, it will be the worse for yourself."

The old hag was satisfied and went home. Smallhead went to the castle
and was received with great joy. Next morning she found the King's son
in the garden, and said: "If you marry my sister to-morrow, you will
have the Black Book."

"I will marry her gladly," said the King's son.

Next day the marriage was celebrated and the King's son got the book.
Smallhead remained in the castle about a week, then she left good health
with her sisters and went to the hag's house. The old woman was glad to
see her and showed the girl her work. All Smallhead had to do was to
wait on the hag and feed a large pig that she had.

"I am fatting that pig," said the hag; "he is seven years old now, and
the longer you keep a pig the harder his meat is: we'll keep this pig a
while longer, and then we'll kill and eat him."

Smallhead did her work; the old hag taught her some things, and
Smallhead learned herself far more than the hag dreamt of. The girl fed
the pig three times a day, never thinking that he could be anything but
a pig. The hag had sent word to a sister that she had in the Eastern
World, bidding her come and they would kill the pig and have a great
feast. The sister came, and one day when the hag was going to walk with
her sister she said to Smallhead:

"Give the pig plenty of meal to-day; this is the last food he'll have;
give him his fill."

The pig had his own mind and knew what was coming. He put his nose under
the pot and threw it on Smallhead's toes, and she barefoot. With that
she ran into the house for a stick, and seeing a rod on the edge of the
loft, snatched it and hit the pig.

That moment the pig was a splendid young man.

Smallhead was amazed.

"Never fear," said the young man, "I am the son of a King that the old
hag hated, the King of Munster. She stole me from my father seven years
ago and enchanted me--made a pig of me."

Smallhead told the King's son, then, how the hag had treated her. "I
must make a pig of you again," said she, "for the hag is coming. Be
patient and I'll save you, if you promise to marry me."

[Illustration]

"I promise you," said the King's son.

With that she struck him, and he was a pig again. She put the switch in
its place and was at her work when the two sisters came. The pig ate his
meal now with a good heart, for he felt sure of rescue.

"Who is that girl you have in the house, and where did you find her?"
asked the sister.

"All my children died of the plague, and I took this girl to help me.
She is a very good servant."

At night the hag slept in one room, her sister in another, and Smallhead
in a third. When the two sisters were sleeping soundly Smallhead rose,
stole the hag's magic book, and then took the rod. She went next to
where the pig was, and with one blow of the rod made a man of him.

With the help of the magic book Smallhead made two doves of herself and
the King's son, and they took flight through the air and flew on without
stopping. Next morning the hag called Smallhead, but she did not come.
She hurried out to see the pig. The pig was gone. She ran to her book.
Not a sign of it.

"Oh!" cried she, "that villain of a Smallhead has robbed me. She has
stolen my book, made a man of the pig, and taken him away with her."

What could she do but tell her whole story to the sister. "Go you," said
she, "and follow them. You have more enchantment than Smallhead has."

"How am I to know them?" asked the sister.

"Bring the first two strange things that you find; they will turn
themselves into something wonderful."

The sister then made a hawk of herself and flew away as swiftly as any
March wind.

"Look behind," said Smallhead to the King's son some hours later; "see
what is coming."

"I see nothing," said he, "but a hawk coming swiftly."

"That is the hag's sister. She has three times more enchantment than the
hag herself. But fly down on the ditch and be picking yourself as doves
do in rainy weather, and maybe she'll pass without seeing us."

The hawk saw the doves, but thinking them nothing wonderful, flew on
till evening, and then went back to her sister.

"Did you see anything wonderful?"

"I did not; I saw only two doves, and they picking themselves."

"You fool, those doves were Smallhead and the King's son. Off with you
in the morning and don't let me see you again without the two with you."

Away went the hawk a second time, and swiftly as Smallhead and the
King's son flew, the hawk was gaining on them. Seeing this Smallhead and
the King's son dropped down into a large village, and, it being
market-day, they made two heather brooms of themselves. The two brooms
began to sweep the road without any one holding them, and swept toward
each other. This was a great wonder. Crowds gathered at once around the
two brooms.

The old hag flying over in the form of a hawk saw this and thinking that
it must be Smallhead and the King's son were in it, came down, turned
into a woman, and said to herself:

"I'll have those two brooms."

She pushed forward so quickly through the crowd that she came near
knocking down a man standing before her. The man was vexed.

"You cursed old hag!" cried he, "do you want to knock us down?" With
that he gave her a blow and drove her against another man, that man gave
her a push that sent her spinning against a third man, and so on till
between them all they came near putting the life out of her, and pushed
her away from the brooms. A woman in the crowd called out then:

"It would be nothing but right to knock the head off that old hag, and
she trying to push us away from the mercy of God, for it was God who
sent the brooms to sweep the road for us."

"True for you," said another woman. With that the people were as angry
as angry could be, and were ready to kill the hag. They were going to
take the head off the hag when she made a hawk of herself and flew away,
vowing never to do another stroke of work for her sister. She might do
her own work or let it alone.

When the hawk disappeared the two heather brooms rose and turned into
doves. The people felt sure when they saw the doves that the brooms were
a blessing from heaven, and it was the old hag that drove them away.

On the following day Smallhead and the King's son saw his father's
castle, and the two came down not too far from it in their own forms.
Smallhead was a very beautiful woman now, and why not? She had the magic
and didn't spare it. She made herself as beautiful as ever she could:
the like of her was not to be seen in that kingdom or the next one.

The King's son was in love with her that minute, and did not wish to
part with her, but she would not go with him.

"When you are at your father's castle," said Smallhead, "all will be
overjoyed to see you, and the king will give a great feast in your
honour. If you kiss any one or let any living thing kiss you, you'll
forget me for ever."

"I will not let even my own mother kiss me," said he.

The King's son went to the castle. All were overjoyed; they had thought
him dead, had not seen him for seven years. He would let no one come
near to kiss him. "I am bound by oath to kiss no one," said he to his
mother. At that moment an old grey hound came in, and with one spring
was on his shoulder licking his face: all that the King's son had gone
through in seven years was forgotten in one moment.

Smallhead went toward a forge near the castle. The smith had a wife far
younger than himself, and a stepdaughter. They were no beauties. In the
rear of the forge was a well and a tree growing over it. "I will go up
in that tree," thought Smallhead, "and spend the night in it." She went
up and sat just over the well. She was not long in the tree when the
moon came out high above the hill tops and shone on the well. The
blacksmith's stepdaughter, coming for water, looked down in the well,
saw the face of the woman above in the tree, thought it her own face,
and cried:

"Oh, then, to have me bringing water to a smith, and I such a beauty.
I'll never bring another drop to him." With that she cast the pail in
the ditch and ran off to find a king's son to marry.

When she was not coming with the water, and the blacksmith waiting to
wash after his day's work in the forge, he sent the mother. The mother
had nothing but a pot to get the water in, so off she went with that,
and coming to the well saw the beautiful face in the water.

"Oh, you black, swarthy villain of a smith," cried she, "bad luck to the
hour that I met you, and I such a beauty. I'll never draw another drop
of water for the life of you!"

She threw the pot down, broke it, and hurried away to find some king's
son.

When neither mother nor daughter came back with water the smith himself
went to see what was keeping them. He saw the pail in the ditch, and,
catching it, went to the well; looking down, he saw the beautiful face
of a woman in the water. Being a man, he knew that it was not his own
face that was in it, so he looked up, and there in the tree saw a woman.
He spoke to her and said:

"I know now why my wife and her daughter did not bring water. They saw
your face in the well, and, thinking themselves too good for me, ran
away. You must come now and keep the house till I find them."

"I will help you," said Smallhead. She came down, went to the smith's
house, and showed the road that the women took. The smith hurried after
them, and found the two in a village ten miles away. He explained their
own folly to them, and they came home.

The mother and daughter washed fine linen for the castle. Smallhead saw
them ironing one day, and said:

"Sit down: I will iron for you."

She caught the iron, and in an hour had the work of the day done.

The women were delighted. In the evening the daughter took the linen to
the housekeeper at the castle.

"Who ironed this linen?" asked the housekeeper.

"My mother and I."

"Indeed, then, you did not. You can't do the like of that work, and tell
me who did it."

The girl was in dread now and answered:

"It is a woman who is stopping with us who did the ironing."

The housekeeper went to the Queen and showed her the linen.

"Send that woman to the castle," said the Queen.

Smallhead went: the Queen welcomed her, wondered at her beauty; put her
over all the maids in the castle. Smallhead could do anything; everybody
was fond of her. The King's son never knew that he had seen her before,
and she lived in the castle a year; what the Queen told her she did.

The King had made a match for his son with the daughter of the King of
Ulster. There was a great feast in the castle in honour of the young
couple, the marriage, was to be a week later. The bride's father brought
many of his people who were versed in all kinds of tricks and
enchantment.

The King knew that Smallhead could do many things, for neither the Queen
nor himself had asked her to do a thing that she did not do in a
twinkle.

"Now," said the King to the Queen, "I think she can do something that
his people cannot do." He summoned Smallhead and asked:

"Can you amuse the strangers?"

"I can if you wish me to do so."

When the time came and the Ulster men had shown their best tricks,
Smallhead came forward and raised the window, which was forty feet from
the ground. She had a small ball of thread in her hand; she tied one end
of the thread to the window, threw the ball out and over a wall near the
castle; then she passed out the window, walked on the thread and kept
time to music from players that no man could see. She came in; all
cheered her and were greatly delighted.

"I can do that," said the King of Ulster's daughter, and sprang out on
the string; but if she did she fell and broke her neck on the stones
below. There were cries, there was lamentation, and, in place of a
marriage, a funeral.

The King's son was angry and grieved and wanted to drive Smallhead from
the castle in some way.

"She is not to blame," said the King of Munster, who did nothing but
praise her.

Another year passed: the King got the daughter of the King of Connacht
for his son. There was a great feast before the wedding day, and as the
Connacht people are full of enchantment and witchcraft, the King of
Munster called Smallhead and said:

"Now show the best trick of any."

"I will," said Smallhead.

When the feast was over and the Connacht men had shown their tricks the
King of Munster called Smallhead.

She stood before the company, threw two grains of wheat on the floor,
and spoke some magic words. There was a hen and a cock there before her
of beautiful plumage; she threw a grain of wheat between them; the hen
sprang to eat the wheat, the cock gave her a blow of his bill, the hen
drew back, looked at him, and said:

"Bad luck to you, you wouldn't do the like of that when I was serving
the old hag and you her pig, and I made a man of you and gave you back
your own form."

The King's son looked at her and thought, "There must be something in
this."

Smallhead threw a second grain. The cock pecked the hen again. "Oh,"
said the hen, "you would not do that the day the hag's sister was
hunting us, and we two doves."

The King's son was still more astonished.

She threw a third grain. The cock struck the hen, and she said, "You
would not do that to me the day I made two heather brooms out of you and
myself." She threw a fourth grain. The cock pecked the hen a fourth
time. "You would not do that the day you promised not to let any living
thing kiss you or kiss any one yourself but me--you let the hound kiss
you and you forgot me."

The King's son made one bound forward, embraced and kissed Smallhead,
and told the King his whole story from beginning to end.

"This is my wife," said he; "I'll marry no other woman."

"Whose wife will my daughter be?" asked the King of Connacht.

"Oh, she will be the wife of the man who will marry her," said the King
of Munster, "my son gave his word to this woman before he saw your
daughter, and he must keep it."

So Smallhead married the King of Munster's son.




[Illustration]

The Legend of Knockgrafton.


[Illustration: T]

There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at
the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on his
back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed upon
his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so much
that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees for
support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any
lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as
inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great that he
scarcely appeared to be a human creature, and some ill-minded persons
had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great
knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty
skilful hand in plaiting straw and rushes into hats and baskets, which
was the way he made his livelihood.

Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his always
wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore (the foxglove), in his
little straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work
than any one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of
envy, had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may,
it happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of
Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on
account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he came
to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right-hand side of
his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in his own mind
at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that he should be
walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to rest himself,
and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon.

Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of
little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard such
ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices, each
mingling and blending with the other so strangely that they seemed to be
one, though all singing different strains, and the words of the song
were these--

    _Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort;_

when there would be a moment's pause, and then the round of melody went
on again.

Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath lest he might
lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the singing was
within the moat; and though at first it had charmed him so much, he
began to get tired of hearing the same round sung over and over so often
without any change; so availing himself of the pause when the _Da Luan,
Da Mort_, had been sung three times, he took up the tune, and raised it
with the words _augus Da Cadine_, and then went on singing with the
voices inside of the moat, _Da Luan, Da Mort_, finishing the melody,
when the pause again came, with _augus Da Cadine_.

[Illustration: [Lyrics on sheet music: Da Luan Da Mort Da Luan Da Mort
Da Luan Da Mort augus Da Cadine Da Luan Da Mort Da Luan Da Mort Da Luan
Da Mort augus Da Cadine]]

The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when
they heard this addition to the tune, were so much delighted that, with
instant resolve, it was determined to bring the mortal among them,
whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was
conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind.

Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down
through the moat, twirling round and round, with the lightness of a
straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The greatest
honour was then paid him, for he was put above all the musicians, and he
had servants tending upon him, and everything to his heart's content,
and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he was made as much of as if
he had been the first man in the land.

Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the
fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much
frightened, until one stepping out from the rest came up to him and
said,--

    "Lusmore! Lusmore!
     Doubt not, nor deplore,
     For the hump which you bore
     On your back is no more;
     Look down on the floor,
     And view it, Lusmore!"

When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light,
and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over the
moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and he saw,
with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the ground from
his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he did so with
becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against the ceiling of
the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round again with
greatest wonder and delight upon everything, which appeared more and
more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a resplendent scene,
his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim. At last he fell into a
sound sleep, and when he awoke he found that it was broad daylight, the
sun shining brightly, and the birds singing sweetly; and that he was
lying just at the foot of the moat of Knockgrafton, with the cows and
sheep grazing peacefully round about him. The first thing Lusmore did,
after saying his prayers, was to put his hand behind to feel for his
hump, but no sign of one was there on his back, and he looked at himself
with great pride, for he had now become a well-shaped dapper little
fellow, and more than that, found himself in a full suit of new clothes,
which he concluded the fairies had made for him.

Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at
every step as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a
creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had a great
work to persuade every one that he was the same man--in truth he was
not, so far as outward appearance went.

Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore's hump got about,
and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for miles round,
it was the talk of every one, high and low.

One morning, as Lusmore was sitting contented enough, at his cabin door,
up came an old woman to him, and asked him if he could direct her to
Cappagh.

"I need give you no directions, my good woman," said Lusmore, "for this
is Cappagh; and whom may you want here?"

"I have come," said the woman, "out of Decie's country, in the county
of Waterford looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had his
hump taken off by the fairies; for there is a son of a gossip of mine
who has got a hump on him that will be his death; and maybe if he could
use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him. And now I
have told you the reason of my coming so far: 'tis to find out about
this charm, if I can."

Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all
the particulars, how he had raised the tune for the fairies at
Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and how
he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain.

The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and easy
in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the county
of Waterford, she told her everything that Lusmore had said, and they
put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning creature
from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across the country.
It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so the hump was
taken from off him; and they brought him, just at nightfall, and left
him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.

Jack Madden, for that was the humpy man's name, had not been sitting
there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much sweeter
than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore had settled
their music for them, and the song was going on; _Da Luan, Da Mort, Da
Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, augus Da Cadine_, without ever
stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great hurry to get quit of his hump,
never thought of waiting until the fairies had done, or watching for a
fit opportunity to raise the tune higher again than Lusmore had; so
having heard them sing it over seven times without stopping, out he
bawls, never minding the time or the humour of the tune, or how he could
bring his words in properly, _augus Da Cadine, augus Da Hena_, thinking
that if one day was good, two were better; and that if Lusmore had one
new suit of clothes given him, he should have two.

No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and whisked
into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came crowding round
about him with great anger, screeching, and screaming, and roaring out,
"Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one stepped up to him,
above all the rest and said:

    "Jack Madden! Jack Madden!
     Your words came so bad in
     The tune we felt glad in;--
     This castle you're had in,
     That your life we may sadden;
     Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"

And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump and put it
down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as
firmly as if it was nailed on with twelve-penny nails, by the best
carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked him;
and, in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came to
look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the foot
of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well to be sure, how
they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say anything, lest
a hump might be put upon their own shoulders. Home they brought the
unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts and their
looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight of his other
hump, and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving they say his
heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy tunes again.




Elidore.


[Illustration: In]

In the days of Henry Beauclerc of England there was a little lad named
Elidore, who was being brought up to be a cleric. Day after day he would
trudge from his mother's house, and she was a widow, up to the monks'
Scriptorium. There he would learn his A B C, to read it and to write it.
But he was a lazy little rogue was this Elidore, and as fast as he
learned to write one letter, he forgot another; so it was very little
progress he was making. Now when the good monks saw this they remembered
the saying of the Book: "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and
whenever Elidore forgot a letter they tried to make him remember it with
the rod. At first they used it seldom and lightly, but Elidore was not a
boy to be driven, and the more they thwacked him the less he learned: so
the thwackings became more frequent and more severe, till Elidore could
not stand them any longer. So one day when he was twelve years old he
upped with him and offed with him into the great forest near St.
David's. There for two long days and two long nights he wandered about
eating nothing but hips and haws. At last he found himself at the mouth
of a cave, at the side of a river, and there he sank down, all tired and
exhausted. Suddenly two little pigmies appeared to him and said: "Come
with us, and we will lead you into a land full of games and sports": so
Elidore raised himself and went with these two; at first through an
underground passage all in the dark, but soon they came out into a most
beautiful country, with rivers and meadows, woods and plains, as
pleasant as can be; only this there was curious about it, that the sun
never shone and clouds were always over the sky, so that neither sun
was seen by day, nor moon and stars at night.

[Illustration]

The two little men led Elidore before their king, who asked why and
whence he came. Elidore told him, and the king said: "Thou shalt attend
on my son," and waved him away. So for a long time Elidore waited on the
king's son, and joined in all the games and sports of the little men.

They were little, but they were not dwarfs, for all their limbs were of
suitable size one with another. Their hair was fair, and hung upon their
shoulders like that of women. They had little horses, about the size of
greyhounds; and did not eat flesh, fowl, or fish, but lived on milk
flavoured with saffron. And as they had such curious ways, so they had
strange thoughts. No oath took they, but never a lie they spoke. They
would jeer and scoff at men for their struggles, lying, and treachery.
Yet though they were so good they worshipped none, unless you might say
they were worshippers of Truth.

After a time Elidore began to long to see boys and men of his own size,
and he begged permission to go and visit his mother. So the King gave
him permission: so the little men led him along the passage, and guided
him through the forest, till he came near his mother's cottage, and when
he entered, was not she rejoiced to see her dear son again? "Where have
you been? What have you done?" she cried; and he had to tell her all
that had happened to him. She begged of him to stay with her, but he had
promised the King to go back. And soon he returned, after making his
mother promise not to tell where he was, or with whom. Henceforth
Elidore lived, partly with the little men, and partly with his mother.
Now one day, when he was with his mother, he told her of the yellow
balls they used in their play, and which she felt sure must be of gold.
So she begged of him that the next time he came back to her he would
bring with him one of these balls. When the time came for him to go back
to his mother again, he did not wait for the little men to guide him
back, as he now knew the road. But seizing one of the yellow balls with
which he used to play, he rushed home through the passage. Now as he got
near his mother's house he seemed to hear tiny footsteps behind him, and
he rushed up to the door as quickly as he could. Just as he reached it
his foot slipped, and he fell down, and the ball rolled out of his hand,
just to the feet of his mother. At that moment two little men rushed
forward, seized the ball and ran away, making faces, and spitting at the
boy as they passed him. Elidore remained with his mother for a time; but
he missed the play and games of the little men, and determined to go
back to them. But when he came to where the cave had been, near the
river where the underground passage commenced, he could not find it
again, and though he searched again and again in the years to come, he
could not get back to that fair country. So after a time he went back to
the monastery, and became in due course a monk. And men used to come and
seek him out, and ask him what had happened to him when he was in the
Land of the Little Men. Nor could he ever speak of that happy time
without shedding tears.

Now it happened once, when this Elidore was old, that David, Bishop of
St. David's, came to visit his monastery and ask him about the manners
and customs of the little men, and above all, he was curious to know
what language they spoke; and Elidore told him some of their words. When
they asked for water, they would say: _Udor udorum_; and when they
wanted salt, they would say: _Hapru udorum_. And from this, the Bishop,
who was a learned man, discovered that they spoke some sort of Greek.
For _Udor_ is Greek for _Water_, and _Hap_ for _Salt_.

Hence we know that the Britons came from Troy, being descendants from
Brito, son of Priam, King of Troy.




The Leeching of Kayn's Leg.


[Illustration: T]

There were five hundred blind men, and five hundred deaf men, and five
hundred limping men, and five hundred dumb men, and five hundred cripple
men. The five hundred deaf men had five hundred wives, and the five
hundred limping men had five hundred wives, and the five hundred dumb
men had five hundred wives, and the five hundred cripple men had five
hundred wives. Each five hundred of these had five hundred children and
five hundred dogs. They were in the habit of going about in one band,
and were called the Sturdy Strolling Beggarly Brotherhood. There was a
knight in Erin called O'Cronicert, with whom they spent a day and a
year; and they ate up all that he had, and made a poor man of him, till
he had nothing left but an old tumble-down black house, and an old lame
white horse. There was a king in Erin called Brian Boru; and O'Cronicert
went to him for help. He cut a cudgel of grey oak on the outskirts of
the wood, mounted the old lame white horse, and set off at speed through
wood and over moss and rugged ground, till he reached the king's house.
When he arrived he went on his knees to the king; and the king said to
him, "What is your news, O'Cronicert?"

"I have but poor news for you, king."

"What poor news have you?" said the king.

"That I have had the Sturdy Strolling Beggarly Brotherhood for a day and
a year, and they have eaten all that I had, and made a poor man of me,"
said he.

"Well!" said the king, "I am sorry for you; what do you want?"

"I want help," said O'Cronicert; "anything that you may be willing to
give me."

The king promised him a hundred cows. He went to the queen, and made his
complaint to her, and she gave him another hundred. He went to the
king's son, Murdoch Mac Brian, and he got another hundred from him. He
got food and drink at the king's; and when he was going away he said,
"Now I am very much obliged to you. This will set me very well on my
feet. After all that I have got there is another thing that I want."

"What is it?" said the king.

"It is the lap-dog that is in and out after the queen that I wish for."

"Ha!" said the king, "it is your mightiness and pride that has caused
the loss of your means; but if you become a good man you shall get this
along with the rest."

O'Cronicert bade the king good-bye, took the lap-dog, leapt on the back
of the old lame white horse, and went off at speed through wood, and
over moss and rugged ground. After he had gone some distance through the
wood a roebuck leapt up and the lap-dog went after it. In a moment the
deer started up as a woman behind O'Cronicert, the handsomest that eye
had ever seen from the beginning of the universe till the end of
eternity. She said to him, "Call your dog off me."

"I will do so if you promise to marry me," said O'Cronicert.

"If you keep three vows that I shall lay upon you I will marry you,"
said she.

"What vows are they?" said he.

"The first is that you do not go to ask your worldly king to a feast or
a dinner without first letting me know," said she.

"Hoch!" said O'Cronicert, "do you think that I cannot keep that vow? I
would never go to invite my worldly king without informing you that I
was going to do so. It is easy to keep that vow."

"You are likely to keep it!" said she.

"The second vow is," said she, "that you do not cast up to me in any
company or meeting in which we shall be together, that you found me in
the form of a deer."

"Hoo!" said O'Cronicert, "you need not to lay that vow upon me. I would
keep it at any rate."

"You are likely to keep it!" said she.

"The third vow is," said she, "that you do not leave me in the company
of only one man while you go out." It was agreed between them that she
should marry him.

They reached the old tumble-down black house. Grass they cut in the
clefts and ledges of the rocks; a bed they made and laid down.
O'Cronicert's wakening from sleep was the lowing of cattle and the
bleating of sheep and the neighing of mares, while he himself was in a
bed of gold on wheels of silver, going from end to end of the Tower of
Castle Town.

"I am sure that you are surprised," said she.

"I am indeed," said he.

"You are in your own room," said she.

"In my own room," said he. "I never had such a room."

"I know well that you never had," said she; "but you have it now. So
long as you keep me you shall keep the room."

He then rose, and put on his clothes, and went out. He took a look at
the house when he went out; and it was a palace, the like of which he
had never seen, and the king himself did not possess. He then took a
walk round the farm; and he never saw so many cattle, sheep, and horses
as were on it. He returned to the house, and said to his wife that the
farm was being ruined by other people's cattle and sheep. "It is not,"
said she: "your own cattle and sheep are on it."

"I never had so many cattle and sheep," said he.

"I know that," said she; "but so long as you keep me you shall keep
them. There is no good wife whose tocher does not follow her."

He was now in good circumstances, indeed wealthy. He had gold and
silver, as well as cattle and sheep. He went about with his gun and dogs
hunting every day, and was a great man. It occurred to him one day that
he would go to invite the King of Erin to dinner, but he did not tell
his wife that he was going. His first vow was now broken. He sped away
to the King of Erin, and invited him and his great court to dinner. The
King of Erin said to him, "Do you intend to take away the cattle that I
promised you?"

"Oh! no, King of Erin," said O'Cronicert; "I could give you as many
to-day."

"Ah!" said the king, "how well you have got on since I saw you last!"

"I have indeed," said O'Cronicert! "I have fallen in with a rich wife
who has plenty of gold and silver, and of cattle and sheep."

"I am glad of that," said the King of Erin.

O'Cronicert said, "I shall feel much obliged if you will go with me to
dinner, yourself and your great court."

"We will do so willingly," said the king.

They went with him on that same day. It did not occur to O'Cronicert how
a dinner could be prepared for the king without his wife knowing that he
was coming. When they were going on, and had reached the place where
O'Cronicert had met the deer, he remembered that his vow was broken, and
he said to the king, "Excuse me; I am going on before to the house to
tell that you are coming."

The king said, "We will send off one of the lads."

"You will not," said O'Cronicert; "no lad will serve the purpose so well
as myself."

He set off to the house; and when he arrived his wife was diligently
preparing dinner. He told her what he had done, and asked her pardon. "I
pardon you this time," said she: "I know what you have done as well as
you do yourself. The first of your vows is broken."

The king and his great court came to O'Cronicert's house; and the wife
had everything ready for them as befitted a king and great people; every
kind of drink and food. They spent two or three days and nights at
dinner, eating and drinking. They were praising the dinner highly, and
O'Cronicert himself was praising it; but his wife was not. O'Cronicert
was angry that she was not praising it and he went and struck her in the
mouth with his fist and knocked out two of her teeth. "Why are you not
praising the dinner like the others, you contemptible deer?" said he.

"I am not," said she: "I have seen my father's big dogs having a better
dinner than you are giving to-night to the King of Erin and his court."

O'Cronicert got into such a rage that he went outside of the door. He
was not long standing there when a man came riding on a black horse, who
in passing caught O'Cronicert by the collar of his coat, and took him up
behind him: and they set off. The rider did not say a word to
O'Cronicert. The horse was going so swiftly that O'Cronicert thought the
wind would drive his head off. They arrived at a big, big palace, and
came off the black horse. A stableman came out, and caught the horse,
and took it in. It was with wine that he was cleaning the horse's feet.
The rider of the black horse said to O'Cronicert, "Taste the wine to see
if it is better than the wine that you are giving to Brian Boru and his
court to-night."

O'Cronicert tasted the wine, and said, "This is better wine."

The rider of the black horse said, "How unjust was the fist a little
ago! The wind from your fist carried the two teeth to me."

He then took him into that big, handsome, and noble house, and into a
room that was full of gentlemen eating and drinking, and he seated him
at the head of the table, and gave him wine to drink, and said to him,
"Taste that wine to see if it is better than the wine that you are
giving to the King of Erin and his court to-night."

"This is better wine," said O'Cronicert.

"How unjust was the fist a little ago!" said the rider of the black
horse.

When all was over the rider of the black horse said, "Are you willing to
return home now?"

"Yes," said O'Cronicert, "very willing."

They then rose, and went to the stable: and the black horse was taken
out; and they leaped on its back, and went away. The rider of the black
horse said to O'Cronicert, after they had set off, "Do you know who I
am?"

"I do not," said O'Cronicert.

"I am a brother-in-law of yours," said the rider of the black horse;
"and though my sister is married to you there is not a king or knight in
Erin who is a match for her. Two of your vows are now broken; and if you
break the other vow you shall lose your wife and all that you possess."

They arrived at O'Cronicert's house; and O'Cronicert said, "I am ashamed
to go in, as they do not know where I have been since night came."

"Hoo!" said the rider, "they have not missed you at all. There is so
much conviviality among them, that they have not suspected that you have
been anywhere. Here are the two teeth that you knocked out of the front
of your wife's mouth. Put them in their place, and they will be as
strong as ever."

"Come in with me," said O'Cronicert to the rider of the black horse.

"I will not: I disdain to go in," said the rider of the black horse.

The rider of the black horse bade O'Cronicert good-bye, and went away.

O'Cronicert went in; and his wife met him as she was busy waiting on the
gentlemen. He asked her pardon, and put the two teeth in the front of
her mouth, and they were as strong as ever. She said, "Two of your vows
are now broken." No one took notice of him when he went in, or said
"Where have you been?" They spent the night in eating and drinking, and
the whole of the next day.

In the evening the king said, "I think that it is time for us to be
going"; and all said that it was. O'Cronicert said, "You will not go
to-night. I am going to get up a dance. You will go to-morrow."

"Let them go," said his wife.

"I will not," said he.

The dance was set a-going that night. They were playing away at dancing
and music till they became warm and hot with perspiration. They were
going out one after another to cool themselves at the side of the house.
They all went out except O'Cronicert and his wife, and a man called Kayn
Mac Loy. O'Cronicert himself went out, and left his wife and Kayn Mac
Loy in the house, and when she saw that he had broken his third vow she
gave a spring through a room, and became a big filly, and gave Kayn Mac
Loy a kick with her foot, and broke his thigh in two. She gave another
spring, and smashed the door and went away, and was seen no more. She
took with her the Tower of Castle Town as an armful on her shoulder and
a light burden on her back, and she left Kayn Mac Loy in the old
tumble-down black house in a pool of rain-drip on the floor.

At daybreak next day poor O'Cronicert could only see the old house that
he had before. Neither cattle nor sheep, nor any of the fine things that
he had was to be seen. One awoke in the morning beside a bush, another
beside a dyke, and another beside a ditch. The king only had the honour
of having O'Cronicert's little hut over his head. As they were leaving,
Murdoch Mac Brian remembered that he had left his own foster-brother
Kayn Mac Loy behind, and said there should be no separation in life
between them and that he would go back for him. He found Kayn in the old
tumble-down black house, in the middle of the floor, in a pool of
rain-water, with his leg broken; and he said the earth should make a
nest in his sole and the sky a nest in his head if he did not find a man
to cure Kayn's leg.

They told him that on the Isle of Innisturk was a herb that would heal
him.

So Kayn Mac Loy was then borne away, and sent to the island, and he was
supplied with as much food as would keep him for a month, and with two
crutches on which he would be going out and in as he might desire. At
last the food was spent, and he was destitute, and he had not found the
herb. He was in the habit of going down to the shore, and gathering
shell-fish, and eating it.

As he was one day on the shore, he saw a big, big man landing on the
island, and he could see the earth and the sky between his legs. He set
off with the crutches to try if he could get into the hut before the big
man would come upon him. Despite his efforts, the big man was between
him and the door, and said to him, "Unless you deceive me, you are Kayn
Mac Loy."

Kayn Mac Loy said, "I have never deceived a man: I am he."

The big man said to him:

   "Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
   healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
   cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
   for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
   Norway before I sleep."

Kayn Mac Loy said:

   "May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I
   be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a
   salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me why you have
   no church of your own in Norway, so as, as now, to be going to
   the great church of Rome to Rome to-morrow. Unless you deceive me
   you are Machkan-an-Athar, the son of the King of Lochlann."

The big man said, "I have never deceived any man: I am he. I am now
going to tell you why we have not a church in Lochlann. Seven masons
came to build a church, and they and my father were bargaining about the
building of it. The agreement that the masons wanted was that my mother
and sister would go to see the interior of the church when it would be
finished. My father was glad to get the church built so cheaply. They
agreed accordingly; and the masons went in the morning to the place
where the church was to be built. My father pointed out the spot for the
foundation. They began to build in the morning, and the church was
finished before the evening. When it was finished they requested my
mother and sister to go to see its interior. They had no sooner entered
than the doors were shut; and the church went away into the skies in the
form of a tuft of mist.

[Illustration]

   "Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
   healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
   cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
   for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
   Norway before I sleep."

Kayn Mac Loy said:

   "May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I
   be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a
   salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me if you heard
   what befell your mother and sister."

"Ah!" said the big man, "the mischief is upon you; that tale is long to
tell; but I will tell you a short tale about the matter. On the day on
which they were working at the church I was away in the hill hunting
game; and when I came home in the evening my brother told me what had
happened, namely, that my mother and sister had gone away in the form of
a tuft of mist. I became so cross and angry that I resolved to destroy
the world till I should find out where my mother and sister were. My
brother said to me that I was a fool to think of such a thing. 'I'll
tell you,' said he, 'what you'll do. You will first go to try to find
out where they are. When you find out where they are you will demand
them peaceably, and if you do not get them peaceably you will fight for
them.'

"I took my brother's advice, and prepared a ship to set off with. I set
off alone, and embraced the ocean. I was overtaken by a great mist, and
I came upon an island, and there was a large number of ships at anchor
near it; I went in amongst them, and went ashore. I saw there a big, big
woman reaping rushes; and when she would raise her head she would throw
her right breast over her shoulder and when she would bend it would fall
down between her legs. I came once behind her, and caught the breast
with my mouth, and said to her, 'You are yourself witness, woman, that I
am the foster-son of your right breast.' 'I perceive that, great hero,'
said the old woman, 'but my advice to you is to leave this island as
fast as you can.' 'Why?' said I. 'There is a big giant in the cave up
there,' said she, 'and every one of the ships that you see he has taken
in from the ocean with his breath, and he has killed and eaten the men.
He is asleep at present, and when he wakens he will have you in a
similar manner. A large iron door and an oak door are on the cave. When
the giant draws in his breath the doors open, and when he emits his
breath the doors shut; and they are shut as fast as though seven small
bars, and seven large bars, and seven locks were on them. So fast are
they that seven crowbars could not force them open.' I said to the old
woman, 'Is there any way of destroying him?' 'I'll tell you,' said she,
'how it can be done. He has a weapon above the door that is called the
short spear: and if you succeed in taking off his head with the first
blow it will be well; but if you do not, the case will be worse than it
was at first.'

"I set off, and reached the cave, the two doors of which opened. The
giant's breath drew me into the cave; and stools, chairs, and pots were
by its action dashing against each other, and like to break my legs. The
door shut when I went in, and was shut as fast as though seven small
bars, and seven large bars, and seven locks were on it; and seven
crowbars could not force it open; and I was a prisoner in the cave. The
giant drew in his breath again, and the doors opened. I gave a look
upwards, and saw the short spear, and laid hold of it. I drew the short
spear, and I warrant you that I dealt him such a blow with it as did not
require to be repeated; I swept the head off him. I took the head down
to the old woman, who was reaping the rushes, and said to her, 'There is
the giant's head for you.' The old woman said, 'Brave man! I knew that
you were a hero. This island had need of your coming to it to-day.
Unless you deceive me, you are Mac Connachar son of the King of
Lochlann.' 'I have never deceived a man. I am he,' said I. 'I am a
soothsayer,' said she, 'and know the object of your journey. You are
going in quest of your mother and sister.' 'Well,' said I, 'I am so far
on the way if I only knew where to go for them.' 'I'll tell you where
they are,' said she; 'they are in the kingdom of the Red Shield, and the
King of the Red Shield is resolved to marry your mother, and his son is
resolved to marry your sister. I'll tell you how the town is situated. A
canal of seven times seven paces breadth surrounds it. On the canal
there is a drawbridge, which is guarded during the day by two creatures
that no weapon can pierce, as they are covered all over with scales,
except two spots below the neck in which their death-wounds lie. Their
names are Roar and Rustle. When night comes the bridge is raised, and
the monsters sleep. A very high and big wall surrounds the king's
palace.'

   "Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
   healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
   cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
   for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
   Norway before I sleep."

Kayn Mac Loy said:

   "May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I
   be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a
   salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me if you went
   farther in search of your mother and sister, or if you returned
   home, or what befell you."

"Ah!" said the big man, "the mischief is upon you; that tale is long to
tell; but I will tell you another tale. I set off, and reached the big
town of the Red Shield; and it was surrounded by a canal, as the old
woman told me; and there was a drawbridge on the canal. It was night
when I arrived, and the bridge was raised, and the monsters were asleep.
I measured two feet before me and a foot behind me of the ground on
which I was standing, and I sprang on the end of my spear and on my
tiptoes, and reached the place where the monsters were asleep; and I
drew the short spear, and I warrant you that I dealt them such a blow
below the neck as did not require to be repeated. I took up the heads
and hung them on one of the posts of the bridge. I then went on to the
wall that surrounded the king's palace. This wall was so high that it
was not easy for me to spring over it; and I set to work with the short
spear, and dug a hole through it, and got in. I went to the door of the
palace and knocked; and the doorkeeper called out, 'Who is there?' 'It
is I,' said I. My mother and sister recognised my speech; and my mother
called, 'Oh! it is my son; let him in.' I then got in, and they rose to
meet me with great joy. I was supplied with food, drink, and a good bed.
In the morning breakfast was set before us; and after it I said to my
mother and sister that they had better make ready, and go with me. The
King of the Red Shield said, 'It shall not be so. I am resolved to marry
your mother, and my son is resolved to marry your sister.' 'If you wish
to marry my mother, and if your son wishes to marry my sister, let both
of you accompany me to my home, and you shall get them there.' The King
of the Red Shield said, 'So be it.'

[Illustration]

"We then set off, and came to where my ship was, went on board of it,
and sailed home. When we were passing a place where a great battle was
going on, I asked the King of the Red Shield what battle it was, and the
cause of it. 'Don't you know at all?' said the King of the Red Shield.
'I do not,' said I. The King of the Red Shield said, 'That is the battle
for the daughter of the King of the Great Universe, the most beautiful
woman in the world; and whoever wins her by his heroism shall get her in
marriage. Do you see yonder castle?' 'I do,' said I. 'She is on the top
of that castle, and sees from it the hero that wins her,' said the King
of the Red Shield. I requested to be put on shore, that I might win her
by my swiftness and strength. They put me on shore; and I got a sight
of her on the top of the castle. Having measured two feet behind me and
a foot before me, I sprang on the end of my spear and on my tiptoes, and
reached the top of the castle; and I caught the daughter of the King of
the Universe in my arms and flung her over the castle. I was with her
and intercepted her before she reached the ground, and I took her away
on my shoulder, and set off to the shore as fast as I could, and
delivered her to the King of the Red Shield to be put on board the ship.
'Am I not the best warrior that ever sought you?' said I. 'You can jump
well' said she, 'but I have not seen any of your prowess.' I turned back
to meet the warriors, and attacked them with the short spear, and did
not leave a head on a neck of any of them. I then returned, and called
to the King of the Red Shield to come in to the shore for me. Pretending
not to hear me, he set the sails in order to return home with the
daughter of the King of the Great Universe, and marry her. I measured
two feet behind me and a foot before me, and sprang on the end of my
spear and on my tiptoes and got on board the ship. I then said to the
King of the Red Shield, 'What were you going to do? Why did you not wait
for me?' 'Oh!' said the king, 'I was only making the ship ready and
setting the sails to her before going on shore for you. Do you know what
I am thinking of?' 'I do not,' said I. 'It is,' said the King, 'that I
will return home with the daughter of the King of the Great Universe,
and that you shall go home with your mother and sister.' 'That is not to
be the way of it,' said I. 'She whom I have won by my prowess neither
you nor any other shall get.'

"The king had a red shield, and if he should get it on, no weapon could
make an impression on him. He began to put on the red shield, and I
struck him with the short spear in the middle of his body, and cut him
in two, and threw him overboard. I then struck the son, and swept his
head off, and threw him overboard.

   "Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
   healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
   cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
   for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
   Norway before I sleep."

Kayn Mac Loy said:

   "May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I
   be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a
   salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me whether any
   search was made for the daughter of the King of the Universe."

"Ah! the mischief is upon you," said the big man; "I will tell
you another short tale. I came home with my mother and sister,
and the daughter of the King of the Universe, and I married the
daughter of the King of the Universe. The first son I had I named
Machkan-na-skaya-jayrika (son of the red shield). Not long after this
a hostile force came to enforce compensation for the King of the Red
Shield, and a hostile force came from the King of the Universe to
enforce compensation for the daughter of the King of the Universe. I
took the daughter of the King of the Universe with me on the one
shoulder and Machkan-na-skaya-jayrika on the other, and I went on
board the ship and set the sails to her, and I placed the ensign of
the King of the Great Universe on the one mast, and that of the King
of the Red Shield on the other, and I blew a trumpet, and passed
through the midst of them, and I said to them that here was the man,
and that if they were going to enforce their claims, this was the
time. All the ships that were there chased me; and we set out on the
expanse of ocean. My ship would be equalled in speed by but few. One
day a thick dark mist came on, and they lost sight of me. It happened
that I came to an island called The Wet Mantle. I built a hut there;
and another son was born to me, and I called him Son of the Wet
Mantle.

"I was a long time in that island; but there was enough of fruit, fish,
and birds in it. My two sons had grown to be somewhat big. As I was one
day out killing birds, I saw a big, big man coming towards the island,
and I ran to try if I could get into the house before him. He met me,
and caught me, and put me into a bog up to the armpits, and he went into
the house, and took out on his shoulder the daughter of the King of the
Universe, and passed close to me in order to irritate me the more. The
saddest look that I ever gave or ever shall give was that I gave when I
saw the daughter of the King of the Universe on the shoulder of another,
and could not take her from him. The boys came out where I was; and I
bade them bring me the short spear from the house. They dragged the
short spear after them, and brought it to me; and I cut the ground
around me with it till I got out.

"I was a long time in the Wet Mantle, even till my two sons grew to be
big lads. They asked me one day if I had any thought of going to seek
their mother. I told them that I was waiting till they were stronger,
and that they should then go with me. They said that they were ready to
go with me at any time. I said to them that we had better get the ship
ready, and go. They said, 'Let each of us have a ship to himself.' We
arranged accordingly; and each went his own way.

"As I happened one day to be passing close to land I saw a great battle
going on. Being under vows never to pass a battle without helping the
weaker side, I went on shore, and set to work with the weaker side, and
I knocked the head off every one with the short spear. Being tired, I
lay myself down among the bodies and fell asleep.

   "Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
   healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
   cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
   for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
   Norway before I sleep."

Kayn Mac Loy said:

   "May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I
   be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a
   salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me if you found
   the daughter of the King of the Universe, or if you went home, or
   what happened to you."

[Illustration]

"The mischief is upon you," said the big man; "that tale is long to
tell, but I will tell another short tale. When I awoke out of sleep I
saw a ship making for the place where I was lying, and a big giant with
only one eye dragging it after him: and the ocean reached no higher than
his knees. He had a big fishing-rod with a big strong line hanging from
it on which was a very big hook. He was throwing the line ashore, and
fixing the hook in a body, and lifting it on board, and he continued
this work till the ship was loaded with bodies. He fixed the hook once
in my clothes; but I was so heavy that the rod could not carry me on
board. He had to go on shore himself, and carry me on board in his arms.
I was then in a worse plight than I ever was in. The giant set off with
the ship, which he dragged after him, and reached a big, precipitous
rock, in the face of which he had a large cave: and a damsel as
beautiful as I ever saw came out, and stood in the door of the cave. He
was handing the bodies to her, and she was taking hold of them and
putting them into the cave. As she took hold of each body she said, 'Are
you alive?' At last the giant took hold of me, and handed me in to her,
and said, 'Keep him apart; he is a large body, and I will have him to
breakfast the first day that I go from home.' My best time was not when
I heard the giant's sentence upon me. When he had eaten enough of the
bodies, his dinner and supper, he lay down to sleep. When he began to
snore the damsel came to speak to me; and she told me that she was a
king's daughter the giant had stolen away and that she had no way of
getting away from him. 'I am now,' she said, 'seven years except two
days with him, and there is a drawn sword between us. He dared not come
nearer me than that till the seven years should expire.' I said to her,
'Is there no way of killing him?' 'It is not easy to kill him, but we
will devise an expedient for killing him,' said she. 'Look at that
pointed bar that he uses for roasting the bodies. At dead of night
gather the embers of the fire together, and put the bar in the fire till
it be red. Go, then, and thrust it into his eye with all your strength,
and take care that he does not get hold of you, for if he does he will
mince you as small as midges.' I then went and gathered the embers
together, and put the bar in the fire, and made it red, and thrust it
into his eye; and from the cry that he gave I thought that the rock had
split. The giant sprang to his feet and chased me through the cave in
order to catch me; and I picked up a stone that lay on the floor of the
cave, and pitched it into the sea; and it made a plumping noise. The bar
was sticking in his eye all the time. Thinking it was I that had sprung
into the sea, he rushed to the mouth of the cave, and the bar struck
against the doorpost of the cave, and knocked off his brain-cap. The
giant fell down cold and dead, and the damsel and I were seven years and
seven days throwing him into the sea in pieces.

[Illustration: KOISHA KAYN]

"I wedded the damsel, and a boy was born to us. After seven years I
started forth again.

"I gave her a gold ring, with my name on it, for the boy, and when he
was old enough he was sent out to seek me.

"I then set off to the place where I fought the battle, and found the
short spear where I left it; and I was very pleased that I found it, and
that the ship was safe. I sailed a day's distance from that place, and
entered a pretty bay that was there, hauled my ship up above the shore,
and erected a hut there, in which I slept at night. When I rose next day
I saw a ship making straight for the place where I was. When it struck
the ground, a big, strong champion came out of it, and hauled it up; and
if it did not surpass my ship it was not a whit inferior to it; and I
said to him, 'What impertinent fellow are you that has dared to haul up
your ship alongside of my ship?' 'I am Machkan-na-skaya-jayrika,' said
the champion, 'going to seek the daughter of the King of the Universe
for Mac Connachar, son of the King of Lochlann.' I saluted and welcomed
him, and said to him, 'I am your father: it is well that you have come.'
We passed the night cheerily in the hut.

"When I arose on the following day I saw another ship making straight
for the place where I was; and a big, strong hero came out of it, and
hauled it up alongside of our ships; and if it did not surpass them it
was not a whit inferior to them. 'What impertinent fellow are you that
has dared to haul up your ship alongside of our ships?' said I. 'I am,'
said he, 'the Son of the Wet Mantle, going to seek the daughter of the
King of the Universe for Mac Connachar, son of the King of Lochlann.' 'I
am your father, and this is your brother: it is well that you have
come,' said I. We passed the night together in the hut, my two sons and
I.

"When I rose next day I saw another ship coming, and making straight for
the place where I was. A big, strong champion sprang out of it, and
hauled it up alongside of our ships; and if it was not higher than they,
it was not lower. I went down where he was, and said to him, 'What
impertinent fellow are you that has dared to haul up your ship alongside
of our ships?' 'I am the Son of the Wet Mantle,' said he, 'going to seek
the daughter of the King of the Universe for Mac Connachar, son of the
King of Lochlann.' 'Have you any token in proof of that?' said I. 'I
have,' said he: 'here is a ring that my mother gave me at my father's
request.' I took hold of the ring, and saw my name on it: and the matter
was beyond doubt. I said to him, 'I am your father, and here are two
half-brothers of yours. We are now stronger for going in quest of the
daughter of the King of the Universe. Four piles are stronger than three
piles.' We spent that night cheerily and comfortably together in the
hut.

"On the morrow we met a soothsayer, and he spoke to us: 'You are going
in quest of the daughter of the King of the Universe. I will tell you
where she is: she is with the Son of the Blackbird.'

"Machkan-na-skaya-jayrika then went and called for combat with a hundred
fully trained heroes, or the sending out to him of the daughter of the
King of the Universe. The hundred went out; and he and they began on
each other, and he killed every one of them. The Son of the Wet Mantle
called for combat with another hundred, or the sending out of the
daughter of the King of the Universe. He killed that hundred with the
short spear. The Son of Secret called for combat with another hundred,
or the daughter of the King of the Universe. He killed every one of
these with the short spear. I then went out to the field, and sounded a
challenge on the shield, and made the town tremble. The Son of the
Blackbird had not a man to send out: he had to come out himself; and he
and I began on each other, and I drew the short spear, and swept his
head off. I then went into the castle, and took out the daughter of the
King of the Universe. It was thus that it fared with me.

   "Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and
   healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are
   cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me,
   for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in
   Norway before I sleep."

Kayn Mac Loy stretched his leg; and the big man applied to it leaves of
herbs and healing; and it was healed. The big man took him ashore from
the island, and allowed him to go home to the king.

Thus did O'Cronicert win and lose a wife, and thus befell the Leeching
of the leg of Kayn, son of Loy.




How Fin went to the Kingdom of the Big Men.


[Illustration: F]

Fin and his men were in the Harbour of the Hill of Howth on a hillock,
behind the wind and in front of the sun, where they could see every
person, and nobody could see them, when they saw a speck coming from the
west. They thought at first it was the blackness of a shower; but when
it came nearer, they saw it was a boat. It did not lower sail till it
entered the harbour. There were three men in it; one for guide in the
bow, one for steering in the stern, and one for the tackle in the
centre. They came ashore, and drew it up seven times its own length in
dry grey grass, where the scholars of the city could not make it stock
for derision or ridicule.

They then went up to a lovely green spot, and the first lifted a handful
of round pebbles or shingle, and commanded them to become a beautiful
house, that no better could be found in Ireland; and this was done. The
second one lifted a slab of slate, and commanded it to be slate on the
top of the house, that there was not better in Ireland; and this was
done. The third one caught a bunch of shavings and commanded them to be
pine-wood and timber in the house, that there was not in Ireland better;
and this was done.

This caused much wonder to Fin, who went down where the men were, and
made inquiries of them, and they answered him. He asked whence they
were, or whither they were going. They said, "We are three Heroes whom
the King of the Big Men has sent to ask combat of the Fians." He then
asked, "What was the reason for doing this?" They said they did not
know, but they heard that they were strong men, and they came to ask
combat of Heroes from them. "Is Fin at Home?" "He is not." (Great is a
man's leaning towards his own life). Fin then put them under crosses and
under enchantments, that they were not to move from the place where they
were till they saw him again.

He went away and made ready his coracle, gave its stern to land and prow
to sea, hoisted the spotted towering sails against the long, tough,
lance-shaped mast, cleaving the billows in the embrace of the wind in
whirls, with a soft gentle breeze from the height of the sea-coast, and
from the rapid tide of the red rocks, that would take willom from the
hill, foliage from the tree, and heather from its stock and roots. Fin
was guide in her prow, helm in her stern, and tackle in her middle; and
stopping of head or foot he did not make till he reached the Kingdom of
the Big Men. He went ashore and drew up his coracle in grey grass. He
went up, and a Big Wayfarer met him. Fin asked who he was. "I am," he
said, "the Red-haired Coward of the King of the Big Men; and," said he
to Fin, "you are the one I am in quest of. Great is my esteem and
respect towards you; you are the best maiden I have ever seen; you will
yourself make a dwarf for the King, and your dog (this was Bran) a
lapdog. It is long since the King has been in want of a dwarf and a
lapdog." He took with him Fin; but another Big Man came, and was going
to take Fin from him. The two fought; but when they had torn each
other's clothes, they left it to Fin to judge. He chose the first one.
He took Fin with him to the palace of the King, whose worthies and high
nobles assembled to see the little man. The king lifted him upon the
palm of his hand, and went three times round the town with Fin upon one
palm and Bran upon the other. He made a sleeping-place for him at the
end of his own bed. Fin was waiting, watching, and observing everything
that was going on about the house. He observed that the King, as soon as
night came, rose and went out, and returned no more till morning. This
caused him much wonder, and at last he asked the King why he went away
every night and left the Queen by herself. "Why," said the King, "do you
ask?" "For satisfaction to myself," said Fin; "for it is causing me much
wonder." Now the King had a great liking for Fin; he never saw anything
that gave him more pleasure than he did; and at last he told him. "There
is," he said, "a great Monster who wants my daughter in marriage, and to
have half my kingdom to himself; and there is not another man in the
kingdom who can meet him but myself; and I must go every night to hold
combat with him." "Is there," said Fin, "no man to combat with him but
yourself?" "There is not," said the King, "one who will war with him for
a single night." "It is a pity," said Fin, "that this should be called
the Kingdom of the Big Men. Is he bigger than yourself?" "Never you
mind," said the King. "I will mind," said Fin; "take your rest and sleep
to-night, and I shall go to meet him." "Is it you?" said the King; "you
would not keep half a stroke against him."

When night came, and all men went to rest, the King was for going away
as usual; but Fin at last prevailed upon him to allow himself to go. "I
shall combat him," said he, "or else he knows a trick." "I think much,"
said the King, "of allowing you to go, seeing he gives myself enough to
do." "Sleep you soundly to-night," said Fin, "and let me go; if he comes
too violently upon me, I shall hasten home."

Fin went and reached the place where the combat was to be. He saw no one
before him, and he began to pace backwards and forwards. At last he saw
the sea coming in kilns of fire and as a darting serpent, till it came
down below where he was. A Huge Monster came up and looked towards him,
and from him. "What little speck do I see there?" he said. "It is I,"
said Fin. "What are you doing here?" "I am a messenger from the King of
the Big Men; he is under much sorrow and distress; the Queen has just
died, and I have come to ask if you will be so good as to go home
to-night without giving trouble to the kingdom." "I shall do that," said
he; and he went away with the rough humming of a song in his mouth.

Fin went home when the time came, and lay down in his own bed, at the
foot of the King's bed. When the King awoke, he cried out in great
anxiety, "My kingdom is lost, and my dwarf and my lapdog are killed!"
"They are not," said Fin; "I am here yet; and you have got your sleep, a
thing you were saying it was rare for you to get." "How," said the King,
"did you escape, when you are so little, while he is enough for myself,
though I am so big." "Though you," said Fin, "are so big and strong, I
am quick and active."

[Illustration]

Next night the King was for going; but Fin told him to take his sleep
to-night again. "I shall stand myself in your place, or else a better
hero than yonder one must come." "He will kill you," said the King. "I
shall take my chance," said Fin.

He went, and as happened the night before, he saw no one; and he began
to pace backwards and forwards. He saw the sea coming in fiery kilns and
as a darting serpent; and that Huge Man came up. "Are you here to-night
again?" said he. "I am, and this is my errand: when the Queen was being
put in the coffin, and the King heard the coffin being nailed, and the
joiner's stroke, he broke his heart with pain and grief; and the
_Parliament_ has sent me to ask you to go home to-night till they get
the King buried." The Monster went this night also, roughly humming a
song; and Fin went home when the time came.

In the morning the King awoke in great anxiety, and called out, "My
kingdom is lost, and my dwarf and my lapdog are killed!" and he greatly
rejoiced that Fin and Bran were alive, and that he himself got rest,
after being so long without sleep.

Fin went the third night, and things happened as before. There was no
one before him, and he took to pacing to and fro. He saw the sea coming
till it came down below him: the Big Monster came up; he saw the little
black speck, and asked who was there, and what he wanted. "I have come
to combat you," said Fin.

Fin and Bran began the combat. Fin was going backwards, and the Huge Man
was following. Fin called to Bran, "Are you going to let him kill me?"
Bran had a venomous shoe; and he leaped and struck the Huge Man with the
venomous shoe on the breast-bone, and took the heart and lungs out of
him. Fin drew his sword, Mac-a-Luin, cut off his head, put it on a
hempen rope, and went with it to the Palace of the King. He took it into
the _Kitchen_, and put it behind the door. In the morning the servant
could not turn it, nor open the door. The King went down; he saw the
Huge Mass, caught it by the top of the head, and lifted it, and knew it
was the head of the Man who was for so long a time asking combat from
him, and keeping him from sleep. "How at all," said he, "has this head
come here? Surely it is not my dwarf that has done it." "Why," said Fin,
"should he not?"

Next night the King wanted to go himself to the place of combat;
"because," said he, "a bigger one than the former will come to-night,
and the kingdom will be destroyed, and you yourself killed; and I shall
lose the pleasure I take in having you with me." But Fin went, and that
Big Man came, asking vengeance for his son, and to have the kingdom for
himself, or equal combat. He and Fin fought; and Fin was going
backwards. He spoke to Bran, "Are you going to allow him to kill me?"
Bran whined, and went and sat down on the beach. Fin was ever being
driven back, and he called out again to Bran. Then Bran jumped and
struck the Big Man with the venomous shoe, and took the heart and the
lungs out of him. Fin cut the head off, and took it with him, and left
it in front of the house. The King awoke in great terror, and cried out,
"My kingdom is lost, and my dwarf and my lapdog are killed!" Fin raised
himself up and said, "They are not"; and the King's joy was not small
when he went out and saw the head that was in front of the house.

The next night a Big Hag came ashore, and the tooth in the door of her
mouth would make a distaff. She sounded a challenge on her shield: "You
killed," she said, "my husband and my son." "I did kill them," said Fin.
They fought; and it was worse for Fin to guard himself from the tooth
than from the hand of the Big Hag. When she had nearly done for him Bran
struck her with the venomous shoe, and killed her as he had done to the
rest. Fin took with him the head, and left it in front of the house. The
King awoke in great anxiety, and called out, "My kingdom is lost, and my
dwarf and my lapdog are killed!" "They are not," said Fin, answering
him; and when they went out and saw the head, the King said, "I and my
kingdom will have peace ever after this. The mother herself of the brood
is killed; but tell me who you are. It was foretold for me that it would
be Fin-mac-Coul that would give me relief, and he is only now eighteen
years of age. Who are you, then, or what is your name?" "There never
stood," said Fin, "on hide of cow or horse, one to whom I would deny my
name. I am Fin, the Son of Coul, son of Looach, son of Trein, son of
Fin, son of Art, son of the young High King of Erin; and it is time for
me now to go home. It has been with much wandering out of my way that I
have come to your kingdom; and this is the reason why I have come, that
I might find out what injury I have done to you, or the reason why you
sent the three heroes to ask combat from me, and bring destruction on my
Men." "You never did any injury to me," said the King; "and I ask a
thousand pardons. I did not send the heroes to you. It is not the truth
they told. They were three men who were courting three fairy women, and
these gave them their shirts; and when they have on their shirts, the
combat of a hundred men is upon the hand of every one of them. But they
must put off the shirts every night, and put them on the backs of
chairs; and if the shirts were taken from them they would be next day as
weak as other people."

Fin got every honour, and all that the King could give him, and when he
went away, the King and the Queen and the people went down to the shore
to give him their blessing.

Fin now went away in his coracle, and was sailing close by the side of
the shore, when he saw a young man running and calling out to him. Fin
came in close to land with his coracle, and asked what he wanted. "I
am," said the young man, "a good servant wanting a master." "What work
can you do?" said Fin. "I am," said he, "the best soothsayer that there
is." "Jump into the boat then." The soothsayer jumped in, and they went
forward.

They did not go far when another youth came running. "I am," he said, "a
good servant wanting a master." "What work can you do?" said Fin. "I am
as good a thief as there is." "Jump into the boat, then"; and Fin took
with him this one also. They saw then a third young man running and
calling out. They came close to land. "What man are you?" said Fin. "I
am," said he, "the best climber that there is. I will take up a hundred
pounds on my back in a place where a fly could not stand on a calm
summer day." "Jump in"; and this one came in also. "I have my pick of
servants now," said Fin; "it cannot be but these will suffice."

They went; and stop of head or foot they did not make till they reached
the Harbour of the Hill of Howth. He asked the soothsayer what the three
Big Men were doing. "They are," he said, "after their supper, and making
ready for going to bed."

He asked a second time. "They are," he said, "after going to bed; and
their shirts are spread on the back of chairs."

After a while, Fin asked him again, "What are the Big Men doing now?"
"They are," said the soothsayer, "sound asleep." "It would be a good
thing if there was now a thief to go and steal the shirts." "I would do
that," said the thief, "but the doors are locked, and I cannot get in."
"Come," said the climber, "on my back, and I shall put you in." He took
him up upon his back to the top of the chimney, and let him down, and he
stole the shirts.

Fin went where the Fian band was; and in the morning they came to the
house where the three Big Men were. They sounded a challenge upon their
shields, and asked them to come out to combat.

They came out. "Many a day," said they, "have we been better for combat
than we are to-day," and they confessed to Fin everything as it was.
"You were," said Fin, "impertinent, but I will forgive you"; and he made
them swear that they would be faithful to himself ever after, and ready
in every enterprise he would place before them.




[Illustration]

How Cormac Mac Art went to Faery.


[Illustration: C]

Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was high King of
Ireland, and held his Court at Tara. One day he saw a youth upon the
green having in his hand a glittering fairy branch with nine apples of
red. And whensoever the branch was shaken, wounded men and women
enfeebled by illness would be lulled to sleep by the sound of the very
sweet fairy music which those apples uttered, nor could any one upon
earth bear in mind any want, woe, or weariness of soul when that branch
was shaken for him.

"Is that branch thy own?" said Cormac.

"It is indeed mine."

"Wouldst thou sell it? and what wouldst thou require for it?"

"Will you give me what I ask?" said the youth.

The king promised, and the youth then claimed his wife, his daughter,
and his son. Sorrowful of heart was the king, heaviness of heart filled
his wife and children when they learned that they must part from him.
But Cormac shook the branch amongst them, and when they heard the soft
sweet music of the branch they forgot all care and sorrow and went forth
to meet the youth, and he and they took their departure and were seen no
more. Loud cries of weeping and mourning were made throughout Erin when
this was known: but Cormac shook the branch so that there was no longer
any grief or heaviness of heart upon any one.

After a year Cormac said: "It is a year to-day since my wife, my son,
and my daughter were taken from me. I will follow them by the same path
that they took."

Cormac went off, and a dark magical mist rose about him, and he chanced
to come upon a wonderful marvellous plain. Many horsemen were there,
busy thatching a house with the feathers of foreign birds; when one side
was thatched they would go and seek more, and when they returned not a
feather was on the roof. Cormac gazed at them for a while and then went
forward.

Again, he saw a youth dragging up trees to make a fire; but before he
could find a second tree the first one would be burnt, and it seemed to
Cormac that his labour would never end.

Cormac journeyed onwards until he saw three immense wells on the border
of the plain, and on each well was a head. From out the mouth of the
first head there flowed two streams, into it there flowed one; the
second head had a stream flowing out of and another stream into its
mouth, whilst three streams were flowing from the mouth of the third
head. Great wonder seized Cormac, and he said: "I will stay and gaze
upon these wells, for I should find no man to tell me your story." With
that he set onwards till he came to a house in the middle of a field. He
entered and greeted the inmates. There sat within a tall couple clad in
many-hued garments, and they greeted the king, and bade him welcome for
the night.

Then the wife bade her husband seek food, and he arose and returned with
a huge wild boar upon his back and a log in his hand. He cast down the
swine and the log upon the floor, and said: "There is meat; cook it for
yourselves."

"How can I do that?" said Cormac.

"I will teach you," said the youth. "Split this great log, make four
pieces of it, and make four quarters of the hog; put a log under each
quarter; tell a true story, and the meat will be cooked."

"Tell the first story yourself," said Cormac.

"Seven pigs I have of the same kind as the one I brought, and I could
feed the world with them. For if a pig is killed I have but to put its
bones into the stye again, and it will be found alive the next morning."

The story was true, and a quarter of the pig was cooked.

Then Cormac begged the woman of the house to tell a story.

"I have seven white cows, and they fill seven cauldrons with milk every
day, and I give my word that they yield as much milk as would satisfy
the men of the whole world if they were out on yonder plain drinking
it."

That story was true, and a second quarter of the pig was cooked.

Cormac was bidden now to tell a story for his quarter, and he told how
he was upon a search for his wife, his son and his daughter that had
been borne away from him a year before by a youth with a fairy branch.

"If what thou sayest be true," said the man of the house, "thou art
indeed Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles."

"Truly I am," quoth Cormac.

That story was true, and a quarter of the pig was cooked.

"Eat thy meal now," said the man of the house.

"I never ate before," said Cormac, "having only two people in my
company."

"Wouldst thou eat it with three others?"

"If they were dear to me, I would," said Cormac.

Then the door opened, and there entered the wife and children of Cormac:
great was his joy and his exultation.

Then Manannan mac Lir, lord of the fairy Cavalcade, appeared before him
in his own true form, and said thus:

"I it was, Cormac, who bore away these three from thee. I it was who
gave thee this branch, all that I might bring thee here. Eat now and
drink."

"I would do so," said Cormac, "could I learn the meaning of the wonders
I saw to-day."

"Thou shalt learn them," said Manannan. "The horsemen thatching the roof
with feathers are a likeness of people who go forth into the world to
seek riches and fortune; when they return their houses are bare, and so
they go on for ever. The young man dragging up the trees to make a fire
is a likeness of those who labour for others: much trouble they have,
but they never warm themselves at the fire. The three heads in the wells
are three kinds of men. Some there are who give freely when they get
freely; some who give freely though they get little; some who get much
and give little, and they are the worst of the three, Cormac," said
Manannan.

After that Cormac and his wife and his children sat down, and a
table-cloth was spread before them.

"That is a very precious thing before thee," said Manannan, "there is no
food however delicate that shall be asked of it but it shall be had
without doubt."

"That is well," quoth Cormac.

After that Manannan thrust his hand into his girdle and brought out a
goblet and set it upon his palm. "This cup has this virtue," said he,
"that when a false story is told before it, it makes four pieces of it,
and when a true story is related it is made whole again."

"Those are very precious things you have, Manannan," said the king.

"They shall all be thine," said Manannan, "the goblet, the branch and
the tablecloth."

Then they ate their meal, and that meal was good, for they could not
think of any meat but they got it upon the table-cloth, nor of any drink
but they got it in the cup. Great thanks did they give to Manannan.

When they had eaten their meal a couch was prepared for them and they
laid down to slumber and sweet sleep.

Where they rose on the morrow morn was in Tara of the kings, and by
their side were tablecloth, cup, and branch.

Thus did Cormac fare at the Court of Manannan, and this is how he got
the fairy branch.




The Ridere of Riddles.


[Illustration: T]

There was a king once, and he married a great lady, and she departed on
the birth of her first son. And a little after this the king married
another wife, and she too had a son. The two lads grew up tall and
strong. Then it struck the queen that it was not her son who would come
into the kingdom; and she set it before her that she would poison the
eldest son. And so she sent advice to the cooks that they should put
poison in the drink of the heir; but as luck was in it, the youngest
brother heard them, and he told his brother not to take the draught, nor
to drink it at all; and so he did. But the queen wondered that the lad
was not dead; and she thought that there was not enough of poison in the
drink, and she asked the cook to put in more on the second night. It was
thus they did: and when the cook made up the drink, she said that he
would not be long alive after this draught. But his brother heard this
also, and told him likewise. The eldest thought he would put the draught
into a little bottle, and he said to his brother--"If I stay in this
house I have no doubt she will do for me some way or other, and the
quicker I leave the house the better. I will take the world for my
pillow, and there is no knowing what fortune will be on me." His brother
said that he would go with him, and they took themselves off to the
stable, and they put saddles on two horses and they took their soles out
of that.

They had not gone very far from the house when the eldest one
said--"There is no knowing if poison was in the drink at all, though we
went away. Try it in the horse's ear and we shall see." The horse did
not go far before he fell. "That was only a rattle-bones of a horse
anyway," said the eldest one, and they got up together on the other
horse, and so they went forwards. "But," said he, "I can scarce believe
that there is any poison in the drink; let's try it on this horse." That
he did, and they went not far when the horse fell cold dead. They
thought they'd take the hide off him, and that it would keep them warm
at night which was close at hand. In the morning when they woke they saw
twelve ravens come and light on the carcase of the horse, and they were
not long there when they fell down dead.

They went and lifted the ravens, and they took them with them, and the
first town they reached they gave the ravens to a baker, and they asked
him to make a dozen pies of the ravens. They took the pies with them,
and they went forward on their journey. About the mouth of night, and
when they were in a great thick wood, there came four and twenty robbers
who bade them to deliver up their purses; but they said that they had no
purse, but only a little food which they were carrying with them. "Good
is even meat!" said the robbers, and they began to eat it, but had not
eaten much when they fell hither and thither, all stone dead. When they
saw that the robbers were dead they ransacked their pockets, and got
much gold and silver. They went forward till they reached the Knight of
Riddles.

The house of the Knight of Riddles was in the finest place in that
country, and if his house was pretty, his daughter was prettier, and she
had twelve maidens with her only less fair than she. Her like was not on
the surface of the world, altogether so handsome was she; and no one
would get her to marry but the man who could put a question to her
father that he could not solve. The brothers thought that they would go
and try to put a question to him; and the youngest was to stand in place
of gillie to the elder brother. They reached the house of the Knight of
Riddles and this was the question they put to him--"One killed two, and
two killed twelve, and twelve killed four and twenty, and two got out of
it"; and they were to be kept in great majesty and high honour till he
should solve the riddle.

They were thus a while with the Ridere, and try as he might he could not
guess the riddle. On a day of days came one of the maidens who were with
the knight's daughter to the gillie, and asked him to tell her the
question. He took her plaid from her and let her go, but he told her
nothing. The same thing happened to the twelve maidens, day after day,
and the gillie said to the last one that no creature had the answer to
the riddle but his master down below. One day after this came the
knight's daughter to the eldest brother, and looking her finest and
handsomest, and she asked him to tell her the question. And now there
was no refusing her, and he told her, but he kept her plaid. The Knight
of Riddles sent for him, and he gave him the answer of the riddle. And
the knight said that he had two choices: to lose his head, or to be set
adrift in a crazy boat without food or drink, without oar or scoop. The
elder brother spoke, and he said--"I have another riddle to put to thee
before all these things happen." "Say on," said the knight. "Myself and
my gillie were one day in the forest shooting. My gillie fired at a
hare, and she fell, and he took her skin off, and let her go; and so he
did to twelve, he took their skins off and let them go. And at last came
a great fine hare, and I myself fired at her, and I took her skin off,
and I let her go." "Indeed thy riddle is not hard to solve, my lad,"
said the knight, and he knew the lad knew he had not really guessed the
riddle, but had been told the answer. So he gave him his daughter to
wife, to make him hold his peace, and they made a great hearty wedding
that lasted a day and a year. The youngest one went home now that his
brother had got so well on his way, and the eldest brother gave him
every right over the kingdom that was at home.

Now there were near the march of the kingdom of the Knight of Riddles
three giants, and they were always murdering and slaying some of the
knight's people, and taking spoil from them. On a day of days the Knight
of Riddles said to his son-in-law, that if the spirit of a man were in
him, he would go to kill the giants, as they were always bringing such
losses on the country. Well, so it was, he went and he met the giants,
and he came home with the three giants' heads, and he threw them at the
knight's feet. "Thou art an able lad doubtless, and thy name hereafter
is the Hero of the White Shield." The name of the Hero of the White
Shield went far and near.

[Illustration]

Meanwhile the brother of the Hero of the White Shield had wandered afar
in many countries, and after long years had come to the land of the
giants where the Hero of the White Shield was now dwelling, and the
knight's daughter with him. His brother came and he asked to make a
_covrag_ or fight as a bull with him. The men began at each other, and
they took to wrestling from morning till evening. At last and at length,
when they were tired, weak, and spent, the Hero of the White Shield
jumped over a great rampart, and he asked the stranger to meet him in
the morning. This leap put the other to shame, and he said to him, "Well
may it be that thou wilt not be so supple about this time to-morrow."
The young brother now went to a poor little bothy that was near to the
house of the Hero of the White Shield, tired and drowsy, and in the
morning they dared the fight again. And the Hero of the White Shield
began to go back, till he went backwards into a river. "There must be
some of my blood in thee before that was done to me." "Of what blood art
thou?" said the youngest. "'Tis I am son of Ardan, great King of the
Albann." "'Tis I am thy brother." It was now they knew each other. They
gave luck and welcome to each other, and the Hero of the White Shield
now took him into the palace, and she it was that was pleased to see
him--the knight's daughter. He stayed a while with them, and after that
he thought that he would go home to his own kingdom; and when he was
going past a great palace that was there he saw twelve men playing at
shinny over against the palace. He thought he would go for a while and
play shinny with them; but they were not long playing shinny when they
fell out, and the weakest of them caught him and shook him as he would a
child. He thought it was no use for him to lift a hand amongst these
twelve worthies, and he asked them to whom they were sons. They said
they were children of the one father, the brother of the Hero of the
White Shield, who had not been heard of for many years. "I am your
father," said he; and he asked them if their mother was alive. They said
that she was. He went with them till he found the mother, and he took
her home with him and the twelve sons; and I don't know but that his
seed are kings on Alba till this very day.




The Tail.


[Illustration: T]

There was a shepherd once who went out to the hill to look after his
sheep. It was misty and cold, and he had much trouble to find them. At
last he had them all but one; and after much searching he found that one
too in a peat hag, half drowned; so he took off his plaid, and bent down
and took hold of the sheep's tail, and he pulled! The sheep was heavy
with water, and he could not lift her, so he took off his coat and he
_pulled!!_ but it was too much for him, so he spit on his hands, and
took a good hold of the tail and he PULLED!! and the tail broke! and if
it had not been for that this tale would have been a great deal longer.

[Illustration]


[Illustration: MAN OR WOMAN BOY OR GIRL THAT READS WHAT FOLLOWS 3 TIMES
SHALL FALL ASLEEP AN HUNDRED YEARS

JOHN D. BATTEN DREW THIS: AUG. 19th, 1891 GOOD-NIGHT]




Notes and References.


I have scarcely anything to add to the general account of the collection
of Celtic Fairy Tales which I gave in the predecessor to this volume,
pages 237-42. Since the appearance of that volume in 1891, the
publication of such tales has gone on apace. Mr. Curtin has published in
the New York _Sun_ no less than fifty more Irish fairy tales, one of
which he has been good enough to place at my disposal for the present
volume. Mr. Larminie has published with Mr. E. Stock a volume of _West
Irish Fairy Tales_, of which I have also the privilege of presenting a
specimen. A slight volume of Welsh Fairy Tales, published by Mr. Nutt,
and a few fairy anecdotes contained in the Prize Essay on Welsh
Folk-lore by the Rev. Mr. Evans, sum up Cambria's contribution to our
subject during the past three years. The fifth volume of the _Waifs and
Strays of Celtic Tradition_, just about to appear at the moment of
writing, is the sole addition to Celtic Fairy Tales from the country of
J. F. Campbell. Taken altogether, something like a hundred previously
unpublished tales from Celtdom have been rendered accessible to the
world since I last wrote, a by no means insignificant outcome in three
years. It is at any rate clear, that the only considerable addition to
our folk-lore knowledge in these isles must come from the Gaelic area.
The time of harvest can be but short; may the workers be many, willing,
and capable.


XXVII. THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR.

_Sources._--Abridged from the text and translation published by the
Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language in 1883. This merely
follows the text and version given by Professor O'Curry in _Atlantis_,
iv. He used three Dublin MSS., none of them, however, of earlier date
than the eighteenth century. Dr. Joyce gives a free paraphrase in his
_Old Celtic Romances_.

_Parallels._--For "Jealous Stepmother," see the bibliographical
references in the list of incidents at the end of my paper on the
"Science of Folk-tales" in the _Transactions of the Folk-lore Congress_,
_sub voce_. Add Miss Roalfe Cox in _Folk-lore Journal_, vii. app. 37;
also the same list _sub voce_ "Swan Maiden Transformation." In modern
Irish literature Griffin has included the tale in his _Tales of the
Jury-room_, and Tom Moore's "Song of Fiounala" beginning "Silent, O
Moyle" is founded upon it.

_Remarks._--The "Fate of the Children of Lir" is always referred to
along with "The Story of Deirdre" (_cf._ the _Celtic Fairy Tales_, ix.),
and the "Children of Tuireann" as one of the Three Sorrowful Tales of
Erin. But there is no evidence of equal antiquity to the other two
stories, of which one is as old as the eleventh century. From the
interspersed verse O'Curry concluded, however, that the story was at
least of considerable antiquity, and the references to the unknown Saint
Mochaomhog confirm his impression. The Hill of the White Field is near
Newton Hannton, in the county of Armagh. The Lake of the Red Eye is
Lough Derg, in the Shannon above Killaloe.

Fingula is Fair Shoulder. The tradition that swans are inviolable is
still extant in Ireland. A man named Connor Griffin killed eleven swans:
he had previously been a prosperous man, and shortly afterwards his son
was drowned in the Shannon, his goods were lost, and his wife died
(_Children of Lir_, Dublin edit., note, p. 87). In County Mayo it is
believed that the souls of pure virgins are after death enshrined in the
forms of swans; if anybody injures them, it is thought he will die
within a year (Walter's _Natural History of the Birds of Ireland_, pp.
94-5). Mr. Gomme concludes from this that the swan was at one time a
British totem (_Arch. Rev._, iii. 226-7).

At first sight the tale seems little more than an argument against the
Bill for Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, but the plaintive lays
of Fingula, the touching detail of the swans flying over the desolate
hill and White Field, give a touch of Celtic glamour to the whole story.
There is probably also a deep religious significance implied in the fact
that the wicked Aunt Stepmother's spell is broken when the transformed
Children of Lir come across the first Christian they meet.

Mr. Nutt has kindly communicated the following remarks on this tale:--

The Fate of the Children of Lir belongs formally to the so-called
mythological cycle, the personages of which are the Tuatha de Danann.
The Irish annalists of the 10th-11th centuries described these as
members of one of the races which possessed Ireland in pre-Christian
times before the coming of the Milesians. But even in the most strongly
euhemerised accounts the mythic nature of these beings is apparent, and
most modern scholars are agreed that they are in fact the members of a
Pagan Irish Pantheon. They live on to this very day in Irish folk-belief
as chiefs and rulers of the fairies.

The MS. evidence for some of the stories concerning the Tuatha de Danann
is as old as that for the oldest heroic cycle (the Ultonian of Conchobar
and Cuchulainn). But the Tuatha de Danann legends have retained
throughout Irish literature greater plasticity and vitality than those
of the Ultonian cycle, and many stories are not older in their present
state than the 14th and 15th centuries. This is probably the case with
the present story. The oldest known MS. only goes back to 1718, but this
and the MS. of 1721, used by O'Curry for his edition, are certainly
copied from much older MSS.

The interesting question for storiologists is whether the themes of the
story--the swan-metamorphosis consequent upon the stepmother's jealousy,
and the protecting rôle assigned to the sister--are of old native or of
recent imported nature. In support of the first hypothesis, it may be
noted that the theme of stepmotherly jealousy was current in Ireland in
the 10th century at the latest, as it is woven into the saga of the
Destruction of Daderga's Fort (see my article "_Folk-lore_," ii.). The
final episode of the sudden aging of the miraculously long-lived swans
is also genuinely Irish, but its true significance is obscured in our
story in a way that sufficiently demonstrates the late and secondary
character of the text. The idea is that the dwellers in Faery, whether
fairy-folk or mortals penetrating thither, enjoy perpetual life,
forfeited by the latter the moment they return to this earth. As
children of the Tuatha de Danann, Fionngula and her brothers are
deathless, and the episode as it stands in our text results from a
contamination of the original form of the story in which the
swan-metamorphosis was annulled under certain conditions (the removal of
the chains), when the original shape was resumed, and the familiar story
of the mortal returning from Faery after hundreds of years, which he
deems to be but a short space of time, shrinking into dust the moment he
touches earth.

There is a well-known Continental folk-tale--the "Seven Swans" (or
Ravens)--of which we possess several mediæval (12th to 13th century)
versions, all connected with the romance of the "Swan Knight." M. Gaston
Paris has studied the whole story group (_Romania_, xix. 314, &c.) with
the following results: The folk-tale of the seven swans had originally
nothing to do with the saga of the swan-knight. The connection apparent
in the 12th century texts is artificial; the swans owe their
shape-shifting capacity to the superhuman nature of their mother; this
trait has been almost effaced even in the oldest versions. The
distinguishing mark of the swans in all the versions is the possession
of silver or gold chains, which are what may be called metamorphosis
tokens; it follows from this that the contamination of the two
story-types ("Seven Swans" and "Swan Knight") must be older than the
oldest version of the first story, as these chains can only be derived
from the one with which in the Swan Knight saga the swan draws the
knight back.

In _Romania_ (xxi. 62, _seq._) M. Ferd. Lot examines the question in the
light of our tale. He points out that it indicates clearly the
superhuman nature of the mother, and that as the silver chains figure in
the story, they cannot be due in the Continental versions to
contamination with the Swan Knight saga, as M. Gaston Paris imagines. M.
Lot evidently inclines to look upon them as talismans, the abandonment
of which was the original cause of the metamorphosis, and the handling
of which at the end brings about the change back to human shape. He
points out that these chains form an essential part of the gear of
beings appearing in bird guise (especially if they belong to Faery);
thus in the 10th-century "Sickbed of Cuchulainn" the goddesses Fand and
Liban appear as two swans united by a golden chain; in the 8th to 9th
century Conception of Cuchulainn, Dechtire, the mother of the hero by
the god Lug, appears with her companions in the guise of many-hued birds
linked together by chains of silver (or red gold in one version). The
MS. evidence for these tales reaches back to the early 11th century.

Curiously enough, M. Lot has not cited the closest parallel to our tale
from old Irish literature, and one which is certainly connected with it
in some measure, the fine story called the "Dream of Angus." A story of
this title is cited in the epic catalogue of the Book of Leinster (which
dates back to the early 11th century) as one of the introductory stories
to the Tain bo Cuailgne. This assumed its present shape substantially
between 650 and 750. The introductory stories had originally no
connection with it, and were invented or re-shaped in the 8th to 10th
centuries, after the Tain had taken undisputed place as the leading
Irish epic. The tale may therefore be ascribed provisionally to the 9th
century, if we can only be sure that the existing version, preserved in
a single MS. of the 15th century, is a faithful copy of the original.
There need be no doubt as to this. The text is due to a Christian
scribe, and, like nearly all portions of the mythological cycle, betrays
signs of Christian influence, though not of Christian remodelling. Such
influence is, however, far more likely to have exerted itself in the
first stage of the written existence of these tales, when the memory of
organised paganism was still tenacious, than later, when the tales had
become subject-matter for the play of free poetic fancy. The story,
printed and translated by Dr. E. Muller, _Rev. Celt._, iv. 342, &c., is
as follows: Angus (the chief wizard of the Tuatha de Danann) is visited
in sleep by a maiden whose beauty throws him into love sickness. The
whole of Ireland is scoured to find her; the Dagda is appealed to in
vain. At length, Bodb, fairy king of Munster, finds her at Loch bel
Dracon (this is not the only trace of the impression which the story of
Bel and the Dragon made upon the Irish mind). She lives there with 150
swans; one year they are in swan shape the next in human shape. They
appear as white birds with silvery chains and golden caps around their
heads. Angus changes himself into a swan to be with her, and it is
recorded of the music they made that "people fell asleep for three days
and three nights." The soporific power of music is that which is chiefly
commended in old Irish literature.

I think it is obvious that the writer of our story was familiar with
this and other legends in which swan-maids encircled with gold and
silver chains appear, and that we may fairly draw the following
conclusions from the preceding facts: There existed an Irish folk-tale
of a king with two wives, one a water or sea fairy, whose children
derive from her the capacity of shape-shifting dependent upon certain
talismans; jealousy impels the human wife to tamper with these
talismans, and the children are condemned to remain in their animal
form. This folk-tale was, probably at some time in the 14th or 15th
century, arbitrarily fitted into the _cadre_ of the Tuatha de Danann
cycle, and entirely re-fashioned in a spirit of pious edification by a
man who was in his way a great and admirable artist. The origin and
nature of the story, all the elements of which are genuinely national,
assured for it wide and lasting popularity. The evolution of the Irish
folk-tale is in no way dependent upon that of the Continental folk-tale
of the Seven Swans, but it is possible that the Celtic presentiment of
the chain-girdled swans may have influenced it as well as the Swan
Knight Romance.


XXVIII. JACK THE CUNNING THIEF.

_Sources._--Kennedy, _Stories of Ireland_, pp. 38-46; Campbell, _West
Highland Tales_, i. 320 _seq._; "The Shifty Lad," Dasent, _Popular Tales
from the Norse_, pp. 232-51, "Master Thief." Köhler has a number of
variants in his notes on Campbell: _Orient und Occident_, Band ii. Mr.
Clouston has a monograph on the subject in his _Popular Tales_, ii.
115-65. A separate treatise on the subject has been given by S. Prato,
1882, _La Leggenda di Rhampsinite_. Both these writers connect the
modern folk-tales with Herodotus' story of King Rampsinites. Mr. Knowles
in his _Folk-tales of Kashmir_, has a number of adventures of "Sharaf
the Thief." The story of "Master Thief" has been heard among the tramps
in London workhouses (Mayhew, _London Labour and London Poor_, iii.
119).

_Remarks._--Thievery is universally human, and at first sight it might
seem that there was no connection between these various versions of the
"Master Thief." But the identity of the tricks by which the popular
hero-thief gains his ends renders it impossible that they should have
been independently invented wherever they are found.


XXIX. POWEL, PRINCE OF DYFED.

_Source._--Lady Guest's _Mabinogion_, with the names slightly
anglicised, and omitting the opening incident.

_Parallels._--For the incident of tearing off the hands, _cf._ Morraha;
the enchanted hill and maiden occur at the beginning of "Tuairisgeul
Môr" in _Scottish Celtic Review_, i. 61, and are fully commented upon by
Mr. Nutt, _l.c._ 137.


XXX. PADDY O'KELLY AND THE WEASEL.

_Sources._--Hyde, _Beside the Fire_, pp. 73-91.

_Parallels._--On green hills as the homes of the fairies: see note on
"Childe Roland," _English Fairy Tales_, p. 241. The transformation of
witches into hares is a frequent _motif_ in folk-lore.


XXXI. THE BLACK HORSE.

_Sources._--From J. F. Campbell's manuscript collection now deposited at
the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh (MS. 53, vol. xi.). Collected in
Gaelic, February 14, 1862, by Hector MacLean, from Roderick MacNeill, in
the island of Menglay: MacNeill learnt the story about 1840 from a Barra
man. I have omitted one visit of the Black Horse to Greece, but
otherwise left the tale untouched. Mr. Nutt gave a short abstract of the
story in his report on the Campbell MSS. in _Folk-lore_, i. 370.

_Parallels._--Campbell gives the following parallels in his notes on the
tale, which I quote verbatim. On the throwing into the well he remarks:
"So this incident of 'Lady Audley's Secret' was in the mind of a Barra
peasant about 1840. Part of a modern novel may be as old as Aryan
mythology, which was one point to be proved." [The incident of throwing
into the well almost invariably forms a part of the tales of the White
Cat type.]

With regard to the Black Horse, Campbell notes that a Gaelic riddle
makes a Black Horse identical with the West Wind, and adds: "It is for
consideration whether this Horse throws light on the sacred Wheel in
Indian Sculptures; it is to be noted that a Black Horse is the
sacrificial colour."

"The Cup is a well-known myth about winning a Fairy Cup which pervades
Scandinavian England in many forms." "A silver ring, two quaint
serpents' heads pointing opposite ways, is a common Scandinavian
wedding-ring; many were to be got in Barra and elsewhere in 1869, sold
by emigrants bound for America."

"Those who can account for myths must settle the geography of the Snow
Mountain. Avalanches and glaciers are in Iceland, in the Caucasus, and
in Central Asia. There are none within sight of Menglay. Hindoo
cosmogony, which makes the world consist of seven rings, separated by
seas and by a wall of mountains, may account for this in some sort."

On the spikes driven into the Horse, Campbell compares the Norse story
of "Dapple-grim" and the Horse sacrifice of the Mahabharata. On the
building of the Magic Castle, Campbell remarks: "Twashtri was the
Carpenter of the Vedic gods: can this be his work?"

On the Horse's head being struck off Campbell comments: "This was the
last act in the Aryan Horse's sacrifice, and the first step in the Horse
apotheosis."

_Remarks._--Campbell has the following note at the end of the tale, from
which it would seem that in 1870 at least he was very nearly being an
_Indiamaniac_.

"So ends this horse-riding story. Taking it as it is, with the test
of language added, nothing short of an Asian origin will account for
it. A Gaelic riddle makes 'a black horse' mean the invisible wind, and
a theorist might suppose this horse to be the air personified. As
Greece is mentioned, he might be Pegasus, who had to do with wells.
But he had wings, and he was white, and there is nothing in classical
fable like this Atlantic myth. 'The enchanted horse' of Arabian Nights
was a flying machine, and his adventures are quite different. This is
not the horse of Chaucer's Squire's Tale. He is more like 'Hrimfaxi,'
the horse of the Edda, who drew the car of Nött in heaven, and was
ridden round the earth in twelve hours, followed by Dagr and his
glittering horse Skinfaxi. The black horse who always arrives at
sunrise is like the horse of night, but there is no equivalent story
in the Edda. 'Dapple-grim' in Norse tales is clad in a spiked bull's
hide, and is mixed up with a blazing tar-barrel, but his adventures
won't fit, and he was grey.

"The story is but an imperfect skeleton. The cup was to give strength;
he had to open seven gates after he got the cup, but it does nothing.
The hood is to hide with; he went in and out of the palace unseen
after he had got the hood, but it plays no part. The light shoes were
the shoes of swiftness of course, but they never showed their paces.
Baldr's horse was led to the funeral pile with all his gear; and Odin
laid the gold ring Draupnir on the pile. Such rites might account for
the ring in the blazing lake. Hermothr's ride northwards and downwards
to the abode of Hel to seek Baldr, his leap over the grate, and his
return with the ring (Edda 25), might account for one adventure.

"The many-coloured horses of the sun in the Indian mythology and solar
myths may account for all these horses, astronomically or
meteorologically. The old Aryan Aswa Medha or sacrifice of a black
horse, and the twelve adventures of Arjuna as told in the Mahabharata,
are something like this story in some general vague way. But the
simplest explanation of this Menglay myth, fished out of the Atlantic,
is to admit that 'the black horse' and all this mythical breed came
west with men who rode from the land where horses were tamed, which is
unknown."


XXXII. THE VISION OF MACCONGLINNEY.

_Source._--Kindly condensed by Mr. Alfred Nutt from Prof. Meyer's
edition of _The Vision_ published in book form in 1892. This contains
two versions, a longer one from a fourteenth century MS., _Leabhar Breac
or Speckled Book_, and a shorter one from a sixteenth century MS. in
the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. A translation of the former
version was given by the late W. M. Hennessy in _Fraser's Magazine_,
September, 1873. Prof. Wollner, who contributed to Prof. Meyer's edition
an introduction dealing with the story from the standpoint of
comparative literature, considers that the later version reproduces the
original common source more nearly.

_Parallels._--At first sight _The Vision_ seems to picture the Land of
Cockayne (on which see Poeschel, _Das Mährchen vom Schlaraffenlande_,
Halle, 1878), but as Prof. Wollner remarks, the Irish form is much more
simple and primitive, and represents rather an agricultural conception
of a past _aurea aetas_. The conception of enormous appetite being due
to the presence of a voracious animal or demon within the body is
widespread among the folk. Prof. Wollner gives numerous parallels,
_l.c._ XLVII.-LIII. The common expression "to wolf one's food" is said
to be derived from this conception. On the personification of disease,
see Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 148.

I can myself remember a tale somewhat similar to _The Vision_ which I
heard from my nurse in Australia, I fancy as a warning against gluttony.
She told me of a man, who in swallowing large pieces of food had
swallowed a little hairy monster, which grew and grew and grew and
caused the man to be eating all day to satisfy his visitors. He was
cured by being made to fast, and then a bowl of brandy was brought in
front of his mouth into which the hairy thing, attracted by the fumes,
jumped and was drowned.

_Remarks._--We have here an interesting example of the personification
of disease in the form of a demon, of which some examples occur in the
Gospels. The rollicking Rabelaisian tone in which the story is told
prevents us, however, from attributing any serious belief in the
conception by the Irish Monk the author of the tale, who was parodying,
according to Prof. Wollner, the Visions of the Saints. Still he would be
scarcely likely to use the conception, even for purposes of parody,
unless it were current among the folk, and it occurs among them even at
the present day. (See Hyde, _Beside the Fire_, p. 183.)


XXXIII. DREAM OF OWEN O'MULREADY.

_Sources._--Kindly translated by Mr. Leland L. Duncan from _Gaelic
Journal_, vol. iv. p. 57 _seq._

_Parallels._--Croker's _Daniel O'Rourke_ may be compared in part.

_Remarks._--At first sight a mere droll, the story has its roots in the
most primitive philosophy. Owen's problem is to get in the Land of
Dreams. Now Dreamland, so all our students of Mythology are agreed, is
the source and origin of our belief in souls and spirits. Owen's problem
therefore resolves itself into this: where was he to go in order to come
into closest contact with the world of spirits. Mark what he does--he
clears the hearth and has his bed made in it. Now it is round the hearth
that the fullest associations with the spirit life are clustered. The
late M. Fustel de Coulanges in his _Cité Antique_ traces back most of
the Greek and Roman religions and a large number of their institutions
to the worship of the ancestors localised on the hearth. The late
Professor Hearn extended his line of research to the whole of the Aryans
in his _Aryan Household_. It will thus be seen from this course of
reasoning, that Owen was acting on the most approved primitive
principles in adopting this curious method of obtaining dreams. The
story is not known elsewhere than in Ireland, and we are therefore at
liberty to apply the method of survivals to this case.


XXXIV. MORRAHA.

_Sources._--The second story in Mr. W. Larminie's _West Irish
Folk-tales_, pp. 10-30. The framework was collected from P. McGrale of
Achill Island, Co. Mayo. The story itself was from Terence Davis of
Rendyle, Co. Galway. There is evidently confusion in the introductory
portion between Niall's mother and wife.

_Parallels._--Campbell's No. 1 has a very close parallel to the opening.
Mr. Larminie refers to a similar tale collected by Kennedy. Another
version from West Munster has been recently published in the _Gaelic
Journal_, iv. 7, 26, 35. The evasion of the promise to give up the sword
at the end seems a favourite incident in Achill folk-tales; it occurs in
two others of Mr. Larminie's stories. On the framework, see note on
"Conal Yellow claw" (_Celtic Folk-tales_, V.). I have there suggested
that the plan comes from the East, ultimately from Buddha.


XXXV. THE STORY OF THE McANDREW FAMILY.

_Sources._--Supplied by Mrs. Gale, now in the United States, from the
recitation of her mother who left Ireland over fifty years ago.

_Parallels._--"Noodle Tales" like this are found everywhere in Europe,
and have been discussed by Mr. Clouston in a special monograph in _The
Book of Noodles_, 1889. The "sell" at the end is similar to that in the
"Wise Men of Gotham." Kennedy (_Fireside Stories of Ireland_) gives a
similar set of adventures, p. 119 _seq._

_Remarks._--Mrs. Gale remarks that it was a common superstition in
Ireland, that if a raven hovered over the head of cattle, a withering
blight had been set upon the animals. As birds of carrion they were
supposed to be waiting for the carcases.


XXXVI. THE FARMER OF LIDDESDALE.

_Sources._--MacDougal, _Waifs and Strays_, III. ix. pp. 216-21.

_Parallels._--Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, "The Master and the Man,"
iii. 288-92.

_Remarks._--I need scarcely suggest the identification of the Ploughman
with the----. As usual in folk-tales, that personage does not get the
best of the bargain. The rustic Faust evades his contract by a direct
appeal to the higher powers. This is probably characteristic of Scotch
piety.


XXXVII. THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER.

_Sources._--Kennedy, _Fireside Stories_, pp. 47-56.

_Parallels._--Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, lvi.; _Mac Iain Direach_,
ii. 344-76. He gives other variants at the end. The story is clearly
that of the Grimms' "Golden Bird," No. 57. They give various parallels
in their notes. Mrs. Hunt refers to an Eskimo version in Rae's _White
Sea Peninsula_, called "Kuobba the Giant and the Devil." But the most
curious and instructive parallel is that afforded by the Arthurian
Romance of Walewein (_i.e._, Gawain), now only extant in Dutch, which,
as Professor W. P. Ker has pointed out in _Folk-lore_, v. 121, exactly
corresponds to the popular tale, and thus carries it back in Celtdom to
the early twelfth century at the latest.


XXXVIII. THE RUSSET DOG.

_Source._--I have made up this Celtic Reynard out of several fables
given by Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, under the title "Fables," vol.
i. pp. 275 _seq._; and "The Keg of Butter" and the "The Fox and the
little Bonnach," vol. iii. Nos. lxv. lxvi.

_Parallels._--The Fox's ruse about a truce among the animals is a
well-known Æsop's Fable; see my edition of _Caxton's Æsop_, vol. ii. p.
307, and _Parallels_, vol. i. p. 267. The trick by which the cock gets
out of the fox's mouth is a part of the Reynard Cycle, and is given by
Chaucer as his "Nonne Preste's Tale." How the wolf lost his tail is also
part of the same cycle, the parallels of which are given by K. Krohn,
_Bär_ (_Wolf_) _und Fuchs_ (Helsingfors, 1889), pp. 26-8. The same
writer has studied the geographical distribution of the story in
Finland, accompanied by a map, in _Fennia_, iv. No. 4. I have given a
mediæval Hebrew version in my _Jews of Angevin England_, pp. 170-2. See
also Gerber, _Great Russian Animal Tales_, pp. 48-50. The wolf was
originally the bear, as we see from the conclusion of the incident,
which professes to explain why the wolf is stumpy-tailed. "The Keg of
Butter" combines two of the Grimm stories, 2, 189. "The Little Bonnach"
occurs also in English and has been given in two variants in _English
Fairy Tales_, No. xxviii.; and _More English Fairy Tales_, No. lvii.

_Remarks._--It would lead me too far afield to discuss here the sources
of Reynard the Fox, with which I hope shortly to deal at length
elsewhere. But I would remark that in this case, as in several others we
have observed, the stories, which are certainly reproductions, have
received the characteristic Celtic dress. It follows that we cannot
conclude anything as to the origin of a tale from the fact that it is
told idiomatically. On the other hand, the stories of "The Fox and
Wrens" and "The Fox and the Todhunter," and "How the Fox gets rid of his
Fleas," have no parallels elsewhere, and show the possibility of a
native beast tale or cycle of tales.


XXXIX. SMALLHEAD AND THE KING'S SON.

_Source._--Mr. Curtin's "Hero Tales of Ireland," contributed to the _New
York Sun_.

_Parallels._--Campbell's No. xvii., "Maol a Chliobain," is the same
story, which is also found among the Lowlanders, and is given in my
_English Fairy Tales_, No. xxii., "Molly Whuppie," where see notes for
other parallels of the Hop o' My Thumb type of story. King Under the
Waves occurs in Campbell, No. lxxxvi.


XL. THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.

_Source._--Croker, _Fairy Legends of South of Ireland_.

_Parallels._--Parnell's poem, _Edwin and Sir Topaz_, contains the same
story. As he was born in Dublin, 1679, this traces the tale back at
least 200 years in Ireland. Practically the same story, however, has
been found in Japan, and translated into English under the title,
"Kobutori; or, The Old Man and the Devils." In the story published by
Kobunsha, Tokio, the Old Man has a lump on the side of his face. He sees
the demons dancing, and getting exhilarated, joins in. Thereupon the
devils are so delighted that they wish to see him again, and as a pledge
of his return take away from him his lump. Another old man, who has a
similar lump on the other side of his face, hearing of this, tries the
same plan, but dances so badly that the devils, not wishing to see him
again, and mistaking him for the other old man, give him back the lump,
so that he has one on each side of his face.

I may add here that Mr. York Powell informs me that No. xvii. of the
same series, entitled, "Shippietaro," contains a parallel to the
"Hobyahs" of _More English Tales_.

_Remarks._--Here we have a problem of diffusion presented in its widest
form. There can be little doubt that "The Legend of Knockgrafton" and
"Kobutori," one collected in Ireland and to be traced there for the last
200 years, and the other collected at the present day in Japan, are one
and the same story, and it is impossible to imagine they were
independently produced. Considering that Parnell could not have come
across the Japanese version, we must conclude that "Kobutori" is a
recent importation into Japan. On the other hand, as "the Hobyahs"
cannot be traced in England, and was collected from a Scottish family
settled in the United States, where Japanese influence has been
considerable, it is possible that this tale was derived from Japan
within the memory of men still living. It would be highly desirable to
test these two cases, in which we seem to be able to observe the process
of the diffusion of Folk Tales going on before our eyes.


XLI. ELIDORE.

_Source._--Giraldus Cambrensis, _Itinerarium Cambriæ_, I. viii. I have
followed the Latin text tolerably closely.

_Parallels._--Mr. Hartland has a paper on "Robberies in Fairyland," in
_Arch. Rev._, iii. 39 _seq._ Davies, _Mythology of the British Druids_,
p. 155, tells a story of a door in a rock near a cave in the mountains
of Brecknock, which was left open for Mayday, and men used to enter, and
so reach that fairy island in the middle of the lake. The visitors were
treated very hospitably by their fairy hosts, but on the condition that
they might eat all, but pocket none; for once, a visitor took away with
him a fairy flower, and as soon as he got outside the door the flower
vanished, and the door was never more opened. "The Luck of Edenhall,"
still in existence, is supposed to be a trophy brought back from a
similar visit.

_Remarks._--Mr. Hartland suggests that these legends, and the relics
connected with them, are in some way connected with the heathen rites
prevalent in these islands before the introduction of Christianity,
which may have lingered on into historic times. The absence of sunlight
in this account of the House of the Fairies, as in "Childe Rowland" (on
which see note in _English Fairy Tales_), may be regarded as a point in
favour of Mr. MacRitchie's theories as to the identification of the
fairies with the mound-dwellers. The object of the expectoration was to
prevent Elidore's seeing his way back. Thus the fairies prevent the
indiscretions of the human midwives they employ.


XLII. THE LEECHING OF KAYN'S LEG.

_Source._--MacInnes, _Folk-Tales from Argyleshire_, vii., combined with
Campbell of Tiree's version.

_Parallels._--The earliest version, from an Egerton MS. of the fifteenth
century, has been printed by Mr. S. H. O'Grady in his _Silva Gadelica_,
No. 20, with an English version, pp. 332-42. Mr. Campbell of Tiree has
given a short Gaelic version in the _Transactions of the Gaelic Society
of Inverness_, 78-100. Campbell of Islay collected the fullest version
of this celebrated story, which is to be found among his manuscript
remains now in Edinburgh. Mr. Nutt has given his English abstract in
_Folk-lore_, i. 373-7, in its original form. The story must have
contained twenty-four tales or episodes of stories, nineteen of which
are preserved in J. F. Campbell's version. For parallels to the various
incidents, see Mr. Nutt's notes on MacInnes, pp. 470-3. The tale is
referred to in MacNicol, _Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Journey to the
Hebrides_, 1779.

_Remarks._--Nothing could give a more vivid idea of what might be called
the organisation of the art of story-telling among the Celts than this
elaborate tale. Mr. Nutt is inclined to trace it, even in its present
form, back to the twelfth or thirteenth century. It occurs in an MS. of
the fifteenth century in an obviously unoriginal form which shows that
the story-teller did not appreciate the significance of many features in
the folk-tale he was retelling, and yet it was orally collected by the
great Campbell in 1871, in a version which runs to 142 folio pages.
Formally, its interest consists in large measure in the curious
framework in which the subsidiary stories are imbedded. This is not of
the elaborate kind introduced into Europe from the East by the Crusades,
but more _naive_, resembling rather, as Mr. Nutt points out to me, the
loosely-knit narratives of Charles Lever in his earlier manner.


XLIII. HOW FIN WENT TO THE KINGDOM OF THE BIG MEN.

_Source._--J. G. Campbell, _The Fians_ (_Waifs and Strays_, No. iv.),
pp. 175-92.

_Parallels._--_The Voyage to Brobdingnag_ will occur to many readers,
and it is by no means impossible that, as Swift was once an Irish lad,
_The Voyage_ may have been suggested by some such tale told him in his
infancy. It is not, however, a part of the earlier recorded Ossianic
cycle, though over-sea giants occur as opponents of the heroes in that
as well as in the earlier Ultonian cycle.


XLIV. HOW CORMAC MAC ART WENT TO FAERY.

_Source._--Kindly condensed by Mr. Alfred Nutt from an English version
by Mr. S. H. O'Grady in _Ossianic Society's Publications_, vol. iii. The
oldest known version has been printed from fourteenth century MSS., by
Mr. Whitley Stokes, _Irische Texte_, iii. I. The story existed in some
form in the early eleventh century, as it is cited in the epic catalogue
contained in the Book of Leinster.

_Parallels._--Mr. Nutt in his _Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail_,
p. 193, connects this visit of Cormac to the Otherworld with the
bespelled Castle incident in the Grail Legend, and gives other instances
of visits to the Brug of Manannan. Manannan Mac Lir is the Celtic
sea-god.


XLV. RIDERE OF RIDDLES.

_Source._--Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, No. xxii. vol. ii. p. 36,
_seq._ I have modified the end, which has a polygamous complexion.

_Parallels._--Campbell points out that the story is in the main
identical with the Grimms' "Räthsel," No. xxii. There the riddle is:
"One slew none, and yet slew twelve." MacDougall has the same story in
_Waifs and Strays_, iii. pp. 76 _seq._

_Remarks._--There can be no doubt that the Celtic and German Riddle
Stories are related genealogically. Which is of the earlier generation
is, however, more difficult to determine. In favour of the Celtic is the
polygamous framework; while on the other hand, it is difficult to guess
how the story could have got from the Highlands to Germany. The simpler
form of the riddle in the German version might seem to argue greater
antiquity.


XLVI. THE TAIL.

_Source._--Campbell, No. lvii.

_Parallels._--Most story-tellers have some formula of this kind to
conclude their narrations. Prof. Crane gives some examples in his
_Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 155-7. The English have: "I'll tell you a
story of Jack a Nory," and "The Three Wise Men of Gotham" who went to
Sea in a Bowl:

    "If the bowl had been stronger,
     My song would have been longer."


_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
_London and Edinburgh_




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._


  =ENGLISH FAIRY TALES.= Collected by JOSEPH JACOBS. Illustrated by
      J. D. Batten. Small demy 8vo, pp. xvi-253, 8 full-page and 60
      smaller Illustrations, fancy cloth, price 6s.

  This new and charmingly illustrated volume.--_Daily Telegraph_
  (Leader).

  As a collection of fairy tales to delight children of all ages
  ranks second to none.--_Daily Graphic_ (with illustrations).

  A delight alike to the young people and their elders.--_Globe._

  Prettily and brightly adapted.--_Star._

  A most delightful volume of fairy tales.--_England._

  A number of charming English fairy tales.--_Speaker._

  Mr. Jacobs may be congratulated alike on the matter and form of
  his book.--_Manchester Guardian._

  A more desirable child's book ... has not been seen for many a
  day.--_Daily News_ (Leader).

  From first to last, almost without exception, these stories are
  delightful.--_Athenæum._

  The most delightful book of fairy tales, taking form and contents
  together, ever presented to children.--E. S. HARTLAND, in
  _Folk-Lore_.

  The whole collection is dramatic and humorous.... This delightful
  book....--MISS THACKERAY, in _Atalanta_ (with illustrations).

  A gift-book that will charm any child, and all older folk who have
  been fortunate enough to retain their taste for the old nursery
  stories.--_Literary World._

  A dainty and an interesting volume.--_Notes and Queries._

  If we were asked what present would make a child happiest at
  Christmastide we think we could with a clear conscience point to
  Mr. Jacobs' book.--_Gloucester Journal._

  The most delightful book of its kind that has come in our way for
  many a day.--_Oban Times._

  Brimful of pretty stories.... Retold in a truly delightful
  manner.--_North-Western Gazette._

  The tales are simply delightful. No amount of description can do
  them justice. The only way is to read the book through from cover
  to cover.--_Magazine and Book Review._

  The drawings by Mr. Batten ... are extremely clever, and are full
  of humour and imagination.--_Leeds Mercury._

  Several charming stories that may be claimed as new
  acquaintances.... Mr. Batten's illustrations are excellent.--_The
  World._

  The book is intended to correspond to "Grimm's Fairy Tales," and
  it must be allowed that its pages fairly rival in interest those
  of the well-known repository of folk-lore.--_Sydney Morning
  Herald_ (N.S.W.).

  Nothing could be more fascinating; it is indeed two delicious
  books rolled into one.--_Review of Reviews_ (with illustrations).

  A really valuable and curious selection which will be welcomed by
  readers of all ages.... The illustrations by Mr. Batten are often
  clever and irresistibly humorous.--_Times._


  =CELTIC FAIRY TALES.= Edited by JOSEPH JACOBS, and Illustrated by
      J. D. Batten. Sm. demy 8vo, pp. xvi-267, with 8 full-page
      Illustrations and numerous Vignettes, Tail-pieces, Initials,
      &c. 6s.

  Mr. Joseph Jacobs' book of "Celtic Fairy Tales" is, like his last
  year's collection of "English Fairy Tales," one of the best books
  of stories ever put together, whether for a young reader or an
  old.--_Scotsman._

  The volume is illustrated by Mr. John D. Batten, whose work merits
  the very highest praise. The humorous sketches are
  admirable.--_Glasgow Herald._

  Humour and seriousness are delightfully mingled in these tales
  from many sources.--_Leeds Mercury._

  An admirable selection of Celtic Fairy Tales, edited with
  considerable erudition. The illustrations are graceful and
  suggestive.--_Freeman's Journal._

  Delightful stories, exquisite illustrations by John D. Batten, and
  learned notes.--_Ariel._

  Mr. Batten's illustrations are quite charming. Neither Tenniel nor
  C. H. Bennett have done anything better.--_Bookseller._

  This is not the first volume of exquisite fairy tales which Mr.
  Jacobs has given the young ones.--_Newcastle Daily Chronicle._

  A stock of delightful little narratives gathered chiefly from the
  Celtic-speaking peasants of Ireland.--_Daily Telegraph._

  A charming volume, skilfully illustrated.--_Daily Chronicle._

  A perfectly lovely book. And oh! the wonderful pictures inside.
  Get this book if you can; it is capital, all through.--_Pall Mall
  Budget._


  =INDIAN FAIRY TALES.= Edited by JOSEPH JACOBS, and Illustrated by
      J. D. Batten. Sm. demy 8vo, pp. xvi-253, with 9 full-page and
      numerous Vignettes, Tail-pieces, Initials, &c.

  The book is good both for the schoolroom and the study.--_Daily
  News_ (Leader).

  Mr. Jacobs' ably edited "Indian Fairy Tales" is a bright example
  of almost all that a fairy-book should he.--_Daily Chronicle._

  If I were asked to select a child's library I should name these
  three volumes ['English,' 'Celtic,' and 'Indian Fairy Tales'],
  with Grimm, Hans Andersen, and one or two good volumes of
  poetry.--_Irish Daily Independent._

  We are absolutely sure (which we scarcely ever are) that this book
  is a most pleasing volume.--_Saturday Review._

  The form in which they are presented is admirable, and nothing
  could be better in their way than Mr. Batten's designs to
  illustrate them.--_North British Daily Mail._

  Mr. Jacobs brings home to us in a clear and intelligible manner
  the enormous influence which Indian Fairy Tales have had upon
  European literature of the kind.--_Gloucester Journal._

  Mr. Jacobs is a delightful companion into a land of enchantment,
  and his successive books are treasures.--_Notes and Queries._

  The present combination will be welcomed not alone by the little
  ones for whom it is specially combined, but also by children of
  larger growth and added years.--_Daily Telegraph._


       *       *       *       *       *
Transcriber's Notes:

Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without comment and
include missing or end of sentence comma and period errors and missing
or misplaced quotation marks.

Characters in bold Gothic font, in the Celtic language, with a single
overdot accent have been converted to their sound (ex. th, gh, dh,
bh, fh).

In all references to the "King of Moroco", the center "o" was accented
with a macron (ex. Mor[=o]cos), which has been converted to a plain "o".

In the date reference of the final illustration the "th" in 19th was
superscripted in the original text.


Spelling Corrections:

p. 17, "yon" to "you" (a gentleman such as you)
p. 27, "Pwyll" to "Powel" (he returned to Powel)
p. 42, "Tiernyon" (2) to "Teirnyon" (21) (... said his wife unto
       Teirnyon) and (... said Teirnyon)
p. 120 "daugher" to "daughter" (59) (let my daughter go)
p. 125, "hegoes" to "he goes" (and down he goes to)
p. 134, "Ill" to "I'll" (I'll try that upon thee)
p. 138, "daughers" to "daughters" (69) ("Oh," said the daughters)
p. 236, "bo" to "book" (Get this book if you can;)


Printer Error corrections:

p. 178, closed-up blank space in unindented sentences between
(... Rome to Rome to-morrow.) and (Unless you deceive me ...),
and removed extra opening quotation mark.


Word Variations retained:

"bagpipes" (1) and "bag-pipes" (1)
"lapdog" (6) and "lap-dog" (3)
"MacDougal" (1) and "MacDougall" (1) (re: Waifs and Strays)
"pishrogue" (1) and "pishtrogue" (1) (A fairy spell to distort reality?)
"West Irish Folk-Tales" (1) and "West Irish Folk-tales" (1)
"tablecloth" (2) and "table-cloth" (2) (p. 208-9)





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of More Celtic Fairy Tales, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE CELTIC FAIRY TALES ***

***** This file should be named 34453-8.txt or 34453-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/4/5/34453/

Produced by David Edwards, Christine Aldridge and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive)


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     https://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sandman's rainy day stories, by Abbie
Phillips Walker

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
using this eBook.

Title: Sandman's rainy day stories

Author: Abbie Phillips Walker

Illustrator: Rhoda C. Chase

Release Date: July 22, 2022 [eBook #68589]

Language: English

Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Amber Black and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
             produced from images generously made available by The
             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANDMAN'S RAINY DAY
STORIES ***





  SANDMAN’S
  RAINY DAY STORIES

[Illustration]




_Books by_

ABBIE PHILLIPS WALKER


  SANDMAN’S STORIES OF DRUSILLA DOLL
  SANDMAN’S RAINY DAY STORIES
  SANDMAN’S CHRISTMAS STORIES
  SANDMAN’S TWILIGHT STORIES
  TOLD BY THE SANDMAN
  SANDMAN’S TALES
  THE SANDMAN’S HOUR


_Harper & Brothers Publishers_

ESTABLISHED 1817




  Sandman’s
  Rainy Day
  Stories

  [Illustration]

  _By_ Abbie Phillips Walker
  _Illustrated by_ Rhoda C. Chase

  Harper & Brothers, Publishers




  SANDMAN’S RAINY DAY STORIES

  Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
  Printed in the United States of America
  Published September, 1920
  G--U




  _This book is lovingly dedicated
  to the memory of
  my father
  THOMAS PHILLIPS_




CONTENTS


                                                PAGE

  PRINCESS CANTILLA                                3

  THE TREE OF SWORDS                              18

  THE SILVER HORSESHOES                           28

  THE BLUE CASTLE                                 37

  NARDO AND THE PRINCESS                          50

  OLD THREE HEADS                                 59

  THE ENCHANTED BOAT                              73

  NICKO AND THE OGRE                              83

  THE GINGERBREAD ROCK                            91

  PRINCE ROUL’S BRIDE                            100

  SUNEV                                          109

  CILLA AND THE DWARF                            117

  GRETA AND THE BLACK CAT                        123

  THE KNIGHT OF THE BRIGHT STAR                  132

  THE DOLPHIN’S BRIDE                            138

  PRINCESS DIDO AND THE PRINCE OF THE ROSES      144

  CATVILLE GOSSIP                                151

  HOW THE ELEPHANT GOT HIS TRUNK                 154

  WHY RABBITS HAVE SHORT TAILS                   160

  THE HUNTER’S FRIEND, JOHNNIE BEAR              166

  PLAID TROUSERS                                 170

  THE THREE RUNAWAYS                             177




  SANDMAN’S
  RAINY DAY STORIES




[Illustration]

PRINCESS CANTILLA


Princess Cantilla lived in a castle like most princesses, but she was
not a rich princess, for her father had lost all his lands and money by
quarreling with other kings about the length and breadth of his kingdom
and theirs.

So poor little Cantilla had to work just like any common peasant girl
and cook the meals for herself and her father.

The old castle where Cantilla and her father lived had fallen into
decay, and only a few rooms at one end were now used, so that the bats
and owls had taken possession of the towers and once gorgeous halls on
the opposite side of the castle, where beautiful ladies and courtly
gentlemen were once seen in gay and festive pleasures. A kitchen and a
bedroom apiece were all the rooms that Cantilla and her father, the old
King, used, and the furniture was so old it hardly held together.

One day Cantilla was cooking soup for dinner, and as the steam rolled
up from the kettle Cantilla thought she saw a face with a long beard
looking at her. She drew her hand across her eyes to make her sight
more clear, and the next time she looked she did see a face, and a
form, too.

A little man with a misshapen back and a long white beard, the ends of
which he carried over one arm, stepped from the cover of the boiling
pot and hopped to the floor.

“Princess,” he said, bowing low before Cantilla, “I am an enchanted
dwarf. I can give you back your once beautiful home and make your
father a rich king again.

“I can cause all the rooms of the old castle to become new and filled
with beautiful hangings and furniture, as they were before your father
became so poor.”

Cantilla began to smile at the thought of all the luxury and comfort
the dwarf pictured, and she lost sight of his ugly-looking body and
face for a minute, but she was brought to her senses by what the dwarf
next said.

“All this will I give you, Princess Cantilla, if you will become my
wife,” he said, taking a step closer to Cantilla.

“Oh no, no! I cannot do that,” said Cantilla, holding up both hands as
if to ward off even the thought of such a thing.

“Wait,” said the dwarf. “Do not be so hasty, my Princess. I will come
again for your reply to-night at the fountain in the garden where the
honeysuckle grows.”

Before Cantilla could reply to this he swung his beard over his head
and disappeared in a cloud of what looked like steam or smoke.

Cantilla looked about her and pinched herself to make sure she had not
dreamed all she had just seen, and by and by she believed it was a
dream--that she must have fallen asleep in her chair by the fire.

That night while she was sleeping she was awakened by feeling some one
touch her on the face.

Cantilla had been awakened so many times by the little mice that
overran the old castle that she only brushed her face with her hand
without opening her eyes and went to sleep again.

“Cantilla, open your eyes! Open your eyes!” she heard some one whisper
close to her ear, and again she felt the touch of something on her face.

Cantilla opened her eyes and sat up in bed. The room was quite bright,
and a beautiful lamp with a pink silk shade gave everything in the room
a rose tint.

Cantilla was sure she was dreaming, for it was not her old shabby room
at all she was looking at.

She looked down at the covering of her bed--that was pink silk, too;
she felt of it and found it was filled with the softest down; she also
noticed that she wore a beautiful night-robe of pink silk and lace.

On the floor beside the bed on a soft, pink rug stood two little satin
slippers, trimmed with swan’s-down.

“I am dreaming,” said Cantilla, “but I will enjoy it while it lasts,”
and she looked about her.

The furniture was white and gold, and soft pink rugs covered the floor.
Her bed had little gold Cupids on each post, and they held in their
hands the ends of pink silk that formed a beautiful canopy; little
frills of lace fell from the bottom of the silk, making it look very
soft and pretty in the lamplight.

On the table beside her bed, which held her lamp, Cantilla saw a
big gold-and-glass bottle. She reached for it and took out the gold
stopper, then she tipped the bottle and bathed her face and hands with
the delicious perfume it held.

Cantilla put her little feet out of bed and slipped them into the
slippers and walked over to the gold-and-white dressing-table at the
other side of the room.

Everything was so beautiful she just looked at first, then she picked
up a gold brush and smoothed her hair. She took up each of the gold
toilet articles and saw that on each was the letter “C.”

“They must belong to me,” said Cantilla. “But, of course, it is all a
dream,” as she opened a drawer of a big gold-and-white chest.

What she saw made Cantilla gasp with wonder, for the drawer was filled
with beautiful clothes, and as she opened the others she found they all
were filled with silk and lace-trimmed clothes.

Cantilla forgot all about her dream and ran, just as though she were
awake, to a closet door that was open. She swung it back and looked;
there hung before her astonished gaze pink silk dresses and blue silk
dresses and white and dainty green and yellow silk dresses.

Now, I did not tell you that Cantilla had black hair which hung in long
curls about her pretty face and over her pretty white shoulders, and
her eyes were as deep-blue as the deepest blue of a violet, and when
she put on one of the pink silk dresses and stepped in front of a long
mirror she forgot all else for a moment. Then suddenly she heard her
name called softly. “Cantilla, Cantilla,” the voice said.

Cantilla looked up, and on the top of the mirror stood a little fairy
dressed in pink gauze.

“Oh! you have a pretty pink dress, too,” said Cantilla, forgetting to
be surprised at seeing a fairy in her room.

“Yes, but it is the only dress I own,” said the little creature, with a
smile, “while you have a closet full; but then mine never wear out, and
yours will.”

“You mean I will wake up in a minute, I suppose,” said Cantilla. “Yes,
I know it is a dream, but I am having a good time. I wish I could have
a dream like this every night. I wouldn’t mind being poor through the
day.”

“Ah! but you are not dreaming at all, Princess Cantilla,” said the
fairy, “and if you will follow me I will show you more of your
beautiful home. Come along.”

Cantilla did not answer, but walked after the fairy, who skimmed along
before Cantilla like a little pink bird.

The fairy touched a door with her wand and it flew open. Cantilla
looked about her in wonder, for the hall, which had been hung with
tatters of faded tapestry, now looked like the hall of a king.

The tapestry hung whole and rich-looking upon the walls, which were of
deep-blue and gold. The old armor that had been broken and covered with
dust and mold was erect as though its former wearer was inside it.

The fairy touched the door of the room where the old King was sleeping,
and again Cantilla looked in wonder, for her father slept beneath a
canopy of red and gold upon a bed of gold, and all the furnishings of
his room were such as a king would have.

Cantilla looked at her father. He was smiling in his sleep, and the
care-worn look had gone from his face.

The fairy beckoned to her and Cantilla, with one backward glance at her
sleeping father, followed.

Next the old dining-hall was opened for Cantilla to see. The once faded
and torn draperies were whole, and bats and owls were gone from the
corners of the room where they had often made their nests.

The beautiful table of onyx and silver was covered with dishes of
silver, and dainty lace napkins lay beside each place as though ready
for the coming guests. But the fairy led her away, and next Cantilla
saw the beautiful halls where the old King held his grand balls and
kings and queens and princes and princesses had danced.

The lights burned in the gold-and-glass fixtures fastened to the walls
and made the place look like fairyland.

The blue damask curtains with their edge of priceless lace hung from
the windows, whole and shimmering with richness, and chairs of gold
stood upright and bright against the walls, and the floor shone with
polish.

And so through the whole castle the fairy led the wondering little
Princess to look at her old ruined home, now beautiful and whole.

Then the fairy took Cantilla to the gardens. The once dry fountains
were playing in the moonlight, the nightingales could be heard among
the roses, and the air was filled with rich perfume.

When they reached the lower end of the garden Cantilla suddenly stopped
and stood very still. She was beside a fountain, and honeysuckle grew
over an arbor close beside it.

Cantilla remembered the words of the dwarf she had seen in her dream,
and his words, “I will come for your reply to-night at the fountain
where the honeysuckle grows.”

The fairy stood on a bush beside her. “You remember now, do you not?”
she asked. “You see it was not a dream this morning, and you are not
dreaming now, my Princess, but I cannot help you. I have finished my
work and must return to my Queen. Farewell!”

Cantilla watched the fairy disappear without uttering a single word.
She saw in her mind’s eye only the ugly features of the dwarf and heard
his words.

In another minute she saw what looked like a cloud near the
honeysuckle arbor, and in another minute the dwarf of the morning stood
before her with the ends of his long white beard thrown over one arm.

“I have come, Princess Cantilla, for my answer,” said the dwarf. “Marry
me and all you have seen shall be yours.”

Cantilla threw out her hands as she had in the morning and started to
reply, but the dwarf checked her. “Before you give your answer,” he
said, “think of your old father and how contented and happy he looked
surrounded by the comforts of his former days of prosperity.”

Cantilla let her hands fall by her side, her head bent low, and she
stood lost in thought. She saw again her old father in his bed of gold,
and the face that looked so happy, then she raised her head without
looking at the ugly creature before her and said: “I consent; I will
become your wife; I cannot love you, but I will wed you if that will
content you.”

“Follow me, then,” said the dwarf, throwing his long beard over his
head and letting it fall over Cantilla as he spoke.

Cantilla saw only a fleecy cloud closing all about her, and the next
thing she knew she was on a little island in the middle of a deep blue
ocean, with the dwarf standing beside her.

The dwarf, with his beard still over one arm, held his hands to his
mouth and gave a long, loud call, which seemed to descend to the depths
of the ocean.

Up from the water came an arm and hand holding a twisted shell, and
then Cantilla saw a head appear and blow a long, loud blast from the
shell.

A splashing was heard, and out of the water came an old man in a
chariot of mother-of-pearl.

The chariot was drawn by two horses with feet and manes of gold, and in
one hand the old man carried a long wand with three prongs at one end.

The old man struck the water with the queer-looking wand, and from all
over the surface of the water come the sea nymphs and all sorts of
monsters and creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean.

But when the mermaids appeared the old man sent them back quickly and
drove his chariot toward Cantilla and the dwarf.

Cantilla by this time was beyond being frightened or surprised, and she
stood beside the dwarf waiting for the next thing to happen.

“My Lord Neptune,” said the dwarf, bowing low as the old man drove
close to the island on which Cantilla and the dwarf stood, “I have come
with my Princess for you to perform the ceremony. She has consented to
become my wife.”

“What!” cried the old man, in an angry voice, “do you mean you have
found a Princess who will consent to have such a husband as you
are--ugly and misshapen wretch?”

“Answer him, my Princess,” said the dwarf. “Tell my Lord Neptune you
consent to marry me.”

“I do consent to marry the dwarf,” Cantilla managed to say, and again
the old man struck the water, this time in anger, and the water spouted
about them like huge fountains throwing up rivers.

Cantilla felt the dwarf take her hand, and he said, “Fear not, my
Princess; it will soon be over.”

In a few minutes the water was calm again, and the old man in the
chariot stood a little way off, surrounded by the nymphs and other
creatures, holding the three-pronged wand high over his head.

“I release you; you are wed; be gone from my sight,” said the old man,
and as the trumpet-bearer sounded his loud call, the old man and his
chariot passed into the deep water, followed by all his nymphs and the
others.

Cantilla looked toward the dwarf, wondering if ever any one had such a
strange wedding, but to her surprise he was gone and by her side stood
a handsome man, who said: “My Princess, behold in me your husband. I am
free from the spell of the old man of the sea, who wanted me to become
a sea monster and live under the ocean.

“I was changed into the shape of the ugly dwarf because I would not
marry a mermaid who happened to fall in love with me one day while I
was bathing, and she called upon a sea witch to change me into a sea
monster, but I escaped before I took on the sea shape, but not before I
was changed into the ugly dwarf you saw this morning.

“A kind fairy interceded with her Queen to save me, and she went to the
old man, who is Neptune, the God of the Waters. He told the Queen if I
could find a princess who would consent to marry me he would release
me from the spell the sea witch had cast over me.

“You know how that was accomplished, my Princess, and if you think you
can accept me in place of the dwarf for your husband we will return
to the castle, where your father is still sleeping, I expect, for the
Fairy Queen said she would watch until sunrise for our return.”

Cantilla, no longer looking sad, but smiling and happy, put her hand in
her husband’s and told him she was the happiest girl in the world.

“And I am the happiest man in the world,” said her husband, “for I not
only am freed from the spell of the sea witch, but I have won the one
woman in the world I could ever love for my wife.”

Three times he clapped his hands together, and the little fairy in the
pink gauze dress appeared.

“The Queen sends her love to you and this message, ‘Bless you, my
children,’ and now I will take you home to the castle.”

She touched the Princess and her husband on the cheek with her wand,
and Cantilla found herself back in the castle garden by the fountain
and honeysuckle arbor, with her handsome husband standing by her side.

“Come, my dear, we must go in to breakfast,” said her husband; “your
father will be waiting for us.”

“How will we explain about our wedding and the changed appearance of
the castle?” asked Cantilla.

“Oh! the Fairy Queen has arranged all that,” said Cantilla’s husband.
“Your father will not remember he ever lost his fortune; he will ask no
questions.”

Cantilla and her husband went hand in hand into the castle to their
breakfast, and from that day Cantilla never knew another sorrow or
unhappy moment.




[Illustration]

THE TREE OF SWORDS


Once there lived a king who had a daughter that had been changed by a
wicked witch into a brindle cow.

The witch had wanted the King to invite her to the feast when the
Princess was born, and because he invited her only into the servants’
hall and not to the feast of the royal family the old witch had thrown
a spell over the baby, and when she grew to womanhood she suddenly one
day changed into the brindle cow. Great was the surprise of the King
and Queen when they went to the room of the Princess one morning and
found in her dainty lace bed a cow in place of their pretty daughter.

They sent for the old witch at once, for they knew that some magic
spell must have caused this terrible change, but the old witch sent
back word that the only thing that would change the Princess back to
her own shape was a pear from the tree which grew by the mountain of
ice.

Now this mountain of ice all the people knew was controlled by a
three-headed troll, and the tree which grew near by was the chimney to
his home under the mountain.

There was nothing to do but to offer money to the one who would get the
pear which would restore the little Princess to her own form.

There was another thing that made it very dangerous to try to get the
pear, and this was that no sooner did one attempt to touch the tree
than all its branches changed to sharp swords.

To reach the tree the mountain must be climbed, and this being of ice,
the ones who tried were in danger of slipping and being killed as they
fell, sliding down the mountain and striking on the tree, which would
be filled with swords as soon as they struck it.

After a while all those who tried gave it up as too dangerous, and the
King then sent out word that to the one who would bring the pear,
be he rich or poor, of high or low degree, he would give to him the
Princess for a wife, as well as a barrel of gold.

But no one would risk his life for that offer, for they thought perhaps
the Princess would not regain her shape even after eating the pear, and
who would wish to marry a cow, even if she were royal?

But one day a poor youth came to the palace and told the King and Queen
that he would try to get a pear if they would give him the brindle cow
before he ventured up the mountain of ice. “For if I fail,” he said, “I
wish to leave my poor mother something, and a cow is always useful.”

The King offered money, but the youth would have nothing but the
brindle cow, so they led away the cow to the peasant’s barn, while the
King and Queen watched her go with sad hearts.

On her back was a velvet blanket trimmed with gold, and the Queen tried
to make the peasant take a soft bed for her to sleep on, but this he
would not do. “No, she is a cow, and must sleep in the barn like other
cows,” he said.

The King and Queen had all this time been feeding the cow on dainty
fruit and all sorts of good things, and the youth had heard that the
pear she was to eat to save her would be bitter and bad to taste, and
he wanted to get her used to eating anything that was given her.

The peasant youth began his climb up the mountain of ice, but each day
for a month he only went one step ahead, for while he sometimes went
far up, each time he would slip back.

And all this time the poor little cow was growing thinner and thinner,
for she would not eat the food that was put before her.

One day when the peasant youth was about discouraged and thought he
would have to give up trying for the pear, he felt the ice under him
suddenly grow soft and his feet seemed to stick and not slip any more.

To his surprise, when he looked at his feet he saw a little fairy
standing on each foot and touching them with her wand.

Up he went swiftly now, and soon was at a place on the mountain where
he could touch the magic tree, and there the little fairies told him
they were powerless to help him further.

“We can only tell you that if you can get from the three-headed troll
the belt he wears you can get the pear, but we fairies cannot throw a
spell over trolls,” they told him.

When the fairies disappeared the peasant felt more discouraged than
before, for there he was in danger of slipping, and before him was the
dreadful tree.

But while he stood thinking the tree opened and out came the troll,
leaving the tree wide open behind him.

He did not look up or down, to right or left, but walked down the
mountain, and the youth, sitting flat upon the ice, slid into the open
tree.

Down, down he went! And then suddenly he found himself in a big room,
in one corner of which was a huge bed, in another a big stove, in
another a big chair and table, and in the fourth corner stood a large
sword so tall that the peasant could easily hide behind it.

And lucky it was for him that it was big, for at that moment in came
the three-headed troll and rolled all six of his eyes about the room.

“He, hi, ho, hun! I smell the flesh of a mortal son,” he said. “You
cannot escape me, so come out from wherever you are hiding!” The
frightened youth was trembling so that the sword tipped over, and there
he stood before the three-headed troll, who jumped to catch him.

But though he had three heads, he had only two feet, and, tripping over
the sword, he fell sprawling on the floor.

Now his three heads were so heavy that, once he was down, it was hard
work to get up, and while he struggled his belt became unfastened and
lay under him on the floor.

The peasant saw this and, knowing he was in danger anyway, thought he
would risk a little more.

So he ran over to the troll and with both hands tugged at the belt, and
as the troll rolled over out from under him it came.

Quickly as he could he put the belt about his waist, and, to his
surprise, he felt so strong that the size of the sword on the floor
seemed no longer to frighten him.

He picked it up and found that it was as light as a tin one, and then
the troll, rolling over again, saw his belt around the peasant’s waist
and his sword in his hand, and he cried out, “My power is gone!” as he
tried to crawl away.

“Tell me how to get a pear from the tree and I will spare your life,”
said the peasant.

The troll managed to get upon his feet, but he was no longer the
powerful creature he had been a few moments before.

“Follow me,” he said, as he led the peasant out of the door of the
tree, which was still open.

The tree was filled with swords, all shiny and sharp-looking, as the
sun fell upon them, for as soon as the peasant had slid in the door the
swords had appeared and had warned the troll before he entered that
some mortal was near by.

“If you will promise to do as I ask you after you have the pear, I will
tell you the secret of getting it,” said the troll. “It will not harm
any one to grant my last wish.”

So the youth promised and the troll said: “You must strike the swords
on the tree with the sword you hold until the sparks fly. Then the
pears which you see hanging from the swords will fall to the ground,
but the tree will burn up.

“And then there will be nothing for me. My magic power will be gone
forever. So I ask that you will then strike me with the sword on my
middle head, and that will change me into a shape which will never harm
any one again.”

This the youth said he would do and began to strike the swords on the
tree, making the sparks fly and the pears drop, and then all at once
the tree began to burn.

Keeping the sword still in his grasp, the youth looked for the largest
of the green pears and picked it up, putting it in his pocket.

“Don’t forget your promise,” said the troll as the youth started to go
away. “You need not be afraid,” he said as the youth drew back. “The
blow will not hurt me.”

So the youth lifted the sword and brought it down on the troll’s middle
head with such force that the sword fell from his hands and struck the
mountain of ice with such a bang that the ice began to crack.

At first the youth did not see what had happened, the noise had
startled him so, but the next minute he saw that in place of the troll
stood a beautiful tree filled with pears, and the mountain was no
longer ice, but covered with soft, green moss.

He did not stop, but down the mountain he ran and to his home, where
the brindle cow stood in the barn, so hungry she opened her mouth at
once and ate the pear, thinking it would be sweet and juicy, but it
was far from that. It was so bitter and bad that had she not been so
hungry she could not have eaten it, but it was swallowed before she
knew it, and there in the stall of the peasant’s barn stood the pretty
Princess looking about her in astonishment.

“How did I come in this horrid place, and what a dirty-looking man you
are!” she said. “Take me home at once! My father is the King, and he
will punish you if you do not obey me!”

It did not take the peasant long to take her home, and when the Queen
and the King saw their daughter in her own form again they fell on
their knees before the peasant youth and thanked him.

But the Princess did not understand what it all meant, and said: “Why
do you kneel to him? He should kneel to you! Are you not King and Queen
of this land, and this man a poor peasant?”

Before the King could explain to the Princess the youth said: “I have
brought you your daughter, but you must keep her. I could never marry a
maid who thought herself above me. Give me gold and let me go back to
my home!”

He was wise enough to see that a poor peasant and a princess could not
be happy together and a peasant girl was a more fitting bride for him.

The Princess was very sorry for all she had said when she found out the
peasant had saved her, and when he was married she sent to his wife
a chest of linen and silver which made her the envy of all the other
peasants for miles around.

The troll was never heard of again, and only the peasant youth knows
that the pear-tree on the side of the mountain which bears such juicy
fruit was once the three-headed troll who lived under the tree of
swords.




[Illustration]

THE SILVER HORSESHOES


Once upon a time there lived a king who wanted a son-in-law who would
be a good soldier as well as a good husband, so he put his daughter,
the Princess, who, of course, was very beautiful, in a tower on top of
a high mountain. Then he sent out word all over his kingdom and to all
the other kingdoms that to the youth who could get to the top of the
tower he would give the Princess for a wife.

But when the youths came from far and near they found the mountain was
slippery as glass, and their horses slipped back faster than they could
climb.

In a kingdom far from where the King lived was a poor prince whose
father had lost all his lands and money in wars, so that when he died
he left the Prince nothing but the castle and a black horse.

One day the Prince was feeding his horse and thinking of the Princess
on top of the high mountain in the tower, and he spoke his thought out
loud.

“If only I had some clothes fit to be seen,” he said, “I would try to
reach the Princess in the tower, and this poverty would be at an end.
And you, my beauty, would have oats in plenty then,” patting the horse
on the neck.

“Why don’t you try, master?” said the horse.

The Prince was surprised to hear the horse speak, but still he had
heard of such things happening, and he answered, saying: “I have no
clothes; besides, many others have tried, and no horse is able to climb
the mountain.”

“Master, go to the witch that lives in a cave in the middle of the
woods at midnight and get my shoes,” said the horse. And then he fell
to eating his scanty dinner and said no more.

The Prince thought there was nothing to lose by doing as the horse told
him, so that night he went to the woods to find the witch. The woods
he found easily, but to find the cave was a different matter. First he
met a fox, and he asked the way to the cave of the witch.

“Oh, master,” said the fox, “take my advice and go home; no good will
come to you if you find it.”

But the Prince would not give up the quest, so he asked a wolf that he
met next where the cave was located in the woods.

The wolf ran away, saying: “You better go home. That cave will bring
only harm to any one who finds it.”

The Prince was not to be frightened and on he went, and an owl was the
next one he saw. “Where is the cave the old witch lives in?” he asked.

“Hoot! hoot!” said the owl, flapping his wings. “Be off, man, while
there is time. Don’t go near that cave if you value your life,” and off
flew the owl, leaving the Prince no wiser than before.

After going deep into the woods--in fact, he was at the very center and
did not know it--the Prince stood still and listened.

A sound reached his ear which seemed like the clatter of horses’
hoofs, and the Prince went in the direction from which the sound came.

All at once he found himself in front of the cave for which he had
searched so long, and, looking in, he saw the old witch prancing about
in the craziest manner.

She would climb the side of her cave with as much ease as she could
walk across the floor, and then, giving a spring, she would walk on the
top of the cave, her head hanging down toward the floor.

While the Prince was looking and wondering at this strange performance
he noticed something shining on her feet, and when he looked closer, to
his surprise he saw that the witch had on her feet silver horseshoes.
Then he knew what his black horse had said was worth listening to--he
was to get the shoes the old witch was wearing.

But then he thought: “She has on only two; I must have four. I wonder
where are the other two.”

Just then a black cat came dancing into the cave, and on her hind feet
the Prince saw the other two shoes he wanted. Such dancing and climbing
the Prince had never seen as was done by the old witch and her black
cat. The silver shoes seemed to take them anywhere and they could do
anything while they wore them.

After a while the witch and the black cat grew weary and took off the
shoes, and the Prince saw them lift up a stone in the middle of the
cave and drop the four silver horseshoes into a hole and then drop the
stone again.

After the witch and the black cat were fast asleep in one corner of the
cave the Prince crept in softly and lifted the stone. At the bottom of
a deep hole he saw the horseshoes, and he was wondering how he could
get them when he felt a push from behind and down he went into the
hole, landing at the bottom where the shoes were.

The old witch had awakened and had pushed him in, and the Prince could
hear her and the cat jumping about and laughing with glee that they had
trapped him.

When the Prince found himself in the hole under the cave where the old
witch lived he thought his end had come. It was as dark as a dungeon.
The only thing he could see was the glitter of the silver horseshoes.

While he stood looking at them and thinking how the old witch and her
cat jumped about, and wondering what she would do with him, he suddenly
was struck with an idea.

He would put on the shoes, one on each foot, and take the other two in
his hands.

No sooner did he think it than he did it, and, giving a spring, up he
went, the stone flying off the top of the hole as he touched it with
his hands holding the silver horseshoes.

Into the cave he jumped, and the old witch and her black cat sprang at
him, but he had only to run, and, without touching the ground, away he
flew through the forest, the old witch and her cat after him.

Sometimes they would almost catch him, for the witch had jumped on her
broomstick and the cat sat on behind her, and they flew over trees and
bushes as well as the Prince.

The Prince knew he was lost if they caught him, and finally decided to
turn around and run toward them, thinking he might be able to knock the
witch off her broomstick and so stop their flight.

No sooner did he turn than the shining silver shoes cast a ray of light
on the old witch and her cat and like magic they tumbled off the
broomstick, and away went the stick higher and higher in the air until
it disappeared; and on the ground where the cat and the old witch fell
the Prince saw two stones, one big and the other smaller and almost
black, so he knew he was rid of his enemies and could get out of the
forest safely with the silver horseshoes.

The black horse danced with delight when he saw the shoes, and stood
still until they were fastened on his feet; then he pranced about and
shook his head in a very knowing manner, though he did not speak again,
and the Prince mounted him and rode away, forgetting all about his
shabby coat.

The black horse trotted along like any other horse until they came to
the mountain on top of which the Princess lived in the tower; then the
Prince felt himself gliding up the mountain, past all the other youths
who were vainly trying to climb to the top.

Up and up they went until the Prince found himself by the tower. When
he looked at the height he knew his troubles were not at an end. He
looked around for some way to scale the wall, but it was as smooth as
glass. While he stood looking at the top he saw something white slowly
coming down the wall from a little window.

Down it came until the Prince could see that it was a piece of white
thread, and on the end of it was a little golden curl.

The Prince untied it and kissed it, then, looking up at the window, he
kissed his hand, for he knew that somewhere in the tower the Princess
had been looking for the Prince who was to come for her, and had seen
him.

He was more anxious than ever to reach the Princess, but how could he
climb those slippery walls?

How? And then he thought of the silver shoes that the witch had walked
on the top of the cave with, and he took them off his horse and tied
one on each foot and took one in each hand.

Placing his hands on the wall of the tower, he walked up as easily
as if he were walking on the ground, and in a few minutes was at the
little window above.

The Princess smiled when she saw him, and then he saw that the window
which looked so small to him from the ground was really a door.

He stepped in and knelt at the feet of the blushing Princess, who
said, “I shall be glad to leave here, but how can I get to the ground?”

“In my arms,” answered the bold Prince, and, picking her up, he stepped
out on the smooth wall again, easily reaching the ground with the
Princess.

He placed her in front of him on his horse and rode down the mountain,
at the bottom of which a crowd was waiting for him, and the King also,
for it had been noised abroad that a youth had been seen to climb the
mountain and the people wanted to see him.

“Well done, my son,” said the King, riding up to greet them. “You will
make a good soldier, for you have shown that you can overcome obstacles
to gain that which you desire. Come home; the wedding feast is
prepared.” So the Prince gained a princess for a wife, a father-in-law
who admired his courage, and was happy ever after.




[Illustration]

THE BLUE CASTLE


Once upon a time in a far-off country there lived a witch on top of a
high mountain, and every year she came down into the country about and
appeared at the palace of the King and asked for a bag of gold.

One night when the King and his Queen were making merry and having a
big feast in honor of the birth of their little daughter, the Princess
Lily, the old witch came to the palace and asked for her bag of gold.

“Tell her to begone,” said the King to his servant. “I have used all
the gold in the vaults for the feast; she will have to come next year.”

Now the old witch was very angry when she heard this message, and she
hid in the grounds of the palace until all were asleep that night, and
then she entered the palace and carried off the baby Princess.

The Queen and the King were beside themselves with grief when they
discovered their loss, and they offered big rewards for the return of
their daughter, but she could not be found.

“Find the old witch who came here the night of the feast,” said one of
the King’s wise men, “and you will find the Princess.”

They hunted far and near, but the witch could not be found, for when
any one attempted to climb the mountain where the old witch lived the
insects would become as thick as mist and clouds and they could not see
where to go.

One after another gave up the attempt, and so after a while the King
and Queen mourned their daughter as dead and the old witch never came
to the palace again.

The Queen and King never had any more children, and every day they
grieved because there would be no one to reign after they were gone.

One day one of the King’s wise men said to him: “In a cave in the
forest lives an ogre who has a wonderful horse; it is kept in a stable
made of marble, and its stall is of gold, and it is fed on corn grown
in a field of pearls.

“If we could get this horse we might be able to climb the mountain
where the old witch lives, and perhaps the Princess is still alive.”

“But how can we get this horse?” asked the King.

“Ah! that is the hard part,” answered the wise man. “The enchanted
creature can only be caught and mounted by one who can feed him with
the magic corn, and it is said that any one who tries to gather the
corn from the field of pearls finds himself sinking, and has to run for
his life, so that only the ogre, who knows the magic words that keep
the pearls from drawing him down, can gather the corn.”

When the King heard this he sent for all the princes in the land to
come to his palace, and when they came he told them he would give
to the one who could catch and mount the ogre’s enchanted horse his
kingdom if he could find the lost Princess Lily, and she should become
his wife.

But all the princes were rich enough, and did not care to take such a
risk, especially as they had never seen the Princess Lily.

Then the King sent out word to all the poor young men in his kingdom
to come to him, and he made them the same offer, but one by one they
turned away, and at last there was only a poor peasant youth left.

“I will try, Your Majesty,” he said, “but I will not marry the Princess
unless I can love her, and if she does not wish to marry me I will
not hold you to that part of the bargain, either, but I will take the
kingdom if I bring back your child.”

So that night the peasant boy went to a fairy that lived in the woods
and asked her to help him.

“You can only enter the field of magic corn by wearing the magic shoes
belonging to the ogre, and he sleeps with them under his bed. They are
tied to the big toe of his right foot by a silken thread, and no one
can cut it or break it without awakening the ogre.

“I will give you a feather, and if you are fortunate enough to enter
his chamber without being caught, for he is guarded well by a dog with
two heads, use this feather to tickle his left foot and you can cut the
silken thread without the ogre knowing it. This is all I can do to help
you. The two-headed dog is not in my power to control.”

So the peasant took the magic feather and that night he went to the
ogre’s castle in the woods and waited until he heard his snore, and
then he took from his pocket two big bones.

He opened the door to the castle, for the ogre was afraid of no one and
did not lock his door at night.

The two-headed dog growled and sprang toward the peasant, but he
quickly thrust the bones in the mouth of each and that quieted them.

The two heads began to eat, and while they were eating the peasant
crept softly into the room of the sleeping ogre and tickled his left
foot, which was sticking out from under the bedclothes.

The old ogre began to laugh, and he laughed so hard and loudly that
no other sound could be heard; and the peasant had time to break the
slender thread which was tied to the magic shoes with one hand while he
kept tickling the ogre’s left foot with the feather held in the other
hand.

When he had the shoes under his arm he crept softly away from the bed,
leaving the ogre still laughing.

The two-headed dog was still eating the bones, and the peasant went out
and sat on the steps of the castle to put on the magic shoes.

He had just drawn the shoes on when the two-headed dog finished the
bones and set up a bark that the peasant thought at first was thunder.

He ran to the field of pearls where grew the magic corn, and was just
pulling the ears when the ogre came dashing out of his castle, followed
by the two-headed dog, with both mouths wide open and looking as though
he would devour him.

Out of the field ran the peasant, but not before the ogre had entered,
and down went the ogre out of sight, the pearls closing over his
head, for, of course, he forgot all about his shoes when he heard the
two-headed dog bark, and anyway he thought they were tied to the big
toe of his right foot.

But though he was rid of the ogre he was not of the two-headed dog,
which ran after him, showing his two sets of big teeth and barking all
the while. But the peasant was far ahead of the dog, so he reached the
stable and fed the magic corn to the enchanted horse, who neighed in
the most friendly manner and let the peasant mount him.

He wore a bridle of gold and silver trimmed with rubies, and he was
pure white, with a saddle of purple velvet, with gold and silver
trimmings.

He was a horse fit for a king to ride, and the poor peasant looked
strangely out of place on his back.

Just as the peasant rode into the yard of the castle the two-headed dog
dashed at the hind feet of the enchanted horse to bite him, but the
horse kicked at him and over he rolled.

The peasant looked back to see what had happened to the dog, but he
was nowhere to be seen; in the place where he had lain was a big
black-looking rock with a ragged-looking top like a set of huge teeth.

The peasant was rid of both his pursuers now, and he rode off toward
the mountain where the King had told him the witch lived.

Up the mountain dashed the enchanted white horse, as though he had
wings instead of feet, and in a few minutes he had carried the peasant
to the top.

The peasant looked about him, expecting to see a cave, but to his
surprise he saw only a grove of trees with something glistening
through their leaves which looked like a house.

When he rode nearer to the grove he saw a deep-blue castle of glass
without doors or windows, and inside he could see a girl spinning.

She looked up as the shadow of the horse and rider fell on the glass
castle, and her eyes grew big with surprise, but before the peasant
could jump from his horse an old woman came up through the floor of the
house and tapped the girl on the head with her cane, and she turned
into a mouse.

The peasant was too astonished to move for a minute, but the laugh of
the old woman brought him to his senses and he knew she must be the
witch.

“Ha, ha! you caught the horse, but you cannot bring back the Princess
until I will it!” she screamed, and then disappeared through the floor.

The peasant walked around the blue castle, but no door or window could
he find, or an opening of any kind.

He was leading the horse by his gold bridle when suddenly it lifted one
of its front feet and struck the blue castle.

Crash! went the blue glass, and the peasant saw an opening large enough
for him to enter.

He was about to do so, leaving the enchanted horse outside, when he
heard another crash--the enchanted horse was following him in; it had
broken a place large enough for both of them to enter.

The mouse was crouching in one corner of the room and the peasant
picked it up carefully and put it in his pocket.

The horse went to the spot where the old witch had disappeared, and
tapped on the glass floor three times with one of his front feet,
and up from the floor came the old witch. But this time she was not
laughing; she looked frightened, and trembled so she had to lean on her
cane to keep from falling.

The enchanted horse took her by the dress and shook her three times,
and out from her pocket fell a black bean with a white spot on it.

As it dropped the old witch screamed and fell on the floor, and the
horse picked up the bean and swallowed it.

The peasant all this time was standing watching all the strange
happenings, not daring to move for fear of breaking the spell, and
wondering what would happen next.

As the horse swallowed the bean he seemed to shrink away from sight
and a blue mist filled the room. When it cleared the peasant beheld a
handsome young man where the horse had stood, and where the witch had
been was a deep hole.

“Did she fall into it?” asked the peasant, not knowing what else to say.

“No; in that hole we will find the magic charm that will restore the
Princess to her own form,” said the young man. “The witch disappeared
in the blue mist.”

“Let us hurry and find the magic charm,” he said, dropping into the
hole, and the peasant followed him.

There was a ladder down which they climbed, and down they went until it
seemed they would never reach the bottom.

But at last their feet touched something firm and soft and they stood
in a beautiful room on a carpet of blue velvet.

The room was hung with velvet the color of sapphire, and the chairs
were of burnished gold with velvet seats.

A gold fountain played in the middle of the room and the water fell
into a basin of sapphire.

“This is the magic fountain,” said the youth. “You must throw the
little mouse into it if you wish to bring back the Princess.”

The peasant took from his pocket the trembling little mouse. “It is
frightened,” he said. “I hate to throw it into that deep water.”

Without replying the youth grabbed the mouse from the peasant and threw
it with great force into the fountain and it disappeared from sight.

“Oh, you have killed it!” said the peasant, looking into the deep-blue
water with frightened eyes.

Then he saw a head rise slowly from the bottom of the blue basin; then
it came above the water; and then a beautiful girl stepped from the
fountain, her golden hair all wet and glistening.

A soft warm breeze came through the windows and soon her hair and
clothes were dry, and the peasant thought he had never seen any one so
beautiful as the Princess.

“I am the Prince who was changed into the horse for the ogre,” said
the youth, addressing the Princess. “I was stolen at the same time you
were and the ogre who was the husband of the witch took me and the
witch took you, but this youth has rescued us, for it was here that
the magic bean was kept that restored me to my own form, and if it had
not been for a fairy who came to me one night and told me the secret I
never should have regained my own form.”

All the time the Prince was speaking the peasant saw the Princess
looking at him with loving glance, and he knew the Princess was not for
him, and besides that he knew he never would be happy in a palace.

They began to look about and found they were in a beautiful palace that
the old witch had lived in, but, now that she was gone for good, the
peasant said he would take it as his reward and let the Prince and the
Princess return to her father.

In the stables they found beautiful white horses, and on one of them
the Prince and Princess rode away after making the peasant promise to
come to their wedding and to dance with the bride. “For we will never
forget you,” said the Princess, “and we must always be friends.”

The father and mother of the Princess listened to the story the Prince
told, and then the Queen said: “I can tell whether this is my lost
child or not. Let me see your left shoulder; she bears her name on
that shoulder if she be our child.”

The Princess bared her shoulder and there the Queen saw a tiny lily
which proved she was her child.

The King gave a great feast in honor of his daughter’s return, and the
Prince and Princess were married; and the peasant danced at the wedding
as he promised.




[Illustration]

NARDO AND THE PRINCESS


Once there lived a king who had two sons, and, though they were twins,
they were as different as if they had been strangers.

Nardo was kind and good, while his brother Stephen was greedy and
selfish, never doing any one kindness.

One day there came to the King’s gates an old beggar man who asked for
a night’s lodging and food.

The brothers were standing near and Stephen told the servants to close
the gates, that a palace was no place for beggars.

“Stop,” said Nardo to the servant; “a palace is just the place for
beggars. Brother, we have a plenty and to spare; let the poor man
enter.”

The beggar thanked Nardo and said: “You shall never regret your
kindness. Wear this ring, and whenever you wish for something money
cannot buy you shall have your wish.”

Nardo put the ring in his pocket and forgot all about it until he fell
in love with a beautiful princess, and, like all lovers, he was afraid
she did not love him.

Then he remembered the old beggar man and the ring, and put it on and
wished for the love of the beautiful Princess.

It happened that Stephen also loved the Princess, but he knew she did
not love him, and, seeing the ring the old beggar had given Nardo on
his hand one day, he remembered what the beggar had said when he gave
his brother the ring.

“I must have the ring,” said Stephen. “Then I will have the love of the
Princess; besides that, her father, the King, is old, and when he dies
I shall be king in his place.”

But it was no easy matter to possess the ring, for Nardo was as big and
strong as Stephen. There was no way to get the ring from off his finger
unless he took it by force or could get some witch to weave a spell
over him.

And all this time the beautiful Princess was in love with Nardo. Had he
only known it, he needed no magic ring to win her love for him.

One night after trying in vain to get the ring Stephen went to an old
witch who lived in a cave by the sea and asked her to get the ring for
him, promising to make her rich if she would get it.

The witch was greedy for gold, so one night while Nardo slept she
crept into the palace, aided by the wicked Stephen, and cast a spell
over Nardo, which made him forget the ring and also his love for the
beautiful Princess.

Stephen, with the ring on his finger, felt that all was easy now, and
he promptly forgot all about the old witch and the gold he promised her.

The beautiful Princess looked with sad eyes upon the now cold and
indifferent Nardo, and, while she did not love Stephen, she felt each
day that she was being drawn to him, though she knew well enough she
did not love any one but Nardo.

The old witch, however, helped the Princess out of part of her
troubles, for when she found that Stephen did not intend to give her
the gold, she waited for him one day in the palace grounds, hidden
behind a clump of bushes, and when he came out for a walk she pointed
her lean fingers at him and placed him under a spell which made him
follow her to her cave by the sea.

Here she chained him to a rock and put a dragon to watch that he did
not escape; but while the Princess escaped marrying Stephen, he still
possessed the ring which kept Nardo from remembering he had ever loved
the Princess.

One night when the Princess was sitting in her window looking at the
moon and sighing over her lost lover and his love she saw a nightingale
caught by its wing in a tree.

The tree was so close that the Princess had only to reach out and
rescue the poor bird and set it free.

The nightingale, in gratitude for its life, began to sing so sweetly
that the Princess exclaimed, “Oh, sing each night by my window,
beautiful bird, that I may for a little while at least forget my
sorrow.”

The hour of midnight was just then striking, and as the last stroke of
twelve died away the nightingale changed into a fairy.

“I am powerless to use my magic until the hour of midnight strikes,”
said the little fairy. “I have chosen to become a nightingale until
then, and the Queen will not give me the power of a fairy until I
change my form to one.

“If it had not been for your kindness I might never have become a
fairy again, for the nightingale’s wing would have been broken, and no
imperfect creature can reclaim its form, once it has changed from a
fairy.

“If I can help you, tell me and I will go to the Queen and ask to
remain a fairy, and then no matter how hard the task you set I am sure
I can make you happy.”

Of course, the Princess did not know about the magic ring, and she
could only tell the fairy how once she had felt sure that Nardo loved
her and then suddenly he had changed and would not notice her at all.

The fairy listened to the Princess and told her not to worry; that she
was sure there was something wrong; that Nardo still loved her, and at
midnight the next night she would return, and away she flittered in the
moonlight, leaving the Princess happier than she had been for many a
day.

It took the fairy but a short time to unravel the mystery, and the next
night when the Princess went to her window she found the little fairy
waiting for her, perched on the sill.

“Do not grieve, my Princess,” said the fairy. “Nardo still loves you;
it is all the work of his wicked brother Stephen, who loved you, too.”

Then she told the Princess the story of the ring and how Stephen had
got the old witch to get it for him, and that if he had given her the
gold he would have married the Princess in spite of all she could have
done.

“But if Nardo still loves me, why does he keep away? Why does he not
tell me of his love?” asked the Princess.

“He will, my dear Princess, when he remembers,” said the fairy, “and
there is where the difficult part comes in.

“We must get the ring or the stone. It is only the stone that holds the
charm, but that is still on Stephen’s finger, and to get near to him
the dragon must be overpowered.”

“Oh! I will send all my father’s soldiers,” said the Princess; “they
can kill the dragon, I am sure.”

“Not a dragon that belongs to a witch,” said the fairy, “and if my plan
works, and I think it will, we shall not need soldiers. I will be back
before the sun rises. Wait for me.”

Away went the fairy to her Queen and again asked to be changed into a
nightingale. “It is to help some one in trouble, dear Queen,” she said,
“and never again will I ask to change my form.”

The Queen granted her wish and away flew the nightingale toward the
sea, where lived the witch and the dragon.

When she was near the cave she began her sweetest song, and as she flew
nearer she sang more sweetly and softly until she alighted on a tree
right over the rock where lay the dragon and the sleeping Stephen.

The eyes of the dragon were wide open, watching on all sides for any
one who might dare attempt to rescue Stephen.

When he heard the sweet tones of the nightingale the dragon raised its
head and looked around, but, seeing only a bird perched over his head,
he had no fear. Softly, sweetly, the nightingale trilled and sang its
soothing song until at last the dragon began to nod its head, and after
a while it dropped to the ground, fast asleep.

The poor nightingale was so worn out with singing so long that it
hardly had strength to fly down to where Stephen was sleeping.

Very carefully it did so with only a soft waving of its wings, and then
its bill plucked from the ring on Stephen’s hand the red stone, and off
it flew with the stone held tightly in its bill.

Only once did it stop, and that was to sip a drop of dew from a
rose-bush where it alighted to rest, and then on it went to the palace
where Nardo was sleeping and flew through the window of his bedroom.

Nardo’s hand was open on the pillow beside his face, and into his hand
the nightingale placed the red stone and flew away to the Princess.

“Your lover will be here with the sun,” she said, “and as it is not far
from that time I must fly to my Queen.

“Farewell, my kind Princess. May you be happy with your Prince, and if
you are as good and kind as a Queen as you were when a Princess I shall
never regret my night’s work.”

The Princess thanked her again and again, but the fairy was away before
she had finished, and just then the sun peeped through the trees and
at the same time the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard coming along the
road.

The Princess’s cheeks grew red, for she knew it was her lover, and when
she reached the palace door there he was just riding up.

When the spell was broken for Nardo it released poor Stephen from the
power of the witch; the sea rolled in and the wind shrieked among the
trees and the next thing Stephen knew he was running through the forest
toward his home.

Of course, he was too much ashamed to tell of all that had happened to
him and said he had been hunting in the forest and lost his way; and
Nardo and the Princess kept his secret and did not let him know they
were aware of his treachery, and as he grew to be a better man as the
years went by, they were glad they did.




[Illustration]

OLD THREE HEADS


Once upon a time there was a little girl named Lucy. She was always
opening doors and looking into rooms that did not belong to her, and it
made her appear very rude.

One day Lucy was sent to the woods to gather berries, but instead of
filling her basket as she should have done she walked about, looking
behind rocks and trees, thinking that she might find an opening in some
of them.

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” said a squirrel, as he ran past
her.

“I wonder what he means,” she said. “I must keep on looking, for
somewhere around here Old Three Heads must live, or the squirrel would
not have said ‘look out,’ and I want to see what he is like.”

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” called a bird from the limb of a
tree.

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” called a rabbit as he ran into
his hole.

“I wish some one would tell me where Old Three Heads lives,” said Lucy,
“instead of just saying look out for him.”

Just then she came to a path which led through thick bushes.

“I will see where this leads,” she said. “Perhaps it leads to Old Three
Heads’ house.”

Lucy walked along the path and soon she saw a castle standing among
the trees. Most little girls would have hesitated about going into a
strange house, but Lucy’s curiosity was so great she thought only of
seeing the inside of the castle. She walked up the steps and opened the
door. The hall was long and dark, but she was not afraid. So she closed
the door and walked along.

There were many doors on each side of the hall, and Lucy opened one
and looked in. In one corner of the room was a horse with three heads.
“What a queer place to keep a horse!” thought Lucy.

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” said the horse, shaking all
three heads and looking sad.

“How did you get three heads?” asked Lucy.

“I looked in the window one day when Old Three Heads was eating his
dinner, and he saw me. You better look out,” he warned her again.

Lucy thought of the other doors and decided to keep on, for she was
very anxious to see what was behind all of them.

She opened another door and a three-headed cat ran toward her. “You
have only one head!” said the cat, in a tone of surprise. “You better
look out for Old Three Heads.”

“I am not afraid,” said Lucy, as she left the room and opened another
door. In this room was a three-headed dog. He looked at her and said,
“Better look out for Old Three Heads; you will find him if you keep on
opening doors.”

“I want to see him,” answered Lucy. “Where is he?”

“You better run while you can,” said the dog, “but you will find him if
you keep on, and then you will wish you had taken my advice.”

But Lucy only laughed and went to another door. In that room she saw a
three-headed cow.

“What a queer place!” she said. “I never saw animals living in a house
before. Why are the animals kept in the house?” she asked the cow.

“We belong to Old Three Heads,” replied the cow, “and every creature
that comes in this castle has three heads. You better look out for Old
Three Heads,” she warned her.

“Why did you come in, if you knew you had to wear three heads?” asked
Lucy.

“We wanted to see what was in here, just as you did,” replied the cow.
“The cat found the door open and she walked in to look about; the dog
saw her enter and he followed. Old Three Heads saw them. You better
look out,” she warned Lucy again.

But Lucy was more curious than ever, and she kept on with her questions.

“How did you and the horse get three heads?” she asked. “You did not
walk in the door, did you?”

“Not at first,” answered the cow. “The horse put his head in the window
one day when it was open and Old Three Heads saw him.”

“And you,” asked Lucy again, for the cow stopped and hung her three
heads, “what did you do?”

“I saw some green corn on the window-sill,” the cow confessed, very
slowly, “and I put my head in the window to get it and Old Three Heads
saw me.”

“What happens when he sees you?” she asked.

“Wait and see,” replied the cow. “But I have warned you; you’d better
look out for Old Three Heads and run while you can.”

As that was all the information she could get from the cow, Lucy told
her she would find out for herself how they all got their three heads,
and she went to the next door and opened it.

The room was dark, and at first Lucy could not see anything, but some
one said, “Who-who,” and as the sound came from a corner of the room
Lucy went in and looked about.

As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she saw perched on the
back of a chair an owl with three heads.

“Well, of all things!” exclaimed Lucy. “How did so wise a bird as you
happen to be caught by Old Three Heads?” she asked.

“Who-who are you?” stuttered the owl. “You-you better look out for Old
Three Heads,” he warned Lucy.

“Tell me how it happened that you have three heads,” asked Lucy,
ignoring the warning as she had before.

“Who-who are you?” stuttered the owl again.

“I am a girl,” said Lucy. “Can’t you see?”

“Bet-bet-better look out,” warned the owl again.

“Oh dear!” said Lucy. “You are worse than the others. I am going to
find Old Three Heads and find out, if I can, how all of you got three
heads.”

“Who-who,” said the owl as she went out of the room.

Lucy opened another door, and there on the throne in this room sat a
giant with three heads. She had found Old Three Heads at last.

For the first time since she entered the castle Lucy was frightened
when she saw the curious-looking creature; but there was no chance to
escape; it was too late.

The giant looked at her a second, and then he called out to his
attendants, who all had three heads but were much smaller men: “Bring
the intruder before me.”

“Bring two heads,” he said, when Lucy stood before him.

When the heads were brought one had black hair and one red.

“I do not want those heads,” said Lucy; “they do not match my hair.
Can’t I have two golden-haired heads?”

“Those are all I have,” said the giant, “and you will have to wear
them. On with them,” he said, and the attendants fastened the heads on
Lucy’s shoulders, one on each side of her own head.

“I wish I could see myself,” said Lucy, still curious.

“Take her to her room,” said the giant, and Lucy was taken to one of
the rooms that opened out of the long hall.

When she was alone she looked around the room and saw a mirror hanging
on the wall. She ran and looked into it. The new heads looked very
cross.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Lucy.

“I do not like red hair or light hair,” said the dark-haired head.

“And I do not like dark hair or light hair,” said the head with red
hair.

“I cannot help that,” said Lucy. “I did not want either of you.”

“I will not stay here,” said the dark-haired head.

“Neither will I,” said the head with the red hair.

And they began to pull away. Lucy bent first to one side and then to
the other, with the pulling of the quarrelsome heads.

“Do keep quiet,” she said at last. “I am sorry I said anything about
the color of your hair. If you will be good I’ll try to get you
something nice to eat.”

This plan quieted the heads, and Lucy went to the door. It was not
locked, and she opened it and went out.

First she went to the room where the horse was.

“Horse, can you tell me where I can get something to eat?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the horse. “Go to the fireplace and call up the chimney.”

“I want my dinner,” Lucy called.

Down came a table with food upon it and a chair standing beside it.
Lucy seated herself and began to eat.

Then the trouble began; every time she raised the fork to her mouth the
dark head or the head with red hair would stretch out their necks and
take the food from the fork before Lucy could get a chance.

The new heads quarreled because each thought the other was getting more
than its share.

Lucy put her fork and knife on the table in despair. “You are a pair of
greedy heads,” she said. “I have not had a bite.”

“It is all your fault,” said one; “you should not have got us.”

Lucy went into the room where the cat was and asked her if she would
tell her where she could get something to drink.

“Rap three times on the wall,” said the cat.

Lucy tried this and a cup appeared filled with water. Lucy tried to put
it up to her lips, but the head with the red hair reached it and drank
all the water.

Lucy rapped again, and another cup appeared, and this time the head
with dark hair reached it and drank every drop of water before Lucy
could stop it.

She tried several times, but each time the greedy heads drank it
before she could get her lips to the cup.

She went into the room where the dog was kept.

“Where can I find a comfortable chair and a book?” she asked.

“Tap on the floor three times,” the dog said.

Lucy did as he said, and a chair appeared, and beside it a table filled
with books. Lucy opened one of the books and looked at the pictures.

“I cannot see them,” said the head with the red hair. Lucy moved the
book to one side.

“I should think you would remember that you have three heads,” said the
head with the dark hair. “How do you expect me to see if you keep the
book over that side?”

Lucy moved the book to the other side, and then the head with the red
hair began to fuss again.

“Oh dear!” said Lucy. “You are the most selfish heads I ever saw. I
will go to the cow and see if she can help me,” she said.

“Where can I find a bed?” she asked the cow. “These heads have just
tired me out.”

“I will get you one,” said the cow. “Moo, moo!” she called up and from
the floor came a bed.

Lucy lay down upon it. “I do not want to go to sleep,” said the head
with dark hair. “I do,” said Lucy. “I am tired and I am going to sleep;
you can stay awake if you wish to.”

“I do not feel tired,” said the head with red hair; “I feel like
singing,” and it began to sing so loudly that Lucy had to get up.

“I’ll go to the owl and see if he can help me,” she said, as she went
out of the room.

She went into the room where the owl was and opened the window. The owl
hid its three heads.

“You are such a wise bird,” she said to the owl, “I wish you would tell
me what to do with these new heads; they quarrel all the time.”

“Who-who!” said the owl.

“I cannot understand how any one could ever think you were wise,” said
Lucy; “all you can say is who-who. I wish I could be rid of these
troublesome heads.”

“Why don’t you, then?” said the head with red hair. “We come off if you
pull hard.”

“I never thought of that,” said Lucy, pulling at the head with red
hair.

Off it came and flew through the window.

Then she tried the other and it came off and followed the other through
the window.

“Would you like to be rid of your extra heads?” Lucy asked the owl.

“Who-who,” answered the owl.

“You silly bird!” said Lucy, pulling at his extra heads. Off they came
and followed Lucy’s heads.

“Let’s go to the cow,” said Lucy, “and take off her heads.”

The owl tried to follow her, but bumped against the wall and fell to
the floor.

“Oh, I forgot that you could not see in the daytime,” said Lucy. “I’ll
put you on my shoulder,” she said, picking him up from the floor.

“Would you like to get rid of your extra heads?” Lucy asked the cow.

“Of course I would,” she said. “How did you get rid of yours?”

“I will show you,” said Lucy, pulling at the cow’s extra heads. Off
they came and out the window they flew.

“Well, I never should have thought of that,” said the cow.

“Let us go to the cat and the dog and the horse,” said Lucy, “and help
them to get rid of their troubles.”

Each of them said they had never thought to try pulling the extra heads
off, and they were very grateful to Lucy for helping them.

The heads all flew out of the window and that was the last that was
ever seen of them.

“I think we should get out of this place as soon as we can,” said Lucy.
“Old Three Heads might get us again.”

They hurried out of the house and soon were in the woods a long way
from the castle.

“Did Old Three Heads get you?” asked the animals they met in the woods.

Lucy told them he did. “But he will not bother you,” she said, “if
you keep away from his house, and I warn you that three heads are a
nuisance, and you may not be so fortunate as we have been in escaping
from them.”

“Did you have to feed them all?” asked a squirrel.

“Yes,” answered Lucy, “or at least I tried to, but they quarreled so
that I had to go without.”

“I will never go near Old Three Heads,” said the squirrel. “I have all
I can do to take care of one head.”

“I have had my lesson,” said Lucy. “I shall never look into rooms again
when the door is closed, for one head is all I care to have.”




[Illustration]

THE ENCHANTED BOAT


Once there was a King who had a very beautiful daughter, and when the
Queen died the King married a woman who had a son named Tito because he
thought this new Queen would be kind and good to the Princess.

But in this the King was greatly mistaken, for the Queen thought only
of her son and wished to make him King.

She told the King that if he would make the Princess marry Tito that he
need have no fear about the future of his kingdom, for he could be sure
her son would make a good king.

“And a woman should not be Queen and rule alone such a big kingdom as
you possess,” said the scheming Queen.

The King, who thought more of his daughter’s happiness than anything in
the world, called the Princess and told her of his plan. “Marry your
stepmother’s son and all will be well with you and I can die happy,” he
told the Princess.

But the Princess did not want to marry Tito, for she did not love him,
and when she found that her father would not listen to her pleadings,
but told her that very night she should wed Tito, the little Princess
ran out of the palace and threw herself face down on the grass and wept.

When it came time for the wedding she was nowhere to be found, and
though the palace and the gardens were searched, it was all in vain.
The Princess had disappeared.

What had happened was that while the Princess was crying and bemoaning
her sad lot she heard a sound, and when she looked up there was a lake
she had never seen at the foot of the garden, and on it a beautiful
boat with a sail of silk the color of gold.

There was no one in the boat, and the Princess, forgetting her sorrow
in her wonderment at this strange sight, ran down to the water’s edge,
where another surprise awaited her. For the boat came sailing straight
to the place where she stood.

The Princess stepped in, and away went the boat out over the blue
water, and in a few minutes she was in a country she had never seen
before.

The little Princess was not frightened, for she felt sure nothing worse
could befall her than if she stayed at the palace and had to marry
Tito, and, while she was sorry to leave her father, she could not be
happy with a man she did not love.

The lake led to a river, along the banks of which were high hills and
beautiful woods, and the Princess was so lost in admiring the beauty of
the scene she did not notice they were approaching a castle until her
boat sailed under a white marble bridge, which soon brought her at the
steps which led into the garden of the castle.

Here the strange boat stopped and the Princess knew she was expected to
get out.

She walked up the steps into a garden filled with pink and white roses,
with a fountain of pearl and gold in the center which threw a perfumed
spray all about, which filled the air with fragrance.

There were no paths in the garden, but the grass was like green velvet
and yellow birds flittered among the small green trees and sang sweet
songs.

Through the roses and trees the Princess saw the entrance to the
castle, and on the broad steps of marble and gold came a queer-looking
creature followed by more servants than the Princess had ever seen in
her father’s palace.

The Princess did not feel at all afraid, although the strange-looking
creature had the body of a beautiful leopard, while his head was that
of the handsomest youth the Princess had ever beheld.

His hair was dark and as he came nearer to her the Princess saw that
his eyes were deep blue, the kindest eyes she had ever seen.

He held out one huge paw toward her and then withdrew it and said, “I
fear you will not care to take the paw of such a beast as I am, but I
can assure you I will not harm you, Princess.”

“I am not afraid,” said the Princess, putting out her hand, “but tell
me how you know that I am a princess?”

After the leopard-man had taken her hand he led her up the steps,
and as they walked along he told her that no one but a princess could
have entered the boat. “It had sailed for many a year in quest of the
princess who would be willing to sail away in it,” he told her, “and as
only a princess can help me, no one but a princess could get into the
enchanted boat.”

When the Princess and the leopard-man entered the castle he told her
his strange story. He was a prince who had been changed by a witch into
the shape she saw, and the only thing that could save him was a gold
root which grew far up on a blue mountain-peak.

“But that root must be brought to me by a princess and no one else,”
said the leopard-man, “so you see how impossible it is that I shall
ever regain my own shape.”

“If you will tell me where this blue mountain-peak can be found,” said
the Princess, “I will undertake the task, for I do not wish to return
to my father’s palace, and I would like to help you.”

“The enchanted boat will take you if you really wish to try,” said
the leopard-man, “but I fear it is a task you are far from fitted to
undertake, for no one can go with you; that would break the spell.”

The Princess, however, told him she would try, and at once set out on
the strange errand, the boat sailing along the river and then out into
the open sea.

By and by the Princess saw on the side of a high mountain, the top of
which was blue, something growing which shone like gold, and she knew
it must be the golden root for which she was seeking.

The enchanted boat sailed close to the foot of the mountain and
stopped, and the Princess knew she was to get out, but how was she to
reach the golden root which grew far up on the mountain?

The Princess stepped out of the boat on the rocks and sat down to
think what she could do, for to climb up the steep, smooth side of the
mountain was out of the question; if only she could fly she thought she
might reach it.

Just then she heard a swishing sound, and, looking up, she saw a big
eagle coming toward her with a broken leg.

The bird fell at her feet, and, as so many strange things had already
happened, the Princess did not feel afraid of the big creature, for
she felt sure that in some way he would help her.

“Oh, you poor hurt bird!” she said, tearing off a piece of her dress
to bind up its leg; then from a stream falling from the mountain she
brought in the hollow of her hand water for him to drink.

At night the Princess took off her cloak and covered the eagle, while
she huddled close to the mountain and behind a rock to keep the cold
from herself.

In the morning she was surprised to find the eagle had flown away, but
on the rocks was her cloak, and two feathers from the wings of the bird
lay beside it.

The Princess put on her cloak and took up one of the feathers, and to
her surprise the hand that held the feather flew up over her head.

She picked up the other feather with the other hand and up she was
carried, her cloak spreading out like a pair of wings.

With the feathers she guided herself until she alighted on the top of
the blue-peaked mountain.

She laid the feathers down and began to dig for the root which the
Prince had said was the only thing that could save him.

When she had enough of the golden root she again took the feathers, one
in each hand, and flew down to the water, where the enchanted boat,
which had sailed away when she left it, now stood waiting.

The feathers from the eagle she put carefully on the rocks, but the
bird was nowhere to be seen, and, knowing that it must have been a part
of the magic plan to help her, the Princess sailed away, feeling sure
the eagle was safe and his broken leg quite well.

When she reached the castle of the leopard-man he was on the steps to
meet her and without waiting to enter the castle he took the golden
root from her and tasted it.

The leopard body disappeared and there he stood before her, a tall,
handsome youth whom any maiden, even a princess, would fall in love
with.

The Princess told him her story and the Prince told her they would go
at once to her father and he would ask for her hand, for he had already
asked for her heart and found that it was his.

The enchanted boat took them back to the garden of the King, where
they found that the Queen, when she knew that her son had lost the
chance of becoming King when the Princess disappeared, had put the King
in a dungeon under the palace and she and her son had become the rulers
of the kingdom.

The Prince quickly undid all this mischief by setting the King free,
and when he found out how treacherous his Queen really was he sent her,
with her son, away from the palace and told them never to return or
they would both be put in prison.

He was a kind-hearted King and gave them gold to care for them the rest
of their days, and it did not take them long to leave the palace, you
may be sure, for already the wedding feast was being made ready for the
marriage of the Princess and her Prince.

The enchanted boat now was not needed, and that with the lake
disappeared, but when the Princess set out with her husband to go to
the castle she found that it was within her father’s kingdom that the
Prince had lived.

At the end of the castle garden where the Prince and the Princess live
is a long stone seat, and at one end grows a bush of golden flowers,
the like of which no one ever saw before, and at the other is the
figure of a big eagle made of gold and bronze, but only the Princess
and her husband know what these things mean.




[Illustration]

NICKO AND THE OGRE


Once upon a time there lived on the banks of a deep, wide river an ogre
who ate all the fish in the river, never letting the people who lived
in the town come near the river to fish.

And this was not all the ogre did. He would make such a noise when he
slept that all the children were frightened so they could not sleep at
night, and the people decided at last that something must be done.

One day a youth named Nicko said he would go to an old witch who lived
in the forest and ask her what could be done.

So to this witch the youth went. “There is only one way to get rid
of the ogre,” she told Nicko, “and that secret is known only to a
mermaid, who comes up from the river every night and sings to the ogre.”

Of course the ogre would see Nicko if he went to the mermaid when she
was singing, so he decided to have a suit made of green and silver that
would make him look like a huge fish and dive into the river, hoping in
that way to find the home of the mermaid and learn the secret she knew.

One night after the mermaid had finished her song to the ogre, Nicko
slipped from behind a rock where he was hidden, dressed in his
green-and-silver suit, and swam to the place he had seen the mermaid go
under the water.

Down, down he went, and just before he reached the bottom of the river
the mermaid turned around and saw him.

She had never seen such a beautiful big fish before and the silver
glistened and shone so in the moonlight that the mermaid was filled
with envy.

“Oh, beautiful fish, tell me where you got your shining coat! I must
have a dress like it at once,” she said, swimming along beside Nicko.

“I will tell you, beautiful mermaid, willingly, and I will bring you a
dress of wonderful brightness,” said Nicko, “if you will tell me how
the people who live in the river town can get rid of the ogre you sing
to every night.”

The mermaid no longer smiled when she heard this; her face looked sad
and unhappy.

“That can never be done; for the way to be rid of the ogre is beyond
my power, although I know the secret,” answered the mermaid; “but you
cannot help me.”

“Well, if I cannot help you, at least tell me how it could be brought
about that the river folk could be rid of their trouble.”

“A mortal must come to this river and live here,” said the mermaid.
“And he must marry me. Now you see how impossible it is for any one to
learn the rest of the secret, for who would marry a mermaid and live at
the bottom of the river?”

Nicko had fallen in love with the pretty mermaid at first sight, and
when he heard this he said: “Show me your home, pretty maid. Perhaps I
can help you, even if I am only a fish.”

To the very bottom of the river the mermaid took Nicko, and when they
stood on the white sand before her home of crystal Nicko said:

“Mermaid, I love you! Behold your mortal lover. Will you be my wife?”

As he spoke he threw off the green-and-silver costume he wore, and
there stood the mortal who had come to woo her.

The pretty little mermaid blushed and hung her head. “I did not know; I
could never have guessed you were a mortal,” she stammered.

“Of course you couldn’t,” said Nicko, almost forgetting why he was
there, he was so very much in love with the pretty creature. “Now where
shall I find your father?” he asked.

The little mermaid clapped her tiny hands, and from under the rock came
many little silver-colored fish, swimming all around her.

“Run quickly and tell the dolphin to find Father Neptune,” said the
mermaid.

Soon the water began to roll and tumble about, and Nicko saw swimming
toward them two sea-horses drawing a chariot in which stood a man
carrying in one hand a curious and big three-pronged fork.

“He is Father Neptune,” said the mermaid. “Ask him for me if you wish.”

“Well, young mortal, what do you wish here at the bottom of my river?”
asked Father Neptune.

At first Nicko did not know what to say, for Father Neptune was very
big and stern-looking; but when he saw the little mermaid swim up to
him and lean her head against his shoulder he took courage and spoke.

“I wish to marry your daughter,” he said, “and live at the bottom of
the river.”

Father Neptune began to smile. “The spell is broken for you, my dear,”
he said to the little mermaid, “and I am glad. I would have helped you
before this if I could, but it was not in my power.

“She is yours, mortal youth,” said Neptune. “I pronounce you man and
wife. And now we will see what can be done to get rid of that awful
ogre on the bank of the river. He has bothered me so much, I shall be
glad to have him gone.”

“Now we are married,” said the mermaid to Nicko, “I can tell you I
am not a mermaid at all, but a king’s daughter who was changed into
a mermaid to sing for the ogre because my father did not invite the
dreadful ogre to a feast at his palace one night.

“The ogre cast a spell over me which could be broken only when a mortal
should come to the bottom of the river and ask me to marry him, which
the ogre thought never could happen.

“Now it is my turn to have the ogre changed into another form, and if
Father Neptune will consent I will ask the old forest witch to change
him into a big rock in the middle of the river.”

“Very well, my dear,” said Father Neptune, “a big rock will be an
addition to my river, and when I run in here to rest my sea-horses will
have a place to play and my dolphins a place to sit.”

“Good-by, Father Neptune,” said the mermaid. “I shall no longer wear
this form after to-night, for when I touch the land I shall be a mortal
again.”

“I will take you to the shore,” said Father Neptune; “jump in, both of
you.” It took only a minute for the sea-horses to dash to the top of
the river, and another for them to bring the chariot to the bank of the
river near the forest.

Nicko jumped out and lifted the little mermaid to the ground, which she
no sooner touched than before him stood a beautiful young girl on two
dainty feet.

When he looked around Father Neptune was gone and the Princess (for we
must call her so now) said: “We must hurry to the witch and tell her
before sunrise, or the ogre will have another day in which to bother
the river-town people.”

When the old witch saw the Princess she began to laugh. “Ha-ha!” she
said. “Now the ogre will be in my power. Leave him to me, my dear. I
will change him into any shape you wish.”

The Princess told her she wished him changed into a huge rock to be
placed in the middle of the river.

“Come along, my pretties; you shall see it done,” said the old witch,
clapping her hands as she spoke.

Up from behind the cave jumped a big broomstick, and on it hopped the
witch and the Princess and Nicko, and off they flew to the place where
the ogre sat fishing by the river.

When they were near enough for the old witch to touch him with her
crooked cane she leaned over and tapped him on the head and said:

  “In the middle of the river,
  To dwell there forever,
    A rock you shall be
    So all folks may see.”

A peal of thunder that shook the woods around was heard, and then a
loud splash.

When the mist of the splashing water cleared Nicko and the Princess saw
a huge black rock in the middle of the river, and the next thing they
knew they were flying through the air with the old witch again.

“Here is your home, Princess,” said the witch at last. “They will be
waiting for you and your husband, for I sent word you had been rescued,
and a feast is being made in honor of your marriage.”

Before Nicko or his bride could thank the witch she was far above their
heads and flying away.

The King and the Queen were overjoyed to have their daughter again and
gave Nicko such a welcome that he quite forgot his home by the river
and never returned.

But this did not matter, as he was an orphan, but no one thought of him
as being the cause of the ogre’s disappearance. The people in the river
town knew the ogre had gone, and they cared not who brought it about.

Nicko and the Princess lived happily ever after, and one day became the
King and Queen in the country where they lived.




[Illustration]

THE GINGERBREAD ROCK


Once there lived near a forest a little boy named Hans and his sister,
whose name was Lisbeth.

Their parents had died when they were tiny and their uncle had taken
them because he thought they could do all the work and so save the
money he would have to pay for a servant.

But this uncle was a miser and gave Hans and Lisbeth very little to
eat, so very little that often they went to bed very hungry.

One night when they were more hungry than usual, for they had worked
hard all day, Hans whispered from his cot in one corner of the room:
“Lisbeth, let us get up and go into the woods. It is bright moonlight
and we may be able to find some berries. I am so hungry I cannot go to
sleep.”

So out of the house they went, making sure their uncle was sound
asleep, and soon they were running along the path through the woods.

Suddenly Hans stopped and drew Lisbeth back of a tree. “Look!” he said,
in a whisper, “there is smoke coming from the side of that great rock.”

Lisbeth looked and, sure enough, a tiny curling smoke was coming from a
little opening in the rock.

Very cautiously the children crept up to the rock and Hans stood on
tiptoe and sniffed at the smoke.

“It is a pipe,” he whispered into Lisbeth’s ear. “Some one is inside
the rock, smoking.”

“No one could live inside a rock,” said Lisbeth, creeping closer and
standing on a stone that she, too, might sniff at the curling smoke.

Lisbeth became curious when she discovered it was the smoke from a
pipe. “You could boost me, Hans,” she said, “and I could peep in and
see if some one is inside.”

Hans told her he did not think it was nice to peek, but Lisbeth told
him it was very different from peeking into a house, and so Hans
boosted her, for he was just as curious as his sister.

Lisbeth grasped the edge of the opening in the big rock with both her
little hands, when, to the surprise of both children, it crumbled and
Lisbeth lost her balance.

Over went both of them on the soft moss, and when they sat up Lisbeth
held something in both her little hands.

“It’s cake!” she said, with wide open eyes. “No; it is gingerbread!”
she corrected, as she tasted it.

And, sure enough, it was gingerbread; the rock, instead of being stone,
was all gingerbread.

Hans and Lisbeth forgot the smoke and their curiosity in the joy of
their discovery, and soon both of them were eating as fast as they
could big pieces of the Gingerbread Rock.

Hans and Lisbeth were not greedy children. So when they had satisfied
their hunger they ran off home without taking even a piece of the
gingerbread with them to eat the next day.

They were soon in bed and asleep, and if each had not told to the other
the same story the next morning they would have been sure they had
dreamed it all.

The next night they were hungry, as usual, and when the moon was well
up in the sky out they crept again and ran into the woods.

But this time there was no curling smoke to guide them, and they tried
several rocks before they found the gingerbread. For, strange to say,
the place they had broken away did not show at all and there were so
many rocks the children could not find it.

But at last Hans cried out with joy, “Here it is, Lisbeth!” and held up
a big piece of gingerbread he had broken off.

Lisbeth, in her hurry to get a piece, broke off much more than she
intended, and, to the surprise of both children, a big opening was
made, large enough for them to step through.

“Perhaps we may find out where the smoke came from,” said Lisbeth,
suddenly remembering the smoke they had seen the night before.

Eating as they went, both of them stepped inside the rock and walked
into a big room where, by the table, sat an old man asleep.

His glasses had tumbled off his nose and the pipe he had been smoking
was on the floor beside him, where it had tumbled. His lamp had gone
out and his paper had slipped from his hand.

Lisbeth and Hans looked at him and then at the gingerbread they held.
“It is his house,” said Hans.

“And we are eating it up! What shall we do?” asked Lisbeth, looking
very much frightened.

“Better wake him up and tell him,” said Hans, “and perhaps he will let
us bake some more and mend the place we have broken.”

“I’ll pick up his paper and pipe and brush up the ashes,” said tidy
little Lisbeth, “and you light his lamp, and perhaps he will forgive us
when we tell him we did not know it was his house we were eating.”

But instead of being cross when he awoke, the old man smiled at them
and asked, “Did you eat all you wanted of the gingerbread?”

Hans told him they were very sorry and that they did not know any one
lived inside when they ate the gingerbread.

“We will bake you some more and patch the place we made,” said Lisbeth.

“Right through that door you will find the kitchen,” said the old man.
“Run along, if you like, and bake it.”

And such a kitchen as Hans and Lisbeth found, for Hans went along, you
may be sure, to fix the fire for his sister!

The shelves and cupboards were filled with flour and butter and eggs
and milk and cream and meat and pies, cookies, puddings, but no
gingerbread.

“We will get breakfast first for the man,” said Lisbeth, “for I am sure
he must be hungry and it is growing light. Look out the window.”

To Hans’s surprise there was a window. Then he saw a door, and when he
looked out he found they were in a pretty white house with green blinds
and not a rock, as he had supposed.

Hans and Lisbeth became so interested in cooking they quite forgot
their own home or the unkind uncle who almost starved them, and when
the breakfast was ready they put it on the table beside the old man.

“I thought you would like your breakfast,” explained Lisbeth, “and now
we will make the gingerbread and repair your house.”

“After breakfast you may, if you like,” said the old man, “but first
both of you must eat with me.”

My, how Hans and Lisbeth did eat, for while Lisbeth had cooked only
ham and eggs enough for the old man’s breakfast, there seemed to be
quite enough for them all.

And while they are eating we will see what the miser uncle was doing,
for he had called the children at break of day and they were not to be
found.

It happened that the ground was damp and the uncle saw the prints of
their feet from the door to the road and along the road to the path in
the woods, and then the soft leaves and moss did not show where they
went.

Thinking they had run away and gone into the woods, their uncle hurried
along, calling their names at the top of his voice.

As he came near the Gingerbread Rock the children heard him and began
to tremble. “It is uncle,” said Hans. “He will be very angry because we
have not done our work.”

“Sit still,” said the old man as the children started to leave the
table, and, taking his pipe, the old man sat down under a little
opening like a tiny window and began to smoke.

Soon the children could hear their uncle climbing up outside, and they
knew he had seen the smoke just as they had the night before, and was
trying to look in.

Then they heard him tumble just as Lisbeth had when the Gingerbread
Rock broke off in her hands, and they knew he had discovered it was
good to eat, for all was still for a few minutes.

Nothing was heard again for a long time, and then the sound of some one
breaking off big pieces was heard, and when Hans and Lisbeth climbed
up, as the old man told them to do, and looked out of the opening they
saw their uncle with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

He was breaking off big pieces of gingerbread and filling the barrow as
fast as he could.

But when he had filled it he could not move it, for it was no longer
gingerbread, but stone he had to carry.

The old man motioned to the children to keep quiet, and he opened a
door they had not noticed and went out.

Just what he said the children never knew. But they soon found out that
instead of being poor, as they had thought, their miser uncle had taken
all the silver and gold their parents had left and hidden it in his
cellar under the stones.

The miser uncle disappeared and was never seen again, and the old man,
who was really a wizard, told them where to go and what to do with
their wealth. So they were happy ever after.

Of course, they never forgot the Gingerbread Rock or the kind old man.
But because he was a wizard they knew they would never see him again,
for fairies and witches and wizards are all enchanted and disappear in
a very strange manner.

“Our good fortune came to us because we tried to be kind to the old
man, I am sure,” said Hans one day, when they were talking about the
Gingerbread Rock.

“Yes, and because we wanted to repair the damage we had done he knew
we did not mean to do any harm,” said Lisbeth; “but I shall never eat
gingerbread again without thinking of him.”

“Nor I,” said Hans.




[Illustration]

PRINCE ROUL’S BRIDE


Once upon a time in a far-off land there lived by an ocean an ogre and
his wife.

Their home was a cave in a big white rock which was so white it shone
like a light even in the darkest night, and many a ship had thought it
a harbor in a storm and been wrecked by the shore where the ogre lived.

And this was the way he lived, because the ships carried rich cargoes
and the ogre lost no time in helping himself to all that he could find,
while the sailors were glad to escape in lifeboats when they saw the
dreadful-looking ogre, who was so big and strong he could lift a ship.

In the same country, miles and miles away from the ogre’s cave, lived
a rich king, who had a son named Roul, and one day while the Prince
was out hunting he passed in the woods a cabin where lived a poor girl
named Leta.

But while Leta was very poor she was also very pretty, and as the
Prince rode past he saw her at the window and raised his plumed hat and
smiled.

The next day Prince Roul again rode to the woods and this time he did
not pass Leta’s cabin. He stopped his horse in front of her door and
asked for a drink of water.

He had thought Leta pretty through the window, but when he beheld her
this time he completely lost his heart, and day after day he went to
the cottage and talked to pretty Leta.

After a while the King told his son it was time he was looking for a
wife, as he wanted to see him married before he died and know that his
wife was worthy to be a queen.

So the King gave a feast which lasted for weeks, and princesses from
far and near were asked that Prince Roul might choose for himself a
wife, for, as I said before, the King was very rich and all the kings
in the other countries were anxious, of course, to have Prince Roul for
a son-in-law.

But Prince Roul did not choose a wife from among the beautiful
princesses, for he was already in love with pretty Leta, and while
he knew full well his father would never give his consent to their
marriage, he was determined he would wed no one else.

On the last day of the feast the King told him he would have to choose.
“You have before you the beautiful women of the land,” said the King.
“Make your choice at once, and the wedding shall take place this night.”

“Father, you have not brought to me the most beautiful woman in the
world,” replied Prince Roul. “If you had I should have asked her to be
my wife before this.”

“What do you mean?” asked the King. “All the princesses in the land are
here.”

“Ah yes, that is true,” replied the Prince, “but the most beautiful
woman in the world is not a princess, as you think of them, but she is
a Princess for all that. Father, she is the Princess of my heart and I
cannot marry any other woman.”

Then the King made the Prince tell him who she was that he loved so
dearly, and when he learned Leta was a poor girl who lived in the woods
close by, he was very angry and told the Prince he should never wed
her.

All the beautiful princesses were sent home, and the angry King called
his servants to him and commanded that they should go to the woods and
find this girl who had upset his plans for his son.

“Find her and chase her out of the woods; drive her into another land
where the Prince will never find her,” he told them.

But the King had forgotten one very important thing, and that was his
son, for he should have made him a prisoner before he gave such an
order. This he did not do, and Prince Roul, who overheard what his
father had said, lost no time in jumping on his horse and making his
way to the woods ahead of the servants of the King.

“Jump up behind me,” he said to Leta when she came out of the cabin,
and away they rode, the feet of Prince Roul’s horse scarcely touching
the ground as they fled.

The King’s servants were not long in discovering that the Prince had
outwitted them, but they gave chase and away they went through the
woods, while poor frightened little Leta clung to the Prince, wondering
what it was all about.

On and on they rode, but to Leta clinging to her lover, it seemed they
flew over the ground and through the woods. She could see the bright
trimmings of the servants’ coats glistening in the sun, and she knew
they were gaining on them.

By this time Prince Roul had told her that his father, the King, had
tried to make him marry a princess, but that he would marry no one but
the girl he loved and that was herself.

When Leta heard this she was more frightened than ever, for she knew
now that she was the cause of all this trouble and that the servants
must be chasing them to take Roul from her.

Leta put her hand to her breast. Yes; it was there--the little paper
with the powder a fairy had given her a long time ago, because Leta
had left a beautiful rose on its stem she was about to pick when she
discovered a little fairy sleeping inside the rose.

“If you ever are in trouble, open this paper and throw the powder
around you,” the fairy had told her. “It will protect you from all
harm.”

Leta had never before needed protection, and she was not thinking so
much of herself now as of her lover, wondering what the King would do
if he did not obey him.

Just then the horse on which they were riding came to a full stop with
such force that Leta was thrown to the ground and the next thing she
knew over the side of a cliff leaped the horse with the Prince on his
back.

The ocean was below, but before the horse and his rider had reached it
Leta drew from her dress the magic powder and threw it over the cliff.

“Make the ocean dry,” she screamed as she threw the powder, and, to her
surprise, as she threw it over she went, too, and the next instant she
stood beside Prince Roul on dry land before a beautiful white castle
and the ocean was miles away.

The cliff over which they had gone was the white rock where the ogre
and the ogress lived, but when Leta threw the powder she had also
summoned the little fairy who had given it to her and she had changed
the big white cave into a castle.

When the King’s servants came dashing up to the cliff they saw nothing
of the Prince or his horse, and the bottom of the cliff was so far
below that they felt sure they had been destroyed, and they rode home
to the King with the sad news.

The King’s grief was deep and bitter, for he really loved his son very
much, and now when it was too late he cried out that he wished he had
let the Prince marry the girl he loved; if only he had him alive that
would be all he would ask.

The little fairy did not make herself visible to either Leta or
the Prince, but if they could have seen with fairy eyes they would
have seen the fairy flying ahead of them into the castle, touching
everything with her magic wand as she went.

When Leta entered the door, which was open, for they had called and no
one answered, she stood spellbound by what she saw.

The long white marble hall had a floor of silver and marble and the
doors were silver also.

The Prince, who was used to beautiful things, was quite surprised at
all the splendor, too.

Opening a big silver door, they entered a room hung with silver
and deep-blue curtains, and on a silver table Leta saw a big white
envelop. When she looked at it she read her own name.

Wondering who could have left it, she opened it and read: “Princess
Leta, this is your castle; it is the gift of the fairies who love
roses.”

“Your father will not object now to having me for the wife of his son,”
she said, with a blush, as she gave the note to the Prince, and then
they ran like two happy children through the beautiful castle that had
come to them so strangely.

In the deep dungeons under the castle they found all the wealth that
the ogre had taken from the ships, and after they had become used to
their new home they gave it all to the poor, and so the ogre’s stolen
wealth did not help him, and while it could not be given back to those
who had lost it, it did much good.

And what became of the old ogre and his wife, you are wondering. I will
tell you. When the fairy changed the cave into a castle she changed the
ogre and ogress into two big silver statues in the big hall, one at
each end, like huge mummies, holding a big light in their hands, which
lighted the long hall of the castle.

Then one day Prince Roul and Princess Leta rode away to the palace of
the old King, and when he saw his son he wept for joy and hugged him to
his heart, and Leta’s pretty face won the old King’s heart at once, so
they all lived happily ever after.

But while the old King wanted them to make the palace their home,
Prince Roul and Leta could not give up their white castle by the sea,
so part of the year they lived in the white castle, and when Prince
Roul grew old and his grandchildren begged for a story, the King told
them of Prince Roul’s bride and the wonderful leap they took over the
cliff which forms the back of the castle.




[Illustration]

SUNEV


There was once a poor peasant and his wife who had a very beautiful
daughter named Sunev. So beautiful was she that her hair rivaled the
sun in its golden brightness. Her eyes were like the blue sky and her
lips were so red that the roses beheld her with envy. Her skin was so
white and fair that the winter snow was not whiter. Her teeth were like
the pearls. And when an old witch named Zitna, who lived in the forest
near by, saw Sunev one day she became enraged because she was more
beautiful than her own daughter.

Witch Zitna had thought till then that her own daughter was the most
beautiful creature in the world, for the witch child was as dark as
Sunev was fair, and Witch Zitna wished the Prince of Esor, who was
looking for a wife, to wed her.

She knew that the Prince had sent out his servants far and near to look
for the most beautiful lady in the country for his wife, and if Sunev
were brought before the Prince of Esor her daughter would never be
chosen.

There was only one thing to do, and that was to entice the lovely Sunev
into the forest and there change her into the shape of an animal and
leave her to her fate.

The wicked Witch Zitna watched her chance, and one day, when Sunev
was sent into the forest to gather wood, Witch Zitna slipped out from
behind a tree and touched her with her magic stick, changing her into a
tiger.

Poor little Sunev was so frightened when she beheld her paws she fell
on the ground and began to moan and cry and all the birds and animals
of the forest came running to see what had happened.

The witch, in her haste, forgot to deprive Sunev of her power to talk,
so when the birds and animals wanted to know what was the matter she
told them she did not know, but something dreadful had happened and she
was no longer a girl, but a tiger, and was afraid to go home.

The birds and animals can understand any language, and, being now part
animal herself, Sunev had no trouble in understanding them.

“Do not cry,” they told her. “It must be the work of Witch Zitna, but
we will protect you, and when the hunters come we will warn you so you
may hide until they go. Eat the berries and nuts and we will find you
a nice place to sleep, so dry your eyes and some way may be found to
restore you to your own shape.”

Sunev did as the birds and animals told her, for there was no other
way, and soon she became fond of her forest home and all her new
friends.

Witch Zitna now proceeded to have her beautiful daughter seen by the
messengers of the Prince of Esor, and they carried her off to his
palace, sure they had found at last a wife that would suit their royal
master.

Of course the parents of little Sunev looked everywhere for her, but
she could not be found, and when they saw the tiger coming toward
them they fled, for they did not know that the beautiful and graceful
tiger-skin held their own child.

The Prince of Esor, when he saw the witch child, thought that she was
beautiful, but he had wished for a wife that was as fair, so he decided
to wait, and sent out his servants again to look for a lady with golden
hair.

Witch Zitna was enraged when she heard this, for she knew that until
her daughter was safely married to the Prince she was not safe.

The reason for this was that every night Venus, the goddess of beauty,
came to the forest to look for the graceful tiger the fairies had told
her about, for, while Sunev looked like a tiger, she had more grace and
beauty than a real tiger, though they are graceful, too.

Venus did not wish even a tiger to rival her in being graceful, so she
wanted to see this wonderful animal that she might learn from it more
charm.

One night Sunev was walking through the forest in the moonlight when
Venus, in the form of a tree, beheld her.

Knowing at once that the graceful tiger was a mortal changed, she
called her attendants, who were not far away, and, changing herself
back to her own beautiful form, she spoke to Sunev.

“What is your name, beautiful creature, and why are you in this form?”
she asked.

It was the first time any one but the birds and animals had spoken to
her since Witch Zitna had changed her, and poor little Sunev began to
cry for joy.

Venus soothed her and soon Sunev told her all she knew of her sad
plight. But when she told the goddess her name a flash of anger came to
the eyes of Venus.

“Old Witch Zitna has done this,” said the goddess. “She shall pay for
it, for, my dear, your name is mine spelled backward and you are my
godchild. Zitna knew she had much to fear in the beauty you possess.
Come with me!”

It did not take long to reach the cave of Zitna, for Venus had the
power of witches and fairies when she wished to use it.

“Come forth!” called Venus, when they reached the cave of Zitna. “Undo
your cruel work,” she commanded, when the trembling witch appeared in
the doorway of her cave.

In another minute Sunev stood in her own lovely shape before Venus,
who, instead of being jealous of the wonderful beauty she beheld, drew
Sunev to her and kissed her on her brow.

“You will always be the most beautiful woman in the land,” she said.
“Be you old or young, none shall compare with you.

“As for your daughter, Witch Zitna, you will never see her again, for
a mother who would treat the daughter of another as you have done this
beautiful girl is not the sort to have a daughter. I will claim your
daughter as well as Sunev for my godchild.”

Sunev did not know how they reached the door of her parents’ home, but
she stood there a short time after, and with trembling hands opened the
door.

Oh, how happy her father and mother were to have her again! The joy of
seeing her safe made them forget the time, and it was the trumpeting of
the Prince of Esor’s messengers that told them the day was far gone.

The messengers knocked at the door, and when Sunev opened it they knew
they had found the wife of their Prince.

Sunev’s father and mother were overcome with sorrow when the messengers
told their errand. They thought they had found their child, only to
lose her again, but the messengers told them they might go along to
the palace. So they all set out.

When the Prince of Esor saw the beauty of Sunev he knew she was the one
woman in the world for him, and without delay he ordered the wedding
feast to be prepared.

A wonderful gown of white and gold was brought from the royal
clothes-room, and a crown of pearls and diamonds was placed upon her
beautiful golden hair, and upon her dainty feet golden slippers and
silk stockings.

Her father and mother were not forgotten by the Prince, either. They
were dressed in clothes they had never even dreamed of and given a
palace near where Sunev and Prince Esor were to live.

But what had become of the beautiful witch child all this time, for, of
course, she was not to blame for the bad deed of Witch Zitna and should
not be made to suffer?

She was safe and happy, you may be sure, for she was surrounded by
every comfort and luxury in another part of the palace, and she did not
wish to become the wife of the Prince.

Instead, she loved one of the friends of the Prince, a noble lord who
had fallen in love with her, but did not dare speak his love because
he knew the Prince might choose her for his bride.

But when this noble lord heard a wife had been found for his Prince and
it was not the beautiful girl he loved, he told the witch child of his
love and they were married the very night that the Prince and Sunev
were married.

And it turned out that the witch child was not a witch child at
all, but had been stolen when a baby from a stork who was carrying
her through the forest to the home of a nobleman, for the goddess
Venus, true to her promise, took both of the beautiful girls for her
godchildren and had the fairies see that they were both made happy.

The witch child was given a pretty name, but her husband best loved to
call her the Queen of Night, because of her wonderful dark beauty.

Sunev was the Princess of Esor, of course, but the Prince called her
Princess Rose, and if you will spell Esor backward you will learn why.




[Illustration]

CILLA AND THE DWARF


Once upon a time there lived a king who had a very beautiful daughter,
and her suitors came from far and near.

Among them was a dwarf with a huge head and a very long nose. Of
course, no one expected the Princess to marry the ugly creature, but
the dwarf did, and when the Princess refused he flew into a rage and
said he would have her in spite of all she said.

At last the Princess gave her hand to a prince, but the night the
wedding was to take place the Princess was nowhere to be found. They
hunted high and low all over the palace, but no trace could they find
of her; even her wedding-dress disappeared, too. The Prince was in
despair and wrung his hands and cried out he would give to any one who
would find the Princess half of his fortune.

The King also said he would give half of his kingdom to the one who
would bring back the lost Princess.

Now, there was among the servants a little kitchen-maid named Cilla,
who loved the Princess because she always spoke kindly to her, and when
she knew her mistress was lost she resolved to find her at any cost.

So one night when all the people in the palace were sound asleep Cilla
stole out and went to a witch who lived in the woods and asked her to
help her to find the Princess.

“I can only help you a little,” said the witch, “as she is in the power
of one who is more powerful than I am, but this much I can do: Here
is a bean that will do magic work if used in the right way; whether
it will help you to find your Princess I cannot tell. The dwarf has
carried her off, and where he is I do not know.”

Cilla said she would take the bean. She thanked the witch and started
off through the woods to look for the dwarf, for she was sure he must
live in a cave.

For days she wandered until she was in the deep forest, and at last
she came to a high rock over which she could not climb.

Cilla sat down and leaned against the rock to rest, when, to her
surprise, she heard the sound of weeping. She looked all around, but
could see no opening except a big crack in one side, and this was too
small for her to get through.

She was just about to call out and ask who was inside weeping when she
heard some one coming through the bushes.

Cilla ran behind the rock and watched, and in a minute the dwarf came
bounding out of the bush and briers.

He carried in his hand an iron bar, and with this he opened the crack
in the rock, which was a door, and entered the rock, leaving the door
open behind him.

Cilla was a very brave girl or she would have stayed where she was, but
no sooner had the dwarf disappeared than she ran in after him.

He was standing beside a poor, half-starved-looking little white
rabbit, and Cilla heard him say, “Do you consent or will you starve?”

The little white rabbit only blinked and turned away, and then Cilla
saw something that made her start, for hanging on a ragged bit of rock
was the wedding-dress the Princess was to have worn the night she
disappeared.

Cilla did not wait to see more. She dashed toward the dwarf and grabbed
him by his long nose, and, giving it a hard twist, she cried out:
“Where is my mistress, you wretch? Where is she, I say?”

A very strange thing happened when Cilla gave the long nose a twist;
the dwarf howled like the sound of thunder, and instead of the dwarf
there stood before Cilla a huge toad that hopped away so fast she could
not see where it disappeared.

“You poor half-starved little rabbit,” said Cilla. “I wish I had
something to give you to eat, but I must hunt for my mistress first,
for I know she must be here.”

Then Cilla thought of the bean. “I’ll give you this,” she said to the
rabbit. “I am sure I shall have no use for it.”

When the rabbit swallowed the bean Cilla’s eyes popped wide open, for
there stood her mistress, safe and sound.

“Oh, Cilla, you have saved me! How ever did you think of twisting his
nose?” asked the Princess.

“Because it looked as if it were made to be twisted,” said Cilla, “but
how did you know the bean would change you back to your own form?”

“I didn’t, but I was hungry; that dreadful dwarf was trying to make me
say I would marry him by starving me. Some powerful witch had given him
the form of a dwarf, and if he could get a princess to marry him she
would change him into a man,” said the Princess.

“Was he a toad at first?” asked Cilla.

“Yes, it seems he was a toad in the cave of a powerful witch, and for
something he did for her she made him a dwarf; then he wanted to become
a man, and the witch told him if he would marry a princess and take her
into the palace to live she would grant his wish.

“He told me this before he had me changed into a rabbit, for he first
carried me off to the cave of this witch, who lives somewhere in this
forest, and I think we better hurry away before the toad gets to her
and tells her I have escaped.”

It took a long time to get out of the forest, but Cilla and the
Princess found the way and the Prince and the King told Cilla she
should have the promised reward.

“Now, what would I do with all that gold and half of a kingdom?” asked
Cilla. “All I ask is to have a nice little cottage and a cow near by
the palace where I can see my mistress every day.”

Of course Cilla’s wish was granted, and there she lived and was happy,
for she married the King’s gardener and became the mother of many boys
and girls who never tired of hearing how their mother rescued the
Princess from the bad dwarf.




[Illustration]

GRETA AND THE BLACK CAT


One day a woodsman named Peter was chopping down a tree when he saw
swinging from one of the branches a bundle. Dropping his ax, he climbed
up, and to his surprise, when he opened the bundle, he found in it a
baby girl asleep. Peter hurried home with the baby to his wife. “Look,
Martha,” he said. “I have found a baby girl to be a sister to our son
Robert. We will name her Greta and they shall grow up as brother and
sister.”

But Martha did not want the baby. “We have three mouths to feed now,”
she grumbled. “Why should we care for a child we know nothing of?”

But Peter would not hear of putting the child out-of-doors and so Greta
lived with Peter and Martha and grew up with Robert.

Poor little Greta had anything but a happy life, for Martha treated her
kindly only when Peter was in sight, and that was seldom.

Robert, seeing that his mother did not treat Greta well, began to order
her to wait upon him as soon as he was old enough and treated her as a
servant.

Greta had to weed the garden and bring in the water and the wood. She
had to wash the dishes and make the beds and do all the work excepting
when Peter was at home.

One day when Peter was going to the woods he told Robert to chop a pile
of wood in the yard and have it finished by the time he came home.

When Peter was out of sight Robert told Greta to chop the wood. “That
is what you are here for--to do the work,” said Robert. “You would have
been eaten up by the bears if we had not taken you in. Now go to work
and chop that wood.”

Greta began to cry and said she could not handle the ax; she was too
small. But Martha boxed her ears and told her she should not have any
dinner if she did not do as Robert told her.

Greta went to the woodpile and picked up the ax, but it was no use. She
could not chop the wood. And fearing a beating if she did not do it,
Greta ran away. On and on she ran until she came to a turn in the road
which led into a forest. Here she decided to stop for the night, and
she was just lying down by a rock when she heard a pitiful “me-ow.”

Looking in the bushes close by, Greta saw a big black cat holding up
one paw as though it was hurt. “Poor pussy!” said Greta, taking the cat
in her arms. “You look as unhappy as I feel. Let me bind up your paw.”

Greta tore off a piece of her dress and bound up the cat’s paw, and
then, to her surprise, the black cat spoke to her.

“Come with me and I will show you where to sleep. You will have to
carry me, for my paw is very painful,” said the cat.

Greta picked up the cat, too surprised to be frightened, and went
through the woods as the cat directed her.

When they reached a big rock with an opening in it the cat said: “Here
is my home. Take me in and you will find a place to sleep and food as
well.”

Creeping in on her hands and knees with the cat under her arm, Greta
found herself in a big room with a table in the center and on it plenty
of food.

In one corner of the room was a bed and on this Greta saw a
queer-looking old woman with a hooked nose.

She was asleep and did not notice them until the cat said, “Eat your
supper.”

Up jumped the queer-looking old woman when she heard this, for she was
the witch.

“You, and a mortal with you,” she screamed, as she reached for her
crooked stick.

Greta ran to the door, for she thought the old witch was about to
strike her; but the black cat, who was sitting on the floor near by
where Greta had put it, said: “Don’t you dare touch this girl; she has
saved my life, and from this hour you are in my power, for a mortal has
held me in her arms.

“If you would live call the good fairy that has been looking for me all
these years. I shall find her, anyway, but it will save time if you use
your magic power, and you will regret it if you do not obey me.”

When the old witch heard this she began to tremble and hobbled to the
door of the cave and tapped it three times with her crooked stick.

The rock opened so she could walk out, and Greta followed to see what
she did, for she was no longer afraid; she knew the black cat would
protect her.

The old witch gave a peculiar cry when she was outside, and Greta saw
the next instant a tiny creature dressed in pink gauze, holding a wand
of gold in one little hand, standing on a bush beside the old witch.

“Here I am, Witch Terrible,” said the fairy. “What can I do for you?
You must be in great danger or you would not have called for one of us.”

The cat when it heard the fairy speak ran out of the cave, limping,
and lay down in front of the fairy. “Help me, my good fairy,” said the
black cat. “I am the Prince for whom you have looked so long. The old
witch changed me into a black cat and took away my power to speak until
I was held in the arms of a mortal.

“I know her secret, and, though she dared not kill me, she wanted me
to die, so she turned me into the forest to starve, and if it had not
been for this girl, good fairy, the old witch would have had her wish
granted.

“When she changed me into a black cat she said I should never speak
until a mortal held me, and that I could not regain my own shape until
a fairy changed me, but something has happened since then, and to save
herself she obeyed me and called you, for I know her secret, and that
is why I did not have to hunt for you, my good fairy.”

The fairy touched the black cat with her wand and Greta saw in place
of the big black cat a handsome man dressed in black velvet, with gold
trimmings. “Now tell me the secret you know about the witch,” said the
fairy.

The old witch threw up her arms and cried for mercy. “Remember, I
called the fairy,” she said; “you would have hunted a long time if I
had not. Be merciful!”

“I shall not forget,” said the Prince. “This woman is only half a
witch,” he said. “She is part mortal, and every night at twelve o’clock
she has to become a mortal for an hour because she tried to change
a water nymph into a frog. The river god, the water nymph’s father,
called on a very powerful ogre, who was his friend, and the ogre was
about to change her into a rock, but she begged so hard he made her
half mortal and left her to her fate.”

“Which means she can never leave this forest,” said the fairy, “and as
she does many of her magic deeds at night when she rides abroad on her
broomstick she is not a very powerful witch.”

“Yes, that is it,” said the Prince, “and she does not want it known
among the fairies or the goblins or any of the magic-power folks. That
is the mercy for which she begs.

“I hope you will keep her secret, good fairy, for she saved me so much
time and trouble in calling you.”

“I will keep her secret from all but the fairies, but one of the fairy
family will come here every night to make sure no mortal has been
harmed by her, for some one might stray in here just as this girl did
and be changed into some other form.”

“I have one more favor to ask of you, good fairy,” said the Prince. “I
wish to make this girl my wife if she will marry me, and I would like
to have the proper clothes for a princess, so that I may take her to my
palace at once.”

“What do you say, my dear?” asked the fairy. “Will you marry the
Prince?”

Greta felt she must be dreaming, but she was sure she would love the
handsome Prince if she were awake, so she told the fairy she would,
and the next instant her ragged clothes dropped from her and she stood
before the Prince in a beautiful green velvet riding-habit, with a long
feather in her hat, looking every inch a princess.

That night a great feast was held at the palace of the Prince in honor
of his return and to celebrate their wedding, and the very next day
Greta and the Prince rode to the home where she had once lived to give
Peter a bag of gold.

“He was the only person who ever treated me kindly until I met you,”
Greta told the Prince, “and I shall never forget him.”

Greta was not recognized by Martha or her son Robert, for they little
thought the beautiful Princess was the poor girl that had once been
their slave. But Peter, who had loved her, looked after the coach as it
rolled away. “It looked a little like her,” he said, “but, of course,
it could not be.” Many gifts did Greta and the Prince send to Peter,
and in his old age he was given a comfortable house and plenty to eat,
and, though Martha and Robert shared his good fortune, they never knew
who sent it.

The Prince told Peter who the Princess really was one day, because the
poor old man had never ceased to sorrow because Greta could not be
found, but not a word did he tell of this to Robert or Martha, but kept
his secret all to himself as long as he lived.




[Illustration]

THE KNIGHT OF THE BRIGHT STAR


Once upon a time there lived a prince named Lorenzo. Although he was a
prince, he was quite poor and lived with his mother and one servant in
a mountain far from the land of his birth.

His father, the King, had been killed in a battle with another king,
who took away the wealth and the castles of the defeated King, leaving
Prince Lorenzo and his mother nothing of their former grandeur.

Prince Lorenzo grew up with a longing for vengeance in his heart, and
often at night his mother would find him gazing in the direction of his
old home as he stood alone under the stars.

“Son,” said the Queen-mother one night, “why do you gaze so intently
into the distance? Why are you so sad?”

“There is bitterness in my heart for my father’s enemy who has robbed
me of all the happiness and pleasure in the great world outside,”
replied the Prince.

“Let me go, mother, and seek my fortune, and I may be able to avenge
the wrongs done to you and me.”

“Vengeance does not belong to us, my son,” said the Queen-mother. “You
must not take upon yourself that which is not your right.

“Go out in the world and taste its pleasures, but keep your Star of
Hope as bright as those shining in the heavens over your head if you
wish for happiness.”

The next morning Prince Lorenzo started on his journey. He was dressed
in a shining suit of mail and sat upon a white horse with trappings of
silver. In the center of his helmet was a little silver star which his
mother gave him with these words:

“My son, may your armor protect you from all evil and may this star be
your guide. It is enchanted, for it was given to me by a fairy when I
was Queen and your father King.

“If ever it grows dim look into your own heart to find the cause, and,
finding it, cast it from you if you wish for happiness.”

Prince Lorenzo promised to look to the brightness of the little star
and rode away to seek his happiness.

After several days he came to a big city, the City of Pleasure it was
called, and those who lived there told him his armor was much too heavy
for one so young to wear.

“Cast it aside,” they told the Prince, “and we will show you the joys
of living.”

So the Prince listened and followed the people in the City of Pleasure
to a beautiful palace where merriment reigned, and laid aside his armor
for a lighter garb. One day Prince Lorenzo looked from the Palace
of Merriment and saw all around the castle men, women, and children
working, and on their faces the look of misery.

“Who are these creatures?” he asked his gay companions.

“Those are the toilers who make the money for us to spend,” was the
reply. “Look at us and forget these creatures and be merry.”

But the Prince could no more be merry; he remembered his Star of Hope
his mother had given him and hurried to find it.

Instead of the shining star he had left he found it dim and dull, and
then he remembered his mother’s words, “Look into your own heart to
find the cause.” His love of wealth and pleasure had driven out all
thoughts of others, and he had cared not how he gained these things, so
long as he had them.

“My selfishness has dimmed my Star of Hope,” said the Prince; “I must
leave the City of Pleasure and the Palace of Merriment, for this is not
happiness.”

He buckled on the cast-off armor and rode away. As he rode past the
toilers he threw among them all the gold he had gained while in the
City of Pleasure.

Far away from the city he rode, and found himself in the midst of
sickness and suffering.

Dismounting, the Prince ministered to the sufferers’ needs and forgot
all else until he fell asleep from exhaustion.

When he awoke his horse stood beside him, and in the moonlight the
little star shone brightly from its place in his helmet on the ground
at his side. Prince Lorenzo jumped to his feet and placed the helmet on
his head. He had tasted the joy of good deeds. He no longer looked for
pleasure in selfishness, and the bitterness of vengeance had gone from
his heart.

Back to his mother he rode with the little star shining. “You have won,
my son!” she cried as she met him. “All my love for you could not teach
you how to gain real happiness; selfish pleasure and love of vengeance
dull our Star of Hope, but only those who have learned the lesson for
themselves can know this.”

Prince Lorenzo was surprised one morning to see coming up the mountain,
where he and his mother lived, an army of brightly dressed soldiers.
When they came nearer he saw they were the soldiers that once had
served his father, the King.

“The King who wronged you is dead,” they told Prince Lorenzo, “and
before he died he made us promise to find you and the Queen and bring
you back to your kingdom, which he wrongfully took from you.”

Of course Prince Lorenzo and his mother rejoiced to know that once more
they would live in their former home, and lost no time in starting out
on the journey.

“Your Star of Hope has brought you through tribulations into peace and
happiness,” said his mother, “and all wrongs are righted, but if it had
become dulled by selfishness and vengeance, my son, we still might be
in the darkness of despair.”




[Illustration]

THE DOLPHIN’S BRIDE


One day there came through the woods that bordered on a big ocean a
poor little beggar girl named Nitta.

Nitta was crying; she was hungry and she did not know where to go, for
her aunt, who had a daughter of her own, did not want to support Nitta
and had turned her out-of-doors that very day.

“I am too poor to support you,” said the hard-hearted aunt. “You must
take care of yourself.”

Nitta’s father and mother were dead and there seemed to be no place for
her but the woods, so she wandered along until she came to the ocean,
and there she sat down to cry out her grief.

While she was crying a big dolphin poked his head out of the water.
“What are you crying for, little girl?” he asked.

Nitta was so surprised to hear the dolphin speak that she stopped
crying at once. “I am crying because I have no home,” she replied.

“I will give you a home if you will come with me,” said the dolphin. “I
need some one to take care of my house.”

“But I cannot live in the water; I should drown,” said Nitta.

“I would not ask you to come if you would drown,” answered the dolphin.
“But you must decide for yourself whether you could keep house for a
fish. There are no children to play with at the bottom of the ocean.”

“I shall starve if I stay on land, and I may find a good home,” thought
Nitta as the dolphin waited for his answer.

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“Then jump on my back,” said the dolphin, “and close your eyes; there
is nothing to fear. I promise you that.”

Nitta jumped on his back and closed her eyes. Over the waves they went,
and then suddenly Nitta felt the dolphin plunge under the water, and
down, down they went, and then next thing she knew the dolphin stopped
and said, “Here we are.”

Nitta opened her eyes, and instead of being in the water, as she
thought, she was in a beautiful garden in front of a beautiful house.
Up the steps the dolphin flopped, for, of course, he could not walk,
having no feet, and Nitta followed him.

He led her into a big hall hung with beautiful pictures and soft
carpets upon the floor upon which Nitta was almost afraid to step.

Nitta almost forgot her queer companion, she was so overcome with all
the grandeur she beheld.

On both sides of the long hall were many rooms, one of gold, one of
silver, one of marble, and the dolphin told Nitta she was to choose
which room she would care to have for her own.

“But you said I was to keep your house,” said Nitta; “a servant cannot
live in one of these beautiful rooms.”

“I did not say I wanted you to be a servant,” said the dolphin. “I want
some one to live here and care for the house, but not to do the work.”

Nitta chose a beautiful room hung in blue silk, with chairs of blue
damask and beautiful rosewood frames.

The ceiling was a darker blue, and all over it were dotted diamonds
that twinkled like stars.

The floor was covered with a blue velvet carpet, soft and thick, and
over it were scattered big pink roses which looked as if they would
crush when stepped upon, they seemed so natural.

There was a piano of rosewood at one end of the room, and upon this
Nitta was surprised to see the dolphin jump and with its fins begin
to play. Music such as Nitta never heard came from the keys, and so
enchanted was she that when the dolphin stopped playing Nitta ran to
him and put her hand upon his head.

“You poor fish,” she said, “it is too bad you are not a man. I wish I
were a fairy and could change you into a prince. This place is far too
beautiful for a fish to live in, and besides, you play such wonderful
music. How is it possible?”

“There is only one way you can help me, and since you wished to be a
fairy and change me into a prince,” said the dolphin, “I will see if
you will keep your word.

“Look behind the door and bring the sword you will find there, and I
will tell you the only way I can be freed from the spell of a witch who
hates me.”

From behind the door Nitta brought the sword. She found it had a
beautiful handle of gold and set with diamonds and pearls, but the
blade looked sharp and pointed and Nitta trembled as she held it.

“Now if you really are sorry for me,” said the dolphin, “and wish to
make me a prince, strike off my head.”

Nitta dropped the sword at the very thought of anything so terrible. “I
cannot do that,” she said. “You have been too kind to me.”

“That is the only way you can repay me,” said the dolphin, with a sigh.
“I see you did not mean what you said about wishing to be a fairy.”

“Oh yes, I do, indeed I do!” said Nitta. “I do not want to kill you,
but I will put you out of misery if that is what you want.”

She picked up the sword and swung it over her head; then she looked at
the dolphin, closed her eyes, and brought down the sword.

As it fell Nitta felt herself slipping away, it seemed to her into the
bottom of the ocean.

When she opened her eyes she saw a very handsome man bending over her.
“You are a brave girl,” he said. “You have saved me from a terrible
fate.”

“Where is the good dolphin?” asked Nitta. “Oh, I will never forgive
myself for killing him!”

“He is gone forever. I was the poor dolphin,” said the handsome man
at her side. “You broke the spell that held me, for the old witch who
changed me into the dolphin said I must remain one until a pretty woman
should strike off my head.”

“But why should a witch change you into a fish?” asked Nitta.

“Because I would not marry her daughter and make her a princess,”
replied the handsome man. “You see, I am a prince and I was waiting for
the girl I could love to appear before I would take my princess.

“And now I have found her. Will you become my princess?”

Nitta was already in love with the handsome man who had fallen in love
with her, and so they were married that very day in the wonderful
castle of beautiful rooms and lived happily ever after.




[Illustration]

PRINCESS DIDO AND THE PRINCE OF THE ROSES


Little Princess Dido ran away from her attendants every time she could,
and one day when she was walking in the forest with her servants she
hid behind a tree while they were talking, and before they had missed
her she ran down another path and was out of their sight.

When Princess Dido found herself alone she began to look about to see
if she could find any flowers, for she was very fond of flowers and was
never allowed to pick them herself; her servants did that for her.

“I can pick them myself now,” she said, laughing to herself to think
she had escaped from the servants, and she began picking all the wild
flowers she could find, walking along all the time and going farther
into the forest.

When it was sunset the Princess Dido found herself in the thick of the
trees and bushes, and she began to wonder why her attendants did not
find her and take her home; but the sun set and the stars came out and
still no one came, and Princess Dido felt tired and lay down among the
leaves and mosses and went to sleep.

When she awoke the moon was shining, and although she was in the forest
alone she was not afraid, for she did not think any one would harm a
princess, so she rolled over on her soft bed, thinking she would go to
sleep again, when something cold touched her cheek.

Princess Dido opened her eyes very wide then and sat up, and on a bush
beside her she saw a very small gold key hanging by a thread which
swung back and forth and half touched her face.

“I wonder what this cunning little key can fit,” said the Princess. “I
do wish I knew! I am sure I should find something nice. I believe I
will look about. I am not a bit sleepy, and the moon is as bright as
day.”

Princess Dido hunted everywhere among the bushes and rocks, and nothing
could she find, when, just as she had decided to go to sleep again, she
saw something shining on a tree, and there was a tiny keyhole that the
key just fitted.

She put the key in the lock and the tree opened like a door, and
Princess Dido stepped inside and closed the door after her.

She walked along a road which seemed to be just behind the tree,
but when she looked about she was not in the forest at all, but in
a beautiful country filled with flowers and tall trees, and in the
distance she saw a beautiful castle.

When Princess Dido came to the castle she saw fountains and more
beautiful flowers growing around, and there were birds of all kinds
singing in the trees.

“I suppose I must go to the door of the castle and let them know who I
am,” thought the Princess. “A princess ought to do that, I know, but I
would much rather stay in this beautiful garden and hear the birds sing
and look at the flowers.”

When the Princess knocked at the door no one answered, and after
waiting a short time the Princess opened the door and stepped inside.
All was still and she sat down and waited.

“I expect everybody is at breakfast,” thought the Princess. “I wish I
had something to eat. I didn’t have any supper, and I have not had my
breakfast, either.

“Yes, I am hungry and want my breakfast,” said Princess Dido, and,
though she did not know it, she had spoken right out loud, and as she
did so a table appeared beside her with her breakfast on it and a
bouquet of beautiful pink roses.

“I wonder where this came from. I didn’t see or hear any one,” said the
Princess.

But she did not wonder about it; she was too hungry. When she had
finished she walked along the hall, for, being a princess, she was in
the habit of going where she liked, and as she saw no one she did the
same here.

But there was no room opening out of the hall she was in, so the
Princess went up the stairs, and here again she found herself in a
large hall, but this was so beautiful she looked about her in wonder,
for it was a much more beautiful place than her own castle. The floor
was of opals and the walls were the same; the sunlight shining through
the windows made the most wonderful colors wherever it fell, and all
around the place were white roses, making the air sweet with their
fragrance.

There was another flight of stairs, and up these the Princess went. The
stairs were of silver, and on the next floor the Princess found herself
in a hall of crystal with roses all around; beautiful pink roses such
as she had never before beheld.

“Oh, how I wish I could pick them!” said the Princess as she went from
bush to bush, and to her surprise the roses nodded as if to tell her
she could if she liked.

Princess Dido broke one from its stem, and then another, and as the
roses still nodded she picked more until her arms were full.

But there was another flight of stairs, and these were of gold. So the
Princess walked up these and found herself in another beautiful room,
which was blue, the color of sapphires, and around this room grew red
roses.

But there was still another flight of stairs, and the Princess did not
stop long here, with her arms filled with the pink roses. She went up
the last flight and found herself in a hall filled with red, pink, and
white roses, but the walls were hung with soft gray silk and the floor
covered with velvet of the same color.

“Oh, how beautiful! I wish I could live here among the roses,” she said.

“You can, my Princess of the Roses,” said a voice, and from behind a
curtain stepped a handsome prince, dressed in a suit of gray velvet,
with trimmings of silver and pink.

He took from his head a hat with a long plume of pink and bowed low
before the Princess Dido, who had dropped her roses and stood blushing
as pink as the roses she had dropped.

“This is my castle, the Castle of the Roses,” explained the Prince,
“and I vowed I would never marry until I found a princess who loved my
roses as well as me, and you have proved you do by coming into all of
my rose-garden. Others have been here, but when they found only roses
in each room they never came to this floor.

“Behind these curtains is my palace. These halls of roses are but a
part of my private rooms. Will you stay, Princess, or shall I call the
fairies to take you back to your own castle?” asked the Prince.

“You may call the fairies to take the news to my people that I will
live in the Castle of Roses, with the Prince of Roses,” said Princess
Dido.

“But who hung the little gold key on the bush?” she asked the Prince.

“Oh! I asked the fairies to help me find a wife,” said the Prince.
“They hung it there. You see, we shall live in an enchanted castle,
as well as in the Castle of Roses, so there is nothing for us but
happiness.”




[Illustration]

CATVILLE GOSSIP


Mr. Tommy Kat was in love with Tabby Gray--at least so all the gossips
in Catville say, for Tabby was as graceful as a little kit can be. Said
Tommy, when he saw her, “She’s just the wife for me.”

But Tabby Gray was fickle, as sometimes kittens are; so she giggled
and told Tommy he would have to ask her pa. For there was big white
Tom Cat, with coat as smooth as silk, who often took her walking and
treated her to milk. He had told her he would give her a ribbon bright
of red, if she would only promise no other cat to wed.

Then there was Tommy Mouser, who by all was called a sport. He had told
her that he loved her, and once for her had fought.

And there was Tommy Black, the dandy of the town, who was called by
all who watched him the best dancer to be found.

He often danced with Tabby Gray, and frightened all the rest away; for
when he danced they all stood by and looked on him with jealous eye.

And Tiger Tom, another swain, who always said he felt a pain around his
heart when any other danced with her except her brother.

An admirer, too, was Tommy Buff; he said and vowed it was no bluff when
he declared he loved Miss Gray and in his heart she held full sway.

And there was Tommy Black-and-White, who said he sat up many a night to
serenade Miss Tabby Gray on the back-yard fence till break of day.

And Tommy, who was nicknamed Slim, said she was the only girl for him
and that his eyes had turned to green because another cat was seen to
walk with Tabby down the road. Since that his heart was like a load.

And so, you see, Miss Tabby Gray needed time these things to weigh, and
that was why she told Tom Kat her pa would have to answer that question
he had asked that night on the back-yard fence in the bright moonlight.

Said Tommy Kat as he looked at a star: “I don’t want to marry your pa.
Now why do you keep me here a-guessing when we might go round and get
pa’s blessing?”

Miss Tabby stretched and heaved a sigh, then on Tommy Kat she cast her
eye. He was handsomer, far, than all the rest, and she felt quite sure
she loved him best. But, like all others of her kind, she pretended to
make up her mind.

But Tommy Kat was a hasty fellow. He knew present time was always
mellow; so he told Miss Tabby ’twas getting late, and whisked her over
the back-yard gate. And before she knew where she was at they stood at
the door of Minister Cat.

In a minute more they came out married, for Minister Cat he never
tarried. He married off couples quick as scat, and for his fee he took
a rat.

The reception they held was a howling success, as all who came to it
had to confess. And all the way through Catville Town bottles and shoes
were strewn up and down. And when Old Sun Man o’er the hill did peep
every kit in the town was fast asleep.




[Illustration]

HOW THE ELEPHANT GOT HIS TRUNK


One night in the Zoo when the keepers were asleep the other animals
were awakened by the chattering in the monkey cage.

“I have heard that Mr. Lion can be made very tame,” said Jocko, “and
while I doubt very much if he really can bite, his growl is most
unpleasant to hear.”

“Oh, well, it may be worse than his bite,” said Tito. “Those who make
the most noise are not always to be feared, I have been told.”

“There is Hippo; he is much bigger than Mr. Lion, and he doesn’t make
as much noise all the time as Mr. Lion.”

“Oh, dear me, but what a big mouth Hippo has!” laughed Tito. “I wonder
how he happened to get such a big one. He must have been the first one
there when they gave out mouths.”

“I have heard something about almost every animal here,” said Jocko.
“Want to hear it?”

“Yes, tell me,” said Tito, moving close to Jocko. “Where did Mr. Lion
get his long hair?”

“Oh dear! don’t you know?” laughed Jocko, “Mrs. Lion pulled it so much
it made it long. She hasn’t any, you see. Oh dear, yes, Mr. Lion is a
henpecked husband if ever there was one.”

“You don’t tell me so,” said Tito. “What about Hippo? How did it happen
he is so big and clumsy?”

“Oh, don’t you know?” said Jocko. “When the animals were being made
there was a lot of each animal left and it was all stirred together,
and that made Hippo. They made his body first and then they did not
have enough to give him a long tail or fill in his mouth. That is the
reason it is so large.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Tito, and Jocko laughed, too, until they nearly
fell off the place where they were sitting.

“Where did old Reynard get his bushy tail, Jocko?”

“Oh, don’t you know that either?” replied Jocko. “He was caught trying
to steal chickens by the farmer’s wife, and she threw the brush she was
using at him with such force that it struck him handle first, and there
it stuck right on his back, and he never could be rid of it.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Tito. “And where did the giraffe get his long
neck?”

“Oh, that is easy,” said Jocko. “He was so big-feeling and so haughty
he would not look at the other animals, and it stretched his neck until
now he can’t see the ground, so I have been told. I don’t know, of
course.”

“He has a very little head, anyway,” said Tito.

“There is very little in it, my dear Tito,” said Jocko. And then they
both laughed again.

One by one the animals had awakened, but, hearing what was being said,
they each hoped to hear something about the other that would offset the
fun Jocko was making of them, so they kept still.

“Where did the elephant get his trunk? That is what I should most like
to hear about,” said Tito.

“Well, that is a long story,” said Jocko. “It seems that it really was
only a nose to begin with, and not much of a nose at that, so I have
heard it said, but because he was so big he thought he was the boss
of the jungle, where he lived, and he went about poking his nose into
every place he could find to see what was going on. They used to call
him Old Nosey, I have been told, and he had such big ears that what he
did not see he heard, so every one disliked him, but it took Old Man
Crocodile to cure him of his bad habit.”

“What did he do to Mr. Elephant?” asked Tito, excitedly.

“I’ll tell you,” said Jocko. “One day Mr. Elephant was walking by the
water when he saw something queer-looking sticking out of the water.

“Mr. Elephant had to know what it was, so he poked it with his nose,
and, zip! it had him right by the nose, and held him, too.

“My, how he did yell, I was told, but Old Man Crocodile would not let
go. He held right on tight.

“Mr. Elephant pulled and cried, ‘Let go!’ and the harder he pulled the
harder Old Man Crocodile pulled, until Mr. Elephant had that nose you
see on him now called a trunk.

“By and by Old Man Crocodile had to catch his breath, and he let go,
and down sat Mr. Elephant on the ground with a bang.

“Old Man Crocodile began to cry and say how sorry he was that he had
grabbled Mr. Elephant--that he had no idea he was hurting a friend. He
thought it was a hunter, and would Mr. Elephant please forgive him this
once!--he would never do it again.”

“Is there where Old Man Crocodile got his tears?” asked Tito.

“That is how he began to cry,” said Jocko.

“Ho, ho, ho!” they both laughed, and then a terrible roar and
trumpeting and all sorts of cries went up from the animals, for Mr.
Elephant could not keep quiet when he heard what Jocko said about his
trunk.

When Mr. Elephant began to trumpet Mr. Lion began to roar, and Jocko
and Tito fled to the back of their cage and huddled together, trembling
with fright.

“They can’t get us,” said Jocko. “Let them talk and scream. I guess we
woke them up talking and laughing.”

The other animals made such a noise that the keepers came running to
see what had happened, but, of course, they did not understand a thing
they told them about the awful stories Jocko had told about them, and
so all they could do was to give them a drink of water or a biscuit,
hoping they would be quiet.

Far into the morning the animals scolded and told Jocko what they
thought of him, but Tito and Jocko fell asleep in spite of the noise
and Tito laughed in his dreams about the funny things Jocko had told
him.




[Illustration]

WHY RABBITS HAVE SHORT TAILS


Bunny Rabbit was sitting in his yard one day, thinking very hard, when
his grandfather came along.

“Why are you so quiet and sober, grandson?” he inquired.

“I am wondering, grandfather,” said Bunny, “why we have such long ears
and so short a tail. I should think it would be much better if it were
just the other way about.”

“Of course; of course,” said Grandfather Rabbit, bobbing his ears back
and forth. “We all think we could have made a better rabbit if we had
been consulted. But let me tell you why your tail is short and your
ears are long, and then you will learn you are better off now than was
your great-grandfather’s great-grandfather, who had a long tail and
short ears.”

It did not take Bunny Rabbit long to find a nice soft seat for his
grandfather and to sit close and very still, with his ears sticking up
to listen, for he dearly loved the stories his grandfather told.

“Once upon a time,” began Grandfather Rabbit, just as all grandfathers
begin a story--“a long, long time ago there lived in some woods a
rabbit. He had a long tail and short ears, just as all the rabbits in
those days had.

“One day he ran over the hill to the garden where Mr. Man lived. He
should have been very careful, but he wasn’t, and when he was crawling
under the rail fence around the garden didn’t Mr. Dog see him and begin
to bark and chase Short Ears, as he was called.

“Short Ears was a good runner, and it was lucky he was or there would
be an end to this story right here. Through the garden he ran under
cover of the vegetable leaves, and when he got out he was a good bit
ahead of Mr. Dog.

“Over the field they ran, and under the stone wall went Short Ears and
over it went Mr. Dog. Down the road they ran lickety split, and into
his house ran Short Ears just as Mr. Dog came into the yard.

“Short Ears had no time to lose, I can tell you. He slammed the door,
and what do you suppose happened?”

Bunny Rabbit was so interested in his grandfather’s story he only
started; he did not answer at all. So his grandfather went on.

“Why, Short Ears slammed that door right on his long tail, and there he
was held fast, with his tail hanging outside.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Bunny Rabbit, feeling of his stubby little tail, to
be sure it was safe behind him.

“What did poor Short Ears do then?” he asked.

“He could not do a thing, for there was Mr. Dog right in the yard and
running straight for the door,” said Grandfather Rabbit.

Bunny Rabbit sat closer to his grandfather and his ears grew longer as
he listened.

“Yes,” said Grandfather Rabbit, “Short Ears was in a bad fix, as you
can see. He could not open the door to get his tail out, because Mr.
Dog would come in and catch him.

“He did not have long to think about it, for the very next thing he
knew Mr. Dog grabbed at his tail and off it came right up to the door.
And off he ran. For, you see, he thought he had Short Ears on the end
of the tail, and he did not stop to look. He just ran.

“When his tail broke off, over went Short Ears on the floor, for that
set him free. ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! What shall I do?’ he cried, when he
jumped up and looked in the mirror and saw that his long tail was gone
and all that remained was a little stubby tail, just like yours.

“First he ran to the medicine-closet and got some salve and a soft
piece of cloth. But he found he could not reach the end of his tail--it
was too short.

“His first thought was to run over to his cousin Rabbit’s house, not
far-off, but when he started toward the door he remembered Mr. Dog.

“Short Ears leaned his head to the crack in the door and listened hard.
His ears were short, you remember, but not so short but that he heard
Mr. Dog barking.

“Nearer and nearer came the bark. Short Ears locked the door and ran to
the windows and fastened them and drew the shades, and then he ran into
the closet and closed the door.

“Away back he crept under his Sunday clothes, where he was sure no one
would find him, and there he sat and listened and listened and listened.

“Mr. Dog barked and jumped about outside the house, for he was very
much upset when he found that he did not have Short Ears on the end of
the tail he carried off.

“But it was no use. He could not get into Short Ears’s house, and at
last he gave it up and ran off home, barking all the way.

“Short Ears listened, and though Mr. Dog’s tones grew fainter and
fainter, Short Ears was surprised to find he could hear the barking,
though it was a long way off.

“After it was dark he came out of the closet and crept into his bed
without even thinking of the end of his tail, he was so tired and worn
out listening.

“And now what do you think had happened to him, and what do you think
he saw when he looked in the mirror in the morning to brush his hair?”

Bunny Rabbit shook his head. “I don’t know, grandfather,” he said.
“What had happened to Short Ears?”

“His ears had grown long, he had listened so hard to the barking of
Mr. Dog,” said Grandfather Rabbit. “And from that day all the Rabbit
family have had short tails and long ears, which is just as it should
be, for we can hear Mr. Dog a long way off, and we do not have the
bother of looking after a long tail when we run to cover. So don’t wish
to have yours changed again, for you see now that you are better off
than poor Short Ears was, don’t you?”

Bunny Rabbit said he did, and that he should never wish for a long tail
and short ears again. And he didn’t.




[Illustration]

THE HUNTER’S FRIEND, JOHNNIE BEAR


In a hut on the side of a mountain lived an old hunter all alone. He
had only one room, which was very scantily furnished, and he cooked his
meals in a fireplace. In the fireplace was a big hook where he hung his
kettle, and he cooked his meat by holding it between two sticks over
the coals.

You need not pity this old man, for he would rather eat his food cooked
in this way than in any other. He had a bunk built in the room about
half-way up the wall, where he had to climb a ladder to reach it, and
when he went to bed he covered himself with a big bearskin. Beside the
bunk a gun hung on the wall where he could quickly reach it if it were
needed. Across the door at night he fastened a big bar, for he did not
intend that any one should enter while he was asleep.

The old hunter had set a trap by his door, and one morning he found a
baby bear caught in it by the left hind paw. He very carefully opened
the trap and took the little fellow out. Then he took Johnnie Bear, as
he named him, into his cabin and very carefully washed the poor cut
foot and bound it up with some healing salve.

Johnnie Bear seemed to know that the hunter was helping him, and he
did not bite or try to get away. He made a funny little noise like a
baby when it is hurt. Then the hunter warmed some milk and put it in a
bottle, which he gave to the bear. Johnnie Bear took the bottle in both
his paws and held it to his mouth and drank the milk very greedily.
Then the hunter fixed a bed for him and put a log on the fire to keep
the place warm while he went for a hunting trip.

Johnnie Bear slept all day, and when the hunter returned at night he
tried to run to meet him, but his poor foot hurt him so he had to lie
down again. Several weeks passed before Johnnie Bear’s foot became
quite well, and he always limped, because the trap had cut so deep.

The little fellow became very fond of the hunter and would run to meet
him at night, and when the hunter brought in his game Johnnie Bear
would poke it over with his nose and paw, as though to tell the hunter
that he had done well.

One day he did not run to meet the hunter, and when night came he did
not come to his supper. The old hunter began looking around the cabin
and he found the footprints of two bears. One was Johnnie Bear’s, which
he could tell by the light mark which the lame foot made, and the other
was of a big bear, which had enticed Johnnie back into the woods. The
hunter felt very lonely and looked for Johnnie every day for a long
time, but after a year had gone by he gave up all hope of ever seeing
Johnnie again.

A long time after this the hunter was going through a part of the wood
that was filled with bushes and vines and in some way his foot became
entangled and he fell, breaking his arm. His gun fell some distance
from him, and as he went to pick it up he saw a big mother bear with
two cubs coming toward him. She was growling and showing her teeth and
the hunter felt that he had little chance for escape from a fight, and
with his right arm broken he wondered how the fight might come out.

He braced himself against a tree and waited for the bear to come up.
He held his gun in his left hand, intending to use it to beat her off
as long as possible. Just then another bear came in sight and the poor
hunter gave up all hope. But all at once the first bear stopped and
looked at the other bear, then suddenly walked toward him. Both stood
and looked at the hunter, who did not move. Suddenly the second bear
growled strangely and the first bear walked away with the two cubs.
Then the second bear came nearer, and as he walked the hunter saw that
he limped. It was Johnnie Bear, and in some unknown tongue he had sent
the other bear away and saved the hunter’s life. He did not come any
nearer the hunter, but only looked at him, as though to say, “You saved
my life once, now I have paid my debt to you.” Then he limped away in
the direction the other bears had gone. Perhaps the mother bear was
Johnnie’s wife and the cubs were their children.

Who can tell?




[Illustration]

PLAID TROUSERS


Mr. Tim Coon had a pair of red-and-green plaid trousers and that was
what made everybody in the woods envious.

But there was one who not only was envious--he was very jealous of his
rights--and that one was Mr. Fox.

For Mr. Fox thought, and so did every one else in the woods, that he
was the very smartest and nattiest fellow around until Tim Coon came
along with those red-and-green plaid trousers.

Mr. Fox at first did not bother much about the trousers, for he felt
sure that in a short time he could persuade Tim Coon to part with them,
but here he was mistaken, as time proved.

Mr. Fox had called on Tim every day. He had carried the fattest hen or
duck, and even two fat chickens, and each time he hinted that he might
part with each or any of them if he were offered the right thing.

But Tim Coon was well supplied with the season’s good things to eat and
would not offer anything worth having.

And that was the reason that Mr. Fox sat on his steps one morning in
deep thought while he smoked his old corncob pipe.

While he was thinking his eyes happened to alight upon a piece of paper
on which there was some printing, and then he saw the word WOOL in big
letters.

“Wool?” thought Mr. Fox; “that is what those red-and-green trousers
are; all wool, Tim Coon says.”

Mr. Fox got up from the steps and picked up the paper. He began to
read, and as he read his eyes grew big. The more he read the bigger
they grew, and at last he became so interested he dropped his pipe from
his mouth without noticing it.

Mr. Fox read all the printing. Then he crumpled up the paper and threw
it into the bushes.

“If he only would get them soiled,” he said, “the rest would be easy;
he would be sure to ask my advice.

“I know what I will do,” he said, starting for his barn. “I’ll paint
the seat of my rocking-chair; he loves to sit in that.”

Pretty soon Mr. Fox had his rocking-chair painted a nice shiny black,
and then he sat down to watch for Tim Coon, who always passed by about
that time. He did not have to wait long before Tim came along, wearing
the plaid trousers. “Come in, Tim, and have a smoke,” said Mr. Fox, in
his most polite manner.

Mr. Fox went to the closet to get a pipe for Tim, and, just as he
expected, down sat Tim Coon in the rocking-chair right on the wet paint.

“Oh dear, oh dear, how sorry I am!” said Mr. Fox, hurrying to Tim.

“Get up quick, Tim! I just painted that chair. I hope you have not got
it on your plaid trousers.”

Mr. Fox’s eyes twinkled as he got behind poor Tim to look at the seat
of his trousers, but that, of course, Tim Coon did not see, and when
Mr. Fox told him there was a big black spot, but that he felt sure he
could tell him just how to get it out, Tim thought he was a very kind
fellow.

“Don’t you bother at all, Tim. I read the other day just how to wash
woolen garments. It said it was sure and safe, so I will help you, for
I really feel to blame; I ought to have remembered that rocker was
freshly painted.

“First, I must get you some white soap, and as I have none in the house
I shall have to run over to Mr. Man’s and get some; he has everything
in his house.”

Tim Coon thought Mr. Fox was the very kindest fellow he knew, and he
ran right home to take off the trousers and wait for Mr. Fox to return.

“Oh, you might put on a kettle of water,” called Mr. Fox as Tim was
hurrying away, “and have it boiling; it must boil hard.”

Mr. Fox had a harder time than he expected getting the soap from Mr.
Man’s, for Mr. Dog had gone to sleep right in the doorway of the barn,
and that was where Mr. Fox wanted to go.

He had seen a piece of white soap on a box in the barn one day, where
Mr. Man had been washing his best harness, and he hoped very much he
would find it there now.

After a while Mr. Dog awoke and went away and Mr. Fox crept in. He was
lucky enough to find the soap, and off he ran for Tim Coon’s house just
as the sun was going down.

“I risked a good deal, Tim, to get this soap,” he said. “I do not like
to go over the hill in the daytime--too risky.

“Now we must put the trousers in a pail,” explained Mr. Fox, “and then
very slowly pour the water on them. Are you sure the water is boiling
hard?”

Tim said he was, and so Mr. Fox told him to bring it along, and as Tim
poured it in the pail Mr. Fox shaved up the soap and dropped it in.

“Now get me a stick,” he said, “so I can stir it and make a good suds,
and now I will leave you, for I am sure you can do the rest, and I must
get home, as it is getting dark.

“All you have to do is to let them soak overnight and take them out in
the morning and hang them in the sun, and if that recipe for washing
woolen is good for anything your trousers will be as good as new.”

Off ran Mr. Fox for home, chuckling to himself all the way. “Yes, they
will be as good as new,” he said, “but not for you to wear, my friend
Tim. They may fit a very young coon, but not a full-grown-up coon like
you. Oh no.”

Poor Tim Coon viewed his trousers as they hung on the line the next day
with a sinking heart, for the black stain of the paint was of course
still to be seen, but later when they were dry and he tried to put them
on it was not a feeling of sadness which came over him. It was anger.

Tim looked at himself in the looking-glass and saw that his handsome
plaid trousers were no longer fit for him to wear. They were well up to
his knees, and so snugly did they fit him he could not bend, let alone
walk.

It took some time to get out of them, but when he did he took them over
to Mr. Fox’s house and showed him the remains of what had once been his
plaid trousers.

“It did not work right. That is all I can say,” said Mr. Fox, trying
hard to look sad. “You never can tell about those recipes you read in
papers and magazines until you have tried them.”

“I wish some one else had tried it first,” said Tim, with a sigh, as he
looked at his trousers.

“I might have worn a long-tailed coat and covered up the paint spot,
but there is nothing I can do with these short legs.”

“You could wear a skirt or put some lace on the bottom of the legs,”
suggested Mr. Fox.

“Are you sure the water had to boil?” asked Tim.

“Sure as I am that the sun will shine!” replied Mr. Fox. “Are you sure,
Tim, those trousers are all wool?”

“I thought they were,” said Tim.

“I know they are,” said Mr. Fox, looking after Tim down the path.

Of course the plaid trousers were of no use to any one, but Mr. Fox was
satisfied so long as he did not have to see Tim Coon wearing them.




[Illustration]

THE THREE RUNAWAYS


Mr. Dog sat in front of his house, looking very sad; Mr. Tom Cat came
along with his head hanging down, very sad, too.

“Hello, Tommie!” said Mr. Dog. “You look as sad as I feel. What is the
matter?”

“Matter enough, Mr. Dog,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “I have just been driven
out of the house with a broom by cook, who says I am of no use; that I
am too fat and too well fed to catch the mice.

“Mr. Dog, I have caught all the mice in that house for years, and just
because I slept one night--that was last night--that cook forgets
all about all the good work I have done in the past and puts me out,
and with a broom, too. Oh, it is too terrible, and I have not had my
breakfast, either.”

“Tommie, dear fellow,” said Mr. Dog, “you certainly have a hard time
of it, but let me tell you what has happened to me after all my years
of service to the master. Last night a fox got into the hen-house, and
just because I did not keep awake all night and catch him the master
took me up to the hen-house and put my nose right down on the floor
where that fox had walked, and then he boxed my ears. Think of it,
Thomas, he boxed my ears before all the hens and chickens and said I
was getting old and good for nothing, and I have not had a bite to eat
this morning. I wonder what this place is coming to when such good
fellows as we are get such treatment. That is what I would like to
know, Thomas Cat.”

Mr. Tom Cat licked his mouth and stretched himself before he answered:
“I think, Mr. Dog, we better give the master and cook a chance to think
over what they have done to us and perhaps they may remember all the
good things we have done all these years and think that one little
mistake was not so bad, after all. I am for running away, I am. What do
you say?”

“Now I never thought of that, Thomas,” said Mr. Dog, standing up and
looking very serious. “I believe that is a good plan, Thomas. I do,
indeed; but where shall we run?”

“Oh, we can walk; you know we don’t have to run at all, only they call
it running away if you go off where people can’t find you,” said Mr.
Tom Cat. “I know a place we can go. Come with me.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Mr. Dog. “Lead the way, Thomas.”

Just as they were passing the barn-yard they saw Mr. Rooster scrooged
under the fence.

“Hello, Mr. Rooster!” said Mr. Dog. “What has happened to you that you
look so unhappy this morning?”

“Why wouldn’t I look unhappy?” replied Mr. Rooster. “Here I have been
on this farm and looking after all those silly hens these long years,
and this morning the master said he wished the fox had got me last night
instead of the hen he carried off. I tell you it is hard luck, after
all I have done for the master.”

“Come with us,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “We are running away; the cook chased
me out this morning because I happened to sleep all night and didn’t
catch the mice, and Mr. Dog was blamed because the fox got into your
house last night. We are not appreciated around here, that is plain.
Will you come along?”

“I had never thought of running away,” said Mr. Rooster, getting out
from under the fence and flapping the dust from his wings, “but I think
I like the idea of running away. I will go along with you. Perhaps the
master and those foolish hens of mine will begin to think what a fine
fellow I am and wish I had not gone. Where are you going?”

“Oh, to a place I know where no one will find us,” said Mr. Tom Cat,
running ahead.

Mr. Dog and Mr. Rooster followed Mr. Tom Cat, and soon they were in the
woods where the bushes grew thick and the trees shut out the sun.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Tom Cat; “now no one will find us and we can
rest in ease.”

“I have not had my breakfast,” said Mr. Rooster, scratching the ground.

“Neither have we,” said Mr. Tom Cat, “but I have heard somewhere that
you should not think of your troubles and they will not bother you,
so suppose we each tell a story to take up the time and also take our
minds off the thought that we have not had our breakfast. You begin,
Mr. Dog, because you are such a good story-teller and have had so many
adventures.”

Mr. Dog looked very wise and scratched his head as if he was thinking
very hard.

“Did I ever tell you about how I treed a coon?” he asked.

Mr. Rooster and Mr. Tom Cat said they never had heard it, but they
should like to hear about it very much indeed.


MR. DOG’S STORY

Mr. Dog cleared his throat and then he said: “I have always had the
reputation of being a good hunter, especially when coons were in
season, but this story which I am about to tell will show that I had
the hardest time a dog ever had getting a coon.

“One moonlight night the master came out of the house and whistled to
me; he had his gun over his shoulder and I knew pretty well what was
going to happen; we were going coon-hunting.

“So I wagged my tail and gave two or three sharp barks because I knew I
could not bark again until I had something to bark about.

“Oh, it was a beautiful night, and just as we got out in the road a
little way from the barn I saw something moving. I wasn’t sure at first
whether it was a fox or a coon, both of them being equally fond of
visiting the poultry-yard; but I kept very still and pretty soon I saw
him right in the full moonlight. It was as fat a coon as I ever saw,
and he didn’t see me and I made a run for him.

“Well, you may have seen a coon run, my friends, but believe me when I
tell you that you never saw one run as this one did. He gave a bound
and away he went, and I went after him, and Mr. Man followed, for I was
barking now, for there was reason for it.

“Well, that coon got to the tree first, and up he went, for I saw him,
and I can tell you I was some tickled, for I knew that the master would
be pleased enough when he saw the size of that coon.

“After he got into the tree I stood under it and looked up and barked
with all my might, and Mr. Man was coming a-running as fast as he could
in the distance.

“But while I saw that coon go up the tree as plainly as I ever saw
anything, I couldn’t see hide nor hair of him when I looked up.

“Mr. Man came up to me after a while and said, ‘Where is he, Rover?’

“I kept looking up in the tree and barking to keep up my courage,
though I could see nothing but tree.

“‘You are fooled, old fellow,’ said the master; ‘he got away from you.
Go after him, old boy.’

“But I knew I wasn’t fooled, though for the life of me I could not see
that coon.

“I kept on barking and jumping about and the master took another look,
but he did not see that coon and pretty soon he got tired.

“‘You are a fake, Rover,’ he said to me. ‘I am going home. We will try
it another night and see if you can see straight.’ And off he went.

“But I didn’t leave that tree. I knew that coon couldn’t have jumped
out of the tree and I also knew he went up the tree, so I was sure he
was in the tree right then.

“I barked louder than ever, and though the master whistled and called,
I still barked and jumped about.

“Suddenly I thought if I kept very still a minute that coon might show
his head, so I stepped close to the tree and stood in the shadow and
kept quiet. It wasn’t more than a minute before, just as I thought, out
poked the head of that coon to see if I had gone.

“Well, I just barked some then and I danced, and pretty soon master
came running back and I jumped and barked right under the place where I
had seen the head of Mr. Coon.

“‘Ah, you are right, boy,’ I heard the master say, softly, and then
bang went his gun and Mr. Coon dropped to the ground.

“‘Good old boy, you can’t be fooled, can you, Rover?’ said master,
patting me on the head; ‘you can’t be beat for coon-hunting. Come along
home and show what we got.’

“The next night they had a great time at the master’s house. He told
them all how I treed that coon and how I stuck to it in spite of his
going away and calling to me to go along.

“I was patted on the head and made a great deal of, and every time I
see the master with that coon cap he wears I feel very happy.”

Mr. Dog stopped and looked sad again, and Mr. Tom Cat said: “Oh, cheer
up, Mr. Dog, the master will soon be wearing that cap again, and he
will remember how you caught the coon. That is a good story to tell.
Now we will listen to what Mr. Rooster has to tell us.”

Mr. Rooster said he would tell them about the new rooster that came to
the barn-yard one day.


MR. ROOSTER’S STORY

Mr. Rooster straightened himself and said he was proud to say he was
raised on the master’s farm. He was proud, too, to say he had succeeded
the old rooster that had gone to a dinner one day and did not return.

“I have always taken good care of my family, and, if I do say it, there
is not a better-looking family than mine around these parts,” said Mr.
Rooster.

“There have been many young roosters in the barn-yard, but they have
gone away to other farms to live, for the master has an eye for beauty,
and he has always decided that I was too--er--valuable to lose.”

Mr. Dog and Mr. Tom Cat smiled a little on the side at this last
remark, for they well knew how vain Mr. Rooster was, and then he really
did have fine feathers and a beautiful comb.

“I have never had any trouble with my family until one morning Madam
Blackie came running to me,” continued Mr. Rooster, “to tell me a new
rooster had come in the barn-yard to live.”

“‘It is shameful the way all those silly hens are running around him,’
she said. ‘He isn’t noticing them a little bit and they strut back and
forth, eying him as if they had never seen a handsome rooster before.

“‘For my part, I think the old friends are the best, though of course
you are not old, my dear Mr. Rooster, only old in acquaintance I mean.’

“I had always thought Madam Blackie an old busybody, but now, if this
was all true, I had found her my only friend.

“‘You are most kind, Madam Blackie,’ I said, ‘and I thank you, but
I feel sure that the master will not have a new rooster here. This
new-comer will probably leave in a few days.’

“I expected he would, too, for I had as fine a set of spurs as I had
ever seen, and I intended to show them to this new rooster.

“As soon as I could get away from Madam Blackie I took a stroll around
by the barn-yard, and sure enough there were all my family, even the
chickens, walking around and clucking and cackling as hens will at a
handsome red-and-black rooster that stood by the barn door.

“I felt pretty queer for a minute, for that new rooster had a very
shiny-looking set of feathers, and I knew he would be very popular for
a while at least, and with the whole family against me, even my spurs
might not make me king.

“I held my head very high, and with my light step I walked past them
some distance from the barn, but still I knew they all saw me.

“There was a little flutter at first, and they ran toward me, but they
gave a look at the new rooster. I could see them out of the corner
of my eyes, and back the whole silly lot went and began their silly
cackling and clucking.

“I went behind a wall and watched them through a hole. First they would
scratch the ground near the new rooster and talk away to one another,
and then they would walk by him, but not once did he turn his head.

“‘He isn’t going to let them think he sees them,’ I thought; but the
longer I watched the stranger it seemed to me that with all those
fine-looking hens and chickens cackling about him he should not look
once their way; and then a thought came to me which made me jump up, so
I crawled under the gate and walked into the barn-yard.

“I walked right up to that family of mine and looked at them, and then
I looked at the new rooster. I was right close to him then.

“Every hen opened her eyes and mouth, for they thought right then and
there was to be a settlement of rights, but one glance at the new
rooster told me what I had thought was true, and I just turned my
back on him and said: ‘When you silly hens and chickens get tired of
admiring the new weather-cock you better come over in the lot back of
the barn. There is some corn and grain on the ground. I am surprised
that my family cannot tell a tin weather-cock from a real rooster,’ and
away I walked with my head held higher than ever.

“After that I never had the least trouble with them, but of course I
found out that Madam Blackie had been the first one to see the tin
rooster and had gone right up to him and found it out, and then waited
to see if the others would be fooled. When she found they were she ran
away to tell me.

“Oh, it takes all kinds of hens to make a barn-yard family!” sighed the
rooster.

“I guess they will miss you,” said Mr. Dog, “and the master will, too,
for all the hens are likely to run away, with no one to keep them at
home.”

“Tommie Cat, we will hear what you have to tell. I bet it will be about
a mouse.”

“You win the bet,” said Mr. Tom Cat.


MR. TOM CAT’S STORY

“My story,” said Mr. Tom Cat, “is about a mouse, the only mouse that
ever got away from me--that is, the only one that I ever saw. Of
course, I did not see the ones that cook thought I should have caught.

“I came to live at the master’s house when I was a very little kitten,
and right away I began to catch the mice.

“I have heard it said that my mother and father were the best mousers
anywhere around, and I expect I take after them. Anyway, I could catch
mice, so I became a great pet in the house.

“And while I always had plenty of milk--and sometimes cream--to eat, I
never failed to catch a mouse each night, and sometimes more, for a cat
had not lived in the house for years, and those mice thought they owned
it until I came.

“They ran about everywhere, on the pantry shelves and all over the
rooms at night, and they would even run over me sometimes when I was
taking forty winks; but I soon stopped that. I played I was asleep when
I wasn’t and caught those silly mice until the others began to learn
that I was a thing to be feared and not to be taken as a joke.

“But there was one mouse I could not catch. He was larger than the
others and had a little piece taken out of one ear, so I always knew
him, and it gave me no end of worry to think he always escaped me.

“The others called him Tip, because it was the tip of his ear that was
gone; and Tip was some runner, I can tell you. He could get through the
smallest hole in the wall and he could get away from you when you had
your paw right over him. I made up my mind to get Tip if I had to let
the other mice have the house, and so for a week I laid for Tip.

“One night he came out of his hole and jumped right over my head and I
chased him around the kitchen, when all at once right before my eyes he
disappeared.

“I sniffed and hunted. I knew he was there, but I could not see him or
find him. All at once I saw a shoe of the master’s, that stood near the
stove, move, and as quick as a wink I flew at it and put in my paw.

“Did I get Tip? No, sir; that slick little fellow crawled out of a hole
in the side of that shoe and ran for his hole in the wall, laughing and
giggling to think he had fooled me again.

“I did not sleep for two days after that, sitting by that hole in the
wall, and I was thinking how hungry Tip must be, having to stay in
there without any food and feeling sure he would have to come out soon
or starve, when I felt something touch my tail.

“I turned around and there was Tip. How he got out I never knew, but I
expect he gnawed a hole in another part of the wall. Anyway, there he
was sitting on his hind legs and making funny motions with his front
paws.

“I jumped, but he was ready for that, and away he scampered into the
pantry and I after him.

“Over the shelves he went, and I went, too. Back of the boxes, and I
went, too, tins and dishes falling with clatter and smash, but I did
not care. I was after that Tip mouse and I knew it was now or never.

“He knew it was a fight to the death, I think, by the mad dash he made
behind dishes and tins, but after a while he grew tired and made for
his hole in the wall. I knew that was my chance to get him in the open,
and I flew after him and reached him with the tip of my paw, but it was
only his tail I had. Tip was in the hole. I grabbed at the tail with my
teeth and off it came. I have that tail yet, for I never got Tip, and I
like to look at it sometimes just to get up my fighting spirit.”

“Didn’t you ever see Tip again?” asked Mr. Rooster and Mr. Dog.

“Oh yes, I saw him once after that,” said Mr. Tom Cat, with a yawn.

“Why didn’t you catch him?” they asked, together.

“Oh, Tip was in a trap when I saw him,” said Mr. Tom Cat.

“Was it one of those traps that catch them by the head?” asked Mr. Dog.

“No, it was a little wire affair,” said Mr. Tom Cat, “and I looked in
and saw him running about.”

“Why didn’t you catch him then when the master opened the trap? Didn’t
they give you a chance at him?”

“No, Mr. Dog,” said Mr. Tom Cat, looking very lofty. “I am a sportsman
and no true sportsman ever touches a caged mouse. Tip was let out of
the trap, and the master thought I would catch him, but I didn’t even
run after him, and for all I know Tip may be living yet. I will do my
own hunting and catching; none of those traps can ever help me to get a
mouse.”

“Some of his grandchildren might go back there to live, even if Tip did
not return to the hole in the wall,” said Mr. Dog.

“It might be that those very mice that were running about last night
were some of his relations.”

“I never thought of that,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “I will watch for them
to-night, and whether they are or not I will remember Tip and catch
them all.”

“I guess I will go along with you,” said Mr. Dog. “I am pretty hungry,
and it must be dinner-time.”

“If you all are going home, I guess I better get back in time for
dinner, too,” said Mr. Rooster; “my family will think I am lost.”

So all three started off for their home, forgetting all about their
grievances in listening to the story each had told, and if nothing has
happened to them I expect they are living there yet.


THE END




Transcriber’s Notes:


Minor errors and omissions in punctuation have been fixed

Page 55: Changed “but that it still” to “but that is still”

Page 124: Changed “Martha did not treat her” to “Martha treated her”

Page 155: Changed “‘Oh, don’t you know?’ said Jacko” to “‘Oh, don’t
  you know?’ said Jocko”

Page 179: Changed “the master he wished” to “the master said he
  wished”

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANDMAN'S RAINY DAY
STORIES ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
United States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
  you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that:

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
  Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
  works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
  receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
THE WONDERFUL ALPINE HORN


When the little boys and girls, who read these Swiss fairy tales, grow
up to be big and travel in Switzerland, they will enjoy the Alpine
horn.

Nearly every shepherd lad in the mountains knows how to blow it. It is
made of wood, and is about half as long as an ordinary broom. Its butt,
or heavy end, rests on the ground. When a man blows a long blast, the
sound, at first, when one is too near, does not seem to be very
pleasing; for distance lends enchantment to the sound. But wait a
moment, and listen! Far off across the valley, the strains are caught
up, and sent back from the tops of the high mountains. Then it sounds
as if a great choir of angels had come down from Heaven to sing glory
to God, and to bring greetings to all good souls. Nowhere in all the
world is there such sweet music made by echoes.

Sometimes there is a double set of echoes, like one rainbow inside of
another. Then, it makes one think of a choir of little angels, that
sing a second time, after the first heavenly chorus has ceased.

How the Swiss people first received the Alpine horn, as a gift from the
fairies, is told in the story of a faithful shepherd’s boy, named
Perrod. He had to work hard all day, in tending the cows that grazed on
the high mountain pastures, which the natives call the Alps. But when
foreign people speak of “the Alps,” they mean the ranges of mountains
themselves.

In winter, these level stretches of ground are covered with snow and
ice, but by the month of June, it is warm enough for the grass and
flowers to grow. Then the cowboys and cheese makers go up with their
cattle. At night, Perrod, having milked the cows, skimmed the cream off
the milk, hung the great caldron over the fire, and made the cheese.

By this time, that is, well into the late hours, Perrod was almost
tired to death. After calling “good-night” to Luquette, his sweetheart,
who lived across the valley, and hearing her greeting in answer, he
climbed up the ladder, into the loft, and lay down on his bed. This was
only a pile of straw, but he was asleep almost the very moment he
touched it, for he was a healthy lad and the mountain air was better
than medicine. It was especially good for sound sleep, and he knew he
must get up early, at sunrise, to lead the cows and goats out to
pasture. Then the all-day concert, of tinkling bells, began.

But this night, instead of slumber, without once waking until day dawn,
Perrod had closed his eyes, for only about three hours, when he heard a
crackling sound, which waked him up. He thought, at first, the wind was
blowing hard enough to rip off some of the bark strips from the roof of
the chalet, and was tumbling down some of the heavy stones laid on to
keep them in place. But when he saw the reflection, on the walls and
ceiling, of a bright fire, he crawled quietly out of bed. Then he
peeped down and through the cracks in the board floor, to see what was
going on.

Three men were around the fire. One, the biggest fellow of the three,
was hanging up the caldron on the hooks. The second piled on more wood,
while the others warmed their hands in the bright blaze.

The three men were all different in appearance, the one from the other,
and a queer looking lot they were. The tremendously tall man seemed to
be a giant, in weight and size. His sleeves were rolled up, showing
that his arms were sunburnt, until they were very dark. When he lifted
up the caldron, to hang it up, or take it down, his muscles stood out
like whipcords.

But the man sitting on a milking stool, at the right hand side of the
fireplace, was entirely different, being smaller, and with a white skin
and golden hair. He had a long horn, which rested on the floor beside
him.

The man on the left-hand side of the fireplace, appeared to be a
woodman, or hunter. At least, he seemed to be used to the forest.
Though it was pitch dark night, he knew where the wood lay, piled up
under the eaves of the chalet; for, when the fire burned low, he went
out doors and returned with an arm load of faggots. Then he piled up
the wood, and the fire blazed, and crackled, and roared, until the boy
in the loft thought the hut would be burned up, too. Yet, though he
trembled at the strange sight, he was brave. He resolved not to be
quiet, if the big men tried to steal his cheese, which was to be food
for the family during the winter.

Just as he was wondering, whether his sisters and old daddy would have
enough to eat, during the long cold winter of eight months, that was
soon coming, when snow and ice covered the fields, he saw a curious
thing happen. Sweet music began, such as had never met his ears before,
since he was in his cradle and his mother sang to him.

It was the man with the golden hair, who seemed to be the real
gentleman of the party. He it was, who made the music. He first handed
something to the giant, who dropped it into the caldron. Then, with his
horn, he disappeared through the door. When outside, he lifted the
instrument to his lips and blew a blast.

Perrod was so interested in watching the giant, that he paid little
attention to the man outside, or to the sound he had made, for he saw
the hunter take a bottle out of his pocket, and hand it over to the
biggest fellow, who stood at the caldron over the fire. This one poured
the liquid, which seemed to be blood red, into the big iron pot. Then,
with a ladle, as big as a shovel, and long as a gun, he stirred
vigorously. Then, three beakers, or cups were set upon the table.

By this time, the golden haired man outside had finished his blast of
music, which seemed to float across the valleys down into the defiles,
over the pastures, and through the wood. It grew sweeter and sweeter,
as it swelled on the gentle night breeze, until all the mountains
seemed to have awakened, turned into living angels and lifted up their
voices. The sweet strain ended with a prolonged sad note, as if
melancholy had fallen on the musicians, and then it ceased.

A strange thing happened. All the cows and goats woke up from their
sleep, and one, from all directions, could hear the tinkling of their
neck bells, all over the pastures, far and near. The poor creatures
thought it was time to get up and be milked, but they were puzzled to
find it was yet dark. In fact, they were all, still, quite sleepy and
very slow to move.

Something even far more wonderful happened next. Perrod, after first
hearing the horn blow, thought the music had ceased: when, suddenly, it
all seemed to come back in vastly greater volume. The sounds were
multiplied, as if a thousand echoes had blended into one and all heaven
had joined in the melody. Perrod was entranced. He even closed his eyes
lest he might, by looking down at the strange men, lose some of what
seemed to him a choir of angels singing.

When the last strain had ceased, Perrod opened his eyes. The golden
haired musician had re-entered the chalet, and resumed his seat,
sitting down again on the milkstool, at the right of the fire; while
the hunter rearranged three glass goblets, on the rough wooden table,
from which Perrod ate his meals.

All three of the strangers then solemnly watched the caldron, as the
liquid boiled, just as the cream does, when cheese is to be made; the
big man stirring up with his huge ladle. At a particular moment, the
giant lifted the caldron and emptied out the contents into the three
glass vessels. To the amazement of Perrod, there issued, from the same
vessel, three very different colors.

In the first glass, filled to the brim, the draught was as red as
blood, and it foamed at the top. The drops, flying out on the board,
left crimson stains.

Giving a tap on the caldron, with the big ladle, the tall man let flow,
into the second glass, what seemed to be the same liquid; but this
time, it was as green as grass, but hissing hot, and bubbling.

Another loud ladle tap on the caldron, and out flowed a stream as cold
as snow water, and as white as the edelweiss flower. The liquid rested
in the goblet as quiet as milk, but seemed to be frosty on the top.

Now the giant-like fellow, shaking his huge ladle in his right hand,
and putting his left at the side of his mouth, shouted with a voice of
thunder:

“Come down, you boy, and make your choice of one of these three. Each
has a glorious gift to him who drinks. Come quick, for it will soon be
daylight.”

Perrod knew he was discovered, but he was a brave boy. If his legs
trembled, his heart was big. Moreover, the golden haired man gave him a
nod, and winked his eye, to encourage the lad.

So Perrod at once climbed down and stood before the table, on which
were the three chalices.

“Drink, young friend,” said the giant, “from any one of these, but know
that, in the red liquid, is a gift to the Swiss men. Drain this cup,
and then you will have strength, like me.” At that, he bent his arm to
show his mighty muscles. “You will be able to conquer the strongest
man, or fiercest beast. Besides, I shall give you a hundred fat cows,
each of which will yield much milk, rich in butter. Drain this cup,
and, according to my promise, you will see the kine tomorrow.”

Then the hunter spoke: “Better drink from my goblet. After this green
draught, you will have all the gold you want, and heaps of coins; and
then you can marry, and still easily support your old father and
mother.” So saying, he tossed handfuls of gold pieces on the floor,
piling them up, until they reached the lad’s knees. Perrod opened his
eyes wide in astonishment, for here was not a promise in words, but the
actual thing, that he could see for himself.

He was just about to stretch both his hands and drink the green liquid,
when the golden haired man, speaking gently to Perrod, said:

“I cannot promise you either cows or coins, but if you drink the liquid
in the white goblet, you will be able to use this horn, make music in
the mountains and call your cows, as I have done. Thus your flocks and
herds also will share with you my gift.”

Not a minute did Perrod wait to decide. “I care more for music, than
for money, or strength,” he said, and, lifting the glass, he put it to
his lips and drained the cup dry.

“What was it, and how did it taste?” do you ask? It was what the cows
gave him every day—pure fresh milk, but cold as glacier water.

“Good,” cried the man with the golden hair. “Any other choice would
have meant death. Here is the horn. Blow it tomorrow, and see what will
happen.”

As if lifted up on wings, to his straw bed, but holding on to his horn,
Perrod heard the door shut and bang, as the three men went out, two of
them scowling. Then the fire cooled to ashes. He fell asleep and
dreamed of the time when, in the church, he should lead his bride to
the altar, his lovely sweetheart, Luquette, to be married, and the two
should have a chateau and home of their own.

Awakening at the first moment, when the rosy light of the rising sun
made the face of the mountains blush, even while the valleys below were
still in darkness, and long before his sisters, in the village, far
away, had awakened, he rushed out to the edge of the pasture. Then, he
drew in a man’s breath, filled his lungs, and, putting his lips to the
mouthpiece of the horn, blew a long blast. He listened eagerly, for the
far off echoes. A pleasant double surprise awaited him.

All over the pastures, in the chalets of the high plateau, and along
the mountain slopes, even down to the valleys, there was heard, at
once, the tinkling of goat bells, cow bells, and the sound even of what
hung in the metal collars of donkeys and horses, until the chorus of
bell music was wonderful.

“Very fine, but is that all?” thought Perrod.

But another surprise! From across the great ravine, or chasm, out
rushed his beloved Luquette. Hastily throwing a wrap around her
shoulders, she stood in bare feet, threw a kiss to Perrod, and shouted
to him her joy.

Now came the crowning wonder. From the high peaks, miles distant, and
now rosy red in the dayspring, came back the music, in multiplied
echoes, as if all the snow ranges of the Alps were singing. Pure,
sweet, prolonged, the boy thought of what he had heard read in the
church, that, at creation “the morning stars sang together.” So it
seemed now to him.

Through many centuries, and to this day, to call the cows together, to
make the goats look up, and turn homeward, to seek shelter of the
night, for men’s evening prayer and chant of thanks-giving, for the
signals of defence against enemies, for beginning the festal dance, or,
to sound the wedding joy, the Alpine horn is the delight of the Swiss.
It is like the carillons of the Belgic folk, the chimes of Normandy,
the tower music of Holland, or the bagpipes of the Highlander. In a
foreign land, in dreams, in its memories it tells of “home, sweet
home.”








IV

THE WHIMSICAL AVALANCHE


It may happen, in Switzerland, that mighty masses of snow and ice,
sometimes as big as the capitol at Washington, and as high as Bunker
Hill monument, will roll down the mountain sides without giving any
notice. These crush whole forests, bury villages, tear rocks to pieces,
knock off bits of the mountain sides and kill thousands of people,
cows, goats and horses.

Though large enough to engulf an army, or a battleship, they are very
small, when first born, up in the very high Alps.

Starting as a snow ball, they grow large, very quickly, every moment,
and finally become immense. Then, they roll along over many miles,
carrying destruction in their path, until they tumble over precipices,
or reach low land that is level. That is the reason why they are so
named, for avalanche means “to the valley.”

There are many causes of an avalanche and a little thing may start one
of these terrors. The irregular melting, by the morning sun, of ice, in
light or shade, the fall of an icicle, the tumbling of a stone, or a
sliver of rock, or even the firing of a gun, which shakes the
overhanging, or piled up snow, will begin one of these revolving
globes.

Now in old times, all Swiss folk used to think that an avalanche was
alive, and was having a jolly time, enjoying itself, when sliding and
rolling, leaping and dashing down the mountain slopes, in its mad race,
from the sky to the plain. This was its way of enjoying itself, with a
short life and a merry one. It grew faster than anything else known.
For, while a glacier might take a thousand years to develop, from
snowflakes into miles of solid ice, like a frozen river, it required
only a few minutes for an avalanche to spring from babyhood into full
size, with a power exceeding that of a thousand giants.

Being, at its birth, only an inch or two in diameter, this infant son
of the King of the Frost Giants, the avalanche soon became the child,
which, as it grew up, so terribly fast, took after its daddy. It liked
to flatten out trees, and houses, and smash things. It generally so
frightened men, dogs, cats and the big animals, that dared to come near
the everlasting heights of ice and snow, where the Frost Giants lived,
that, in old times, no one in winter went up to the high peaks.

As a rule, nobody knows, either in summer or winter, just when the
avalanches will fall, or whether they will be made of light, powdery,
dry snow, or of snow that is heavy, wet, and like what the boys call
“soakers.” Yet there are some old men in Switzerland, who can foretell
avalanches, as our wise men try to do with the weather.

Once upon a time, the Frost Giant’s baby, of which we are going to
tell, was born, and great things were expected of it, even when it was
only as big as a snowflake. But, when it grew up, to be a real
avalanche, it behaved very differently from all the others. It
disappointed its daddy and its uncles awfully. The Frost Giants like to
make all the mischief they can, while this one wanted to help men,
instead of hurting them, and made a new record in the history of
colossal snowballs.

It was on a summer’s day, when the Frost Giants all gathered together
on a big mountain top, to celebrate the birthday of their king. On his
part, he was to treat them to a sight of an unusually wonderful baby.
It was to be in the form of a ball of snow, that, when it become a
mighty mass, would wipe out one great forest, two big villages, with
all the people and cattle in it, and then roll into the valley. There
it would destroy hundreds of acres of farms and vineyards, block up the
roads, multiply funerals, and waste so many millions of men’s dollars,
that years would pass away before prosperity and good times would come
again. The Frost King had a map of the route, which the young avalanche
was to travel, and he showed it around freely. This was what the Frost
Giants loved to do, for they hated flowers and butterflies, and cows
and men.

When the white Frost Giants had come together, and all had arrived, in
their coats of hard snow and with long beards of icicles, the Frost
King invited them to gather at the edge of a precipice, under a jagged
peak, that had many times been riven and splintered by lightning. Then
he bade them look down over the landscape, while he pointed out the
track which he expected his hopeful offspring, the newborn avalanche,
was to take, from the time it started, until it had done its work in
levelling forests, villages and vineyards. Then, using the big palm of
his hand as a diagram, and his five fingers as pointers—just as a
fortune teller finds out and assures a girl what kind of a husband she
will have—he told them just what he was sure would happen. On reaching
the valley, the big ball would spread itself over a square mile or two,
while covering up and ruining the grain fields.

After that, it would take the sunshine and warm south wind at least two
or three years to melt the mass, while thousands of people would be in
mourning for their dead children and kinsfolk. Or, reduced to beggary,
they would bewail the loss of all they had in this world. To hear the
old Frost King, as his tongue wagged, and the icicles of his beard
flopped up and down, as the chief chin-chopper of the party, you would
have thought that this baby avalanche, that was to start today was the
greatest and most famous ever known.

“Now watch,” said the Frost King.

It was midday in midsummer, and the heat was great, as he took up a
mass of wet snow, hardly more than a dipper full, but already made soft
by the sun’s rays. He squeezed the mass hard, between the palms of his
hands. To the Frost Giants, it seemed scarcely bigger than a pill.

Then, striking an attitude, like a baseball pitcher, or a man playing
tenpins, and about to roll the ball along down the alley, the Frost
King held up before them the dark gray, sticky ball. As he fondled and
patted it, as his own child, the Frost King called out, “I name thee,
my son, ‘Soaker Smash-All,’ and I expect thee to break all records.
Make the widest swathe of ruin, my son, ever known among men. The sun
is mine enemy, and, through thee, I shall spoil his work and give him
plenty of labor to restore it. Go!”

Saying this, the toss was made and the ball set rolling.

At first, for several seconds, with Soaker Smash-All, it was more like
ploughing, than rolling its way through the drifts, for the slope was
slight. Then, as the incline grew more steep, the tumbling became more
rapid, until about a half mile from the starting point, the baby
avalanche had, by its leaps and bounds grown so fast, as to be already
as big as a barn. It was bouncing swiftly along, when, instead of going
straight ahead, as its daddy, the Frost King, had planned and expected,
it rolled against a rounded rock, that curved up and backwards, like
the dashboard of a sleigh, or the roof of a pagoda.

At once, it swerved to the right and bounded high up in the air, as
though some Frost Giant was playing foot ball, and was trying to hit
the goal.

Then all sorts of funny things began to happen.

The Frost Giants were terribly disappointed at seeing their pet mount
up in the air like a pigskin ball from the foot of a first class
kicker, even before it was half grown. To behave so differently, from
what its daddy had felt sure of, and told the Frost Giants it would do,
seemed like disobedience. For, was not this avalanche the Frost King’s
son? Instead of rolling straight down the valley, gathering force for
its final plunge, at every yard, it was apparently trying to climb up
to the moon.

“That youngster is altogether too smart,” whispered one old giant to
another.

Just a second or two, before this baby avalanche seemed to have lost
both its head and its path, to go aside and play in the deep valley
below, there was a hunter, on one side of the ravine, who had climbed
up the high rocks, to get a shot at a herd of chamois that were feeding
quietly on the other side.

Besides the buck or daddy chamois there were four mothers, each with a
pretty little kid, hardly two months old, beside her. Now it was not
the season for hunting, and it was against the law, which allowed the
mother chamois a quiet interval, and the kids, time to grow up; for a
chamois kid needs to be educated just as a child does.

But this fellow, named Erni, was both cruel and lawless. He had brought
his spy glass with him and, pulling it out, swept the distant faces of
the great cliffs to find his game. Just as this promising family—a
buck, with a harem of four does, and as many kids—hove in sight, his
fancy was tickled. Law or no law, he would shoot. He laid down his
glass, pointed the rifle and took cool aim, hoping to bring down two of
the chamois at a shot. Then he pulled the trigger. With that gun, it
was a case of “a fire at one end and a fool at the other.”

Alas, for human hopes! There is many a slip between muzzle and game. In
his case a miss was as good as a mile, or even a league. In the cruel
hunter’s brain there had been already a flitting vision of venison
pot-pie and chamois steak. He even saw, in his day dream, two fine
pairs of mounted horns adorning his parlor walls.

But the daddy of the chamois family had, a second before, thrown up his
nose and caught a whiff of some human being near. Looking up in alarm,
he saw the huge snow ball in the air above him. Giving the usual sort
of whistle, as chamois sentinels do, the whole family started to run,
as if racing with the wind, to get under the shelter of an overhanging
rock.

Already the bullet had sped, and, despite their speed, one or two
chamois might have fallen, but the movement of an avalanche had so
thickened and condensed the air, that it was like firing a pellet of
lead into molasses, making the ball go slowly. This was what is called
“the wind of the avalanche,” which sometimes kills men and beasts.

Instead of the heart of a chamois, the rifle bullet struck the monster
snowball in the centre, but it hurt the avalanche no more than a flea
bite on the end of an elephant’s tail.

We cannot here tell what Erni, the enraged hunter, said.

Having lost the whole day in climbing and now, tired, hungry and vexed
with disappointment, he trudged back. When he reached home, his wife
kept quiet, his children had to keep away from him, and he did not say
his prayers that night.

On the contrary, in the forest home of the chamois, there was much
rejoicing, for they had heard the ring of the rifle and seen its flash.
In fact, avalanches were very popular in chamois society, for even when
one was seen coming, soon enough, the bucks and does could easily dodge
them.








V

THE MOUNTAIN GIANTS


Long ages ago, when the round earth was being shaped, and the ice was
melting, to give way to the green fields and flowers, huge monsters,
bears, wolves and other wild animals were the only living creatures in
Switzerland. Then the giants arrived on the world.

When, by and bye, human beings came into the land, they told their
children that the mountains were what were left of the earth’s crust,
after it had shrunk into peaks and ridges, humps and hollows, like an
apple, when baked in the oven, making crusts, points and wrinkles. The
valleys had been sunk, by the giants walking about on the earth, while
it was yet soft. The rivers were formed by the weeping of the giants’
wives and daughters, when they were badly treated; for these rough
fellows, husbands and brothers, did not know how to be kind to their
female kin. The only way the giants were able to make their women obey
them, when they were bad tempered, or naughty, or scolded too much, was
to use shovels, pokers, clubs, and straps on them. This clumsy and
cruel way, of keeping the family in order, was because the giants had
not yet learned to love, but were like brutes and knew only about
force.

These giants, though so big, were very stupid, as compared with men.
Their brains were more like those of babies, and they were not half as
smart as boys and girls are to-day. They did not know enough even to
plough the ground, and raise wheat, and rye, and oats, and to make
porridge, to say nothing of bread and cakes, and pies and doughnuts.
They could not melt lead, or work iron, or make tools, but depended on
their muscles, because these were huge and tough, so that they bulged
out; for the giants had terrific strength, like bulls and elephants.
Though their brains were so small, their limbs were like pillars, much
thicker than piano legs, and their arms were like iron. They could only
make hammers, or chisels, knives and scrapers of stone, and clubs of
wood, for they knew no better, and never went to school or college.

When men finally arrived on the earth, and began to plough the ground,
and to raise wheat for bread, and brought cows for milk, the giants,
and especially the giantesses, were mightily interested. Their
curiosity was great, to see how the things were done and how houses
were built, and cradles were made for babies to sleep in.

The giants told their sons and daughters not to meddle with the human
folks, but rather to help them; for the giants, dull as their wits
were, were afraid of any creature, that, though smaller than they were,
had more brains. They wondered how human beings got such big heads, and
they often pounded on each other’s skulls, to see if they were hollow
inside, like a cocoanut.

Now the biggest, of all these big fellows, was their king, named
Gargantua, but men learned to call him “Old Gargy.” He had only one
daughter, Bertha, who was his pet. She was a pretty good giantess, but
she always wanted to have her own way, and this often made trouble in
the family. Daddy and mamma could not always agree about her. Bertha
knew how to get on Old Gargy’s soft side, and sweeten his temper.

Too often, her indulgent father either let her have her own way, or
gave what she begged of him, or else he winked at, and overlooked, some
of her foolish pranks.

One day, when her daddy and mamma were asleep, she sneaked out from the
cave, on her tiptoes, and slipped down a glacier. When on solid ground,
she ran, like a deer, up into the valley, where she saw a farmer with
two horses making furrows in the field.

Amused at this, she stood and watched, while perched on a boulder,
looking on with wonder. Then the young giantess burst out laughing.

“How funny, to make stripes, and little gutters, all along the ground,”
she said to herself. Then, she walked up to where the man was and
lifting him, his plough, and both his horses, in one of her big hands,
she held out her apron, open wide, and dropped the whole lot, man,
team, and tools into it. These she took home to play with, on the cave
floor. Her mother looked on and enjoyed the fun, as her daughter pulled
the horses’ tails, and made them kick. She forced the man to dance on
her thumb nail, and used the iron end of the plough to clean her finger
nails. The man talked and whined and wanted to go home to his wife and
babies, but the giantess, Bertha, could not understand, a word he said.
So she spoke to her mother thus:

“This must be his way of frowning, like a wolf cub. Or, maybe he is
chattering, like a monkey. Or is he crying? Do you suppose?”

At this, the shadow of Old Gargy darkened the cave door. He saw what
was being done, and instantly ordered the release of the man and his
horses. Then he lifted his club, as a sign of securing obedience.

The jolly giantess, Bertha, having had her fun, took back the man and
his team into the valley. The farmer’s wife was so grateful, that she
wanted to make her visitor a nice present. So she took from the corner
of the room something brown. It was four-foot long and stood there, on
the end, with others like it. They looked like clubs, but seemed very
light. These were loaves of Swiss rye bread, that were kept standing on
their ends, in the spring house, and were called the staff of life. A
thick round cheese, a pot of honey and a full pail of milk were also
given Bertha for a present. The giantess ate heartily. She drank a
bucket full of the milk, chewed up a cheese, and a yard of bread, and
then asked for more to take home; which was willingly given.

When back in the cave, the giant family had a jolly feast; at least,
each one had a mouth full. They all smacked their lips, and murmured
“Um, um, um,” in their delight.

Down in the Valley, the farmer’s wife, although the sky was blue, and
the sun shining, thought it was thundering, or that an avalanche had
fallen down the mountain; but it was only the giant family showing how
happy they were, at eating the food of human beings.

“So you see, daughter Bertha,” said Old Gargy, her daddy, “what these
human creatures can do for us. So, do you let them alone; and, in the
future, harm them not, even in play. Then they will give us more bread
and cheese and milk.”

The good daughter placed one of the big cheeses, still uneaten, upon
her thumb nail, as a sign of truth. Then she declared she never would
disturb anything, man or beast in the valley.

Now there was another giant, named Hotap, who, in disposition, was very
different from his neighbor, and often played bad tricks on the
farmers. He loved to start avalanches, by making a wet snowball called
a soaker, and then flinging it over the snow and down into the valley,
upon the villages. In this way, he ruined many houses, barns, and
stables, killing men, goats, sheep, donkeys, chickens and cattle.

Besides this Hotap used to lie in wait for nice little boys, especially
those that were rosy, and plump, and to catch them and eat them up. He
sometimes came back, to his cave home, with his pocket full of small
boys. He thus ruined so many families, and made so many mothers cry,
that they sometimes called him Old Schoppe, which means something like
Boy-Eater, or, more exactly, our John Barleycorn.

But Schoppe was a giant that destroyed many more small boys, than any
other giant, or ogre, and in a different way. By and bye, Hotap and
Schoppe, who at first were rivals, became partners. Instead of living
in caves, they went into business and set up shops all over
Switzerland. They lured young men into these shops, and set them to
drinking poisonous stuff, which the giants made, so that the roads, and
streets, and gutters at nights, and early in the morning, were often
full of fellows lying asleep on the ground, or like pigs in the mud.

Then, further, the two giants made it the general fashion of putting
Schoppe’s drink even into things cooked for children.

Hotap found that, as partner to Schoppe, he could catch and destroy
more boys in this new business, than in the old way. So he laid aside
his club and stopped trying to destroy villages by rolling avalanches
on them. He put on fine clothes, and made his shops very attractive, by
looking glasses, and pretty pitchers, and tumblers. But, finally, he
himself got so fond of the drink which Schoppe made, out of barley, and
rye, and other grain that he drank himself to death and was buried in a
cemetery. Over his grave a monument was carved, in the shape of a
barrel, with a bung, and spout, and tap, as if he were continuing
business in the next world.

But Schoppe kept on in the business. He ground up grain, and wasted so
much, that he made the price of bread very high, so that poor people
often had to go hungry. Out of the good barley and rye, he made the
stuff that poisoned the brains of the young men and turned them into
flapjacks, so that they lay as stupid as stones in the ground. He
filled up the men, until they were hardly better than swill barrels. In
this way many boys were ground up into poverty or stupidity, and the
graveyards were filled so fast, by old Schoppe, that people called his
saloon the Mill. At last, the big fat fellow, with a red nose, died
also.

So at Berne, one sees the monument of Schoppe or Boy-Eater. He stands
in bronze over a fountain. He has boys in his pocket, samples of boys
in his hands and mouth, some more at his feet, and a good supply at
hand, to chew up and swallow.

Everyone goes to see the statue of the Boy Eater. Yet many others still
follow his business and eat up the boys.








VI

THE DWARF AND HIS CONFECTIONERY


Of all the families, tribes and clans of the little brown Folks, that
are only a yardstick high, the Swiss dwarfs are the funniest, and at
the same time the most friendly. They excel all others in being kind to
every living creature and in doing good things for human folks. They
look after the chamois, to keep them from being shot at, or killed, by
hunters that are cruel. Or, they whisper to the fish, to keep away from
naughty boys. They even go after lost cattle and goats, tend the
flocks, milk the cows, make cheese, and do lots of good favors for the
people whom they like. There are the kind shepherds and housemaids, who
give them occasionally a bowlful of milk, or leave out a cup of cream
for them to drink. They know where treasures lie in the ground, where
the best pastures are to be found for the cows, and the secrets of the
grasses and flowers are at their fingers’ ends.

In time of storm and wind, when it is too cold, or when avalanches are
tumbling down the mountains, they keep away from the land, and are
never visible. Going down deep, into the caves, or mines, they shut
themselves up, until Jack Frost has departed and the storms and
greatest cold are over. They shrink away, especially from the South
wind, called the Föhn, which blows for seventeen days at a time, for it
is like poison to them, and blinds their eyes.

To the people who treat them badly, or make fun of their feet, or
heads, or laugh and jeer at them, because they are so small, the Swiss
dwarfs are very mischievous, and even revengeful, and do such folks
great harm in the kitchens and stables. They smash the milk pans and
cheese kettles, upset the churns, lead the cattle astray, tie the cows’
tails together, and put stones and sticks in their food-troughs.
Usually they do so much mischief, that the rude or cruel people have to
be good, and treat the dwarfs with more politeness.

As for their looks, and the way they dress, the Swiss dwarfs beat all.
They are web-footed, like geese, but they cover themselves, from head
to toes, with long green cloaks. They wear gay red caps on their heads,
which look like the cowls of monks. Most curious of all, are their
beards, which are thick and long, and often white as snow.

A hundred years or so ago, many stories were told by old folks about
the dwarfs. One of these will show how kind, obliging, and useful, or
how surly and troublesome, the dwarfs could be—according as they are
treated by merry, or by grumpy folks.

For example, Mr. Hilty was a dairy farmer, or shepherd, who was always
ready to treat a dwarf with a cocoanut dipper full of cream. Because of
this, the dwarfs were willing, whenever he called them, to look after
his herds, when he wanted to leave his chalet, in the high pastures,
and go down into the valley, to sell his cheeses, or to buy groceries.

But by and bye, Hilty, while he was a good fellow, became too
inquisitive. He wanted to know the secrets of the dwarfs and even
pestered them with questions. Then, they warned him that they could not
tell, and that he must not ask. When he got too troublesome, the chief
of the dwarfs thought it was time to give him a lesson. So one day,
Hilty was invited, by an old white beard, to come and pay a visit to
his cave.

When the shepherd, who had grown rather fat, was very tired, after much
climbing up and over the rocks, with much puffing and blowing, arrived
at the cave, he had to stop and get his breath. The chief dwarf came
out, and smilingly invited him into the cave, where he sat down on the
stool offered him.

Hilty was amazed, as he looked at the beautiful stalactites, hanging
from the ceiling, and his eyes opened wide at the ingots of gold and
silver, which he saw lying on the floor. Piles of silver ore, not yet
smelted, and heaps of rocky crystals, topazes, onyx, and some sapphires
and opals lay around. His host, the dwarf, paid no attention to these,
but led him further in the cave, where was a sofa, made of thick soft
moss, on which he was told to lounge at ease.

Before Hilty, there was spread a table, crowded with every sort of good
things to eat, except, that there was no fish or meat in sight. The
dwarf explained to his guest that all the cookies, goodies, and
eatables were made from things in the vegetable kingdom.

After Hilty had enjoyed a good dinner, the dwarf told his guest that he
would reveal to him one of the secrets of his skill, but he must not
ask to be told more. He would be shown how to make delicious sweets,
and valuable confectionery, from a common weed, which the chamois fed
on every day. But this done, he repeated, Hilty must, on no account,
ask for any other secret. Nor must he try to learn any receipt about
any other delicacy, or even watch, while the cooking was going on. If
he did, the dwarf would be angry, and cut off the shepherd from his
friendship. He might even punish him, by causing him to lose his way,
when returning home.

Hilty gave his promise, making also the sign of the cross on his
breast. He swore an oath, that he would not see, hear, touch, taste, or
try, even, to feel, any further than was permitted and clearly
commanded him.

Trusting his guest fully, the dwarf first took a basketful of what we
call “Iceland moss,” which grows so plentifully in the high Alpine
pastures. Then he showed how, with water and fire, he could make the
delicacy known among us as “Iceland Moss Paste.”

At once, after tasting a morsel of the confection, with gusto, Hilty
smacked his lips and began to dream of getting rich. He resolved to
open a shop and make the new confection in his own village.

But this Hilty was a greedy and covetous fellow and often made a
glutton of himself. Seeing that the dwarf had everything ready, to make
more confectionery, of other kinds, he made up his mind to learn all
the secrets. “This time,” he said to himself, “I shall set up, not a
village shop, but a big confectionery store in Lucerne, the great
city.” He never thought more, of keeping the solemn promise, which he
had just given to the dwarf.

So, pretending to be very sleepy, he asked the dwarf to let him lie
down at length on the moss sofa and take a nap. The kind host at once
agreed, and made his guest comfortable. In a few minutes, pretending to
be asleep, Hilty, who was a gawk and a bumpkin, in manners, let his
nose and open mouth give vent to snores, long and loud.

This, in itself, was bad enough, and the dwarf was disgusted at such
manners and much irritated by the noise. But, worse than this was to
come. This ill mannered dairyman, who kept peeping between his eyelids,
got very much excited, as he saw the dwarf doing the most wonderful
things, with common weeds and flowers. Out of these he drew juices,
flavors, coloring matter, aromatic liquids, and sugars, either in
crystal, or in the form of gum or candy. Out of his pots, pans and
kettles, he poured what looked like the most tempting things to eat.
They smelled so delightful that Hilty forgot himself and, with his eyes
wide open, stared at the dwarf and what he was doing.

By this time, Hilty was building great air castles. He saw himself in a
great candy store in Lucerne employing fifty pretty girls, in
attractive uniform, to allure the public, wait at the counters on the
crowd of customers, who came with plenty of money and all eager to get
waited on. They stood in lines, four deep, in front of the show cases,
eyeing what they were to choose; while those nearest the girls were
eagerly buying bonbons, chocolates, caramels, all-day suckers, mint
drops and Iceland moss paste, in boxes tied up in dainty, gay colored
ribbons. Each box was wrapped, not in common paper, but in dotted Swiss
muslin, or fine cambric. No one seemed to care how much the cost might
be.

Back of the counters, were scores of lovely Swiss maidens, in white
bodices, with silver chains, ornamented girdles, and brilliant
head-dresses. These were tied, so as to show they were not yet married.
There were dozens of waiter boys and serving maids, scurrying around
with trays, attending to the people at the tables, who called for ices
and sweets, or drinks, to be sipped. His chief customers were among the
fashionable folks of Lucerne. For, in Hilty’s vision, his was the
resort of the most stylish people in the city.

Out in the kitchen, another company of cooks, confectioners,
dishwashers, and porters, kept hard at work; and, during rush hours,
they were nearly ready to faint. At the rear, two clerks were kept
busy, every moment, checking off the receipts, of boxes and barrels of
white and brown sugar, sorghum, syrup, liquors, and all sorts of
flavoring extracts, besides delicacies imported from Constantinople,
Calcutta, Teheran, and Nagasaki.

On the shop front, the plate glass bore the name of “Jean Hilty,” in
large gold letters, and below this, one read “The Home of Hilty’s
Famous Genuine Swiss Mountain Confectionery and Iceland Moss Paste.”

The highest priced confection was a praline, or compound of nuts and
chocolate, which was packed up in a most dainty box, lined with
perfumed lace paper, and labeled in gold letters “Made according to the
sole receipt ever revealed by the King of the Dwarfs.”

The display, in the big window, of all the delicious things known to
the confectioners, and many of them from foreign countries, advertised
to be of “private growth,” and “imported in our own fleet of ships” was
dazzling.

Most astounding of all, was the tableau over the main entrance. It
consisted of a group of carved and gilded figures, in front of a highly
tinted background, showing the dwarf at the fire, with the well-spread
tables and the dairyman as his guest.

Out on the street, the crowd that stood on the pavement, gazing up to
see this pretty picture, in bas-relief, was so great, that the police
had to make a lane and keep open a passage way, through the press of
old and young folks, so that ordinary people could get through.

So, for a half hour or more, inside that shepherd’s brain, a moving
picture show went on, as if a five-reel film was being rolled off, and
his imagination had spread the screen. The bright colors, in this
picture, of the furore for dwarf’s candy exceeded any gallery of
paintings known in Paris, or any panorama that could be made on canvas.

In fact the dairyman was so sure of the good time coming, that, with
his eyes wide open, he actually rubbed his two hands gleefully, right
before the dwarf. The next thing he did, was that he so far forgot his
promise, as to be heard in his glee. Instead of holding his tongue in
silence, he talked out loud to himself saying, “Am I not a lucky
fellow? By Saint Matthew, I am in luck, this time, surely.”

Hearing the strange noise, the King of the dwarfs turned around to
look. In one hand was his skillet, and in the other a ladle and a
cloth; and with both he was holding a very hot kettle, full of some
liquid. In fact, he was just about to pour out the boiling chocolate
over a dish of caramels, made after his own recipe.

But seeing the lazy lubber, wide awake, when he was believed to be fast
asleep, the dwarf’s whole appearance changed. Instead of smiles, in his
usually happy manner, his eyes blazed with wrath, like fire. His face
wore one long scowl. He danced with rage, and screamed out,

“So that’s the way you keep your word, is it? You ungrateful bumpkin!
Take that, and that!”

Then, he flung the pot of hot chocolate at the fellow’s head, and
followed up his attack, with the ladle and cloth, batting him out of
the cave.

What happened just after that, the dairyman never could, or would tell.
He was so stunned, that he lay insensible for several hours, as he
thought. The scalding, from the hot chocolate, made his face smart
fearfully. Tearing off part of his shirt, he bandaged up his head and
features as best he could, and then hobbled back home. It was weeks,
before his broken head was mended enough, and the ugly scars on his
face had healed. At last, he showed himself on the street, where the
small boys made his life a burden.

Henceforth the neighbors nicknamed him “The Dwarf’s Guest,” but he
never set up a candy store.








VII

TWO GOOD NATURED DRAGONS


The whole family of dragons, that are scattered all over the world,
have a very bad reputation. It is said that they feed on fat girls, and
will not taste anything but nice, tender, juicy maidens. If they try to
eat old folks, and grown up people, they get a stomach ache at once.
Then, it takes many bottles of medicine, besides keeping them a long
time on a baby’s diet of milk and bread, while they are getting well,
before they are in full health again.

But when they regain their appetite, they roam around through the
country, devouring maidens by the dozen. Then all the fathers, that
have lovely daughters, must be on their guard. They keep their girls at
home, for fear there will be none of them left.

This habit of the dragons to relish, on their bill of fare, only lovely
maidens, makes the brave young men want to fight and kill the monsters,
because, with so few girls left, they fear that they may not be able to
get wives, and, without these, they cannot have homes or be husbands.

But the old dragons were foxy fellows, very cunning and crafty. So they
kept out of the way of the knights and heroes, with their swords and
spears, and arrows, and bow guns: and even from the fairies, who cast
spells over them. It was only once in a while, that a lucky fellow,
like Saint George, could stick his spear clear down the monster’s
throat. It happened, only rarely, that one like Sigurd, the Norseman,
or Susanoo, the Japanese, was able to slay one of the big, clumsy,
crawling creatures, with their trusty swords.

Happily there came, once in a while, a good natured dragon; that is,
the right sort of a fellow, jolly in disposition, and kind to boys.
Such a dragon would even invite a well-behaved man to take dinner with
him, and even point out what food on the dragon’s table tasted best.

Of course, the man would not always like what was served up before him
to eat; for a mortal cannot always enjoy what comes out of the dragon’s
kitchen, nor can he be sure of what he may be swallowing. Nobody enjoys
chewing up his grandmother, or his aunts, or cousins, or sisters, even
though he might, once in a great while, feel like doing so.

So when one goes to see a dragon, and does not, himself, get swallowed
up, he had better take a sandwich or two with him, and not taste the
dragon’s delicacies.

No pretty girl, or plump young lady, ought ever to pay a visit to a
dragon’s cave, because, however kind and polite the monster would wish
to be, to his guest, his appetite might be too strong for him.
Moreover, the very sight of the lovely maiden might make his mouth
water, and then, after roaring out, “um, um,” he would be very apt to
gulp her down, at one mouthful. This might happen so quickly, that she
would not know where she was, or even think what her mother would say,
when she missed her, on ironing day. So, even in the case of a
well-behaved dragon, or one supposed to have a good character, any
person had better be careful about visiting a dragon’s cave.

Now there was a man in Switzerland, a cooper, who made tubs and
buckets, and, once in a great while, a hogshead or a bath tub. His shop
sign was a well-hooped barrel, set over his doorway. He was especially
expert at making and mending milk churns. Some of the girls used to
declare that butter came more quickly, and with less hard work, in
churns made by him, than in any others.

His name was not Rip Van Winkle, whose father, by the way, was born in
Germany, but he had a wife with a bad temper. She had a great
reputation for scolding. It was said that her “tongue, which was only
three inches long, could kill a man six feet high.” In fact, some folks
declared that she did not need a sword, but she could fight a dragon
with her fiery tongue alone. Let her but open her mouth, and such a
volley of abuse would be shot out, at the monster, that, no matter how
big, or how hungry he was, he would curl up his tail and run, or else
flap his wings, like a frightened chicken, and be off.

Now when this cooper was asked how he felt, about having such a scold
for a wife, he used to make apologies, and say, “Well, it was not
always so. Once, she was so sweet and lovely, that I wanted to eat her
up.”

Then, after a minute or two, he would add, “And I have always been
sorry, ever since, that I did not do it.”

When his wife heard of this, she called him “the son of a dragon, and a
woman-eater.”

One day, the cooper received an unusually severe punishment, not at the
hands, but from the mouth of his wife. This, however, he richly
deserved; for, after drinking, with his companions, all night, she had
found him lying in the gutter. After she had rolled him over, like a
flapjack, to see if the drunken lout was her husband, he got up,
looking very sheepish. Then he promised to work hard that day. So she
went back home, to get his breakfast ready.

But instead of going to his house or shop, where the wood shavings
smelled so sweet, he resolved to take a walk, to get rid of a splitting
headache. So he scrambled up the mountain side, expecting, on his
return, to tell his wife, that he had been out in the woods, looking
for timber, to make hoops and barrel staves.

He hardly knew where he was going, for he was stupid and half dizzy,
from so much drink, from the night before, and pretty soon he slipped
and fell. Over and over, he rolled, until, coming to the edge of a
precipice, he stumbled and slid far down into a bog. This cooled him
off and brought him to his senses.

He tried long to find the way out, but could see no hole or cleft in
the rocks. After a while, he saw what looked like a tunnel, or, it
might be, a grotto.

Entering in and peering about him, he discerned four great round
lights, like moons. At this, his heart began to beat, his blood to
swell in his veins, and his hair to rise, nearly knocking his hat off.
He saw two streams of fire issue from beneath and between these shining
orbs. After a few seconds, he saw clearly two dragons, that were
breathing out streams of fire, that nearly scorched off his eyebrows,
while the sulphurous smell nearly knocked him over.

At this, the cooper made the sign of the cross, and prayed for
protection. Thereupon, both the dragons, that had got their jaws ready
to swallow him, shut their mouths. They crawled up gently, with their
tails down, and they gave him to understand that they were friendly, by
licking his hands and feet. This they kept on doing, until all the mud,
into which he had tumbled, and which had stuck to his clothes, was
entirely gone. It was almost like taking a steam bath.

As the winter came on, the appetite of the dragons became less ravenous
and they ate little. Like bears and marmots, they went into their cave,
and kept very quiet, as if asleep. Moreover, even in summer, when these
dragons could not get a supply of maidens, they devoured a sweetish
substance, that exuded from a cleft in the rocks, which must have been
filled by a colony of bees, for honey trickled plentifully down into
the gully. At any rate, the cooper got to like the dragon’s winter food
so well, that he wondered how he could ever have enjoyed black bread
and cheese. In a month, his stomach got quite used to the new diet.

He was not afraid of the dragons, and they seemed to enjoy his company.
Perhaps they thought that, when the spring should come, he might tell
them, when his wife went abroad out of the house; and then, if
starving, they might make a dinner of her.

Meanwhile, the cooper was missed in the village; and, as people wanted
their tubs mended, several parties of strong young men climbed the
mountains to find him. They sought in every grove and wood, over hill
and down dale, in valley, and on the slopes, but his body could not be
found. So, he was mourned as dead; for, in spite of his faults, he was
considered a good fellow.

But in spring time, when the sun began to climb high in the sky, and
the sap rose in the trees, the flowers bloomed, and, the cows went,
with the cheesemakers, to the higher pastures, the two dragons grew
restless, and their appetites came back in full force. Hoping to catch
a nice fat maiden or two, they began to stretch, and roll, and to
writhe, and tumble. They flapped, and furled, and unfolded their wings,
until they felt ready to soar and swoop, with all their former skill.

By this time, also, the cooper began to get homesick. Even though
afraid to meet his wife, he was longing to see his children, after his
long absence. He had got very tired of looking only on rocks and the
walls of the ravine. Moreover, the dragons did not seem to be as
sociable, as at first, and they amused him no longer. Besides, he
wanted to see his neighbors again, to tell them of his adventures and
even to pose as a hero. He feared, however, that before he tried to get
away, the dragons might still eat him up; for they snorted, and
bellowed, and rubbed their stomachs, with their forepaws, as if hungry
enough, indeed, to swallow a horse with its harness on.

One warm day, the cooper heard, afar off, the echoes of the Alpine
horn. He listened with delight to the yodel music, as the shepherds
called their cows and goats. As he was wondering how he could get out
of the valley, and whether the dragons would let him go, he saw the
larger one of the two monsters unfurl his wings, which were as big as a
windmill’s sails. He flew straight up in the air, and, when near the
blue sky, circled about a few times, like the carrier pigeons, which
the cooper had seen at home. Then, careering far away, he disappeared
in the dim distance beyond. No doubt, that day, some poor daddy, on
coming home at night, missed one of his daughters. The cooper had
noticed, that both the dragons had been roaring with hunger, for
several days previously, and now he had his fears.

So the cooper watched his chance, determined not to let the other
dragon get away, without his stealing a ride on the monster’s back. He
knew that a man’s weight, for a dragon to carry in the air, would
hardly be felt, so much as that of a feather.

For a dragon had the power of a catapult, the strength of a rhinoceros,
a roar like a lion, teeth like a tiger, fins like a fish, claws like a
falcon, wings like an eagle, and scales like an alligator. In short, a
dragon was a whole menagerie in itself.

So watching his chance, the cooper, at the very moment that he saw the
second dragon unfold his wings, grabbed hold of his tail; and, though
it was slippery, he hung on to this, for dear life. Far up in the air,
the monster flew, at first very high, and then low, as if he knew where
the cooper lived. Then, coming near his village, the monster swooped
down near the earth, and dropped his burden gently on the top of a
wagon loaded with hay. He was off before any one could let fly an arrow
from the string, or shoot a bolt out of a bow gun, or say “By Saint
Matthew.”

As the cooper climbed down from the hay wagon, all the ducks, geese and
chickens set up a concert of welcome. Donkeys brayed, the cows lowed,
and dogs barked, and cats meowed. His wife, instead of scolding him,
threw her arms around him, and wept for joy. His children gathered
about, and so held his arms and legs, that puss could not get near to
rub her sides against his limbs. All his neighbors and friends welcomed
him back with delight.

The next day, his shop was filled with leaky tubs, and churns that had
lost their hoops, and barrels that needed new staves. In addition, to
this old work awaiting him, the orders for new utensils came in so
fast, that he expected soon to be a rich man. He was so grateful, for
his deliverance and safe return, and for his continuing prosperity,
that, instead of hoarding up his money, he presented, to the church, in
his village, a beautiful silver communion service, on which two dragons
were engraved.

But his happiness was but for a short time, for his stomach had
changed, and could no longer digest the ordinary food of mortals, not
even buttermilk; and, as for cheese, it nearly killed him. Feeding so
long, on honey and dragon’s food, had ruined him for liking any other
articles of diet.

In vain his wife cooked everything very nicely and offered it in the
most tempting form. The maidens of the village, thankful at not being
digested by dragons, tried their best to tempt his appetite, with the
very finest their dainty hands could make, in the form of broths,
salads, meats, cakes, apple dumplings, puddings and tarts. The
delicatessen shops sent the choicest tidbits they could roast before
their spits, bake in their ovens, or show on their tables, or in their
shop windows. Nothing would avail, and the poor man died of slow
starvation; and this, before even autumn had come.

After so sad an event, the popularity of even good dragons waned, so
that it is hard, nowadays, to make anyone believe there were such
creatures, that are named in encyclopædias. It is now, the firm opinion
of most Swiss folks, old and young, that the only good dragon is a dead
one, while those neither dead or alive, but only painted, or in fairy
tales, are good enough to know about.








VIII

THE FROST GIANTS AND THE SUNBEAM FAIRIES


Many people think Switzerland the most beautiful country on earth. It
is certainly the world’s playground. Every year, many hundreds of
thousands of persons from various countries, go there to spend either
the winter or the summer. They come to enjoy the good sleep that comes
from the bracing air, to climb the high peaks, to see the flowers, to
hear the echoes of the Alpine horn, to ride over the mountain roads, or
to be whisked up, on electric railways, to summits among the clouds.
With most of the tourists, the effect of the sharp atmosphere is to
whet their appetites, even more than their wits; but perhaps this is
what they seek.

The sick and the well alike get vast benefit. They think it great fun
to find so much ice and snow, and also so much sunshine, as if winter
and summer liked to play together. In February, hardy and strong people
enjoy sledding and sliding, besides skis and skittles, and many other
merry sports. Children go out on sleds, with almost nothing on them, to
enjoy the air baths.

Yet Switzerland was not always a flowery playground, rich in splendid
hotels, where the boarders’ bills catch the spirit of the place and
become mountain climbers. For ages, it was a sort of North Pole, set in
the middle of Europe, frozen in, tight and fast, and with mountains of
snow and rivers of ice, where no animals could live. In this age,
everything was white. Then there were no animals, men, women, children
or babies; no flowers, no birds, no fish; no farms, no vineyards, but
only dreadful cold, all the year round, and for millions of years.

Then the frost giants ruled a land forever white with snow, that never
melted, and their king sat on the top of a solid mountain of ice. These
frost giants would not allow anything alive to come near them. They
made it the law that, whatever had eyes or nose, feet or hands, or paws
or wings, should be instantly frozen to death, and their solid
carcasses packed away in a refrigerator, a million years old.

The queen of the fairies, that lived down in the warm meadows, felt
sorry that so fine a place should have nothing in it that was alive, or
had any color, red, pink, blue, or yellow, violet or green. She
believed that the land could be conquered from the frost giants and
made a country in which boys and girls could play and pick flowers.

It might, indeed, take several millions of years to melt the ice and
cover the ground with flowery meadows. But what was that? Because
fairies never care anything about days, months or years. They never
grow old and do not use almanacs, because not dwelling in bodies like
ours, and never having lived like us mortals, they do not get sick or
have any funerals or cemeteries. They are saved all expenses of being
buried, for they do not have any graves. There are no doctors, or
undertakers, in fairy land, even though the immortelle flowers bloom
everywhere. It seems to be that because some are wiser than others that
they may be called old, or mothers, aunts or grandmothers.

To carry out her purpose, the fairy queen made a friend of the sun and
asked his help. This, Old Sol, as the fairies called him, was very glad
to give; because he had rescued other parts of the world from the
ice-kings and made many lands bright and beautiful. He thought that the
monarch of the frost world and his white giants had reigned long
enough, in Switzerland. Besides, Old Sol wanted to show that he had not
yet done his best work. It is true that he had made other lands look
lovely, changing them from barren rocks and sand, to fruitful fields,
groves and gardens, rich in wheat and corn, fruit trees and berry
bushes, besides peaches and apples and pears, roses and lilies.

Old Sol declared that, with the aid of the fairies, he would make
Switzerland the most beautiful of all countries, so that many people
from foreign lands would come to see it. He would scoop out lakes,
channel out rivers, smooth the face of the country, and make it lovely
with pastures, rich in cows and goats, and spangled with flowers of
many hues. Yes, if the fairies would promise to put enough clothes on
their favorites, and wrap them up in downy undergarments, with lots of
fur and wool for overcoats, he would help the prettiest flowers to
climb up to the high mountains. Then he would promise to furnish heat
enough, so that they could keep warm and live there. He would make it
so pleasant for them, that they would never get homesick, or want to go
back to their mothers in the valley below. In spite of the frost
giants, the storms and winds, the tempests, and the icy breath of the
giants, these flowers would bloom, and nod, and laugh at and defy all
enemies.

What was even more wonderful, Old Sol promised that every flower, as it
climbed higher, should have a richer color on its cheeks, so that all
the world would wonder. Then, the plants, in the warmer regions lower
down, should envy the brilliant faces of their sisters so high up. In
fact, it was to be a beauty contest. “Nothing venture nothing have,”
should be the rule. They might not grow to be so tall. Their feet might
be larger, for they would need strong toes, to hold on tight to the
ground, when old Boreas, the wind giant, tried his best to blow them
away; but to win out, they were sure to do, in the end, and beat Jack
Frost and all his army.

When the fairies were called together, and told by their queen that the
Sun would be their friend and help them every day, and never tire of
his good work, you ought to have seen how happy they were. They all
clapped their hands, and every one, big and little, wanted to be brave
and go out to fight the frost giants. Each volunteer said, “I am not
afraid. The frost giants can’t freeze me.”

It was wonderful how the pretty fairies were perfectly willing to be
changed into humble looking plants, that never could grow very tall,
but lie quite flat on the ground, and have deep roots in the crannies.
They would have to live without much society, or excitement, and spend
their lives in clefts and hollows. What was hardest to bear, was, that
most of them would have to live like nuns; for in the case of many of
them, their beauty would never be appreciated or even seen.

Some were glad even to become plain meadow grasses. When one plump
fairy was told she would become an Alpine Poa, and must carry her
babies on her back, she gladly consented saying, “I am willing.”

The enthusiasm for the war became an epidemic. Some of the big fairies
asked to be changed into trees—oak, maple, spruce, pine, or birch. This
was hard, for those who had been regular chatterboxes would now be able
only to sough in the breeze, or whisper in the winds, and they could
roar only in a gale or tempest. Some even begged to be allowed to take
on the form of the old-fashioned arolla, the most ancient of all the
Swiss trees.

It was astonishing to note how ready, these pretty fairies were, to put
off their lovely gossamer-like robes, lay aside their wings, and wear
such plain clothes, as some of them must, who volunteered to be meadow
and rock plants. But then, the idea of fighting the frost giants, and
rescuing the land from ice and snow, had filled them all with
enthusiasm. It was like patriotism among mortals. But then, they loved
the children and wanted them to have a pretty playground made ready for
them, so that, when babies and cradles came into the land, the flowers
would be in bloom, for the little folks to pick and string around their
necks.

So the queen of the fairies and her wise counsellors enrolled and
equipped an army of her fairies, who had agreed to be turned into
plants, for the long war against the frost giants. Of all these, Old
Sol was to be the general. Heaps of fur and flannel, wool and velvet,
and hair and down, were stored up, to make thick underclothes, and
stout overcoats to keep warm, and all sorts of wiry stuff, for toes to
grip tight and keep hold of the rocks. Then, with plenty of rich paints
and dyes, to color their cheeks, the Fairy Queen summoned the
volunteers to come forth.

As each name was called, and a fairy stepped out, the queen waved her
wand. First, she pointed it upward, to where the stars were playing
hide and seek among the snowy peaks. Then, touching each kneeling
fairy, she tapped with her star-tipped wand, upon the neck of each.

Presto! What change! Eyes, nose, ears, lovely yellow, or raven black,
or shining auburn hair, limbs, hands and feet and wings disappeared, in
a golden mist.

When one looked again, there was, where each fairy had kneeled down, a
flower. Never was the like seen before, in all the wonderful floral
world, either as to the kind, or blossom, or the shape of the stalk,
leaves or petals of the plants. Some hardly looked like flowers at all,
while others were recognized at once, as cousins or sisters of old
friends; but so dressed up, as if for an arctic journey, as scarcely to
be recognized. One had a family of little folks on its back—“As hairy
and furry as an Esquimaux baby,” whispered one fairy to the other.

Here was one creature, dazzlingly splendid in colors, while, alongside
of her, was a little lady robed entirely in white, as if she were to be
the bride of Jack Frost, and marry him in a country where the tint of
ermine and ptarmigan bird was the only one in fashion.

The lowliness, of some of these new born flowers, was perhaps the most
astonishing thing about them. Even when in bloom they were not over an
inch in height, while their neighbors, down in the valley, were all
nearly as tall as yard sticks. One group became only plain meadow
grass, while their relatives seemed dressed for Fifth Avenue, or the
main street of Zurich or Berne.

Although, when the fairies were turned into trees, and were, at first,
hardly higher than a needle, and not one of them had a body as thick as
a thimble, they at once began whispering, for it was hard to give up
the old habit of talking every minute.

Of one pretty creature, shaped like a blue bell, with scalloped edges,
it was noticed that she shut up her mouth, and did not say a word. At
this, one wise old fairy looked up at the sky, and said, “It is
certainly going to rain.” Thereupon, since flowers were so cheap, this
one, they called “the poor man’s weather glass.” Another, that had a
curiously shaped blossom, they named Lady’s Slipper. To still another,
very reddish, tufty, and strong, they gave the title of Prince’s
Feather; while an unusually pert and active one, that had a very
expressive face, they christened Johnny-jump-up. This fairy had
whimpered a little, at the idea of being named after a boy; but, when
told she would have clothes of many colors, she was instantly happy,
and welcomed her change into a flower with a face that would never need
rouge, or lily white powder.

While these, thus far mentioned, were mostly valley or pasture flowers,
and not expected to live very far up the mountain slopes, several
others volunteered to lead what some called “the forlorn hope,” but
they were too full of “pep” for that and took the name of the advance
guard. These were especially equipped for fighting the cold. These were
the edelweiss, the Alpine rose, and the octopetalla. They were made so
frost-proof, by fur and thick clothes, that they could laugh in the
very faces of the frost giants, and dare them to do their worst in
trying their best to freeze them out.

Of the one, that seemed done up entirely in white flannel, and that
kept its blooms in a bunch, like a rosette, everybody knows, for it was
the edelweiss—proud of her name, the noble white.

Millions of fairies gathered together on the hill slopes, to see the
procession start, and did not mind waiting a thousand years or so. They
hung on bushes, sat on top of rocks and boulders and on the
tree-branches, or stood or hovered, wherever they could get either a
peep, or a good view of the fairy flower army, that was to march up to
the heights and wrestle with the giants.

Some wondered how the battle would go, and if the war would ever end.
Could they possibly march up the mountain sides, and hold their own,
amid the blasts of winter and amid the eternal snow and ice, and win
the land now covered up? Not a sign of field, or pasture, or road, or
any space clear of snow, was then visible. There was nothing but ice,
many miles thick and looming so far up in the air, as to seem, at
night, to touch the stars. The jagged rocks, splintered by the
lightning, and the mountain sides, clothed with glaciers, like armor,
and which were billions of tons in weight, seemed very forbidding.

“Just give us a few millions of years, and we’ll surely win,” cried the
fairy queen, who was proud of her beautiful army, and who, with them
all, knew or cared nothing for what we call time.

Fairies never cry, but some felt as if they might weep, to see so many
pretty flowers killed, as they feared they would be. Even the idea of
the chills and shivers, they would have to suffer, made some of the
timid ones feel creepy.

Even suppose they could survive ice and frost, and the cold breath of
the strong winds, that might uproot them, how could they resist the
avalanches, that might overwhelm and crush them? If whole forests of
giant trees were often leveled, like egg shells, and flattened like
flounders, by these rolling terrors, or torn up by landslides, or
ground to gravel, by falling rocks, or carried away by landslides, how
could tiny and tender flowers hope to escape?

But the fairy queen knew the power of her friend, the Sun, and the
tenacity and perseverance of her flower children. So, laughing at such
forebodings, she bade the lovely flowers and little trees begin their
march. Their orders to advance were steadily “forward and upward.” They
were to hold the ground gained, inch by inch. They must even try, again
and again, to split the rocks, and be willing to suffer cold, wet,
wind, and not be out of sorts, or show bad temper, when it rained too
much, or the clouds hid the sun. They must take advantage of every
nook, crevice, crack and cranny.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said one wise fairy to her neighbor. “I’ll warrant
you they will pretty soon complain that it is too hot, and sometimes
even ask the sun to veil his face with clouds. When the evil imps, that
ride on the Föhn, or south wind, visit them, one or more will be eager
to marry a frost giant, to keep cool.”

But the other fairy said, “that is only gossip,” and she did not
believe they would “ever be sorry and want to change back.”

When, after their first victories, the cows and goats should come, and
the birds make their nests, and men and women arrive, and the boys and
girls play, these fairies, thus changed into flowers, were not to
object to have their stalks eaten up by the cattle, or their seeds to
be swallowed by the birds, or their blossoms to be plucked by the
children. Even when they should come to their best bloom, and seem too
pretty to be touched, they were to welcome the cows and goats.

To all these directions, the new plants, trees, and flowers, nodded
their heads, and the war began. The older fairies went back to the
vineyards, groves, forests, dales and meadows, in the lower lands of
sunshine, of mild climate, and of fair weather, and the battle was on.

Several millions of years slipped away, and some of the fairies in the
warm countries had almost forgot their cousins in the high Alps. Then
it happened that some thousands of them made up a party to go and visit
what they had once left long ago, as a polar region, of thick ice where
no land was visible.

What a change, and how lovely! When they reached Switzerland, and
looked over the landscape, they could not, at first, believe their own
eyes. True, it was mid-summer when they arrived; but, as far as the eye
could reach, they beheld valleys and meadows spangled with flowers,
from which floated the sound, or echoes, of tinkling bells, where
contented cows and goats were browsing. On the sweet perfumed air, were
wafted the aromatic odors of the delicious herbage, freshly cropped by
the cattle. Pretty houses, on the flat spaces, or perched on the hill
slopes, told of happy homes. Children were playing games, or picking
flowers. Church spires pointed toward Heaven. In one village, a great
long parade of sleek cows, their well groomed coats shining in the sun,
and one with a milking stool between her horns, was moving up, where
the grass was most luscious. Donkeys and horses, laden with cheese and
garden produce, were moving in lengthened lines to the markets. Here
and there, castles, chalets, bridges, church spires, and thickly
clustered houses, told of villages, towns and cities; for man was now
in possession, and all the world rejoiced. It was like an heiress
receiving her fortune, for human beings thus to enter into the
enjoyment of the lovely landscape and beautiful country, which the
fairies had helped so grandly to create.








IX

THE FAIRY IN THE CUCKOO CLOCK


As a rule, and certainly with most fairies, mortals are considered to
be very stupid. In fairyland, the reputation of human beings, as dull
witted and slow, is a fixed tradition.

Before doing a new thing, men and women have to think it out. They talk
a good deal about “cause and effect”; whereas, with fairies, there are
no causes, but things, and events just happen. If they do not, the
fairies make them.

Some situations, like the sun and moon, the earth and sky, the summer
and winter, cannot be changed. Yet fairies can bring to pass lots of
wonders that surprise men. They can play tricks that puzzle them beyond
measure.

A hundred years ago, before the days of tourists, alpenstocks, hotels,
electric railroads, and other foolish novelties, the guides, and all
village folk, believed in the fairies. They felt as sure of giants and
dwarfs, elves, and dragons, as folk of today, that never saw a dodo, or
a pterodactyl, or an auroch, or a five-toed horse, believe these were
once plentiful on the earth.

In fact, there was once a time, when men had no clocks or
wrist-watches, and girls did not carry at their waist the pretty gold
or nickel time-keepers of today. Nor did the big bells in the towers
boom out the hours, nor were the huge clock-faces or dials seen, by day
or by night. In the castles of Switzerland, where rich men or nobles
lived, they knew nothing about marking the hours and minutes by
anything, with a round face, having figures on it. One way to announce
the hours was to have a candle, with two little brass balls, on
opposite sides of the wax, and tied together with a string. When the
flame burned, say, an inch, or other measured space, the balls dropped
down into a brass basin. This made a loud, ringing noise, which sounded
out the hours. Or, a little hammer struck a bell, and that is the
reason why a clock, as its name was at first, was called a klok, or
bell. On ships, the bells sounded every hour, and half hour, and this
is still the method, to which sailors are accustomed; “eight bells”
marking the end of one of the three periods of four hours each, into
which the day is divided.

The fairies could always tell the time, as well as men, by the sun, but
they were more interested in the moon and stars, for night was their
joy time. The common people had no word for a minute, or a second, or
anything less than an hour. They knew when the sun rose and set, and
they guessed the time of day from the place of the sun in the sky—at
the east, as it rose in the morning, and during the afternoon, as it
sank in the west.

After the Alpen glow, or rosy light, that flushed the mountains like a
maiden’s blush, the fairies came out to dance in the meadows. They
always went away and disappeared at sunrise, for the dancing fairies
would be turned into stone, if the sun’s rays struck them. It was even
worse for them, than for mortals, who, even amid the ice and snow, when
climbing high mountains, might be sunstruck and die. One family of the
flowers they named Four o’Clocks.

But by and bye, men learned that they could set two sticks in a line
north and south, and the shadow line from one stick would touch the
other. They called this time twelve o’clock, or noon. The old men also
took notice that, in the long days of summer, the sun lengthened and,
in cold winter, shortened its shadows. They were thus able to count the
days before the flowers would bloom in the springtime. Then the yodel
music would sound and the cows be driven to pasture up in the high
mountains.

From this noon shadow of the sun, men got the idea of the sundial.
Placing a round disc, or plate, made of brass, or copper, on a stone or
post, and setting on one side of it a metal pin, they noticed the sun’s
shadow going round it in a circle. On the spaces, they marked the
hours. Soon, it became the general fashion to have sundials in the
gardens.

Yet all the time the fairies laughed at mortals and declared that if
they could live on the earth, during the sunshiny hours, they would be
able to tell the time of day from the flowers and the sun’s place in
the sky. So, just for the fun of it, whenever they noticed a new
sundial, of brass, or stone, set up in a garden, they invariably held a
ball, and danced around it all night.

Once in a while, they went into a church when no one was there, and
walked and sported around the hour glass in the pulpit.

Of the arrant stupidity of some mortals, the fairies became finally and
perfectly sure, when one night, they gathered together for a merry
dance around a new sundial. This had been placed, only that day, in a
garden owned by an old fellow, who was reputed, by his neighbors, to be
a very wise man. The fairies were interrupted in their plan of playing
ring-around-a-rosy, when their sentinel, set to watch, had seen a
strange sight and called out a loud alarm.

Now this funny old fellow had a name which, if translated, into
English, would be Soft Pudding. He was a kind-hearted chap, that loved
the birds, and his pets, and children, but he was a most absent-minded
codger. He never knew where his hat was, when he went outdoors, so his
wife tied it, by a string, on to his button hole, as she did the little
children’s mittens with a bit of tape, over their shoulders. Yet he was
a delightful daddy, and all the little folks loved him.

Mr. Soft Pudding gladly paid the bill for his new toy, the sundial. He
was so overjoyed at the idea of telling time by a shadow, that he
talked about it for hours. Indeed, he was so absorbed in it, that he
forgot all about the sun, and the necessity of its shining, or that
daylight was at all requisite for his enjoyment, in looking at the
sundial.

So, on one cool autumn night, old Soft Pudding put on his cloak,
lighted his lantern, and walked out into the garden to see what time it
might be! Fool that he was, he found that as he changed the position of
the lantern, its rays every time cast a new shadow. Instead of its
showing one time, it looked as if there were several times, marked by
the pin; and, as if everything had gone wrong. Then, for the first
time, the idea entered his head that sundials were for use, during the
daytime only.

“Who would have thought it?” he cried, as he tramped back into his
house, hoping his wife would not know the object of his errand and
laugh at him. But he did not tell her, and she thought he had gone out
to look after the cows.

But the fairies were irritated and in bad temper, because they had been
driven away, by this intruder on their pleasures. They laughed at his
stupidity, but their vexation was plain to be seen.

“He might as well have had a wooden head, or one made of a squash. This
only shows what fools these mortals be,” said one fairy to another.

“Oh, don’t be angry, or sneer at him,” said an old fairy, who was a
famous inventor. “Stupid though he is, he and his wife have always been
kind to us fairies. Leave him to me. I’ll put another idea in his head.
For the sake of his people, I’ll teach him to turn the dial upside
down, turn its face outward, and put hands and fingers on its face,
with wheels inside and weights below. Then, he can always have what he
expected, this evening, to do; and tell the time, at night, as well as
by day.

“And I’ll make the new contrivance sing. No longer shall a timekeeper
be called a bell, to strike or sound the hours. I’ll put a bird inside,
to fly out and call out the hours.”

So the next night, the Queen of the Fairies took counsel of the owl,
the wisest of all the birds, and also as fair-minded as a judge, who is
just to all and the favorite of none. The owl decided that the cuckoo
would serve best, and could be most depended upon always to come out,
flap its wings, and chirp out the proper numbers of the hours.

The Fairy Queen was surprised. “How can you, sir Judge, nominate a bird
of bad character? The cuckoo is a pirate. Does it not lay its eggs in
the nests of other birds? How often, besides stealing their homes, it
throws out the eggs of the rightful owners, and, because of this
robbery, the birdies die.”

“True, I have considered this,” said the owl, “but the cuckoo is a
summer bird, that eats up the hairy caterpillars, which other birds
will not touch. In this manner, it helps the trees to grow and the
fruit to ripen, so that men have a clean country for the fairies to
play in. Besides, in the courting season, you know it is the male
bird’s love note, that sounds so sweetly, in April, May and June, and
this song, ‘cuckoo, cuckoo,’ we all love to hear.”

The Queen of the Fairies pondered this answer. She was impressed with
the owl’s wisdom, and, besides, she wanted all the fairies to love each
other. So she concluded to invite the male cuckoo bird to be her model,
for the new clock, that was to make Switzerland wealthy and famous.
Surely, such clocks would be wanted, all over the world.

The land being rich in walnut trees, there was no trouble in getting
plenty of wood, dark and handsome, to be carved. So, appearing to old
Soft Pudding, in a dream, the fairy queen said to him.

“Although we fairies all had a good laugh at you, when we saw you
coming out of your house at night, with a lantern, to tell the time at
the sundial, thus breaking up our party, yet because you have always
been so kind to the birds, and loved our fairy folks, and the children,
I will show you how to make a new kind of clock. It will not only mark
the hours on its face, without the aid of the sun, but will send out a
cuckoo, every hour, to flap its wings in delight. Then this wooden bird
will call out ‘cuckoo, cuckoo,’ as if a real one in feathers were
making love to its mate. Do you not, yourself, think that the affection
of the lover bird, thus shown, will increase mutual affection in your
own house and brighten every Swiss home, and many more homes, beyond
the sea?”

“I am sure it will. Thank you heartily,” said Soft Pudding.

Then the Fairy Queen held out before his gaze a lovely cuckoo clock,
made of black walnut, with hands and face-figures cut out of the wood
of the white birch tree.

When he woke up in the morning, out of his sleep, old Soft Pudding
stretched out his hands to receive the gift, but it was daylight, and,
of course, the fairy was gone. It was the common light of the sun, but
he was very happy, even though he had only dreamed. He proceeded at
once to turn his dream into reality, by constructing the clock.

Within a week, he had made the works. Then, he set them inside a black
walnut case, with ivory figures on the dial. After several attempts, he
succeeded with the wooden cuckoo, that would come out, flap its wings,
and chirp the number of the hours, and go inside the shut doors, while
the clock face also marked the proper point.

Then, he brought his whole family, one morning, near the moment when
the minute hand was approaching the proper dot on the disc.

What was their surprise, when, without any one touching the little
black house, which was set on the wall, the doors flew open, and out
strutted a cuckoo, flapping its wings. It chirped out, ten times, and
then bowed, went into its box again, and the little doors shut.

The children all clapped their hands and the mother embraced her
husband in joy. By and bye, for ivory, which was very costly, Mr. Soft
Pudding used white birch for the clock hands.

Then he set up a factory, and this gave work to many villagers, men and
women, boys and girls. He soon made a fortune, and now, no one called
him Soft Pudding, but every one saluted him with a title of respect.

When he died, he left his wealth to his family. To this day, his
cuckoos flap their wings, and salute the hours, in every land. Because
the wooden clock and bird were black, the time-telling cuckoo, which
was sometimes hitched to a barometer, or set in a toy, to foretell the
weather, was called the “rain-crow.” But, with this beginning, made by
the cuckoo clock, Switzerland became a land of clocks, watches, and
musical boxes.








X

THE CASTLE OF THE HAWK


The hawk is one of the children of Asia, the Mother Continent, in which
almost all the fairy tales were first told. From the beginning, this
sharp-eyed bird of prey has had the reputation of being very cruel, and
of eating up the little birds. It has a curved beak, terribly sharp
talons, and very large and strong wings. The young fowls in the
barnyard are afraid, even of the hawk’s shadow, and they quickly run to
cover. For the hawk, sometimes called a falcon, can fly up very high
and then swoop down on the small, or tame birds, kill them at once and
carry them off. Little chickens, to be safe, had better run at once
under the wings of their mother. Sometimes, the old hen faces the
falcon so bravely, that she can save her brood and fight hard, until a
man comes with a gun and drives off this pirate of the air. In
Switzerland, they call the big hawk the Mountain Condor, or the Robber
Bird. It seizes many a lamb, kid, or puppy, and its nest is, most of
the time, built in the midst of bones.

In the Far East, before rifles were invented, falcons were kept, fed,
trained, and taught to hunt such birds as the crane, pigeons, ducks,
geese and barnyard fowls, and the many little feathered fellows, that
live in the woods and swamps. Men would go in among the rushes and the
bushes, and drive out, from the covert, both the smaller and larger
birds. Out in the fields, or on the hills, the falconer would be in
waiting to let his trained birds fly at them, with beak and talons.

One man carried around his waist a wide hoop, kept a foot or so out
from his body, and held by a strap from his shoulders. On this hoop,
were a half dozen or so trained falcons, with their eyes covered by
little caps or hoods held down over their heads. As soon as a bird was
seen, the hunter would take off the hood and let one of the trained
falcons free.

Flying straight up, high in the air, and swiftly descending, swooping
down and striking the bird in the neck, with its sharp beak, the
falcons brought down the game to their masters, until the hunting bags
were full. Women, as well as men, loved this sport, and it was a gay
sight, when a cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, as they issued from
the castle, and all on horseback, went out for a hunt, while the
gamekeepers with the falcons and bush-beaters, with the dogs, followed.
The men on foot carried a spear, in case they should meet a bear, or
wild boar. On their return, the hunting party would have a feast in the
castle.

Now it was the belief, in Asia, that a good person, after his death,
was born again in another world, and became a still holier being or
even an angel. But a bad person, after his death, if he had been a
tale-bearer or deceitful, or told lies, would be changed into a snake.
If he had been stupid, he might become a sheep or donkey, or a mule.
Or, if he or she had been too proud, each was reborn as a peacock; if
cruel, into a tiger or a hawk.

There were many girls in Japan, named Taka, which means a hawk, because
of their bad temper, or their cruelty to puppies or kittens. Sometimes,
however, the name was a compliment, because they were quick and smart,
like falcons.

Now, according to these ideas, there was a very hard-hearted man, named
Chicksha, who beat his children. When angry, he threw dishes at his
wife and cursed his servants. One day, when in a fit of bad temper, he
fell dead. No one was sorry, and some were even glad.

After this event, whenever people saw a falcon, with terrible shining
eyes, and beak as sharp as two razors, and with claws and talons, like
a steel meat hook, they said, “It must be Chicksha, come to life
again.” Then they all ran out of their houses to see a thing so
wonderful.

After they had become used to the sight, they noticed, one day, that
the terrible creature had unfolded its wings, spread them out wide, and
flown westward. After awhile, this falcon had soared so high and so
far, that, in the distance, it became nothing more than a speck on the
blue horizon. Then it disappeared behind the mountains. At this,
everybody clapped their hands with delight. In fact, some of the more
pious went to the village shrine and gave thanks to Great Buddha, for
ridding the neighborhood of such a pest.

On wings, which seemed to be tireless, this bird of evil flew on and
on, farther and farther away, until in a strange land, it perched,
tired and hungry, on a very high rock, beneath which was a lordly
castle.

In this stronghold lived a count and countess, in whose castle-yard was
a skillful gamekeeper, whose ring of falcons was the most noted in all
the land. Flying down among the falcons, the soul of Chicksha, now a
hunting bird, at once felt at home among these winged creatures, that
fed on the blood of their fellows.

When taken out on hawking expeditions, few, even of the strongest
falcons, equaled, and none excelled, Chicksha, in striking down, what
the good Saint Francis called, “our little brothers of the air.” So
Chicksha became the favorite of his owner, the Count.

But one day, tired of being hooded and kept inactive in the cages, in
the castle yard, or, when taken out on the hoop and often, when hooded,
kept from having the chance to kill and cause suffering, Chicksha, the
falcon, leaped up from its keeper, when its cap dropped off, and flew
away. Proud of its freedom, the bird never stopped, until it perched
upon a mountain named the Wülpelsberg, in Switzerland.

On this lofty pinnacle, far above the river torrent, in the Aare
valley, there stands today a lonely ruin, which is all that is left of
what was once a spacious and magnificent castle.

Meanwhile, the Count, who was loath to lose his best bird, went off to
hunt for his lost favorite. Hoping, at every climb, to find his prize,
he went up higher and higher into the forest. Emerging from the woods,
he caught sight of the hawk resting on the jagged rock. Approaching
stealthily, he put out his hand, captured the bird and quickly slipped
the hood on its head.

On turning his eyes, to survey the scene, the count had before him a
splendid view of the grandest scenery upon which he had ever looked. It
was the valley of the Aare, with its wonderful glacier and ice-cold
river, and its romantic wild and rocky gorge, where now are villages
and hotels, while its healing sulphur baths are among the most famous
in Switzerland.

The nobleman at once felt that here was the spot on which to build his
castle. Returning home, he summoned an architect, made his plans, and
set about the enterprise. When he had finished it, he named the lordly
structure, Hapsburg; which means the Castle of the Hawk. Here, one of
the most renowned princely families of rulers, including kings and
emperors, that wore crowns on their heads, was founded. They took for
their emblem a double-headed bird of prey, as if they would seize
double the amount of land, and oppress twice the number of people,
commonly ruled over by monarchs. It is astonishing how rulers, in the
past, have chosen birds and beasts of prey as symbols of their
government—all so different from the Good Shepherd.

In course of the centuries, this house of Hawk Castle gained a greater
amount of power and spread their sceptre over more countries than any
other. Yet this was done, more by marrying their daughters, princesses,
to kings and princes, than by victories in war. So this dynasty of
rulers became famous for its matchmaking, in which the mothers and
aunts had much to say.

Now, when the time came, that the young prince of the Hawk Castle House
must seek a bride, he went into the country now called Belgium, and
sought in marriage the hand of a lovely princess, named Eleanor. Then,
the usual medieval custom was followed, in regard to royal ladies who
left their own land to marry the prince of another country, and to live
among strangers.

In this case, also, the Prince having been summoned to Rome, on
business that could not be put off, had first to be married by proxy;
that is, one of his officers must make the journey to Belgium and take
his place at the ceremony.

For, while she, the promised bride, was perhaps the most beautiful of
the princely daughters in all Europe, as she certainly was the richest
heiress, he, the betrothed groom, was one of the poorest of titled
rulers. There were beggar princes, then, as well as wealthy ones, and
the needy bridegroom wanted to use some of the money of her dowry at
once, for he was hard pressed to pay his debts. So he sent one of his
high officers into Belgium.

The ceremony was one of great magnificence, like a pageant. It was held
in the largest hall of the palace, which was brightly lighted by
hundreds of candles and the walls were hung with tapestry in brilliant
colors. A train of bridesmaids brought in the princess, arrayed in her
fairest robes, and decked with jewels.

Then the prince’s officer, who, in his splendid garments, was in
uniform, with decorations for the occasion, like his master, and looked
like him, came in the hall. He had on his head a crown, and at his side
a sword, spurs on his boots, and jewels on his breast. He took his
place on the right, for the bride must always be near the husband’s
heart. In each corner of the room, was a sentinel in armor, and with
his sword drawn. Then a notary appeared. He was in his scarlet robes of
office, with the legal documents in his hand to secure the signatures.
The witnesses were ranged around the hall and the nuptial service was
read. The wedding was made legal by the loyal officer making answer for
his august master, and the notary writing a record, attested by
witnesses.

The next day, attended by her ladies in waiting, her maids, cooks and
serving women, the princess travelled in state to the frontier at the
Rhine. In a great house, standing on the boundary line, half in Belgium
and half in France, the preparations were made, by which the princely
daughter ceased forever to be a Belgian maiden. After this ceremony of
disrobing, she was ever afterwards to be an Austrian wife, for this was
the time, when the Hapsburgs ruled over Switzerland in which epoch also
the story is told of Gessler and William Tell.

In one room, she left behind her all the wardrobe and whatever was
Belgian. She then stepped into the next room, which was all Austrian in
its furniture and treasures. It was full of dainty clothes, fluffy and
gauzy for summer wear, the time of flowers; but there was also more, in
plenty, of garments that were fur-lined, for winter warmth. With
garments for wear next to the skin, that were white as an edelweiss,
and thicker wraps for her body, that were crimson and purple, like the
Alpine rose, she was met by the Swiss chaperone and the maidens
awaiting her, who completed her costume. Then she stood forth as a
bride, ready for the other ceremony of wedding, which took place in the
cathedral, where, with bell and book, in the holy bonds of matrimony,
they were to be joined by the bishop. There, the prince met his lovely
princess and the two were married, and they and their children lived
happily ever afterwards.








XI

THE YODEL CARILLON OF THE COWS


They say that the soul of Belgium is the carillon. In many a tower, far
up in the air hang a hundred bells or more, of all sizes. These are
struck by hammers, which are worked by the carillonier, who presses the
keyboard, as if playing the piano. Very famous are these chime-masters,
and sweet is the music, which sounds in the air. When away from home,
in a foreign land, the Belgian gets homesick, amid strangers, and is
often down-hearted, because of the silences of the strange country.
Should he hear the sweet chimes of a city church, a vision of the home
land, with its quaint houses and high towers, its carrier pigeons, and
river-dykes, and flower markets, and happy children, playing in the
streets, rises before him. Then he thinks of the years of his
childhood, in his old home.

In Switzerland, it is not the tower bells, or even the church-spires,
sounding out the tollings for a funeral, or the merry peals of wedding
bells, or the strokes calling to worship, that so deeply stir the
mountain man’s heart, as do the yodel music and the carillon of the
cows.

On summer days, let one stand in the high pastures above the valleys,
or on a mountain slope, and he will hear the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, of
bells, bells, bells. They sound and echo from near and far. They float
on the air, from unseen nooks in the distance.

Even the cattle enjoy the music of the bells. Just as soon as the
shepherds sound the Alpine horn, or start the call, for the herds to
come home, every goat moves forward and cows leave their grazing on the
grass, or they rise from chewing the cud. Then one may see the long
lines of the milk-givers marching towards the chalets. There the men,
at night, and in the morning, milk the cows. When the animals are
housed for the night, they start the fires. They put in the rennet,
that curdles the cream and turns the white and golden liquid into
cheeses, so solid that one can roll them down the hills.

Everyone in America knows about the delicious white Schweitzer cheese.
When cut open, it is seen to be full of holes, as if well ventilated,
or, in many places, bored with an augur.

So well do the cows like to wear the leather collar, or neck strap, and
hear the tinkle of the bells, that sometimes they die of homesickness,
when these are taken away, or they lose their sounding collar; or, when
among their sisters, thus decorated, they have none.

In old days, when it was the fashion for young men to be soldiers of
fortune and enlist in the armies of France, or Germany, or Italy, or
Holland, a Swiss man could forget, even his country, unless he had a
sweetheart at home.

But when any one would start the yodel song, it made him and his
comrades so homesick, that they wanted to leave at once, for their
native land. So many soldiers were found to desert, on this account,
that the generals forbade any one ever to sing the yodel songs, or play
the yodel music, such as Queen Anne introduced into England. The “Ranz
des Vaches,” or Song of the Cows, is more truly Switzerland’s national
music, than is even the carillon of Belgium for the Belgians, or even
that of the Swiss song, “Stand Fast, O Fatherland.”

In this country, where the music box was invented, the yodel is
centuries old. It is almost like telling a fairy tale, to narrate the
story of the cow parade in June, as it assembles and moves up to the
high pastures, called “the Alps,” which are spangled with flowers of
gorgeous colors. From June to October, these highland meadows are rich
in the sweet aromatic herbs, which the cows so enjoy, especially the
plant called the Alpine Poa. Almost as wonderful, is the cow parade, on
its return downwards, in October.

During the long winter, every boy in the villages looks forward to the
time, counting the last few days on his fingers, when he can go, with
his father and hired men, and along with the dogs and donkeys, to spend
the summer in outdoor life in the highlands. Then, he can be like a
virtuous Indian, or a moral pirate, or an antique shepherd; and,
indeed, the frisky goats, though all named and numbered, will give him
plenty to do. He waits patiently, during the long house life of the
cold time, when, walled in by the winter snow, he thinks of the long,
bright summer days that are coming. Then, he can live nearer the sky,
and until the sun begins again to set earlier and the snows drive men
and cattle home.

The wonderful fact, in the cow parade, that reminds one of a fairy
tale, is the way these horned creatures organize, of their own accord,
and drill. They fall into line and march, as if they were playing
soldiers, or were a company of real warriors, or cavalry horses, going
to war. Each milker knows her place, and, if any young heifers try to
be fresh, and show off too much, they get a hint from the horns of the
old ladies of the herd, that they had better know and keep their place.
Such snubs and punishments are not forgotten. After such discipline, a
young snip of a cow behaves better, until grown up. Then, with more
sense, she takes and holds her place, in good bovine society.

The herds, when bound for the Alps, number from twenty to two hundred.
Three magnificent cows, brindle, dun, or white, lead the procession and
they feel their honors, as fully as a lieutenant, just fresh from West
Point, feels his. On the neck of each, is a wide leather strap, often
decorated with metal bosses, or knobs, to which is hung a bell, often
as big as a bucket. Most proudly, with heads up in the air, the leaders
step forward. The other cows, all having names, follow, each with a
smaller strap and bell on her neck. Here are a few of the names,
expressed in English: Star, Crow, White Stocking, Youngster, Mirror,
White Horn, and Lady.

The boy who is on his first venture up with the herd, dressed in his
best clothes, leads the flock of goats, which are put under his special
charge. Each one has a name and he knows them all. They will give him
plenty to do, for they are great tramps and vagrants. Nobody knows how
a goat will behave. We get our word “caprice,” and “capricious,” from
his Latin name.

Back of the columns, is the big sow, with her litter of little pigs,
all of them. They are glad enough to go, and they look on the whole
thing as a picnic. For now, instead of living on dry winter feed, they
will get the juicy grass and herbage of the summer pasture. Mrs. Hog is
certainly proud of her young porkers, but her music is hardly up to the
carillon standard, for it consists chiefly of grunts, and this is the
only language, in which the education of the piggies is carried on.

Feeling quite as important as any, and always wanting to hurry along,
and go ahead faster, is the dog Tiger. This pet of the family and the
terror of the goats, that give him a butt, when he gets too lively,
looks more like a mastiff, than a collie, or one of his cousins, the
stately St. Bernard dogs.

Finally, as the rear guard, is the daddy of the family. He leads the
horse, on which are packed and strapped the cheese caldron, for boiling
the milk and cream. From his position, Daddy can round up the unruly
members of the herd, cows, goats, or pigs, that have too much genius,
or temperament, or are too original, or independent, to obey rules.
Just as often, in a marching army, the rear guard is the place of
honor, so the last cow, usually a superb animal, carries the milking
stool between her horns.

The cows’ parade marks a heyday for the whole village. The girls are
all out, and in their best dresses. Most of them will not see their
brothers, their beaux, or their lovers, until autumn. So they make the
most of the fun for a day.

During the summer, and until October, there are few of the male sex,
except old men and small boys, left in the mountain or dairy villages.
Many are the farewells and handwavings, until the procession disappears
around the curve of the mountains. Then the yodel music, the Ranz des
Vaches, the Song of the Swiss, for centuries, is raised and echoed
among the hills. The words are, in most cases, very old, and in a sort
of French, that is never heard in Paris, or at the universities. The
notes are very much as their Swiss ancestors sung them, before America
was discovered. The words are, in many of the songs, quite witty. In
one form or another, they are in praise of the work and craft of the
cattle, or dairy men.

The yodel music will never die. The herds may change in breed, form, or
numbers, but never the song. When heard near at hand, there is too much
jingle, with many discords; but distance lends enchantment to the
sound. When far away, all notes melt into sweetness and accord.

Once up in the regions near the sky, while the echoes, coming back from
the peaks, make angelic sweetness, and heavenly harmony, the Swiss boy
has a fine time in both work and play. At no other season are the
meadows more beautiful. He soon finds out, however, the difference
between cows and goats. The larger animals stay on the levels, obey the
rules, and are faithful, punctual, and well drilled. They always move
homewards when the horn calls, or the yodel music sounds. On the
contrary, the goats are often obstinate, and act as if imps and elves
were in them. Then, too, they love to climb and wander. It is, with
them, a game of Johnnie Jump Up, pretty much all the time. They leap
and scramble out of the meadows, and up over the rocks, climbing
thousands of feet towards the mountain tops, and into the most
difficult places, as if they loved to play hide and seek and plague the
shepherds. This gives the boy plenty to do in hunting them, for it is
hard to hear their bells tinkling, when the wind blows roughly, or in
the wrong direction.

In autumn, when Jack Frost returns, and storms are many and frequent,
and the snows heavy, the march back and down is made in good order.
Then, all the village folk turn out again, to welcome the shepherds. As
the men, cows, goats, pigs and horses return, the latter are well
loaded with cheeses. These will be sold and sent to the cities in
foreign countries, and especially across the sea to America.








XII

THE TAILOR AND THE GIANT


All giants behave in about the same way, in every country; so each one
of the big-boned fellows in Switzerland was like his relations in other
lands. He had two legs, each as thick as a telegraph pole, arms like
crowbars, and a body that made one think of a hogshead. His bone box,
called a skull, had only a spoonful or two of brains inside of it, for
his head was no bigger than a cocoanut. Usually he went about roaring
like a bull, and carried a club in his right hand, as long and thick as
a young fir tree. Although he was as strong as an ox, he could hardly
run as fast as an elephant, and any smart dog could move around more
quickly than he. That is the reason why a nimble princess, with a
needle, could outwit him, or any clever young fellow could trap him in
a pit, and then crack his skull with a pickaxe.

The monstrous fellow had a stomach equal to that of a rhinoceros. At
one meal, he could chew up a sirloin of beef, eat a half bushel of
rice, and gulp down a firkin of milk. With his club, he could smash a
hay wagon; but, besides eating and bullying, he was not good for much.
In fact, when it came to a game of hard thinking, and using his two
spoonfuls of brains, any clever boy or girl twelve years’ old could
beat him. Some giants, of course, were more intelligent than others,
but as a rule, a giant got very soon and very much tired out, when he
had to use his mind.

They do say that the reason why giants are so stupid is because that,
when they were quite little babies, their skull bones closed tight, too
soon; so that their brains never grew any larger, while the bone became
thicker and thicker. That is the reason why some people usually called
the big lout, “Mr. Bone Head, with the big club.”

There were other people, however, who believed that the heads of the
giants were made of wood, and some always thought of the big clumsy
fellows as belonging to the tribe of Wooden Heads.

One exception, to the general run of Swiss giants, was a bulky fellow
named Kisher, who served the great Charlemagne, when this mighty
general was fighting the savages, called Huns and Avars. This giant
could wade all rivers, no matter how deep. If his horse, which was
bigger than a hippopotamus, was afraid to step in, and cross over,
Kisher would grab hold of his tail and pull him backwards, through the
deep water and over to the other shore. When fighting with his long
sword, in front of Charlemagne’s army, one would think, from the way he
cut down the enemy, and left their corpses in swathes, that he was a
sort of mowing machine.

After the battle, Kisher poked his spear into eight or ten of the
carcasses of the defunct savages. Then, stringing them on his spear
shaft, like a pile of pretzels, he threw the load over his shoulders.
Trudging to his general’s tent, he shook off the dead savages on the
ground, as though he was dropping sausages from a fork.

Thereupon, his general rewarded him by naming him Einheer, which means
that the giant was a whole army in himself. He also ordered that the
big fellow should have all the sausages, and barley cakes, and dried
apples, that he wanted.

In fact, it was necessary to have plenty of eatables ready for the
giant, for fear lest, when very hungry, he might swallow the dishes,
chew up the napkins, eat up the table cloth, and gulp down the table,
legs and all. So terrible was his appetite, that the mothers, when they
saw Einheer coming down the hill, or up the street, called all their
children inside the house, for fear lest a pretty plump girl, or a nice
fat boy, should be seized, to fill up the mammoth cave that he kept
under his belt.

When no food was at hand, and the giant had to do without his dinner,
he set up a roar, like a lion, until people thought it was distant
thunder echoing among the far off mountains. Then old Kisher—for the
people often forgot his new title—used to pull his belt tighter. He
would even let the buckle tongue go into two or three holes further
back, in the strap. This took off the edge of his appetite for a while,
but only for a few hours. Then he began to roar once more. Again the
mothers clasped their babies in their arms and locked the doors, for
fear he might get in and eat them out of house and home. The farmers
took the harness off the horses, so that even if he broke into the
stables, he would help himself only to the animals, and not devour also
the traces and horse collars. But after all this, the giant never knew
enough to pick a lock, or get into barns, when the doors were properly
barred. Even a trained monkey could beat him at this sort of smartness.

Now there was a young tailor, who was tired of this giant’s boasting.
Although the people often laughed at this man of shears and measuring
tape, and called him “one-ninth,” and the boys at times shouted
“Cabbage” at him, he was really a brave fellow. Besides being an expert
with needle and thread, he was really as clever as any one in town.
Indeed, he thought himself, in this respect, equal, even to the judges,
in the court, who put big wigs on their heads, to look as if theirs
contained more brains than common people have. He read stories of
famous heroes and dragon slayers and wanted to be like them and even
excel. He boasted that, with a bag and a pair of scissors, he could get
the better of any giant living. But when he declared he would some day
show them the giant’s carcass, they laughed and said, “That’s only a
tailor’s promise.” Yet he always retorted, “You’ll see.”

At any rate, the tailor made up his mind that cunning could accomplish
as much as force. So he studied the habits and tastes of giants, to see
what they liked best to eat. He soon found that this monster in human
shape was very fond of rice pudding, with plenty of sauce and sugar on
it. But the tailor never said a word to the giant about knowing this
special weakness of his.

One day, while walking on the road to the next town, to take home a
suit of clothes to a customer, he suddenly came upon the giant, who at
this time was, as usual, very hungry. They both glared at each other,
but the giant, speaking first, roared out:

“Here, you fraction of a fellow, come now let us have a trial of
strength. I’ll hang you on a tree, if I beat you, and you can skin me
alive, if you win.”

At first, the little tailor was so frightened that his knees knocked
together, and his hat fell off; but, quickly feeling brave again, he
answered:

“All right, I’m not afraid of you. Come on, we’ll try.”

The tailor knew that a brainy fellow, with a clear head and a sharp
tongue, was more than a match for the big bonehead, any day. So, when
the giant picked up a boulder, weighing a ton or so, and threw it into
the lake, and then dared the man to do likewise, the tailor answered:

“Bah! that’s nothing. Why don’t you give me something that’s hard to
do? I can pick up the hardest pebble and squeeze water out of it with
my hands. I’ll wager a gold coin you can’t do it.”

Thus dared, the giant picked up a bit of hard rock and nearly broke his
finger bones trying to crush it, or make it yield water. Mad as fire,
he called the tailor a rascal, and said he told fibs. Then he dared him
to try his hand at it. He got his club ready to smash the man into a
jelly, if he failed.

Now the tailor, not expecting to get home until night, had brought a
fresh cheese ball and some crackers, to eat on the way. He turned his
back to the giant and bent over, pretending to pick up a hard round
stone from the ground. Then he pressed this cheese between his two
hands so hard, that a drop or two, of what looked like water, came out.
As the moisture glistened in the sun, the astonished giant dropped his
club. Then, rushing up to the tailor, he grasped his hand and cried
out:

“Comrade and brother you are. Don’t skin me. Come along with me; we’ll
skin other people, and I’ll make you rich and famous.”

The tailor, pretending to be as merciful, as he thought himself brave,
and being very ambitious, walked along with the giant, until they came
to a castle. The tailor wanted to get rich quick and marry a princess,
or at least an heiress.

Strange to say, they found everybody inside the castle shedding tears,
so that there were barely handkerchiefs enough to go round. Even the
sentinel at the castle gate was weeping and had already used up four.
Secretly, the tailor wished he had brought along his whole stock of
linen, for here he might have driven a good bargain, and made large
sales at a high profit. But he told no one his thoughts.

In one breath, both the tailor and the giant asked, “What’s the
matter?”

Then the man-at-arms told them the trouble. A dragon, living up in the
mountains, in a cave had been roaring all night for food. The citizens
wanted to feed the criminals, then in prison, to the monster, but he
refused such common nourishment. In fact, he was the most particular
dragon, as to his diet, that ever came to Switzerland. He required one
maiden a day to appease his hunger. He never would be satisfied with
boys, or men, or even with ladies, that were either slender or bony.

Now the supply of plump and beautiful girls had actually run so low,
that the new victims had to draw lots. This very day, the lot had
fallen on the King’s only daughter, and at sunrise the next day, she
was to be swallowed up.

As soon as the news had spread abroad in the city, after sunrise, the
stock on hand, in all the shops that kept mourning goods, or black
silk, or muslin, or grief-bordered handkerchiefs, was sold out before
noon, and there was not time enough to import a fresh supply of crêpe
from Paris. So everybody was sighing and groaning, and the sounds were
appalling. Some were shedding tears copiously, for real grief; but
others, because their old mourning garments were out of fashion. With
others, it was a case of economy, rather than grief, for black goods
saved their best clothes.

But the tailor, though feeling sad at first, saw a chance of coining
wealth and getting into society, for he had quickly learned that the
king had offered his daughter, in marriage, to any one who would fight
and kill the dragon, besides making a gift outright, of a thousand
pounds of gold.

So when the pair of heroes, the tailor and giant, proffered their
services, the monarch gave the monstrous fellow an iron bar, as big as
the rail for a locomotive to run on.

But when the king saw that the little tailor had only a pair of
scissors, he laughed, until he forgot his grief. Then he offered the
little man a battle axe. It was as sharp as a razor, and heavy enough
to chop open a knight clothed in steel. Thus armed, the two were all
ready to set out together to the dragon’s cave.

Pretending that one of his shoe laces had broken and he needed to tie
it up, the tailor told the giant to go on, and carry both axe and iron
club, and he would catch up with him. When the two were together, the
giant was about to hand his companion the battle axe, when the tailor
began at once to talk about rice pudding. He smilingly asked the giant
whether he liked raisins in it, and would take it with grated nutmeg,
sprinkled over the top; or, would he have it plain?

The subject was so interesting to the giant, that his eyes sparkled at
once. He forgot that he was carrying both of the two heavy things, axe
and bar. He never dropped them, until they reached the dragon’s lair.

But, while they were arguing which should go in first, the dragon
rushed out and swallowed the little tailor at a gulp, without chewing
him up.

The giant noticed that not a bit of butter, nor drop of gravy, was
necessary, for the tailor had slid down, and disappeared, in a jiffy.
Thereupon, the giant gave the monster a mighty wallop upon the head,
with the iron bar. It was so terrific, that he fell dead and stiffened
out, ten yards long. The giant waited to be sure he was defunct. Then,
opening the monster’s wide mouth, he thrust his big fist down the
dragon’s throat, pulled up the little tailor, and stood him on his
feet.

The tailor was out of breath, for a moment; but, quickly regaining both
his wind and his wits, he took off his cap and began to rub his head.

“What’s the matter?” asked the giant. “Don’t you feel all right?”

“Why, no! You nearly dented my skull, when you struck the dragon with
your club. Why are you not more skillful? I can handle such monsters
better than you. Can’t you see that I just leaped into the dragon’s
mouth, in order to cut his throat, with my scissors?” With this, he
flourished his shears, which were all bloody.

The stupid giant was dumbfounded, but he did not know enough to
contradict the tailor, who told the big fellow to shoulder the dragon,
and they would both go back to the king’s court, and demand the
promised reward. So, with much pulling and hauling, lifting and
dragging, the giant did all the work. The clumsy carcass was laid
before the royal throne. The princess, looking on, wondered which one
of the two heroes was to be her husband.

She did not feel, just then, like marrying either of them, big or
little. When, however, she thought it over, she believed she could live
on her income better with the tailor, than with the giant, who was
already beginning to ask when dinner would be ready.

As for the king, he could not decide which was the hero, for both laid
claims to the princess and to the gold. So, for the time being, the
giant was fed all the beans, and pork, and barley, and turnips, he
could eat; but, even then, the tailor saw that the big fellow was not
satisfied, and would rather have rice pudding.

The king and his wise men kept on debating for several days, for
neither would give in. Then they became alarmed, when the steward
whispered, in the royal ear, that provisions were running low. In fact,
both the larder and the cellar were nearly empty. This was on account
of the giant’s enormous appetite. By the following Sunday, nothing
would be left except an extra hogshead of rice.

The tailor overheard the steward’s talk, and at once he proposed a
plan, by which the contest between the two claimants could be settled.
Let that hogshead of rice be made into one enormous pudding. It must be
well sweetened, and with plenty of raisins and powdered nutmeg on top,
and then divided into two parts, or piles. Whichever ate up his
portion, most quickly, should be hailed as the hero, marry the
princess, get the money, and be publicly announced, by the trumpeters,
as the royal son-in-law and successor to the throne.

“Now I’ll keep my promise,” said the tailor to himself, “as to what I
could do, with only a pair of scissors and a bag.”

So, when the boiled rice, smoking hot, was piled on trenchers, and
served on a long table, with a small shovel beside each large wooden
plate, the trial began. The giant went at his mess, as if he were
himself a dragon. To his astonishment, however, the tailor made the
rice pudding disappear as fast as he himself could. Even after
unbuckling his belt, and letting out, first, two, and then four holes,
in the leather, the tailor kept on.

Finally the giant had to stop. He rolled over on the floor and cried
out:

“I’m beaten. Give the tailor the princess and the money; but don’t let
him skin me alive.”

All the while, the tailor, who had a pal, under the table, to hand him
bag after bag, as he dropped into them the shovelfuls of rice pudding.
He filled, first, one big bag, strapped to his bosom, and when that was
full, he put on another. The giant was so occupied with gorging
himself, that he did not notice anything, but the rice before him.

Meanwhile the man, whom the tailor had paid to do it, kept on handing
fresh bags to the tailor. When all of these, except several, towards
the last, were used up, he took the tailor’s scissors and cut open the
bags at the bottom of the pile, for fear the supply of bags might run
out. Meanwhile, he filled a tub near by. So the castle people were
saved from starvation, but they all, from king to scullion, had only
cold rice to eat the next day.

When the tailor explained, to the giant, that he had an extra stomach,
and cut open the first one, after enjoying the taste of the rice
pudding, and then filled the second one, the giant, foolishly hoping
still to eat more, and thinking it was the proper thing to do, cut open
his big stomach with a sword. But that was too much even for a giant.

So on Monday, the next day, the giant’s funeral took place, and on
Tuesday, the day after, the tailor married the princess, and they lived
happily ever after. He had several sons and daughters, and people said
his boys and girls looked like their father, on whose coat of arms was
a leather wallet and a pair of scissors.








XIII

THE DWARF’S SECRET


There is one curious thing about the little brown fellows of the
mountains, called dwarfs, that seems very funny to us. Instead of
thinking of themselves as less than men, they consider themselves fully
as clever as human beings. Indeed, some of them strut about, slapping
their stomachs and saying “who wants to be a man?”

Instead of rating men as greater than themselves, they are more apt to
talk about human beings as slow, and dull witted. The dwarfs declare
that they have secrets which no boys or girls, or even wise men, can
ever find out.

Most of the dwarfs live in caves, or down in the mines. They are very
expert in using fires, forges, bellows, anvils, hammers, tongs, pincers
and the tools of blacksmiths and machinists. They often make very
handsome weapons, ornaments and things of use, such as guns, ploughs,
swords, armor, milkpans, and cheese caldrons.

Now there was a hunter named Walter, who lived in the Alps. This man
went out every day to get food for his wife and his large family of
boys and girls, who all had good appetites. He never shot at any
creature, or ever killed anything that had life, out of mere sport. He
was always pleasant to the dwarfs also.

So all these folks, in the caves and mines, got to like this hunter.
Even the chamois, that he chased, knew that he was not cruel. Besides,
they heard good things about him from the birds, that could talk the
languages of goats, ibexes and chamois.

Occasionally Walter the hunter shot a bear, and then he had a big fur
robe, out of which to make a bed, besides bones for all his dogs to
gnaw upon. Moreover, he was looked upon by the village people as a
hero, and his sons felt very proud of their father.

Yet it was not so easy, as some might think, to feed his large family,
for each of these youngsters seemed to have a cave, growing in their
stomachs, which, three times a day, apparently enlarged, as meal time
drew near. Only a few potatoes and cabbages could be grown in their
garden, and every wisp of hay, and all the dry leaves, had to be saved,
to keep warm in the Swiss winter, which lasted eight or nine months.

Buttermilk and potatoes, and corn meal, boiled in goat’s milk, was what
was on the bill of fare for Walter’s family, most of the time. They
were too poor to live down in the valleys, or villages, where the land
was all owned by well-to-do people. So the entire family, old and
young, were kept busy at work, every moment of daylight in summer, when
the snow was off the ground. There were many things to do, to get fuel,
to keep the roof from leaking, and to prepare for the awful cold, from
September to May.

Walter’s chief trouble was with his poor gun, the barrel of which was a
smooth bore, which could not shoot a bullet straight forward, very far,
so that the hunter could not be sure of hitting anything that was over
fifty yards away.

Sometimes, Walter would spend many hours, or even a whole day, while
out hunting, in climbing over rocks and up the steep mountain sides, to
get even a distant shot at a chamois, only to miss his aim. Or, what
was even worse, to this kind-hearted hunter, the leaden ball, going out
of its course, only wounded the poor animal, so that it ran away, to
suffer a long time and then die in pain. In this manner, Walter very
often lost a dinner for himself and his hungry children, while he
grieved over inflicting pain upon innocent creatures. More than once,
he threw down the gun, in his anger, calling it names, as if it were an
animal, or, at the worst, a “blunder buss.”

Now, so many of the chamois had complained to their friends and
protectors, the dwarfs, about the cruelty of hunters, and the
sufferings of their fellows, especially the doe and fawn, that all
these little people held a congress, in a cave, and to see what could
be done. Nearly a hundred dwarfs attended the meeting, and both
graybeards and youngsters were invited to give their opinions. All
agreed that men were stupid fellows, and had to be helped out, in all
their needs and plans, as well as to have their wits sharpened, by the
dwarfs.

“Here is a really good and kind hunter, Walter. He is using a
blunderbuss, because he has nothing better. He ought to help him
improve his weapon. But what can be done?”

“We must first find out the reason why this fellow Walter, and others
like him, inflict so many wounds upon the chamois; for we know he is
our friend, and is full of pity for the animals,” said a venerable old
chap, who seemed to be chairman of the meeting.

The talk went on for hours. At last a good looking dwarf, with a big
head and very long white beard, slowly arose to speak. Usually, he
never said a word, but listened carefully, until every one else had had
his say. Then, if asked, he would give his own opinion, which always
proved to be the sense of the whole meeting. Every one wondered how his
head could carry all he knew, and how he could remember what each one
had said. So he was generally known, by one or the other of two names,
which, in the dwarf language, mean “Thought Includer,” or “Clarifier of
Ideas.”

The chairman at once recognized him, called him by name, and bade him
come up in front and speak where all could hear him. He was very modest
at first, and held back a moment, but fearing that some of the other
dwarfs might twist their necks off, in turning them too far around to
get a good look at him, and knowing that some of the old fellows were
nearly deaf, he strode forward. Stepping upon a platform of rock, where
all could hear him easily, he began thus:

“The trouble with our friend Walter, and with all other hunters, good
and bad, especially with those who are poor shots, is that with all
their good intentions, they are too stupid. They need the help of us
dwarfs.”

Here he was interrupted by applause, and cries of “well said,” and “go
on.”

“Now,” he resumed, “from what has been already remarked, by the
honorable speakers in this company, I propose:

“1. That we prevail upon the prettiest fairy in the Alps to lure this
man Walter up into one of our caves, so far up toward the peaks that,
getting very tired, he will fall asleep quickly.

“2. Then, while in slumber, one of our best soothsayers will make him
dream of a gun that never misses fire, or fails to deliver its bullet
to the mark.

“3. Finally, that our best craftsman shall invent a new kind of weapon,
with improved barrel and lock. Then, when Walter wakes up, I propose he
be shown how to use it.”

On hearing this, all the dwarfs clapped their hands and the meeting
broke up, every one feeling sure that men needed only the brains of
dwarfs to help them. Now, they declared, there would be few wounded
chamois to suffer pain.

The chairman then selected, from the dwarfs that were passing out, one
handsome fellow to take the message, in the most polite manner and
correct language, to the fairy maids. These were to choose one of their
number, as the Queen of Beauty, to lead the hunter to the cave, in
which the dwarf’s secret was to be revealed.

To another was given the task of conjuring up the dream for the
sleeping hunter.

Then a committee of four, of the cleverest dwarfs, was appointed to
invent the new gun, and show the hunter how to use it.

Now the cave selected, to which the prettiest of the fairies was to
lead the hunter, was one just opened, a few days before, by an
avalanche. In tumbling down the slopes, this colossal ball of snow and
ice, well loaded with rocks, had struck off a part of the mountain
which had bulged out. In a moment the rocky crust was broken open.

Then as if a curtain had been lifted, a great cave, like a hall lighted
with crystal chandeliers, was suddenly opened to view. As the sunbeams
struck the walls, the vast space was seen to be full of topaz,
glittering at a thousand facets, like cut and polished diamonds.

The lovely fairy elected to allure the hunter was told about this new
cave of jewels. She was perfectly delighted, with both the task given
her to do and with the jewel parlor. She met the hunter, who was
struggling upwards, on his way to the high peaks, after a chamois. She
first appeared in his path, and greeted him with a smile. She then led
him towards the topaz cavern. Her beauty so dazzled him, that, while
she went ahead, talking to him, he quickly forgot the miles he had
traveled. Occasionally, she would sing a sweet song.

Soon she had led him into the topaz hall of the great cave, but no
sooner had he crossed the threshold than he fell down, exhausted, upon
the shining floor. In a moment he was in a deep sleep, from which he
was not to awake for many days.

Meanwhile, the master dwarfs were busy at the forges, making a new kind
of fire arm. Instead of leaving the barrel smooth inside, they made
grooves, along its whole length, which curved and twisted round. Or, as
they said, they made it reiffelin, which kept the leaden ball perfectly
straight on its course. When finished, a master dwarf asked the fairy
to fly across the ravine and set up on the face of the cliff, a hundred
yards off, a flat round bit of smoky rock crystal, only as big as a
thaler, or a watch face.

First the dwarf loaded the gun and then, with a mallet, pounded on the
ramrod, to drive the lead of the bullet well into the grooves. Then,
taking aim, he pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the disc, knocking
the pretty crystal to pieces.

By this time the hunter, asleep in the cave, began to dream, and the
fairy whispered the secret in his ear. With both sight and hearing, he
saw and understood all.

Awaking, the hunter found his old blunderbuss gone. In its place lay
the rifle, and a beauty it was, lighter to carry, more graceful in
shape, and requiring less powder and lead. For one who had to climb
mountains, this was a great benefit. So he at once loaded his new
piece, so as to be ready for the first chamois he should see. He
thought it would be fine fun to carry home a prize, in addition to his
new weapon.

He had hardly stepped out of the topaz cave, which seemed to close like
a door behind him, than there appeared in view four chamois, each full
grown and with splendid horns. Putting his rifle to his shoulder and
taking careful aim, though the distance was great, he fired. Instantly,
there fell the finest of the animals, while the others scampered away.

Retrieving his prize, Walter started down the mountain with the buck on
his back. Reaching home, his wife embraced him, and all his children
gathered round him, while his dog frisked about him in delight. Then he
told the whole story.

The next day, he walked to the village and showed the gunsmith the
rifle barrel, which he had cleaned and scoured inside, until, when
unscrewed from the stock, it shone like a mirror. At first, the
craftsman laughed at him, but on looking down into the muzzle, as a
sunbeam struck the touch hole and lighted it up along the whole length,
the gunsmith opened his eyes wide in surprise. Besides a sight of it,
he put his little finger in and at once discovered the secret. His eyes
gleamed and his face lighted to a smile of joy. He begged the hunter to
let him try the weapon. Walter gladly allowed him, for the gunmaker was
an expert. At a hundred yards, he knocked a hole in a plough handle. On
a second shot, he cut the stem of a lone leaf remaining on a maple
tree. At his success, the gunsmith fairly yelled with delight.
Thenceforth the hunter was called Mr. Walter Reiffler.

The gunsmith, with the happy hunter’s permission, set up, as a sign
over his shop, the picture of a disc or circle, with eight dots showing
the grooves in the gun. From this time forth, he could not make rifles
enough to supply the chamois hunters. Each man wanted the new weapon.
There was rejoicing, even among the dumb animals, for the dwarfs told
them what had happened and why it was that none of their number
suffered pain any more, or died in agony from the hunters’ missing
fire.

So a new joy came into the life of Walter the hunter. After this, he
could always get enough meat to supply his family’s need. From the
skins and fur, the horns, and the heads, stuffed and mounted, with
bright eyes made of glass, and sold in the village shops and hotels,
and to visitors, he had plenty of pocket money. For his wife, he bought
a tortoise shell comb, besides a linen and lace cap, and silver chains
for her bodice. To each of his daughters, he gave enough spending money
for them to save up sufficient to buy all the pretty things they
needed, and also to lay in a store of linen, for their dowry. His sons,
trained early to the use of the rifle, won prizes at the shooting
matches, which now grew to be so popular as to become in time a
national institution. This enabled the Swiss people to fear none of the
despotic rulers of Europe, who hated republics. When one proud visiting
emperor asked one of Walter’s sons, who was a dead shot, what the
Swiss, in little Switzerland, would do, if an army corps from Germany
were to invade their land, he answered:

“We should, each one of us, shoot twice, your Majesty,” answered the
brave boy.

All the other hunters were happy, too, for chamois meat was plentiful
in every chalet. Nevertheless, so many of the herds were, in time, so
depleted and the total number in the mountains so lessened, that laws
were passed forbidding any hunter, young or old, and no matter how
famous, from shooting more than one hundred, during his life time. Yet,
even then, there was plenty of meat for all, and very much more than in
the old days.

All the world rejoiced, also, for now, armed with the rifle, the wild
beasts, even lions, tigers and grizzly bears that had so long destroyed
millions of human beings, were no longer able to drive men away. Even
women hunters dared to go into the jungle and face the terrible
creatures.

In time, the rifle was made lighter to carry, prettier to look at, and
easier to charge. Men discovered that the old way of loading was at the
wrong end, and used the breech, instead of the muzzle, to put in the
cartridges. So the heavy mallet and ramrod were left behind and
forgotten, and wars became shorter and less dreadful.








XIV

THE FAIRY OF THE EDELWEISS


Every child in Switzerland has heard of the Golden Age, long, long ago,
when no ice or snow covered the mountains. Then grass grew, and flowers
bloomed, clear up on the highest summits. Those barren and rocky
heights, such as we see now, where nothing can live, but the big horned
woolly ibex, were unknown; for they were then clothed with forests and
verdure. One could walk all the way up to the peak’s top, amid
beautiful trees, lovely shrubs and blossoming plants and sweet-smelling
herbage.

Summer then reigned for at least ten months in the year. The cows
grazed on the delicious aromatic grass, that makes the breath of kine
so sweet. Where now are only masses of snow and ice, and rivers called
glaciers, were flowery meadows, full of birds and bright dragon flies,
and musical with bees, crickets and singing insects. Then the cows were
so big and fat, that they gave their milk, that was rich in cream,
three times a day. Pastures were everywhere, and nobody went hungry,
for food was as cheap as leaves or pebbles.

The old people still tell us that, during this period, all that one had
to do was to ladle out the milk from tanks, as large as ponds, or pick
big red cherries, by putting out your hands. Then the fairies were
happy. On every moonlight night, they held dancing parties in the
meadows.

But by and bye, the terrible Frost Giants, that live up around the
North Pole, heard of this Land of a Thousand Mountains, where the chief
rivers of Europe were born and still have their cradles. Then these
greedy fellows that in winter tie up all things fast, or freeze them
solid, except for a few hours on warm days, when the sun is shining,
said one to the other:

“Come on, fellows, let us go down and conquer this mountain country,
that is so rich in honey, and cream, and flowers. We shall pile up the
snow flakes, leagues high, and freeze solid the falling snow and cold
water. We shall turn these into sheets of ice, that will cover the land
thousands of yards thick, and kill all living things. We shall drive
off all the flowers, blow the grass away, and chill the noses of the
cows, so that they cannot graze. That will prevent men from having
houses, and milk churns, and stores of cheeses. We must drive off the
hens, too, so the people can have no eggs. If the sun tries to stop our
work, we’ll laugh at him, so we will.”

Thus spoke the Frost King, while the mists rolled out in clouds from
his mouth, as he boasted of what he could do.

“Yes, yes, indeed we shall,” cried all the Frost Giants, and a shower
of snow flakes and ice particles filled the air, for even their icy
breath turned solid and was deadly to all plants.

When the North Wind blew down the news to the Swiss fairies, there was
much sadness and even terror. Where could the fairies dance, when the
meadows were gone and the flowers dead?

How could they float in the air, clad only in gauzy garments? How could
they see each other, if mist and storm and darkness filled the air, and
ice covered the ground? And how could they live without the blossoms?
One fairy actually wept tears, in sympathy for the poor cows, that were
certain to starve. And as for the children, whom the fairies loved,
where could they play, if there were no fields to play in, or roses or
violets to pick?

One bold fairy looked defiance and spoke out loud in the meeting:

“I’m not afraid of these Frost Giants, from the North Pole. They are
nothing but big, boasting bullies. Let our Fairy Queen change me into a
flower, and clothe me warm enough, and I’ll defy even the Frost King to
hurt me.”

“Bravo, bravo!” cried all the fairies in chorus.

“But how could you stay all the time up there, with no living thing
near you, and all alone? You will have no neighbors, except the rocks
and crags, and even they will be all bare, and swept by the fierce
winds. Can you stand that?” asked an old fairy, doubtingly.

“Yes, if for nothing else, than to show that we fairies are not afraid
of the Frost Giants, I should be willing to live alone. Besides, our
fairy queen will see that, by and bye, there will be others like me,
and then I shall have company. The more of us, the merrier, I am sure.
In a few thousand years, we’ll make an army and a victorious one, too.”

Seeing this brave one, of her company, so ready and willing, the Queen
of the Fairies put on her thinking cap. She spent a whole night in
planning how to turn this volunteer fairy into a flower. Then she would
bundle her up in furs, and dress her so warmly, that even the biggest
and coldest of the Frost Giants could not kill her with his icy breath.

And this was the way this volunteer, from the fairy ranks, was clothed
and made ready to fight, in the long war with cold and storm, so that
for ages, this little thing has been able to live far up on the
mountain heights and, all the time, to smile and be joyful, and laugh,
in the face of the Frost Giants. In fact, so happy is she, among the
rock crags and sunshiny crannies, and so amused at herself, in looking
down over the terrible precipices, to the rocks, thousands of feet
below, that she would not exchange places or climates, with even the
cloves and nutmegs; no, not even with the tea roses and coffee blossoms
in the Spice Islands of the southern seas.

Now it is customary in all happy families, when father and mother are
expecting the cradle soon to be filled, to choose a name for the baby,
and to have its clothes ready. This is done, so that the poor little
thing, on coming into the world, will not get a chill, or sneeze, or
have a cough, and die. Moreover, if it have a name, no one will mistake
one baby for another, unless they arrive as twins, when some mark, such
as a blue ribbon for a boy, and a pink one for a girl, is necessary.

So the old fairies put their heads together, to find a proper name for
the new fairy flower-baby, that was to live among the cold mountain
tops and refuse to be frightened, or frozen, or be driven down lower,
or to be cuddled up in meadows, near men’s houses, where it was warm.

“What say you?” asked the Queen, of the wisest of the fairies, who was
considered a sort of sage or prophet, and who had a wonderfully long
head. “What name do you give?”

With a loud voice, almost like a roar, this fairy, that wore clothes
the color of an old man’s beard, called out “Anawphilis Margarita.”

At this, every fairy looked at each other, as if to say, “What a
mouthful,” “How strange a name,” or “So big for a little fairy!” or
“Why does she talk Latin?”

There were questions in their eyes also, but none asked “What does the
name mean?” for all fairies are very shy about confessing ignorance.

But the Fairy Queen, who knew almost everything, put on a look of great
dignity, and discreetly inquired, of the sage, if her everyday talk was
in Latin. She did not mean to be sarcastic, however.

“Why would you call me by the ‘Pearly Lion’s Foot,’ if I were to
volunteer?” asked a bright young fairy.

“For two reasons, your Majesty,” answered the old oracle, addressing,
not the young volunteer, but the Queen, as was proper.

“First, to reward valor and virtue, by giving an august name; and
second, to let the Frost Giants, the insolent fellows from the North
Pole, know, that when even one of us fairies puts her foot down, it is
like a lion’s. No one can move, or lift, or push, or drive it away. We
thrust forward this fairy flower, as our banner, to say to the enemy,
‘We shall not surrender, and we defy you!’”

The Fairy Queen, full of admiration, replied:

“We bow to your wisdom, and so it shall be written in our books.
Nevertheless, both mortals and fairies must have also a short name for
everyday use. How about the second, or personal part, Margarita?”

“As you will, your Highness, but may I suggest even a better term, in
the speech of the mortals of this mountain land? They will love
anything that you may clothe and adorn, I am sure.”

After this ending of her speech, the wise old fairy curtsied most
politely.

The Fairy Queen looked very lovely, as thus flattered, by the fine
tact, and the charming speech, of this oldest member of the family;
and, besides, as she loved the brave Swiss nation, she said.

“You are always wise. So please let me have a name that will be popular
with the Swiss people.”

“Well, your highness, if it be your pleasure, we shall clothe your pet
in purest white, like ermine, rivalling even the snow, without spot, or
stain, or any dark tint. So, we may justly call it, the Edelweiss, that
is, the Noble White.”

At this, all the fairies shouted with delight. Even the Queen herself
smiled, and then made answer.

“You have well spoken; ‘Edelweiss’ it shall be.”

Now that the name was ready, the Queen called for the attendant maids
of the brave fairy volunteer and, then and there, the custom was begun,
which mortals always afterwards followed, of robing a princess, who was
to marry a husband in a foreign country. She must drop off all her
former clothing, even to her glistening skin. Then, entering another
room, in the new land, she must apparel herself in the garments that
are fashionable in her new home—as in the case, for example, of the
Belgian lady, who, long afterwards, came as a bride to the Castle of
the Hawk, in the Land of the Swiss.

Stripped of all her pretty gauzy skirts, bodice, and chemise, and
standing forth as nude as a baby in the bath tub, the Queen bade her
brave fairy look at her new wardrobe, which lay piled up and as white
as any snowdrift. Then, before all the other fairies, the Queen put
this question:

“Are you willing, to leave the company of your fellows in fairy land,
and be a flower, to remain rooted in the rocks, and amid the cold
forever?”

“Yes, truly, with all my heart,” answered the brave one.

“And will you cast seed every year and multiply your family, that will
bear your noble name?”

“Surely, for the more of us there are, and the more we can resist the
cruel enemy, the Frost Giants, and make mortals glad, the happier we
shall be.”

“You have spoken wisely,” said the Queen. “We shall clothe you very
thickly, in white robes, that look like flannel, but that are even
warmer. So, no giant can hurt you, when he bites with frost, no snow
storm chill you, or ice choke you, or North Wind make you shiver. We
shall give you roots, that dig their way down deep in the crannies, and
that will nourish your life. Besides, we have searched the world over,
and, whatever of hair, or fur of arctic animals, or wool of sheep, or
down of birds can show or suggest to us, we have used to weave a
garment so warm, that the biggest of the giants, with the iciest breath
and a beard of icicles, cannot even give you a chill. With your long
hair, and woolly coat, and roots that resist frost bites, you can
tickle his nose when he comes too near and even laugh in his face.”

“Indeed I will,” answered the fairy defiantly.

“And will you do even more? Will you keep your eye on the cracks and
crevices, that hold the sun’s warmth, so that your children can creep
up higher every year?” asked the Queen.

“The sun in the heaven helping me, I will,” replied this “Fairy of the
Vanguard,” as some of her sisters already spoke of her.

Then the Queen lifted her wand tipped with a star. She touched the
forehead of the Fairy of the Lion’s Foot, which was her war name; while
in the talk of mortals, she was called Noble White, though still the
fairies, quite often, use the name Margarita.

Then they stood fairy Edelweiss on a pile of rocks, filled in with sand
and earth, to show the others where, and how, in the new world,
Edelweiss was to live and grow and enlarge her kingdom.

It was a strange and wonderful transformation, as the fairy’s pretty
feet turned into rootlets, that quickly thrust themselves deeply
downwards, gripping the rough rock and drinking in the moisture and
juices in the soil. Grandly the Edelweiss showed her pride, in
belonging to the great family which a famous man first named after the
Little Frogs, because they love moist, damp and soft places.

Yet all this was beneath.

Above, there first rose a stalk, a few inches high, until it reached
half a foot. Then the arms multiplied and stretched out. They were
densely covered, like sleeves of overcoats, with thick coverings, each
resembling white flannel, or velvet, and as warm as the fur of an
ermine.

“Looks as if she had on an ulster,” said one of the many fairies, some
of whom thought she looked too sweet for any use.

And yet, so far, there was no real flower, but only a defence, like
armor, against those worst enemies of a plant, cold and frost.

“Now for beauty and for glory,” said the Queen.

Out of, and on top, the dense star-like mass of warmth and coziness, as
if robed for a skiing or skating party, there blossomed forth many
round-headed tufts, or rosettes, that were pearly white.

Now, not only thickly clothed, but beautiful and strong, the Noble
White was given a home at once in a rock cranny. Like a new-born baby,
that, as soon as it arrives, sticks its thumb in its mouth, as much as
to say, “This world is all right; I am going to like it,” the Edelweiss
rooted itself at once and began to grow.

Years passed by, and the lovely white flower, flourishing where only
the chamois and the ibex among animals lived, or the red Alpine rose
could bloom, multiplied. Like a brave army, it moved steadily forward,
occupying every crevice, cranny and hollow. These the hardy plants
held, like forts, against all cold comers; yes, even resisting the
avalanches, that tried to crush these little strangers.

In a few hundred years, thousands of the Noble White plants dotted, or
made beautiful, the bare rocks, or hung over the precipices. In vain
did the icy breath of polar winds, or the blasts of the rude Frost
Giants, or even the hurtling avalanches, drive the Edelweiss away. Nor
was the hot south wind, the Föhn able to wither it.

Swiss maidens made this flower the emblem of their own purity, and also
of the tenacity of faithful lovers. At the wrestling and shooting
matches, the young men wore its flowers in their hats, or twisted them
among the ropes, which marked off the boundaries of their games and
wrestling bouts. To heroes, it was the symbol of perseverance,
endurance and that quiet force which compels victory. Patriots so loved
it, because of its resisting power—the spirit of advance instead of
retreat—that they would gladly make it the national flower.
Switzerland—the Edelweiss among nations—has held its own for ages,
maintaining her life and independence despite the alien power of
invaders and tyrants, and the Swiss still sing their national hymn,
“Stand fast, O Fatherland!”

So also Edelweiss, the Noble White, remains forever as the Swiss emblem
of their republic, and of its beauty and permanence. To destroy this
flower, the Frost Giants make their continual assaults in vain. Just as
mighty monarchs have tried again and again to overwhelm, as with
avalanche of invasion, the freedom of the Swiss, and have always
failed, so the Edelweiss never yields. Its white banner hangs forever
on the heights. To every boy and girl, it is, as a living motto,
bearing, amid snow and ice, the message of Excelsior—Higher yet and
ever onward!








XV

THE AVALANCHE THAT WAS PEACEMAKER


Sometimes judges and lawyers advise people, that have a quarrel, to
settle their case outside of court. When a person thus decides between
two, who are not agreed, we say that they are judicially minded. Now
there was once, in Switzerland, an avalanche, that did what peacemakers
and honest judges could not accomplish. So it was called the Judicial
Avalanche.

Now, in the path of this avalanche, as it began to roll, was a rounded
rock, called the Pagoda Curve. This was because it had a turn up and
backward, like a sleigh runner. At a distance, it looked like one of
the roofs, which they build in Peking, Soochow, and other Chinese
cities. Once in a while, the ladies of the village on the slope below
held tea parties on it, drinking out of egg shell china cups. Then the
maidens pretended they had little feet, and ate candied ginger, and
stuck pear blossoms in their hair. On their part, the boys wore
pigtails of horsehair, behind their caps and shot off fire crackers, to
make believe they were Chinese mandarins of the old style.

One summer’s day, this tremendous avalanche came rolling and thundering
down the mountain side, and Pagoda Curve was directly in its path. When
it struck this rounded rock, there was not enough of the bulge or
re-curve, to stop the avalanche, but only to give an upward joust, or
bounce, toward the sky. Then the big ball which, for a moment, was
poised high in air, hung directly over the houses, five hundred feet
below.

This dorf, or village, had a name, which, in English, means Tell’s
Apple. Most of the houses stood on a flat place, among the mountains
which rose round about it, like sentinels in ice-armor. The people who
built it, long ago, were great admirers of the famous archer, who shot
the apple off his little son’s head. The place where they kept the pig
pens was named Gessler, after the cruel governor.

Now in this place, and just at this time, there was a very ugly and
dilapidated old house of worship, which had been erected several
hundred years before, and was now almost ready to tumble to pieces.

For a long time, the question, of tearing down the old church and
erecting in its place a new one, in modern style, had so vexed the
community, that a disgraceful squabble had broken out. The people of
one party would not speak to, or have anything to do with, those of the
other way of thinking; and all on account of this old building. The
young people were hot for a new edifice. They hoped to get an architect
from Zurich, who had gone from their village, and had his plans all
ready, which the young ladies all said were “just lovely.”

Against these, the old folks held to the idea of keeping the holy house
yet a while longer. The aged people were especially anxious that the
venerable tower should not be touched, but be kept; and they even
wanted to give it a new coat of paint, for which, of course, the
younger party would not vote.

On this very afternoon, the choir had gathered to practice to sing the
hymns for Sunday. The organist had put his foot on the pedals and
struck the keys, and the soprano had just opened her mouth, when down
thundered the avalanche!

This was far worse, than when a June bug had once flown into her
mouth—as had happened on a Sunday night, a few weeks before. She
stopped and the tenor’s face turned white, as if the crack of doom had
been heard.

The sexton was outside, sitting on the steps smoking his pipe, when a
lump of ice knocked the pipe out of his mouth, scattering fire and
tobacco, down into his vest bosom and over his best trousers. Then
followed a crash, as stone and brick, and the lightning rod, fell on
the paving stones of the street.

All thought the world had come to an end, but when they lifted up their
eyes to note the damage, they all declared that this was the most
obliging and considerate avalanche, that had ever visited that region.
It simply knocked over the old tower, and enough of the church walls to
compel rebuilding.

The mighty mass rolled past one corner of the village, upsetting a
farmer’s barn, but doing no further hurt or damage, except to a
bob-tailed cat of vicious character.

This animal had fought with many dogs, and one, that it had scratched
pretty badly, had bitten off its tail, so short, that even a rabbit
would be ashamed of the measly tuft, left on the end, for, only what
looked like a furry plug was visible.

Now this old puss, known as “Stumpy,” was just that minute about to
sneak up to a bird box, in which were four very hungry little birdies.
The mother bird was out, seeking worms for her little folks’ dinner.

Stumpy was just about to thrust in one of its front paws, through the
little round hole, in the bird box, hoping to claw and drag out the
four squabs, one by one, and eat them all up; when down came the edge
of the avalanche, like ten billion of bricks. It just grazed the bird
box, without doing any harm, or hurting the young ones inside, but it
flattened out that puss, so that it crawled away alive, but limping,
and meowing most piteously, and with one ear ground off by a bit of
sharp ice. The mother bird, returning at this moment, seeing the cat,
danced around and chirped out what sounded like the Japanese “aru beki”
(served you right).

The avalanche was last seen, when rolling down the valley in the
direction of the vineyards, apparently with the fell purpose of
overwhelming them all in one common ruin. But, on its way, it struck
again, right in the face, of an outjutting rock, on the side of a
mountain, which made it roll around in another direction.

As for the church question, that was settled. There must be a new
building and there was one soon, which, when finished, toned up the
whole dorf. At a later meeting, one frivolous youth proposed a
resolution of thanks to the avalanche, but this was voted down. Then
the pertinacious fellow brought in a proposition to give thanks for the
special Providence, that had opened the way to peace in the church.
This was carried by a majority vote, all the young people being on the
affirmative side.

The way that judicial avalanche behaved, was a scandal among the Frost
Giants. The old style had been to toss donkeys, and their drivers, down
within glacier crevices, into cold storage, a thousand feet deep; to
crush houses, kill cattle, and bury more people in one day than the
undertakers could put into coffins in a month. Besides this, old
fashioned avalanches used to lay waste orchards, and fruitful fields,
and spoil vineyards.

The conduct of this avalanche, which seemed bent on settling quarrels,
was more like that of a nun, a monk, a parson, or an old grandmother.
It happened to be about the time that the great Napoleon was upsetting
the world like a political avalanche, and the Empress Josephine was
covering up the red arms of peasant girls, now wives of generals, with
long white kid gloves reaching up to the arm pits.

Now, in a certain house in the dorf, an old fashioned mother was
scolding her frivolous young daughter, named Angelette, for aping Paris
and Napoleonic fashions. She remarked that things had come to a pretty
pass, when a young snip of a girl needed the leather of a whole goat to
clothe her arms. Daddy had also joined in the conversation, but only to
lose his temper. In his gestures, the cover of his pipe dropped off,
spilling the hot ashes all over his daughter’s low-necked frock. The
sparks made her jump, besides reddening the skin of her neck, even more
than her arms.

The girl Angelette was dressing for the evening dance, on the green,
and was quite put out by the accident. In fact, the old man had seized
the tip of Angelette’s middle finger of her glove and had pulled off
the half yard or more of white kid, when the avalanche flew past. It
flung a bit of rock, like the bolt of a catapult, right through the
window, sending the glove, all muddy and torn, out of the other.

Thinking his last day had come, the old daddy fell on his knees to
pray, but he was quickly awakened to his senses, by hearing a regular
concert in the barn yard. Outside, the donkeys were braying, the horses
neighing, the roosters crowing, the geese cackling, the hens clucking,
and the dogs barking—and all in joy. As for the old billy goat, he
stood up on his hind legs and cut up such capers, that the whole family
of kids began to imitate him by frisking in a circle.

Where, a minute or two before, had been ominous stillness, there had
come, in the twinkling of an eye, a salvo of rejoicing in the animal
world. It was as if the boarders in Noah’s ark had been let loose and
were having a concert. It’s a way the animals have, of showing their
joy, with a kind of music, all their own, which they can make, when the
danger they feared is over and deliverance has come.

There was also a bride, the daughter of the richest man in the dorf,
who was dressing for her wedding. All the other girls of her set were
collecting their old shoes and handfuls of rice, ready to fling after
the young couple’s carriage for good luck.

The bride’s kid boots, ordered from Paris, had cost fourteen dollars.
The mail wagon having arrived, with the letters and the salt, at the
Post Office, had just stopped in front of the bride’s house and handed
out the long waited package. The servant maid was bringing the lovely
white buttoned shoes upstairs, when, along and downward, thundered the
avalanche. According to a way that avalanches have, this one flung off,
at the sides, stones, rocks, gravel, ice and mud. Now, like cannon
balls in a bombardment, one mass of wet snow, not quite so big as a fat
elephant, struck the maid. It knocked her heels over head, sent her
slippers flying, and her feet in the air, until one could see the color
of her stockings, from toe to knees. As for the box from Paris, it was
shot, as out of a gun, into the pig pen. The bride screamed, but nobody
was hurt, and the maid quickly smoothed out her hair and dress, put on
her slippers, and she was soon presentable.

It was weeks after the honeymoon, and return of the couple, that, after
searching up hill and down dale, the remains of what were once a pair
of white kid boots from Paris, were found in the black mire, among the
pigs. Not knowing what it was, the porkers had crushed it under their
hoofs. After trial with their teeth, unable to eat it, or its not
tasting nice, the pigs thought it was not worth a turnip. One piggy,
without chewing, had actually attempted to swallow it. Not finding it
suited to a hog’s diet, the animal had dropped it with a grunt, and
trampled on it. When fished out with the long handled pitchfork, it was
recognized as a Paris shoe, by the two white buttons, which had escaped
the blackening of the mire.

By this time the proceedings of this avalanche, which had started out
to settle quarrels, had become positively frivolous. Wabbling about,
here and there, reeling like a man with a quart of brandy in his
stomach, the mighty ball rolled down the long road, leading into a
larger village.

“Now,” fancied the Frost Giants, that were watching from aloft, “it
surely will uphold the reputation of the family and act like other
avalanches, in turning villages into cemeteries, and farms and
vineyards into deserts.” Vain thought!

This lively chit of an avalanche followed the road, far enough to
tumble, flat into the ditch, some drunken fellows, who had just come
out of the gin house, and were staggering homewards. It was like
ironing out clothes, to see the way that avalanche flattened out those
topers. It left them for hours on the roadside, faces downwards, and
sleeping off their debauch. When they woke up, as out of a cold bath,
they shook off the snow and trudged homeward, only to get, from their
sharp-tongued wives, the scoldings they richly deserved.

Many another adventure did that judicial avalanche have, before it had
scudded past other villages, but hurting next to nothing, avoiding
forests, farmhouses and vineyards, until it reached a glacier, over
which it rolled.

Scratching, cracking, dropping out dirty stuff, rock and gravel, it
acted like a dredge box. It sprinkled out its contents, to fill up the
great deep green crevasses in the ice, until it finally reached a big
open space of waste land, that had nothing on it, but rocks and bushes.
Then, with a roar, as if laughing at itself, it broke up, spread open,
and left the place strewn with more rocks and stones and lumps of ice.

Then a troop of fairies came riding on the hot, dry, south wind. They
blew, with their breath, on the snow mass, and quickly melted it into
the river, so fast, indeed, that men wondered at the high water in the
distant lakes and the rivers in France. In lovely Switzerland, new soil
was made, where today are farms and vineyards. In time, billions of
purple clusters are plucked, and willing tourists are happy, in taking
the grape cure; while they walk over the place where once, a judicially
minded avalanche had laughed so hard, that it burst.








XVI

THE FAIRIES AND THEIR PLAYGROUND


Once upon a time in Switzerland, there was a Golden Age for cows and
people. This was before the country had become the playground of Europe
and the Land of a Thousand Hotels. It was before men climbed mountains
for pleasure; or, imitating the New Hampshire Yankees on Mount
Washington, had built railways to their summits, and filled the land
with wires and rails. Not then, could the Edelweiss be bought in a
drygoods store, or in the markets. Not then did lazy and soft-muscled
tourists pay money to have burnt upon alpenstocks the names of a
hundred mountains, which they never even saw, except from a hotel
porch, or distant window, or from the train.

Then, as the old ladies tell us, summer lasted during ten months of the
year and the very mild winter only eight weeks. Flowers were everywhere
and the bees were so busy that immense caverns were stored with the
honey combs, which hives could not hold. Colossal stalactites, and
mosses, big as cabbages, were common. Then the land was so rich in
clover and grass, that grew up to the very tops of the highest
mountains, that the cows had to be milked three times a day. They were
so large and fat, that the milk was poured by the bucket full into
tanks, so big that the milk men went round in boats to skim off the
cream for the making of cheese. These balls and disks were so thick and
so big around, that the dairy men had to be very careful in piling them
up in the store houses.

For, if, when rolling one inside the door, it broke loose and went
trundling down the valley, it might destroy a village and people might
think it an avalanche.

In those days, there were no mists, or storms, or barren rocks, or
danger of landslides. On the day for churning out the butter from the
cream, they used to employ the giants and give them big dinners for
their wages, for the churns were like towers, for height.

This was the story of the Golden Age, as told by the old folks, who sat
on their stone seats in front of the quaint wooden houses. As told,
year after year, everything grew in size, just as an avalanche starts
as a snowball and is finally able to wipe out a whole village,
including modern hotels, as is done occasionally in our day.

But what happens always, when people get too rich or prosperous,
followed in this case also. It went to their heads. Then they become
proud, lazy and often cruel. Gold got to be as common, as iron or lead
had been, yet many old frumps and codgers wanted more. Then misers
became numerous. Such fruit grew out of the root of all evil. It seemed
as if there was nothing more deceitful, than those very riches which
their ancestors knew nothing about. In such prosperity, the farmers and
shepherds had foolishly thought, lay the secret of all joy. They had
imagined that, if they could only get and increase what they could sell
for money, it would make them, as they used to say, “perfectly happy.”

The climate changed and gradually the whole land grew colder. Snow
covered the mountain tops. Rocks, storms, fog, mist, and clouds lay
long over the land. Land slides occurred often, and avalanches ruined
the meadows and villages. Huge rivers of ice, called glaciers, leagues
long, and hundreds of yards deep, were formed. These covered up the
flowers. Summers grew shorter and winters grew longer. Grapes and fruit
shriveled up to their present size and cows and goats were no longer
such givers of food as of old. Milkmaids, who had to work with a cow
thrice a day to get two small pails of milk between daybreak and dark,
wondered at the story of the Golden Age, which the old folks constantly
told. They wished they had lived then, when a boat, instead of a
bucket, was the sign of a dairy man’s shop.

Many looked wistfully up at the ruins of an old tower, now ivy grown,
where the owls hooted at night. They wondered, when told that, in the
Golden Age, this was the Giant’s Churn, in which boat loads of cream
were turned into butter by the good natured monster, who ladled out the
yellow delicacy, with a shovel, as big as a pine tree.

In the Golden Age, the fairies were very numerous, of many kinds and
always busy.

Some were rough, and loved to play tricks on stingy farmers, bad
tempered milk maids, rude boys and naughty girls; but most of them were
always glad to do something nice and pleasant, and, especially, to help
kind people in their work.

But when the age of steam and smoke and puffing locomotives, and boats,
with iron chimneys, that breathed out choking gas from their furnaces,
and left clouds of blackness on the beautiful blue lakes and landscape,
had come, the happy days changed to gloom. Men made railroads up to the
very tops of the mountains and stuck their big hotels in the prettiest
places, even on the high Alps. They spoiled the village dances, drove
away the poor people from their old amusements in summer, and even
turned thousands of the once honest Swiss folks into money-grubbers.
Then the fairies lost all patience, and determined to call an out door
congress, such as the mortals do at the Landsgemeinde, or town
meetings, when they talked politics and voted by thousands, raising
their hands, to mean “yes” or “no.”

One fairy, that was the lawyer and politician of the Swiss fairy world,
was especially angry, when it was learned that even the children were
taught by their parents to tell lies about their mother being dead—when
she was waiting in the chalet, for the money the little girls got by
telling doleful tales and thus moving the pity of travelers.

One day, after hearing some of these dreadful stories, the fairy took
the form of a Yankee pedestrian tourist, and walked along a well beaten
path in the mountains. Coming to a closed gate, which shut off the
passage, it was opened for him by a little girl, not ten years old, who
said plaintively with tears in her voice:

“Meine Mutter ist gestorben,” (My mother is dead).

At this, the kind hearted fairy, in Yankee clothes, nearly dropped his
Alpenstock, out of sheer sympathy. Taking out his purse, he was about
to hand the child a silver coin; when, looking up at the doorway of the
chalet near by, he saw a woman standing and peering out with keen
interest. He hesitated a moment, and then inquired, of the little
gate-opener, whether that were her mother. She, having learned to speak
her piece, but not prompted as to any further question, replied at once
“Yes.”

At this the fairy in disguise lost his temper and said to her “you
little cheat!” Then he shut up his purse, and passed on.

Quickly changing into his former fairy form, messengers by the score
were sent out by him over the mountain tops, down in the mines, under
the lakes, over the pastures, and wherever fairies of any kind or sort
lived. These were all summoned to the meeting.

The hour and place of gathering was named, and it was promised that
all, whether pretty or ugly, slow or rapid of speech, and whether of
land, water, air, or snow, should have a chance to talk, all being
limited to a quarter of an hour each.

What was of the most importance, was the guarantee given, that all
delegates should be excused, and the whole meeting break up before
sunrise, so that no fairies would be turned into stone, when the
sunbeams should strike them.

No ogres or man-eating giants, of either sex, were invited to this
meeting, for the Swiss fairies are a very respectable lot of folks. In
some countries, they do not have anything to do with “gods,” or
“devils.” They are very particular as to who or how or what they regard
as fit for society, or look upon as equals. Such beings of uncertain
reputation as “the gods,” or “the fates,” or “the devils” or any of
their tribe, were not known in their fairy society. It is said that
such beings used to live in the mountains, when the Romans were in the
land.

Many people said that some of these used to live still further back and
long ago, in certain mountains and caves which could be pointed out,
but they went away forever, after the good saint Fridolin, and others
came to St. Gall and Appenzell, from Ireland, a thousand years ago.
When the idolators, in China or Japan, would build a temple for their
idols, they inscribed it on their bells that “gods, as well as devils,”
have paid or subscribed money to help rear the structure.

But Swiss fairies are better educated, and they have nothing to do with
either “gods” or “devils.” These creatures have no reputation in
Switzerland, and are not received into fairy society; for the Swiss
fairies approve of churches and never hurt them, or the good people who
go to them.

In fact, what all the fairies resented most, and about which they were
as mad as fire with mortals, was that they had brought in such
creatures of their fancy into the country. Men described the worst one
of the lot as having hoofs, horns, a sooty skin, hooked nose, forked
tail and sulphurous breath.

In other words, this fellow was something altogether different from any
sort of fairy in earth, air, sky, water, cave, or mine. Besides, though
the demons had the reputation of being always very busy and very smart,
they never did anything good, nor helped honest mortals, as the fairies
often did.

In truth, the fairies of every sort held their noses, and otherwise
showed their dislike, or contempt, whenever any one made mention of the
name or the deeds of demons, or devils.

What made the lovely fairies and the frost giants awfully mad, was,
that human beings should name the pretty scenery, the wild crags, and
the rocky valleys and mountains after one, they called His Infernal
Majesty. A certain fairy told the story of a funny mortal, who had got
mixed in his ideas. She had overheard one bumpkin find fault with the
president of a college for inviting a popular preacher to address the
students. “He’s an atheist,” said the fellow, “for he does not believe
in a personal devil;” at which, both fairies laughed heartily.

It was the general opinion, however, that mortal men could do wonderful
things. They might build railroads up to the mountain tops, harness
every waterfall, fill the valleys with electric machinery, and erect
observatories to study the weather and the stars. For all this, the
fairies paid them due honor.

It was acknowledged that, in one thing, some of the native mortals
could beat the world, that is, in holding out their hands for a gift.
Fairies thought this was because they had a disease, called itch of the
palm; but they noticed that a coin always healed the trouble and caused
the fingers to shut up finely on the silver.

But when human beings gave credit, for the smart things which the
fairies used to do, to the monster they called the Devil, they were
vexed indeed. Both the frost giants and the flower fairies declared
that they would go on with their work, for who or what could stop
either of them? Besides, no human beings could produce anything so
pretty as a flower, or a snow crystal. At the idea of their making
Edelweiss out of canton flannel, and selling these bogus things in the
shops, they laughed again and again.

In spite of railways built up the mountains, or tunnels dug into them,
the gnomes and the kobolds declared, fiercely, that they should have
their own way down below the ground, so long as there was any fire left
in the earth.

The Undines and the Herwischers made their boast that, while glaciers
melted and became rivers, and lakes were lakes, and marshes grew reeds,
they, and all the water sprites, were determined to have a good time in
their own way. They would enjoy their tricks and play their pranks on
stupid mortals, as long as they pleased. There was too much fun in it
for them to give up their old customs.

“Besides these foolish fashions, that will pass away,” said the
president, “there was one place where machinery, or the jim-cracks of
inventors, and all this chatter about science, or any thing else, can
never destroy. None of these things can reach the hearts of the
children.” Then he went on to say: “There will always be a new
generation who love us. Even after all the learned men and scholars and
prudes and fault-finders shall have had their way, and tried to drive
out of the libraries such splendid fellows as Santa Claus or William
Tell or Humpty Dumpty, they would climb through the window, go down the
lightning rods, and from the chimneys into the nursery.

“Even if the prudes tried to abolish the fairies by law, and shut out
all the fireplaces, and did away with sleighs, for automobiles, and had
aeroplanes, in place of wagons, even then a new lot of fairies and
heroes would come in and take the place of the banished old friends of
the children. They would sit in the chairs, peep in at the windows,
live in the nursery, and refuse to be driven out. In Switzerland, they
would hide in the milk churns, or behind rocks, or in the ice caverns.
In a word, never having been born they could not die.”

A wise old gnome spoke for his companions, as follows:

“It is only those creatures that have bodies and have to be born and
must eat and drink food every day, that get old, and have to be buried.
Besides, every fairy knows that, while thousands of tourists come, year
after year, in their bodies, as in sleeping cars and day coaches, very
few ever really get into that Switzerland, which, after two thousand
years, has grown up in the Swiss heart. These foreigners come and go,
and eat and sleep, and drink, but what did they know of the Swiss
soul?”

One ancient fairy that looked as if he might be several millions of
years old, who had a name too long to be pronounced, but which means,
when translated, “I told you so,” summed up in his speech what he had
seen come to pass, since mortals arrived on the earth. He had looked
upon the lake dwellers, the Romans, the barbarians, the visitors of all
sorts and times, and finally the hotels and tourists.

“There have been many changes of fashions since I paid any attention to
mortals,” said he. Then he made them all laugh, by continuing: “Once,
nobody cared for the mountains. Now, all human folks are writing poetry
about them, or climbing them, or punching their faces with alpenstocks.
Once no one loved the flowers of the Alps. Now, foolish mortals, in
both trousers and petticoats, come with their long purses, but they are
too lazy to climb up to the real ‘Alps,’ and pick the blossoms where
they grow. So they buy them, already and artificially made, in the
market. They go shopping for canton flannel Edelweiss, as they would
for soap, or tooth brushes. They stick these woolen things in their
hatbands, and they have their alpenstocks branded with the names of
places, whether they have been there or not. Or, they make belt
bouquets of the Alpine roses, or glacier violets, and then strut about
as if they were explorers. What fools these mortals be.”

At this, all the fairies of every sort and kind, laughed and guffawed
so uproariously, that the meeting adjourned in disorder.

Yet they all went away happy, for they felt sure that whatever foolish
mortals should do, Switzerland would still be the fairies’ playground.








XVII

THE KANGAROO POA


During millions of centuries a battle on, between the frost giants and
the flower fairies. Occasionally, for a few tens of thousands of years
at a time, the ice rivers and the snow avalanches would roll down the
mountain sides and smother, or crush all the pretty blossoms. Rocks and
stones in the glaciers would squeeze the leaves, and tear out the
roots, so that nothing could grow. Then the whole land would become a
cemetery of ice, or a graveyard covered with snow, for all the plants
of every kind were frozen stone hard and were dead beyond hope.

Nothing could be seen but jagged rocks and sharp peaks rising up out of
the desolation. No bird, beast, insect, or fish could live in such a
world, for there was nothing for them to eat, or to grow with. Though
there was plenty of water, there were no fish. Cows could not graze, or
goats, or deer find any grass or moss, and dogs would die at once, for
lack of meat.

But the sun in the sky was always the friend of the flower fairies, and
he kept on, fighting Jack Frost, and the glacier giants, melting the
ice and snow and making rivers that carried off the cold water to the
sea.

So by and bye, after a few millions of years had passed by, the
fairies, who never die of old age, got together in a meeting. After
talking the matter over, they resolved to have a flower that could
fight the frost giants, by laughing in their faces, and keep on
growing, no matter how hard the winds blew, or how deep the snow was,
or how often the avalanches fell, or glaciers formed. Besides being
able to live, and find its own food, by rooting itself deep in the
crevices of the rocks, such a flower ought to be sweet, and taste good
to the cows.

In this way pastures would be coaxed to cover the meadows of the high
Alps with their green glory, well spangled with blooms. Then men could
get milk and make butter and cheese. The fairies liked good boys and
girls, and were always glad to help their fathers and mothers, and they
also loved meadows, with plenty of flowers and grass, for their
moonlight dances. They never enjoyed this, their favorite amusement, so
much as when, in the spring, the fields or the heights were both
fragrant and beautiful.

But how could a pretty plant, such as they wanted, get clothes enough
to keep from shivering all winter? How could a flower be made hardy to
laugh at Jack Frost, when he came to bite her?

The fairies young and old, all thought it over, but no one could tell
how to begin or proceed. The young ones thought much of gloves and
muffs, tippets and leggings, hoods and ear muffs, thick stockings and
fleecy lined gloves. Yet how could these be made to fit a plant?

It was natural for them to think in this way, for all their things to
wear were on the outside, both for grown ups and those fairies that
were more like big boys and girls. On the other hand, the fairy mothers
were all the time thinking about the baby’s life, and not only how to
cover the young thing, but also to have it warmly wrapped up, when it
was still very little. They brought to mind examples of papooses well
bundled in furs for cradles and hung on the branches. Some told of
Esquimaux babies, all swaddled in furs, that are given a lump of whale
blubber, instead of candy, and skewered on a stick, so that it will not
swallow the tidbit, all at once, and choke. Others told of Italian
bambinos, wrapped up tight, and Japanese akambos, held pick-a-pack
style, on their big sisters, but none of these seemed to give the right
idea of what was wanted.

At last, one old grandmother fairy made a sign that she wished to
speak, and all listened while she talked.

“You fairies had better stop thinking about human beings, for not one
of them could live where we want this flower to grow. It is too cold,
and the frost giants already own the country. Better look to the
animals to show us how. Now I have heard of a two-legged creature, that
yet is not a man nor a woman; and another one, with four legs that
carries its babies, even a whole family, of four or five, in a pouch in
front of its body, until the little ones can take care of themselves.
In this way, they are kept free from danger, until they grow up and can
provide for themselves.”

“Oh do tell us about these wonderful creatures,” cried all the young
fairies at once; and, though the old folks were silent, they were just
as eager to hear.

“Well, the four-legged creature is the opossum, and lives in America.
The mother carries a whole family of her cubs in a chatelaine pocket,
which she wears in the front of her dress. She can even climb up a tree
with her family.

“Who can believe that?” whispered one fairy to another. “And the
other?” she asked, hardly believing such a thing was possible.

“Let me tell you, then, about the kangaroo, that lives in Australia.
She has a wallet, or travelling bag where, or in which, she stows away
her little folks, and there they are as cozy as if they were riding in
a wagon. Yet, all the time, they can look out and see what is going on
in the world. In this way, both the young opossums and the kangaroos
are kept warm, and are fed until they are grown. No wolves, or bears,
or foxes can catch and run away with them.”

“Can a kangaroo climb a tree?” asked a fairy, whose fancy had been
greatly taken with the idea of a whole family being up a tree at once,
and free from the wolves.

The old fairy felt insulted, or thought the questioner was trifling,
and made no answer. So there was quiet for the space of three minutes.

“Well then,” asked still another fairy, “can you furnish us with a
vegetable kangaroo?” This was asked in a tone of contempt, as if she
believed it were not possible to protect anything from Jack Frost and
the giants, even though the sun helped with all his might.

“Well, not exactly the Australian jumper, or the American tree-climber;
but, if we can persuade the sun to help us, we may get a plant to
become more mother-like, and keep her babies at home, until they are
weaned and warmly clothed. Then, when they grow up, they will be able
to find food, and set up housekeeping for themselves.”

So it came to pass that the sun and earth, and the fairies, all
agreeing together, they invited a plant, named the Poa, to come in
their country to live and raise children, that could stand the cold.

As fast as the glaciers or ice rivers melted, the fairies coaxed the
Poa family to multiply and come up higher. This the plants always did,
increasing in numbers like a great army. They climbed higher and
higher, until they formed acres upon acres of meadow land, for the cows
and goats, that enjoyed the delicious taste of the ripened grass. When
the glaciers had retreated and melted away, the Poa covered the land.
Then the cows multiplied. They were fat and sleek, because of rich
food, and men won wealth by making butter and cheese. The young fairies
watched how the Poa grew and cast its seeds, and they called it the
kangaroo plant.

And this was the reason why it was named, by the fairies, the Kangaroo
Plant. Watching its opportunity, the Poa Alpina started every
springtime, from the lower meadows, to go up on the mountain tops
nearer the stars, in time becoming victorious, like an army. Instead of
dropping its ripe seeds to the ground, or having them blown far by the
winds, or letting them leap out, like popcorn, or lending them the
wings, which dandelions have, or trusting to birds, or sailors, or men
who sell seeds to farmers, the Poa had a new way of its own. The mother
stalk held her babies, that is the seeds, as long and as close to her,
as an opossum keeps her cubs or a kangaroo her kittens.

Instead of first weaning them and then letting them go away to play or
ramble abroad, out of her sight, she kept them all with her until they
were full grown, that is, until they had both leaves and roots; for
these are the legs and arms of a plant, whether it be a Johnnie Jump
Up, or Sweet William, or Ragged Robin, or Dusty Miller, or Lady’s
Slipper, or Four o’Clocks, or what not. So, before Jack Frost could
bite them hard, or the giants crush them, or a snow storm bury them, or
an avalanche roll over and flatten them out, or a cow eat them up, they
hid themselves in all the crannies, cracks, and crevices of the rocks
and down deep too. Wherever any sand, or dust, or moss, or moisture
was, there you would find a whole family of the young folks of the Poa
family settled down, all growing up and able to take care of
themselves.

Now like a great army they are, indeed. They laugh at winter’s cold, or
icy wind, or driving sleet, and even at that scorching south wind, the
Föhn, that blows for over two weeks in the spring time, and again, for
a fortnight in the autumn. By and bye, in a little while, according to
the fairy clock, that is, in a million years or so, the Kangaroo Poa
had spread all over Switzerland. Twenty thousand cows were made happy,
for they loved to browse on the Poa pastures, and liked nothing better.
Now, nearly two million of Swiss cows enjoy the summer feast, while
their bells tinkle on the hillsides.

When the calves were too big for their mother’s milk, and the lady cow
got tired of being a restaurant for her booby calf, she pushed it away,
and said, in cow language, “go and eat Poa.” Sometimes the calf did not
like to give up its baby habits, learned in the nursery. Then, it
behaved like the naughty boy, who said “I’m hungry and bread I won’t
have. I want cake.”

Then the mother cow tried another plan. She would give notice to the
cowherd, in her own language, that she had done her part, and wanted
him to attend to her naughty, and bad tempered, or sulky calf. Then the
man would put a leather strap with sharp nails on it, over the calf’s
muzzle, so that, when calfy wanted refreshment, it would be like
sticking pins into its mother. Then the cow would push the calf away
and make it learn to eat Poa.

But once having taken a bite, the calf never again wanted to eat
anything else. It tasted as good as candy to a little girl. So
Switzerland became one of the greatest countries in the world for
butter and cheese. The fairies rejoiced, too, for the Poa, with its
pretty blossom, made the meadows, which were their dancing hall, more
beautiful, and for them, it was like waltzing on a cloth of gold.

And to this day, the Alpine Poa is as wonderful, among plants and
grasses, as the opossum and kangaroo are among quadrupeds.

The fairies, that had succeeded in so clothing the edelweiss, that
lives among the rocks, that it was able to resist the frost and cold,
were now very happy over their second venture. Like a brave and
vigilant sentinel, the new flower kept guard. The Poa was clothed, so
as to delight the cattle, while the edelweiss was dressed for beauty,
and to please mortals. Thus, both man and beast were blessed.

And it is, even yet, the flowers that, with vigilance and valor, guard
Switzerland against the assaults of the ice giants and the frost army.
These would make the Land of the Edelweiss like the regions of the
North Pole, if it were not for the flowers and the grass. That is the
reason why the Swiss people are not like Esquimaux. Their beautiful
country holds the chamois, and the ibex, and the birds, instead of
walruses and polar bears; and the people have bread, and honey, and
cream, instead of seal meat and blubber.








XVIII

THE SWISS FAIRIES IN TOWN MEETING


In Appenzell, and some other cantons in the heroic Swiss republic, many
old democratic customs still prevail. One of these is seen in the
Landsgemeinde, or meeting of all the men not only in a village, but in
the whole canton, or district.

This long word means a mass meeting of voters. The people gather
together in a great crowd, when they wish to settle matters of public
interest. They vote, not by casting bits of paper in a box, or with a
voting machine, but by raising their hands.

When the president of the meeting puts the question, tens of thousands
of fingers at once go up in the air. This is the ancient form of the
town meeting, which is still kept up.

The Swiss fairies follow Swiss customs, and, not long ago, one
moonlight night, they met together on a glacier in a deep valley.

They had much to talk about. It was not all gossip, but after much
friendly chat, that they began. Not one said “How do you do?” For, none
of them ever gets sick, or has influenza, or whooping cough, or the
mumps, or the measles, or tooth ache. They never have doctors, or take
doses of medicine, or wrap flannel round their necks, or swallow castor
oil, or have the doctor visit them and feel their pulses or make them
stick out their tongues.

Instead of all this, the fairies usually inquire, one of another, in
this fashion, “How about those curious creatures called men?” Or, “How
are mortals behaving?” Such questions, as “What are they up to now?” or
“What are they doing to spoil our fun?” are very common also.

Some of them at this meeting wanted very much to tell about some of the
tricks, which they had played on foolish men, or how they had done a
good thing or two to people they liked. There was, however, no time for
a long chat, for it was said that much business was on hand. Moreover,
the meeting must break up before daybreak.

We shall not describe all that were present, for most of them looked
like the fairies of other countries. Yet there were some entirely
Swiss, and these are known, or heard of, only along the Rhine or the
Rhone river, or on the mountains inside the country.

The water fairies, quite the most numerous, were present in full force.
There were the sprites, or “necks,” that live in, and had come all the
way from the river Neckar. They looked and behaved very much like the
nixies of England.

Undine was the general name of one family of the female water fairies.
All of these were in the form of pretty young women. They love to sit
by the side of the brooks or water courses. Sometimes they lurk in the
marshes among the reeds. They have very white hands and golden hair,
which is full of waves or ripples, that can beat Marcel, or any other
hair waver. On their heads they wear a fillet, or wreath, made of pond
lilies, and often have on a long white veil-like mist. They are very
sentimental and have tender emotions and whisper often and sigh a great
deal. They delight in dancing along the shore, and go flitting from one
water lily to another, opening the golden hearts and lovely white
petals of these flowers that grow in the water.

These mist maidens were very attentive to all that was talked about,
but they did not themselves say much. Like other pretty fairies, they
were lovely to look at, but they had no soul, and if they had any
brains, no one would ever know it. One would not expect to meet them at
matinee parties, or at any daylight picnics, for they made it a rule
never to be seen, except on moonlight nights. It was therefore useless
to look for them at any other time.

Very much like Undine and her sisters were those in a delegation of
fairies from the Grotto de Balme. This cave may be seen on the way to
Chamounix, but high up above the level of the road, and has stalactites
hanging from the ceiling. The story teller remembers it well, but when
he was there, the fairies were all out, for it was broad daylight, when
fairies do not allow themselves to become visible. How we two college
boys wished we had spectacles, that could pierce the light and make the
fairies to be seen.

These grotto folks, that were at this mass meeting of the fairies,
looked much like human girls, with olive complexions; but if one looked
carefully, he would see that they had no heels. Their hair was the most
wonderful part of them, for they never wore any clothes. When any human
person came near, they could cover themselves up entirely with their
tresses, so that nothing but their roguish, laughing faces were
visible.

They were great coquettes, and often appeared on mountain paths, to
lure away young hunters; but old men only laughed at them, and hummed a
tune and ditty about “The Spider and the Fly,” for they knew all the
tricks of these grotto girls. Sometimes these pretty creatures carried
lights at night and danced in circles, so it was very hard to tell one
from another. Yet they looked very lovely, with their fresh faces,
sparkling eyes and pretty manners. Besides these charms, they had, each
one, a soft low voice. Of all these grotto girls, Funetta was the best
known.

In fact, some of these fairies belonged to the same families as fairies
in other lands, though they spelled their names differently and talked
German, French or Italian, and, what sounded like the speech, which
country people in Switzerland use.

For instance, there were several of the Herwisch folk, or first cousins
to the Will-o’-the-wisp. Several dozen of little creatures of this
family, not much bigger than dolls, were on hand. They live on marshy
ground and delight in lighting their little lanterns at night. Then
they entice bumpkins and other dull fellows, out of the regular path in
the fields, into the mud and swamp. When the clumsy chaps are
floundering deep in the water, and down among the frogs and tadpoles,
the Herwisch put out their lights and leave the louts in the wet, all
the while laughing at them. Stupid fellows from the grog and beer
shops, with their brains befuddled, are the chief victims of these
merry mischiefs. It is good to see how many a drunkard gets a ducking
and cooling off from these tiny tots.

Some of the Herwisch folk have wings like bats, and to the bold girl or
boy that is too smart, and makes fun of them, they come and flap their
wings in his or her face and this frightens them. Men, especially, who
have drunk too much wine, get easily scared. After it is dark, most
people are careful not to anger, or irritate the Herwisches in any way.

Quite different in their bearing and looks, as well as in their ideas
and manners, was another set of delegates to this fairy convention.
These were the gnomes, the kobolds, and the elves. They were near
relations, and looked very much alike, especially in stature, in the
color of their skin, and in all having beards. Most of them live
underground and in the mines. These very industrious and lively little
fellows are always busy. Many among them look like old men. When they
talk to each other, their long beards and chins wag up and down, so the
boys and girls call them “chin choppers.” They wear funny, peaked caps,
each with a tassel on the end of it. They have to do with gold mines,
for they understand all about fires, forges, coal, crucibles, and what
one sees in a foundry.

A long time ago, one of these gnomes amused himself and enriched the
good people in a place called Plurs, by pouring liquid gold in a
crevice of the rocks. But having thus gained plenty of the precious
metal, the people got to be very proud, like most mortals who get rich
suddenly. They lost their good manners, and got drunk and fell into
very bad habits. When the gnomes saw that the heads of these mortals
were turned, and that their hearts were like those of bad potatoes,
they threw down tons of dirt upon the villages and destroyed them, just
as men burn up caterpillars and potato bugs.

It is true that at this meeting, the elves, gnomes and kobolds were,
some of them, so black and sooty, and smelled so strongly of smoke and
fire, that the more dainty fairies in gauzy dresses did not like to sit
near them. Besides this, some of the kobolds came with their leather
aprons on, and altogether they were such real blacksmiths, that the
doorkeeper did not want to admit them. At least, the water fairies
thought, they might have taken off their aprons and washed up a little.

Biggest of all, at the assembly, were the frost giants, and one of
these, who towered above all, was chosen, by a show of hands, to be
president of the meeting. A half acre was allowed him to sit down upon.
When ready to tap for order, he picked up a boulder, for a gavel, which
weighed a ton or more. With this, he pounded on a flat rock. At the
sound, all stopped talking, looked up and listened. One minute before,
it was like the buzzing of bees. Now all was silence.

These frost giants, of whom a dozen or so were present, had ridden to
the meeting each on his own avalanche, which he used for a bicycle.
They all had long beards of icicles, that appeared like stalactites in
a cave. Their big eyes looked, for all the world, like locomotive
headlights, and some of the little fairies were afraid to look at them.

Their sabots, or wooden shoes, were hollowed out of whole trunks of fir
trees, and when they walked they made an awful stamping noise. Their
breath, like mist, rolled out in great clouds over the assembly, so
that at times some of the fairies could not see the speaker and several
felt very chilly. Their voices, in speaking, sounded like rolling
thunder. When the president pounded with his gavel, some of the
fairies, sitting at the edge of the crowd, thought an earthquake had
taken place.

During the debate, when some of the frost giants lost their tempers, it
seemed at times, as if they would hurl rocks at each other, or gobble
up some of the smaller fairies, such as the elves, or Undines. In fact,
the gentle flower fairies, that were very thinly clothed in gauzy
dresses and loved warmth, shivered, when a frost giant came near them,
and some almost cried, lest they should get frozen. In fact, one brave
little fairy borrowed a white fur coat, made of edelweiss velvet, and
boldly sat near the frost king—to the mingled fear, anxiety and
admiration of her sisters. One of them even said she was “a pert
hussy.”

On the other hand, one cunning summer fairy, with a fan of flowers in
her hand, enticed a young frost giant to come and sit down beside her.
Then she threw a spell over him, and he was so wrapped up in her
charms, that she actually melted him with her beauty, so that when the
meeting broke up, there was no frost giant there, but only a puddle of
cold water; for that is what frost giants turn into, when the weather
is too warm.

Each speaker mounted the platform, which was a big boulder, with a flat
top. When any of the frost giants, who sat up in front, made a speech,
it was noticed that, while there were gnomes and kobolds out on the
edge of the audience, who shouted “Louder, Louder;” some of the gentler
fairies, who were nearer, put up their hands to their ears, for fear of
being deafened. It was hard to please all, and at one time, when there
were too many on their feet and all wanted to talk at once, the
president roared out that he would adjourn the meeting, if there was
not better order.

As for the grotto girls, they were pointedly requested, several times,
to stop whispering.

It was a pretty long session, for all were allowed to have their say,
just as at a town meeting of mortals.

Yet when one of the big giants talked too long, or when a lovely and
pretty fairy wandered in her thoughts, and prattled too much, without
saying anything, the whole company coughed him, or her, down. After
all, nothing much came of the meeting, for they could not agree.

Here the president of the meeting pounded hard, to call the long-winded
fairy to order, lest he might keep on for a week. It would soon be
sunrise, when they must all scamper.

So, at the first streak of light, in the east, down came the gavel of
the president, with a force that split the rock, and, before half of
those who wanted to speak, had opened their mouths, the congress was
adjourned.








XIX

THE PALACE UNDER THE WAVES


Fashions change in the fairy world, as well as among mortals who live
on the earth. The Swiss water fairies, called Undines, at times grew
tired of living down below the surface of the lakes and rivers. When
restless, they longed to mingle in the village gatherings. They wanted
to hear the lively music of the young men and maidens, as they sang and
danced. Their favorite time for waltzes and cotillions was on moonlight
nights.

So it became quite common, at these times, for the fairy maids and
swains to swim up to the shore. Then these Undines changed themselves
into girls and young men. They put on clothes, that were deep green,
the color of the waves. Slipping in among the dancers, they joined in
the fun and merry making. In this manner, many a lad romped with a
water fairy and even kissed her, thinking she was or might be his
sweetheart; for, in the dim light of the moon, it was not always easy
to see clearly the face of one’s partner. Many a lassie received an
embrace, or a salute on the lips, from a lively dancer, whom she
supposed was a new comer. He might not be well known in the village,
she thought, though he appeared graceful and dressed very nicely, in
sea green, gauzy clothes.

Yet no matter how hard these Undines might try to get their clothes
entirely dry, they could never wring the water out wholly of their
garments, so that they were always more or less damp. If they had
changed their form too quickly, their clothes would drip, and make
spots on the floor, or ground. Often the village folk felt dampness, on
their limbs below the knees. Yet few ever gave the matter a second
thought, for their minds were wholly set on having a good time, and
they had it.

Sometimes the lady fairies started rather late in the evening to take
their swim to the lake shore. Fearing to lose some of the fun, and
thinking they might even find the dancing all over, and the people gone
home to bed, they were in a great hurry, while on the strand, to change
into the form of mortals and put on their human clothes. So it happened
that, when they joined in the dance, one sharp-eyed fellow, who was
playing the violin for the measures, noticed that something was wrong.
In fact, he was so surprised, that he suddenly stopped fiddling. Then,
instantly, everybody dropped arms and stood looking around at the
musician’s stand, to see what was the matter. In a moment, it was as
quiet as a church aisle, when the parson was praying.

What he saw made his eyes big and round. Then, most impolitely—as some
of the girls thought—he pointed to a maiden’s green petticoat, that was
beneath her outer dress and that had come a little below her frock. It
was dripping with water. Again, after looking with searching eyes at
another, and a third, he screamed out:

“Folks and fellow villagers! Don’t you know you’ve got the Undines
among you? Look there, and there, and there!” Then he pointed, with his
fiddle bow, to some of the prettiest of the female dancers. “Just feel
the hem of their skirts, and you’ll know what sort of guests have been
dancing with you tonight.”

Whereupon, every young man turned his female partner round, and some of
them, most ungallantly, flapped their hands on their lower skirts.
Feeling and finding that these were very damp, four or five of them at
once lifted up their hands, which were wringing wet, and shook off the
drops.

One bold fellow even went behind, and seized the tail of his partner’s
petticoat. She seemed to be the sloppiest-looking girl in the whole
party, and he actually wrung out a half pint of water.

Thereupon, a tall handsome fellow, leader of the Undine party of a half
dozen or so, put his two fingers in his mouth and gave a sort of
whistle. At once, all the Undines shouted and ran down to the water’s
edge. There, they stopped a minute or two, on the lake beach, and then
leaped below the waves and disappeared. It sounded as if six big seals
had made a dive.

One villager, who pretended to be an Undine, ran quickly after these
water sprites and saw them for a moment on the shore, when they changed
their form before resuming their old shapes.

He came back to tell a wonderful tale of what he had seen. When he
examined the clothes they had left behind, he found that though they
looked shiny, in the moonlight, the stuff was only that of some water
plants like sea weed.

When arrived in their crystal palace under the waves, the king of the
Undines gave the girl fairies a good scolding, for not, in the first
place, being more punctual in both starting and coming home, and next,
for being in too much of a hurry in changing themselves into mortals.
As for the others, he punished these by forbidding them ever to dance
again on that side of the lake.

Ever after that, when, on moonlight nights, the village lads and lasses
came out to waltz, they scrutinized each partner in the dance, before
allowing him or her to join in when the music began. Some, among the
younger set of girls, felt offended at such a severe examination; but
it was necessary, and the other girls agreed to it.

Yet even then, the water sprites would sometimes join in; for, when
everybody was lively, and the fun was fast and furious, each one of the
lads and lasses was too much excited to notice the dress, or to be
certain as to who was who, or which was which, or what was what, or
even to see the face of a partner.

One night, the daughter of the lord of the grand chateau, the Princess
Babi, slipped out the castle gate, along with several of her maids, and
joined the village youth in their fun. At the very height of the dance,
a young man became her partner in the waltz, chiefly because of his
elegant clothes and polished manners. Though he did not talk, but
expressed his offers and wishes by signs and motions, she enjoyed
mightily his dancing, which was both deft and graceful.

There was present, however, a sharp-eyed mother, a nurse, who had three
nieces in the dance. She kept looking, like a lynx, at every lad in the
party. At last, she noticed this unusually handsome and stylish fellow,
who seemed to wear finer clothes than most of the village boys.

The old woman’s suspicions were fully aroused, when she saw the young
couple linked, arm in arm, and, especially, as he turned his body round
in the dance. For, when the moonbeams fell upon the skirt of his coat,
it shone as only wet clothes could, in the silvery light. The color
reflected was that of wave green.

Upon this, she made up her mind that this fine fellow was no other than
the King of the Crystal Cavern, which was far down in the world under
the waters.

She was about to give the signal, that would expose him, when her mouth
was shut, and her limbs felt as if paralyzed by some unseen and unknown
power, when she saw him offer to take, as his partner, the Princess
Babi, the daughter of the castle lord.

Smilingly the lovely maiden put out her arms, in return for his
embrace. All she thought of was the fun and merriment. Yet, within a
few minutes after they had linked arms together, he started in a
whirling dance. It was so rapid, that the mother and the older
spectators, who sat watching the young people, were too fascinated to
speak or cry out. They noticed him whirling his partner around, but
getting ever nearer the lakeside. Wider and wider were the circles they
made, but all the time he was bringing her nearer the beach; while she
seemed delirious with delight, apparently oblivious to everything but
the rapturous motion.

Reaching the shore, pausing hardly a moment, he leaped with her into
the water, which was then silvered with the moonbeams and rippling with
the breeze.

Down, down, below the sparkling waves, the King of the World under the
Waters—for it was he—made her his wife and queen, but never would he
let her go back home.

There, among the great coral trees and groves of gold and silver and
amid heaps of shining gems, with a score of maidens to wait on her,
valets and footmen and servants of a strange sort, and with food rich
and abundant, pleasing and tempting to both eye and palate, and with
the most entrancing music ever at her command, she was enraptured. So
delighted was she, that the years passed away as days.

Yet even when touched with homesickness, and longing for those she had
left behind on earth, in her castle home, she found herself watched and
guarded. The gates, though made of emerald and sapphire, shut of
themselves, because moved, by some secret spring, against her return.
Having once eaten of fairy food, and accepted her husband’s gifts, she
could never again leave either the palace or the World under the Waves.
The crystal cavern was her prison. When she looked in the mirror, she
found her teeth were wave green. She was now an Undine.

Yet in the village, where the story of the castle princess was told, it
was declared that, on calm still nights, when the moon shone brightest,
the most delightful music could be heard coming up from the lake. Some
of the fishermen were sure that, far below on quiet summer days, also
when no wind blew, and the sunbeams struck deep into the waters, they
could peer down into the depths and see the walls and towers of this
crystal palace.








XX

THE ALPINE HUNTER AND HIS FAIRY GUARDIAN


There is one variety of the Swiss fairies who manage to get along with
very few clothes, and those very thin. The prettiest ones among them
seem to live up among the highest mountain peaks. There, it is colder
than anywhere else, but these fairies do not mind it. Furs are not in
fashion, but only very filmy garments. On their backs are gauzy wings,
by which they can fly around from one peak to another. They hover over
the meadows also, which in summer glisten with blossoms of every tint
and hue. They love to plague Jack Frost, and the old mountain giants,
that have beards of icicles, and hair of snow streamers, and who try so
hard to freeze out the flowers.

These fairies know all the secrets of the mountains. They find out
where the largest and prettiest rock crystals are, and where the
priceless minerals are to be found. They can tell just where the caves
of sparkling topaz are situated, but they do not let any mortal know,
unless he is their favorite. They can lead a hunter to the spot where
the chamois are feeding on the moss. When they want to reward a brave
man, they bring him bullets that are sure to hit the buck, and win for
the marksman a fine pair of horns; or, at the village shooting matches,
plug the bull’s eye of the target, and so secure the prize. To please
his fairy guardian, the hunter must always promise to do what she bids
him, or else her bad temper is roused. Then she scolds, and leaves him
to his luck, which, after that time, is never good. It is not safe to
quarrel with a fairy.

Now there was one of these lovely creatures, named Silver Wreath,
because she looked as charming as the morning mists at sunrise, when
shot through and through by the upspringing light. Then they float off
in the air, like glistening wreaths made of golden braid, or like
scarves of silver. Sometimes, when illuminated by the sun’s rays, they
remind one of necklaces of pearls; or, when many are together, like
white garments of burnished silver set with costly gems.

Silver Wreath, the fairy, was noted for living among the lofty peaks,
where only the hardiest flowers, such as the Alpine rose, and the noble
white flower, called the edelweiss, could grow. No animal or bird,
ermine or ptarmigan, could be whiter than her body, which glistened
like snow crystals or hoar frost, when struck by the sunbeams. When she
blushed, her whole body was like the wonderful Alpine glow that, after
sunset, robes the mountain tops, and both for the same reason. The sky
becomes rosy red, because the sun’s rays are reflected from the snow,
even after going down. So this fairy’s beautiful body not only shone by
its own light, but at times reflected the great luminary’s loveliest
tints. It was a way the sun had, of saying “good night” to the mighty
mountains. So, also, fairy Silver Wreath blushed when, in the dawn of
day, she made her farewell curtsey to her companions, for, after
sunrise, the fairies disappear.

Now there was a brave hunter named Jeannod, who lived in a village of
Uri. In his pursuit of the chamois, this stalwart youth was not afraid
to follow this agile animal over the most dizzy precipices, and far up
beyond the snow line. He did not hesitate to climb the most
perpendicular mountain walls, to get a good shot. Hence, he was often
compelled to spend a night, amid the cliffs and glaciers.

One evening, while on a hunting expedition, Jeannod caught sight of
Silver Wreath, as she was flitting on her gauzy wings around a peak. At
once, he fell in love with her. Happily for him, she was, after several
meetings, enamored of Jeannod, and he became her favorite. As they
became better acquainted with each other, she guided him over unknown
paths and often warned him of danger. She directed him to the chamois
herds, and fed him with the finest oat cake and cheese. When too
wearied to retrace his way back, or to return home, for the night, she
watched over him while he slept. There, far above, where the eagles
flew, she guarded her lover from falling rock or ice, shielding him
from every peril, seen and unseen.

In that way, it happened that for many months, the hunter was in luck
and became the envy of his village companions. He never slipped or lost
his balance, or fell over a precipice, or into an ice crevasse, or was
hit by an avalanche, or lost his path. On every occasion he came back
home with a fat buck on his shoulders, or a brace of ptarmagan birds,
or a big rock crystal, and always looked rosy and healthy; all the
young girls admired him, and the youth wanted to be like him. They
hoped to learn the reason of his luck, which he kept a secret.

Silver Wreath soon found out what Jeannod liked most to eat, for while
she was a fairy, he was a mortal, and had a stomach, and, always, a
lively appetite. He was very particular, and rather fussy about the
kind of cheese he ate, and he always bought the best that could be
found in the market. In fact, he would often walk many miles, and spend
his last coin, to get a cheese of an especially good brand or flavor,
no matter at what price.

The fairy soon found this out, about her lover’s taste, and when
Jeannod was hungry, after climbing the steep rocks, she fed him on a
most delicious kind of cheese. He declared no mortal man or woman could
make any equal to it, whether in taste, or in nourishment, or in
flavor. On the other hand, he amused her by singing, rattling off
rhymes, or telling her stories about men and women. One of these, about
“Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-eater,” seemed to her to be the funniest of all.
After that, when he asked her what he might bring her for a present, he
was surprised to hear her say a “pumpkin shell.” Then he laughed
heartily. When he brought it to her, she kept the pumpkin shell in a
rock crevice as a great curiosity and called it her doll house.

Jeannod was so happy in his love for fairy Silver Wreath, that he
wanted to make her his wife. So one day, he kneeled before her and
asked her to be his bride. He thought it would be easy for her to
accept his love and care, after she had so helped and favored him.

But Silver Wreath, much as she loved Jeannod, did not welcome the idea
of either changing her nature, or leaving her mountain home. Either or
both meant much to her, though little to him. She would have to put on
women’s clothes, and be bothered with changes in fashion, with which
fairies are not troubled. She would be shut up in a house, among
mortals, who get old and die. She would have to depart from heaven-high
peaks, and things white, and vast, and glorious, and dwell among
gossips and tale-bearers. Besides, she could not tell whether Jeannod
would always be fond of her. One day, she remembered the story he had
told her, in fun, of “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-eater,” and it frightened
her, when she thought of Peter’s wife. So she brooded, long and hard,
over the matter as to whether she should say “yes” to Jeannod, and be
his wife. Would he be a Peter, and keep her in a pumpkin shell?

Yet the hunter was so handsome and so brave! Besides, he did so love
the mountains and the Alpine flowers! Every time he came to her, he had
an Alpine rose in his coat as a symbol of his joy, which might,
however, be for his lifetime only; but, in his hand, he held an
edelweiss, as symbol of faith in the things eternal. This showed that
he thought of both the affairs of the body and the life of the soul, in
the true Swiss way. Besides, he so vehemently assured her that,
whenever she should get homesick, he would take her with him up to her
old haunts. Every time he went to hunt the chamois, she should be his
companion. Last, but not least, he pressed his suit so ardently that,
finally, she consented to marry him, and live in his home.

But she gave her promise, only on one condition. She would be a
faithful and loving wife, and live truly as a mortal, provided he
should agree to the rules, which she made about eating; and, if he
would observe the table manners, which she approved. Knowing his
weakness for cheese, she vowed to keep the larder furnished, always,
with the same kind of this delicacy, upon which she had fed him in his
hunting trips, when he made love to her.

“I’ll wed with you,” she said, “provided that, every time, when you eat
and enjoy the cheese, you will leave one small portion, uneaten, on
your plate.”

This one condition of wifehood seemed so simple, that he laughed out
loud, and poked fun at his betrothed, at her being so childish. But she
looked very grave, though she did not speak a word. Fairies are not
fools, and it may be that even mortal women know more than men, in some
things. Besides, the pumpkin shell had become to her such a spectre,
that, one day, she smashed it with a rock, even after he had promised
vehemently to obey her law as to table manners. Then he gave her a
kiss, and everything serious was forgotten in the mutual joy of lovers.

So the fairy put on a human form, keeping her beauty and loveliness,
but leaving off her wings, and wearing bridal clothes. Then they were
married in the village church. At the wedding, the maidens all
marvelled at her wonderful dress and veil of silvery gauze. When the
honeymoon was past, all declared that no more modest, sensible and
pretty woman had ever come among them, while they wondered where
Jeannod could have met and won so lovely and so good a wife.

In her new home, the fairy lady seemed to be happy every hour. Days
sped into weeks, and months into years, in the routine of household and
village life. What with her flowers and her cuckoo clock, and her
carved wooden spoons, and her well set table, and a flower garden, and
vines on the house wall, that surpassed all her neighbors, her bee
hives and dove cote, the home of Jeannod and Silver Wreath was a place
of beauty and joy. She was at once the delight and envy of all the
village brides and wives. The blossoming plants seemed to thrive and
grow more beautiful, because she loved them so. On her dainty, well
spread table, were set the richest cream, the most transparent and
delicious honey, and the whitest rolls. Her cheese surpassed in taste
everything made by the men in the summer high pastures, who came back
in the late September autumn, bringing their cheeses, which, since
June, they had made in the chalets. In the chateau of Jeannod and
Silver Wreath, it seemed to be always summer, and the food had the
coveted June flavor all the year round.

While her butter, eggs, honey, milk and cream were the best, no one
knew where she got such wonderful cheese, which excelled all. This was
on the table, at every meal, and all the year round, from New Year’s
Day to Christmas Eve, and during the holidays. Her husband was not very
curious and did not ask questions. So long as he had plenty to eat, he
was satisfied, for he had a good appetite and he loved his fairy wife
very dearly, and liked to look at her often with sincere affection.

While food was plenty, Jeannod always remembered the promise he had
made and kept his good table manners. He never caused his sweet and
loving mate to scold, or even to frown. Because of his active life,
hunger was the best sauce to sharpen appetite. Yet he always left a
large part of the cheese uncut, for good manners. Even when returning
from a chamois hunt hungry enough—so he laughingly declared—to swallow
a cow, with its horns and tail, he kept at once his promise and his
politeness to his sweet wife.

But in one year, when midwinter came, the cold was so severe, the
storms so much more frequent and the avalanches so much bigger and more
destructive than usual, that the roads were covered, so as to hide even
the great landmarks out of sight. Then hunting was impossible. The wind
was so tempestuous, that the strongest men kept indoors. Apart from
what his wife provided, Jeannod could bring little to the table. In
such terrible weather, Jeannod, unable to use his rifle, could not
provide meat, and even Silver Wreath could furnish only cheese. In such
a case, the husband was often ravenously hungry, and an empty stomach
who can bear very long? Even when wolves and lions become tame and
helpless, through hunger, what strong man does not become weak?

One day, after trying many hours, to track a chamois, and get within
range of it, with his rifle, Jeannod came back empty, and very low in
his mind. He was so fiercely hungry, that he threw down his hat and
forgot, not only what the edelweiss and Alpine rose had taught him, but
even what he had promised.

When he opened the door, into the larder, he saw that there was nothing
there, but a strip of cheese, left over, from the last meal. Indeed it
was hardly more than a rind. Thinking of nothing, but to satisfy his
gnawing hunger, he seized and bit into it.

At that moment, Silver Wreath, his wife, entered the house. She saw him
with the cheese in his hand, and cried out:

“Oh, my beloved, remember your promise that you would always keep a
slice of cheese. Please do wait until midnight; and, at breakfast time,
I promise you, you shall have all you want of the best; but now,
please, please, leave even a small piece over.”

But the hungry and tired man was too obstinate to listen. From a
thinking being, he had become a ravening beast. He gobbled up the last
fragment.

No sooner had he swallowed the morsel, than his fairy wife cried out,
“You’ve broken your promise and the rule of good manners in the fairy
world. I cannot live with a glutton and promise-breaker. I must return
to my mountains and fellow-fairies.”

Thereupon, all her clothing fell off. Her cap and comb, and her shoes,
stockings and her pretty garments, one by one, dropped on the floor. In
a moment more, her former filmy blue and pink robes covered her, while,
from her back, grew out a pair of wings, like a butterfly’s, but
larger, and mist-like. Waving a good-bye, she flew out of the door,
which opened of its own accord. Soon, on the lofty mountain heights,
she rejoined her fairy family, while the hunter-husband was left alone
in misery and hunger, and, worse than all, with an accusing conscience.








XXI

THE FAIRIES’ PALACE CAR


Once upon a time, the fairies that live up near the mountain tops got
together, and one said to another:

“Let us go travelling.”

“We’ll go as far as Geneva,” said another.

“Agreed,” they all shouted in chorus. “It will be like going from the
North Pole to the Spice Islands. We can see all sorts of landscapes and
go through many climates, before we get to Geneva. So let us all begin
our journey today!”

It was not at all strange, that they should all start off at once. The
fairies had no laundry to get home in time, nor new clothes to have
made and fitted, nor trunks to pack, nor expressmen to bother with.
There were no tickets to be bought, or reserved seats in the cars to
look after, or handbags to carry, or telegrams to send, or letters to
write. Neither did they fume or fret, because the taxicab man did not
arrive on the split second. They had no watches to wind up, or to look
at, lest they might miss the train, nor hunting cases to snap, nor
sandwiches to carry, in case there were no buffet or dining cars. No!
Happily for them, all they had to do was to jump on their ice-chairs at
once, and be off.

Now let us ask what was their palace car, in which they were to
journey, from the top of Mont Blanc to the Rhone river, and over Lake
Leman and thence by ship to Geneva the Beautiful?

It was nothing less than a glacier, twenty miles long and two miles
wide. This car, made of white snow and ice crystal, moves, as everybody
knows, steadily along, and down, from mountain top to the valley. It
does not fly as fast indeed as the Empire State lightning express. Yet
it starts on time, and is sure to arrive at its terminal. It takes only
about a thousand years, from the mountain’s tip top to the down below,
or from snow flake to Rhone river.

When motion was begun, by the fairies in the air, several hundred of
them caught, each, a snow flake at the summit, and rode on it from the
clouds to the ground, until enough had fallen from the sky to make up
the party, which sat, all together, on a snow bank, for awhile, till
the train was all ready. Then the slide downhill began.

Every day the sun would tickle the ice mass and melt it, so it had to
move on. Then, for the fairies, it was like coasting on a bob sled, and
they were as merry as if they were on a toboggan. So they mightily
enjoyed the fun. The fairies did not have to sit on a narrow line, or
hold on tight, lest they might fall off, bump against a post, or hit a
tree, or a rock.

On the contrary, it was more like going on board a big ship, or
promenading on the deck of an ocean liner. They played ball, and
hockey, and shuffle board, and danced and waltzed, and had guessing and
finger games, and leap frog for exercise. They sat in the cabins, which
were crystal ice caverns. They played hide and seek in the crevices,
and blindman’s buff among the ice ridges. They leaped merrily over the
hammocks, and they bathed and swam in the ponds of water, which the sun
melted every day toward noon. In the baths, which lasted several hours,
they sported around like a lot of mermaids.

In this way, they so amused themselves, that they forgot or did not
care to remember the passing months, or years, or centuries. They were
travelling for fun, and had no business or social engagements to attend
to, or guide books, to tell where they were going. So they were in no
hurry, for the glacier only moved at the rate of half an inch an hour,
or a few miles in a century. What cared they for rapid transit? There
were no strikes or delay, no subway or tunnel rules, no hustler to make
you “step lively,” and shut the car door on you, or tell you to “let
’em out,” or “watch your steps.” No policeman on foot, or motorcycle,
to overtake and arrest you for speeding! It was all pure fun.

The fairies had a watcher, who sat on an ice pinnacle, like a man in
the foretop of an ocean steamer. He it was, who announced anything new
in the weather, or the country, or landscape through which they passed.
Then, also, a lecturer came aboard, every ten or twenty years, to
explain the history and point out the wonderful things along the route,
or what had happened, at this or that place.

These wise prompters were also expected to tell what famous trees or
flowers lived, along the route, and in the various climates. Without a
telescope, they could see little moving specks, looking like flies, or
fleas, high up on the eternal snows. These were human beings, who had
either, like wild flowers, escaped cultivation; or, perhaps, had fled
from prison, or lunatic asylums, and were bound to get up to the
mountain tops, as if their keepers were after them with guns.
Occasionally an electric railroad, with snorting locomotive, on a track
and pinion system of cog-wheels, with central rail, carried the
passengers, fat or thin, who could not climb, or who were sane, or, it
might be, lazy.

Occasionally, in rambling through the ice halls, the fairies could
discern, embedded in the crystal walls, black spots. Asking whether
these were flies in amber, such as they had heard of, they were told
that these specks were mortals, men and women, mountain climbers, who
had fallen down precipices, or upon the ice, or slipped into crevices.
Having ended their lives thus, they were kept in the crystal for years,
until their bodies were shot out on the moraines, or washed down the
rivers. Sometimes the fairies found bits of rope and alpenstocks. They
even learned to tell the difference between blondes and brunettes.

Often some of the fairies wondered how it would feel to be born as a
baby, and drink milk, and eat candy, and first crawl over the floor,
and then walk and grow up to be a man or a woman. They could only guess
vaguely what it was to die. For that is the curious thing about
fairies, they cannot die, because they were never born. They do not
have to grow like human babies, or big elephants, or little kangaroos,
or be hatched out of eggs, like chickens, or wriggle in the ponds, or
swim in the water like frogs, or fishes, or whales, or porpoises. Once
in a while, some fairy thought she would like to try it, just once, to
live and die, just to see how it felt, but the other fairies, who did
not admire her taste, only laughed at her.

As a rule, these passengers on the glacier did not pay close attention
to such matters. They were not much interested in mortals, but more in
themselves, for they considered boys and girls, and men and women, to
be very inferior creatures. They gave more attention to what they saw,
as they traveled through the country, changing climate every few
thousand feet and every century or so.

At first, all was snow, ice and rocks, with no birds, shrubs, or trees,
or flowers, and not even moss. Indeed, some of them grumbled and
declared they would not have left home, if they thought they were to
see nothing more than mere human beings. But very soon, that is, after
a few years, ten or twenty, perhaps, their ice chariot or train had
carried them past this old scenery.

Now they began to see mosses and lichens, and occasionally a condor, or
Alpine eagle, on a crag, eating his dinner—perhaps a young lamb, or a
rabbit, or a marmot, or a chamois kid, or something from a cow’s
carcass, which the big bird of prey had stolen from some butcher’s
slaughter house. This was the first sign of that uncanny thing they
called life; which, inside of mortals and other animals, makes them
move about.

It was a stunning novelty, when the conductor called out the name of a
new station:

“Flowers!”

Then they saw, overhanging the rocks, or near the edges of the
precipices, or in the crevices and crannies of the cliffs, what they
called flowers. Yet to us folks, who live in the house and nursery,
these plants, so bundled up in white, hardly seemed to be flowers. They
rather looked like babies, ready to be taken out to ride, for they were
well swaddled in what appeared to be fur or flannel. In fact, their
flowers, so called, were so woolly, and cushiony, and flat, and low,
and they kept holding on so hard, as if for dear life, in the biting
cold wind, that they looked bleak and ghostly. Some of these Alpine
flowers were as downy as a duckling, and as hairy as a poodle. But this
was to keep the plants warm. For life is warm. Death is cold.

Even more wonderful, to most of these fairies, that had lived so long
up among the highest mountain tops, and had never been lower down than
eight thousand feet or so, was another lovely sight—that of green
meadows, spangled with blooms. It was that of the summer pastures.

Now they began to hear the tinkling of bells and saw many cows. They
laughed uproariously, as they saw that the billy goats waved their chin
beards, up and down, and stood on their hind legs. On the roofs of the
shepherds’ chalets, they noticed the big stones. These were laid in
rows, to keep down the strips of bark or shingles, when the tempests
roared. While they were wondering how funny it must feel, to be a boy
or a girl, and live in a skin, with clothes on, they heard the Alpine
horn. While listening to its sweet echoes, some of the fairies actually
began to think that perhaps, after all, mortals might have a good time,
and, possibly, as much enjoyment as fairies do, and always have had.
Most of them, however, scouted the very idea.

A real epidemic of rapture broke out and went through the fairies, like
measles among children, when they looked upon still greener meadows
rich in grass, which were spangled with flowers and these of the
loveliest hues, deep red, scarlet, crimson, pink, violet, blue and
yellow. They saw the Alpine Poa, which the cows love so dearly.

When the lecturer described its kangaroo-like mothers and babies of
this family of plants, the fairies laughed, so loud and merrily, that
some of the shepherds thought that a swift horse, with a strap of
silver sleigh bells, around its neck, was galloping over the ice.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of all was the sight of trees, which
those fairies who had never traveled, had not seen before. In one
country, that is, on one level, they found only pines and firs, which
rocked in the wind.

Several of the fairies jumped off the train, to pick up a handful of
pine needles from the ground, and to play cradle-swinging in the tree
branches. They were not afraid of being left behind, by the train
rushing past them; for, after playing two or three years under the
trees, these passengers jumped on again, and showed handfuls of the
curious things that had fallen off the trees, and covered the ground
like a brown carpet. Then there were many exclamations of wonder among
those that had kept on the train.

Lower down, in another climate, or country, or level, they found
forests of oak, birch, and maple. Yet they could not get any sweets out
of this Swiss tree, for these fairies did not live in America, where
the sugar maple grows.

Every once in a while, the fairy that was the conductor would get out
and consult the thermometer. Then, with an air of great wisdom, like an
owl, or grand daddy, it was announced that tomorrow—that is, a year, or
two, from that date—they would come into a new climate, and to such and
such a level, or place, so many feet above sea. Then they would see
this and that sort of thing, such as houses, church spires, cheese
factories, etc.

At last, having used up their old calendar, through centuries, and into
and out of many climates, they found that their palace car train had
itself greatly changed within. In one place, where the mountain sides
came close together, the road narrowed. Then the rate of movement
slackened, so that the ice forming the train was all squeezed up high,
and curled, and twisted up, like tooth-paste pressed out of a tube. The
glacier was cracked and fissured in every direction.

Some of the fairies had feared, lest their train should run off the
track, and bump into a hill, and a wreck follow; but the conductor
assured them all was perfectly safe, and that no accidents ever
happened on that line. One fairy tried to quote Latin, having once
heard a parson say it, in his sermon. In attempting to say Deo Volente,
she got it Dic Volente. So the knowing ones nicknamed this member of
their family “Dick,” and one, who was very irreverent, called her
“Slippery Dick.” She did not like a boy’s name, but she could not help
herself.

Dick warned them that they were near the end of the first part of their
journey and that the train would stop, when at the level of five
thousand feet. Then the temperature would be so high, that they must
all be prepared to jump overboard and swim.

At this bit of news, all the family laughed. They said they were glad,
for already the palace cars had got so wet with the thaw, inside, that
the ceiling dripped on them continually, the seats were slippery, and
fast melting away, while as for the floor, it was only a puddle, most
of the time. It was a case of watering stock. After all, however, the
fairies did not mind it much, and they were only in fun, when they
pretended to grumble.

At last, the train, after having made a quick passage of a thousand
years, or thereabouts, arrived at its terminal. Then it gradually
melted away, becoming a noisy and very muddy river. One after another,
the fairies turned themselves into water, and slid out into the stream,
rolling about until they reached the beautiful Lake Leman, at the end
of which was Geneva. Here they expected to pay a brief visit, of four
or five hundred years, before returning home to the mountain tops.

When they arrived at the entrance of the lake, and were well into the
deep water, the fairies found waiting for them one of the prettiest
craft that ever floated. It was a galley, of strange shape, with a high
deck at the bow and the stern. There was plenty of room in the middle
for the fairies to play and dance. With their pretty butterfly wings,
and lovely gauzy robes, of every tint and hue, they looked so sweet!

On the prow of the ship stood their Queen, who ruled over the lowlands
and lake waters, and was captain of this fairy vessel. The smallest of
the fairies were continually flitting round the queen, dropping flowers
and fruits, and filling the air with perfumes. The vessel had sails of
the shape called lateen, or leg-of-mutton. These were made of
embroidered silk and cloth of gold. For even more rapid movement,
several snow white swans, swift of feet and bright of eye, were
harnessed, with silver chains, to the front part, called the cut-water.
These drew the ship along gracefully, all the time singing in chorus
the sweetest songs imaginable. Accompanying this music was a large
golden harp, set in front of the mast, and this, whispered to by the
winds, made, with the swans’ songs, the most delicious melody all day
long.

Some of the fairies remembered the echo music of the Alpine horn, sent
back by the lofty mountain peaks; which, however, lasted but a few
seconds. Yet this lake melody continued from sunrise to sunset.

Whenever the Fairy Ship touched the shore, the ground, no matter how
hard and stony it had been, at once became soft with soil. Then,
grasses, and flowers, grain farms and orchards, and trees rich in
luscious fruits, sprang up. Every boy and girl, always on the lookout,
and adults, who were so fortunate as to catch a glimpse of the Fairy
Ship, would make a wish in their hearts, which was sure to be
gratified. They got what they wanted, though often in fairy time, that
is, years afterwards.

For years and years, the Fairy Ship plied up and down the lovely blue
lake, stopping here and there. A moonlight night was the best time for
catching a glimpse of it. Many old folks, still living, like to tell
about the craft of good fortune, and also what they then wished for,
when they were so happy as to see it coming, or sailing past them.

But bye and bye, when the black smoke of steamboats poisoned the air,
and set the fairies sneezing and coughing, and roughened the throats of
the swans, so that they could not sing any more, the Fairy Queen gave
up her pleasure trips on the lake and ordered the snow fairies back to
their mountains.

But, first, the mountain fairies had their visit to Geneva, where they
saw the pretty shops and streets, and there these fairies still live,
in the hearts of the children. Although nobody ever sees them nowadays,
the old folks love to talk about them, and tell of the lovely times
they had when children.

It is certain that the fairies left their blessing behind them, for to
this day, on the great Genevan holiday, in the confectionery shops, on
birthday greetings, and on Christmas and New Year’s cards, you may see
a picture of the Fairy Ship, with its brightly colored lateen sails,
inscribed with “Good Luck,” or “Happy New Year,” or “Many Joyful
Returns of the Day.” Sometimes, they who receive these cards feel as
happy as if they had seen the Fairy Ship.








XXII

THE WHITE CHAMOIS


The dwarfs and chamois have always been good friends. This is chiefly
because they are so much like each other, in being small. The short
dwarfs look like little men. They have beards, and wear caps and
clothes, but they are hardly as high as a yard stick, and measure up,
only to the heads of quite small boys. In weight, some of them scarcely
reach up to a calf. Occasionally, you find a little fellow that could
be packed in a band box, or carried in a suit case. As for the baby
dwarfs, one of them could be wrapped up in a napkin, and be dropped
into a man’s overcoat pocket.

Now the chamois is like the dwarf in this, that he is too small to be a
goat, and not big enough to be a deer. He is a funny fellow to look at.
His horns are only as long as from your elbow to your hand, and are
turned around and backwards at the ends, so that they look like a pair
of big, black fish hooks. He has a yellow head, with a dark band on it,
and on each cheek is a strip of black, as if he were held in, with
bridles and bit. His coat of hair is brown, but his funny little tail
is also black, and, oh, how bright his eyes are!

But when it comes to leaping, from rock to rock, the chamois is the
Johnny Jump Up, among all animals, for he will skip over a chasm
fifteen feet wide. Then, he will land on a tiny ledge of rock, so
narrow that one could hardly imagine a cat could hold itself on.
Putting his hind legs first, it gets a good footing, and then bounds
forward.

These creatures are so agile, that one almost expects to see the
strongest of them climb up trees, by hooking their horns on the
branches, but they do not. They cut many capers, but not this one. The
wonderful thing is that the females, as well as the males, have horns
also.

These chamois ladies, and the little folks of the family, that is, the
doe and fawn, generally live down among the lower forests, while the
daddies and strong young bucks stay, most of the time, up among the
high rocks and peaks. They all eat the lovely flowers, grasses, mosses
and aromatic herbs, that have a hot taste, and which keep them warm
inside.

The very old chamois, with beards, often live alone and off by
themselves. So the dwarfs and chamois are much alike, in this respect,
that they are both chin choppers, in having hair growing, like a tuft,
under their chins, and both are able to whistle. For, when a hunter
comes near and the wind blows from him to them, the sentinel, or
watchman of the herd gives the alarm, by means of a short shrill sound.
Then the whole party scampers far away.

Many thousands of stuffed heads of chamois, mounted, with their hooked
horns and bright, artificial eyes, are seen on the walls of Swiss
hotels and houses. After the invention of the rifle, so many chamois
were killed, that laws were passed which forbade any one hunter to
shoot more than one hundred during his lifetime. Then, when the herds
of chamois went further and further away, men put telescopes on their
long-range rifles, and were thus able to kill at a great distance—even
a mile off.

Now among these four footed inhabitants of the high places near the
sky, the white chamois is the king of the herds and the pet of the
dwarfs. No hunter can kill this leader, for he is the property of the
fairies. After a man has shot his hundredth animal, the white chamois
appears, to give him warning to stop killing his fellow creatures. This
king of the hook-horns can leap, as if it were flying, over chasms. It
moves through the deep snows far faster than the strongest man in the
land.

To the good people, the white chamois is a messenger of joy, telling of
the safety of the herds, announcing also that there will be much sport
for the brave hunter, and plenty of meat for the people, next summer,
and for years to come; but, for the bad hunter who breaks the law and
shoots over a hundred, whether bucks or does, or both, the white
chamois is the messenger of death.

Now there was a very bad man, a hunter named Erni, who only said, “pooh
pooh,” and “fudge,” when an old man informed him that a white chamois
had been seen near the village, as if he had braved danger, in coming
so near houses, in order to give warning.

But the man, instead of hanging up his trusty rifle on its pegs,
sallied out very early one fine morning to shoot, if possible, this
very creature, the white chamois, of which he had heard, but had never
yet seen. It was still dark in the valley, when he started, but the man
knew it would be bright light, by the time he should reach the peaks.

And so it was. Up over the rocks, and across the flowery meadows, that
were more brilliant, with many colors, than any garden ever planted, or
parlor carpet ever woven, the hunter made his way. When he came to the
edge of a deep ravine, he slung his rifle over his back, and slid down.
Then he climbed up to the top of a high ridge. Balancing himself on the
edge of the rocks, he looked across the terrible, yawning chasm. With
his telescope, he swept the field of view, but instead of discerning
anything brown, with a black tail, he saw, very clearly, a white
chamois.

“Now for a good shot,” he thought. “I’ll show these old grannies and
silly dotards, down in the village, what fools they are.”

He unslung the rifle and then, for a moment only, looked down a
thousand feet below, to the jagged rocks, wondering how he could get
the body of the white chamois, if the bullet sped to its heart, and its
carcass fell down.

But this was only for a second; for the bold fellow, familiar from his
youth, with the mountains, laughed at any and all difficulties in his
path. He was just about to level his weapon and take aim, when he heard
a loud voice behind him, shouting:

“Erni, pull your cap down over your eyes.”

Astonished to hear his name called out at such a place, and struck with
curiosity, he turned to see who and what it was.

There stood a dwarf, cap, beard, and all, with a stern look on his
face. Pointing to the white chamois, he screamed:

“You had warning enough; down you go!”

Just then the hunter’s foot, with its hob-nailed shoe, slipped upon a
fragment of rock, and he fell. Over the cliff, down, down, down, the
cruel man tumbled. A few minutes later, the Alpine condors were
quarreling over his corpse. Later, the wolves picked his bones, that
lay long upon the bare rocks. An awful warning!

After this, the chamois mothers, during the summer season, reared their
kids in peace and quiet and all was happy in the high places, where the
dwarfs and the chamois dwell as friends together.








XXIII

THE SIREN OF THE RHINE


The Father of the Fairies, who used to live along and under the river
Rhine, was not able always to control his daughters, after they had
grown up. One of them, named Lorelei, a long time ago, used to appear
above the current of the great stream, at the place where the water
dashes over the rocks and foams high. It was very hard, in that place,
or near it, for the sailors to steer their boats, so as not to have
them dashed to pieces. Only with cool heads and strong arms could the
boatmen get their vessels through in safety.

But if they should stop, to look at the pretty maidens, or to turn
their heads to listen to the lovely music which they made, then, they
were sure to lose their heads and have the boat go wrong and run upon
the rocks. Then, of course, every one on board was thrown into the
boiling waves, and drowned. The rocks are so sharp and jagged that,
when the boat was upset, the poor people were thrown violently against
these, and, even if spared by the waves, were sure to perish.

The fairy, named Lorelei, paid no attention to their cries, but only
laughed at them, as they struggled in the water.

This Lorelei, the chief of the river fairies, was never seen during the
day, for during the sunlight she loved to sit among her jeweled caves,
and remain far down below in the cool depths of the waters. During
daylight hours, if any mortal tried to catch even a glimpse of her, he
sought in vain. It thus happened that some people, and even boatmen on
their way down to Rotterdam, laughed at the idea of there being a
Lorelei, or any other fairy among the rocks.

But when the moon was at its full and shone brightest, and its silvery
beams seemed to turn into a fairy-like gauze, woven of mist and
moonbeams, the Lorelei was in her happiest mood.

As soon as the sun was down and twilight fell on the earth above, she
called for her maidens to dress and adorn her lovely form with jewels.
They plaited part of her golden hair, braiding it up over the top of
her head and around at the back. This made a pretty, cap-like
arrangement, while behind, and down her back, the other tresses fell in
ripples, so that, in the faint evening wind, it would float out, and
gleam, and rise and fall fitfully, on the breezes, seemingly now
silvery, and again golden, in the moon’s rays. A comb of gold, studded
with rare gems, added to the glory of her headdress, which, in the dim
light from the night skies, would glisten like a cluster of stars.

No ordinary man could resist such a lure, for even apart from the
entrancing music he would assuredly have the curiosity to see what this
resplendent figure on the high rock could be.

So, when Lorelei was arrayed in her gorgeous apparel, that so
heightened her beauty, this fairy would rise out of the current. Then,
swimming over to the base of the loftiest rock that rose from near the
river’s shore, she always had her harp with her. Perching aloft, on the
top of the pinnacle, she would sweep the strings and make the most
entrancing music.

Whenever she saw a boatful of mariners, coming up, or going down, the
Rhine, she trilled her voice to particular sweetness. Then they could
see her, among the moonbeams, with her long golden hair streaming out
on the evening breeze, or lightly lifted and rippled, when the zephyrs
were soft as a breath. It seemed as if her song music was loveliest,
when the night wind was most faintly sighing.

No matter how vehemently even the most stout-hearted sailors might have
promised, or even vowed, to pay no attention to anything they heard,
while shooting the rapids, they were sure to drop oars and pole, to
listen, when the melody floated through the air. Then, the man who
steered and had been the loudest, in saying that he would clap his hand
over his ears, and be deaf to any strains, however sweet, was always
the first to weaken. He would stand still, as if shot through, with an
arrow, and forget all about his duties at the rudder. Then, very
quickly, the boat would strike against the rocks. In a moment more, the
whole crew would be struggling, soon to sink under the waves, while the
boat drifted along, bottom upwards. In their last moments, the drowning
men heard the fairies laughing, as if they were enjoying good sport.

Now it is said that the only one who ever basked in the favor of the
Lorelei, was a young and very good looking fisherman’s son, named
Ulric. He was his mother’s darling and his father’s pride, yet none of
his brothers were jealous of him.

Whenever he appeared at night, the Lorelei would get down from her rock
throne, and walk along the river’s strand to welcome the handsome lad.
He never, however he might seek diligently, or call loudly, could find
her, or catch a single glimpse of her, by day; but the moment he met
her at night he would be in raptures over her beauty.

Sometimes she would sing for him, so that he never knew how fast the
hours sped away. It was often midnight, before Ulric reached home, and,
once in a while, it was near daybreak in the east.

But, always before parting from him, Lorelei would point out to her
lover the place in the river, where, on the next morning, the fish
would be found most plentifully.

Ulric would then tell his father, and brothers, where to cast their
nets, and then they always drew up a good boat load of fish. These they
sold in the market at a high price, and so had nice clothes and plenty
to eat. So they never asked Ulric where he had been, so long, the night
before, and why he reached home after the household were all in bed,
and only their faithful dog Fritz kept watch at the door.

His mother warned her youngest son not to go and see the Lorelei too
often, but he only laughed, kissed her, and said he could stop going
when he wanted to; which is the way many boys and girls talk, not
knowing the power of habit, which binds like a chain.

But one night, the old fisherman’s son did not return, and in the
morning, when his mother looked into his room, expecting to call and
wake him, she found it empty. The bed was in perfect order, as if no
one had slept in it. Putting her hand under the covers, she found no
warmth.

At once, she gave the alarm to her husband and sons, who were then at
their breakfast. Taking their faithful dog with them, they at once set
out to find the lad. All day long, they searched among the reeds, along
the river bank, along the rocks, and even in the woods and on the
hills; but no sign of son and brother was found. It was believed that
the siren Lorelei, madly in love with the handsome boy, and, though in
the form of a pretty woman, having no human heart to feel for his
mother, had dragged him down into her caves under the river and deep in
the earth, to enjoy him as her companion forever.

Bye and bye, so many sailors having been drowned, and so large a number
of merchants having lost their precious treasures, in the wrecked
boats, it was determined to send a band of brave men to seize the
Lorelei, and bind her as a prisoner. If she resisted, she was to be put
to death. Thus a danger, to be dreaded more than jagged rocks, or
treacherous currents, would be taken away. Then the merchants, in
Cologne and Rotterdam, would be made happy, by piling up fortunes to
enjoy and leave to their children.

Before starting on the expedition to capture the siren, every man was
taken into the cathedral, and, before the altar, made to cross himself
on the breast, and swear not to listen to the Lorelei’s song. All of
them wore helmets, with thick padded ear muffs, coming down over their
ears, and tied tight. All the orders of the captain were to be given by
signs without his speaking a word.

But what availed arrows, swords, and spears, helmets and armor, and
what were the strong muscles of brave men, against a beautiful fairy?
When the company had landed, silently, on the shore, without
endangering their boats, by going near the rocks, they suddenly found
that they could not move; for the Lorelei had cast a spell over them,
so that not one could lift hand or foot. All night long, the captain
and his soldiers stood upright and motionless, as if made of wax and in
a museum, while the moonbeams were reflected from their helmets,
weapons and armor.

Yet during all these night hours, they had the power of eyesight. They
saw all that was going on, and this was what they witnessed.

Just as the first gleams of the upcoming sun were beginning to streak
the midnight blue of the skies, with light, and make rosy the east, but
while, at the same time, the moon cast a pale light on the strange
scene, they discerned plainly the Lorelei. She was standing on the
highest pointed rock that rose out of the Rhine. There, the beautiful
creature was, as if in a waiting attitude, before a mirror, and about
to retire to her bed for sleep. She took off all her ornaments and
jewels. She unbound the bands of her shining hair, and unplaited the
braids, until her tresses fell, in one glorious mass, like a cataract
of gold. She threw away, one by one, her comb, her girdle, her splendid
robes, and each of her pearls and gems, into the foaming waters. Then
she chanted a spell, to draw the waters up to the very top of the rock,
until the wavelets rolled over her shining feet.

At this moment, two white horses, with long flowing manes, rose up,
pawing and snorting, out of the flood. In golden harness, they drew a
chariot, made of a single emerald, with sapphire wheels. She mounted
within the vehicle and at a word from the siren, the steeds drove away,
with the swiftness of a lightning flash, and disappeared.

Gradually the river subsided to its usual low level. Minute by minute
passed, and the spell over the soldiers was gradually broken. First,
they could move their toes; then, their fingers; and, after a while,
their arms and legs. When at last, by a sign, the captain gave the
order to march, they faced about, towards the river. Embarking on their
boats, they rowed down the Rhine to Basel and Cologne, and told their
weird story.

Never again was the Lorelei seen by man. The people, who live around
the old place of moonlight music, say that the siren felt insulted at
this invasion of her domain. In her view, what were the lives of a few
sailors, and the loss of one fisherman’s son, for a lover, compared
with such music as she gave so freely?

So, to punish foolish men, she has never again left her shining caves,
under the Rhine, to appear on earth. Yet, inspired by her example, the
musicians have continued her sweet music, while the poets never weary
of telling her story in their rhymes and stanzas.








XXIV

THE ASS THAT SAW THE ANGEL


In that part of the Swiss Republic, called the Grisons, there is a
sharp mountain, thin and round, like a horn. Because it is red, its
name has always been Rothhorn, or Red Peak.

In one of the towns near by, lived a proud man, named Gruntli, who
scouted the idea of there being any fairies, or Santa Claus. To his
view, there was no intelligence, or virtue, in dumb brutes. He did not
believe in anything but what he could see, taste, smell, hear, or
handle with his ten fingers. This was what he called “science.”

This old fellow, Gruntli, boasted of being “a man of science.” He
considered that everything belonging to religion was superstition. Mule
drivers, cow milkers, cheese makers, and such folk, whom he called “the
ignorant common people,” might have faith in such things, but not he.

Gruntli was rich. He had a large house, with one room full of books,
but not one of these contained any poetry, or stories, or novels, or
romances. He sneered at anybody who said they believed in Santa Claus,
and he openly insulted people who loved to think that William Tell,
their national hero, ever lived. As for the exploits of Joan of Arc, or
of Arnold of Winkelried, he used to say that what was told of them was
only the same as nursery stories.

Nobody loved Gruntli, for he was a hard master with his servants.
Though he called himself “a man of science,” and sneered at the village
folks, when they went to church on Sunday, he did nothing to help the
poor people of the valley.

Part of the wealth, of this hard-hearted man, consisted in mules, of
which he had twenty or more. These were sumpters, or pack animals, that
carried the milk, butter, cheese, and produce of the valley, to be sold
in the nearest large city, and to bring back what was needed.

Gruntli’s favorite animal for the saddle was a pure-blooded white ass,
which his father had given him, when a boy, so that he and the dumb
brute were well acquainted with each other. Large in size and imposing
in appearance, this animal was named Julius Cæsar; or, for short,
“Gulick,” for that was the way the great Roman conqueror’s name was
pronounced in the local dialect.

People used to say that this donkey was the only living creature for
which Gruntli cared, or had any affection; or, that he even treated
decently. Occasionally, his master would allow this, his favorite
beast, to be ridden by his overseer, or chief clerk—a privilege on
which this head man set great store. The sure-footed creature carried
its rider over the most dangerous passes. It seemed almost a miracle,
the way in which, along narrow ledges of rock, the ass moved as if on a
well-paved road.

Gulick seemed to measure with its eye, and gauge the width necessary,
even making allowance for its load, for the pack saddle, or for the
knees of the rider; so that, though a dumb beast, its reputation for
safety was great in all the region. Muleteers often used to scold their
stubborn animals, by calling them “rabbit-eared fools,” and “not worth
one hoof of Gulick,” the paragon among long eared animals.

Nevertheless, there were times, when the donkey, Gulick, showed that it
had a mind of its own. Then it could be stubborn, too. But this was
what men thought, and not the animal’s own opinion of itself. This
usually took place, when it saw that the path ahead, or the ledge of
rock, over which it was expected to pass, with a pack load, or a stout
lady in the saddle, or a big fat fellow, with both legs far out and
taking up the room, between the ass and the rock.

Then, no amount of scolding, yelling, bad temper, hard names, or even
beating, could move the creature. The only thing to do was to get off
and unload. In fact, the ass had a very poor opinion of some human
beings. He even pitied them, because they had only two legs, while
donkeys had four.

Not once, in all its long life, did Gulick lose its way, slip, fall
down, or have an accident. In fact, its master could go to sleep, while
riding home. When, as was often the case, the man was too full of
strong wine, to sit up straight, this was a good thing; for a sober
donkey has more brains than a drunken man.

Some people, who believed in fairies, even thought that Gulick was
really a human being who, for doing something wicked, in another world,
had been changed, by a fairy, into this creature with the shaggy hide,
ropy tail and ears like a jack rabbit’s.

An event, that seemed to furnish a fresh foundation for the common
belief, took place near the village of Plurs. Then, the general idea,
that a man had, somehow, got into an ass’s skin, was confirmed.

One night, Gruntli’s overseer was returning from Zurich. He reached the
village of Plurs, late at night. There, the wine being good and the
stabling cheap, he expected to make his stay, until next morning. So,
stepping into the wine room, and calling for the hostler, he sat down
before the table, thinking that all was right, according to the usual
way of beasts and man, until morning.

But when the stable boy went outdoors, he found the line of mules was
some distance up the road, and that Gulick was leading them.

Running after the train, he brought the animals back, to the inn; but
when, for a moment, being at the end of the line, he left the beasts,
to open the stable door, off trotted Gulick and all the donkeys after
their leader.

So the boy had another run and was in very bad temper. He seized the
bridle of Gulick, and gave such a jerk, in his anger, that he nearly
broke the strap, and pained the animal’s jaw.

Nevertheless, for a third time, the sagacious beast ran away. When the
stable boy, out of patience, rushed into the wine room, and told the
overseer of the strange behavior of his donkey, Gulick, the man had
sense enough to follow the mule train.

Well for him and his master, that he did so, for, when hearing a
frightful noise, he looked behind him, from the top of the hill, he saw
a landslide, from the mountain flank, wipe out the whole town, leaving
the houses, people and cattle buried under one white pall of earth,
rock and snow.

After this, one would suppose that the owner of Gulick would fully
trust the animal’s wonderful instinct and unerring vision, as well as
his sure footedness.

But this man, Gruntli was, as he called himself, “too much of a man of
science” to consider such an affair, as that of Gulick and the
landslide, as anything but an accident, a coincidence, or, as an
example of “the doctrine of averages.”

Wishing, however, to see the ruin wrought by the landslide, he mounted
Gulick, clapped his ankles against the animal’s sides, and was off.
Gruntli wore spurs, more for show than for use, for Gulick instantly
obeyed the pull of his master’s bridle, or the clap of his foot, and
never was known to need urging. So there never had been any blood on
the points of Gruntli’s spurs.

But this day, the master was in very bad humor, because seven of his
houses, which he owned in the village, were now destroyed. Much of his
income was thus lost, for he could no longer collect rents from the
people who had been his tenants.

Now, as they were jogging along, and approached near the scene of
yesterday’s horror, the ass suddenly stopped with a jerk, that threw
its master forward, and nearly off the saddle.

There, in front of the animal in the middle of the road, stood an angel
holding a naked sword. Of course, Gruntli could not see anything, for
his soul had nearly shriveled up, and Gulick had never before met such
a being. Yet the ass, even though it was a dumb brute, had enough sense
to know that it dare not, and ought not, to rush up against the
apparition, whatever it might be. Had it been rock, stone, ice, a
mountain path, a chamois, or anything usual, the Swiss donkey would
have known what to do. But before such an unusual sight, Gulick stood
still.

As for Gruntli, he, being a self-styled “man of science,” without any
faith, and very little imagination, could see nothing. So, when Gulick,
to get out of the way, turned aside and out of the road, to make its
way through the field, Gruntli, getting very angry, beat the animal and
in his bad temper, even laid on several blows with his whip handle.

At this unusual action of his master, the ass was so surprised, that he
actually stopped. He turned round, gave a rebuking glance at Gruntli,
and then tried to go on, but in vain.

Then the man, in a worse temper than ever, not only beat the dumb brute
again, but he drove his spurs into the sides of the faithful beast,
until little drops of blood dropped on the ground.

At this, even patient Gulick lost his donkey temper, and lifting one of
his hind legs tried to kick the man’s heels.

This enraged Gruntli still further, and he cried out:

“You stupid beast! If you want to climb up into the saddle and ride
yourself, I’ll jump off.”

Then he clutched his whip more tightly, expecting to get down and
thrash the animal with all his strength.

But Gulick moved on, the road narrowing down, between rocks, as many
bridle paths in Switzerland do. Yet no sooner had the intelligent beast
entered into the shadow, than again a shining angel appeared in the
path in front of them, but this time in a threatening manner, and
waving his glittering sword.

Startled at the sight, the ass again stopped, hoping its master would
treat his own beast more kindly and see what was the matter.

But angry men are nearly always blind, and sometimes half insane, or
even wholly so. Gruntli once more drove his already bloody spurs into
Gulick’s side.

At this, stung with pain, and fearing to rush against the angel, the
beast dashed sideways against the rocky wall.

Maddened, almost to insanity, at this action, and smarting with a
crushed ankle, Gruntli beat the ass with repeated and cruel blows.

In spite of such inhuman treatment, and even more awed by the
apparition, than by the agony it was suffering, the ass lay down flat
under its rider, though without hurting him. It turned its head around
and looked at him, as if in stern rebuke, at this treating an old
friend, that had ever served faithfully.

Unmoved by the beseeching look in the eyes of what had been his pet,
since childhood, Gruntli, in a fresh fury of rage, bellowed out:

“I just wish I had a sword to kill you,” and he rained blow upon blow
on his faithful brute.

Then he jumped off the saddle, and, leaving Gulick in the rocky path,
walked forward a few rods. All the time he was wondering what had so
disturbed and checked the brute.

One look, as he turned away to the brow of the mountain, revealed to
him a scene of frightful desolation. Rocks, gravel, ice, snow, and
general débris, covered what had been his seven houses, and tenants and
their cattle. Looking up, he noticed that the face of the mountain,
whence the mass of earth had slipped down, was greatly changed in form.

Nevertheless, the landslide, for so it was, had opened a view,
impossible before, of a rich pasture, where many kine were grazing.
Looking intently at a cow that, having filled its stomach with grass,
was about to lie down, Gruntli noticed that, before doing so, the dumb
animal fell, first, on its front knees.

“Now I see that I am a fool,” he cried, as he beat upon his breast.
“That cow has more religion than I, for it kneels before it lies down;
while, before tumbling into bed, my knee has been unbent, this many a
year.”

Then going back, he patted the neck of his faithful Gulick, washed off
the blood stains, threw his spurs away, and spoke so kindly to the ass,
that it rose up, and actually began frisking around. Then it sidled up
close to Gruntli, and seemed to invite him to get on its back again.

This the man did, and, riding to where the village had been, organized
a corps of relief to help the wounded and hungry, who were left alive,
and he paid for medicines out of his own purse. Then he built new and
better houses for his tenants, the survivors, and for those who came
from other parts of the Swiss country.

And when later, a devout worshipper in church and helper of his fellow
men, Gruntli cared for and fed his ass Gulick, in a comfortable stable,
until at last the beast died at a good old age.

The pastor of the rebuilt village came one day, and asked Gruntli to
tell the story of his great change and the reason of it. Then the man
made answer as follows:

“When it came to pass that an ass could see an angel before I, a man of
science, could discern, or hear him, I thought it time to believe. So I
at once exchanged science, so called, for faith, as a little child,
and, my pride of knowledge for help to my fellow men.”



                                THE END.THE ENTANGLED MERMAID


Long ago, in Dutch Fairy Land, there lived a young mermaid who was very
proud of her good looks. She was one of a family of mere or lake folks
dwelling not far from the sea. Her home was a great pool of water that
was half salt and half fresh, for it lay around an island near the mouth
of a river. Part of the day, when the sea tides were out, she splashed
and played, dived and swam in the soft water of the inland current. When
the ocean heaved and the salt water rushed in, the mermaid floated and
frolicked and paddled to her heart's content. Her father was a
gray-bearded merryman and very proud of his handsome daughter. He owned
an island near the river mouth, where the young mermaids held their
picnics and parties and received the visits of young merrymen.

Her mother and two aunts were merwomen. All of these were sober folks
and attended to the business which occupies all well brought up mermaids
and merrymen. This was to keep their pool clean and nice. No frogs,
toads or eels were allowed near, but in the work of daily housecleaning,
the storks and the mermaids were great friends.

All water-creatures that were not thought to be polite and well behaved
were expected to keep away. Even some silly birds, such as loons and
plovers and all screaming and fighting creatures with wings, were warned
off the premises, because they were not wanted. This family of merry
folks liked to have a nice, quiet time by themselves, without any rude
folks on legs, or with wings or fins from the outside. Indeed they
wished to make their pool a model, for all respectable mermaids and
merrymen, for ten leagues around. It was very funny to see the old daddy
merman, with a switch made of reeds, shooing off the saucy birds, such
as the sandpipers and screeching gulls. For the bullfrogs, too big for
the storks to swallow, and for impudent fishes, he had a whip made of
seaweed.

Of course, all the mermaids in good society were welcome, but young
mermen were allowed to call only once a month, during the week when the
moon was full. Then the evenings were usually clear, so that when the
party broke up, the mermen could see their way in the moonlight to swim
home safely with their mermaid friends. For, there were sea monsters
that loved to plague the merefolk, and even threatened to eat them up!
The mermaids, dear creatures, had to be escorted home, but they felt
safe, for their mermen brothers and daddies were so fierce that, except
sharks, even the larger fish, such as porpoises and dolphins were afraid
to come near them.

One day daddy and the mother left to visit some relatives near the
island of Urk. They were to be gone several days. Meanwhile, their
daughter was to have a party, her aunts being the chaperones.

The mermaids usually held their picnics on an island in the midst of the
pool. Here they would sit and sun themselves. They talked about the
fashions and the prettiest way to dress their hair. Each one had a
pocket mirror, but where they kept these, while swimming, no mortal ever
found out. They made wreaths of bright colored seaweed, orange and
black, blue, gray and red and wore them on their brows like coronets.
Or, they twined them, along with sea berries and bubble blossoms, among
their tresses. Sometimes they made girdles of the strongest and knotted
them around their waists.

Every once in a while they chose a queen of beauty for their ruler. Then
each of the others pretended to be a princess. Their games and sports
often lasted all day and they were very happy.

Swimming out in the salt water, the mermaids would go in quest of
pearls, coral, ambergris and other pretty things. These they would bring
to their queen, or with them richly adorn themselves. Thus the Mermaid
Queen and her maidens made a court of beauty that was famed wherever
mermaids and merrymen lived. They often talked about human maids.

"How funny it must be to wear clothes," said one.

"Are they cold that they have to keep warm?" It was a little chit of a
mermaid, whose flippers had hardly begun to grow into hands, that asked
this question.

"How can they swim with petticoats on?" asked another.

"My brother heard that real men wear wooden shoes! These must bother
them, when on the water, to have their feet floating," said a third,
whose name was Silver Scales. "What a pity they don't have flukes like
us," and then she looked at her own glistening scaly coat in admiration.

"I can hardly believe it," said a mermaid, that was very proud of her
fine figure and slender waist. "Their girls can't be half as pretty as
we are."

"Well, I should like to be a real woman for a while, just to try it, and
see how it feels to walk on legs," said another, rather demurely, as if
afraid the other mermaids might not like her remark.

They didn't. Out sounded a lusty chorus, "No! No! Horrible! What an
idea! Who wouldn't be a mermaid?"

"Why, I've heard," cried one, "that real women have to work, wash their
husband's clothes, milk cows, dig potatoes, scrub floors and take care
of calves. Who would be a woman? Not I"--and her snub nose--since it
could not turn up--grew wide at the roots. She was sneering at the idea
that a creature in petticoats could ever look lovelier than one in
shining scales.

"Besides," said she, "think of their big noses, and I'm told, too, that
girls have even to wear hairpins."

At this--the very thought that any one should have to bind up their
tresses--there was a shock of disgust with some, while others clapped
their hands, partly in envy and partly in glee.

But the funniest things the mermaids heard of were gloves, and they
laughed heartily over such things as covers for the fingers. Just for
fun, one of the little mermaids used to draw some bag-like seaweed over
her hands, to see how such things looked.

One day, while sunning themselves in the grass on the island, one of
their number found a bush on which foxgloves grew. Plucking these, she
covered each one of her fingers with a red flower. Then, flopping over
to the other girls, she held up her gloved hands. Half in fright and
half in envy, they heard her story.

After listening, the party was about to break up, when suddenly a young
merman splashed into view. The tide was running out and the stream low,
so he had had hard work to get through the fresh water of the river and
to the island. His eyes dropped salt water, as if he were crying. He
looked tired, while puffing and blowing, and he could hardly get his
breath. The queen of the mermaids asked him what he meant by coming
among her maids at such an hour and in such condition.

At this the bashful merman began to blubber. Some of the mergirls put
their hands over their mouths to hide their laughing, while they winked
at each other and their eyes showed how they enjoyed the fun. To have a
merman among them, at that hour, in broad daylight, and crying, was too
much for dignity.

"Boo-hoo, boo-hoo," and the merman still wept salt water tears, as he
tried to catch his breath. At last, he talked sensibly. He warned the
Queen that a party of horrid men, in wooden shoes, with pickaxes, spades
and pumps, were coming to drain the swamp and pump out the pool. He had
heard that they would make the river a canal and build a dyke that
should keep out the ocean.

"Alas! alas!" cried one mermaid, wringing her hands. "Where shall we go
when our pool is destroyed? We can't live in the ocean all the time."
Then she wept copiously. The salt water tears fell from her great round
eyes in big drops.

"Hush!" cried the Queen. "I don't believe the merman's story. He only
tells it to frighten us. It's just like him."

In fact, the Queen suspected that the merman's story was all a sham and
that he had come among her maids with a set purpose to run off with
Silver Scales. She was one of the prettiest mermaids in the company, but
very young, vain and frivolous. It was no secret that she and the merman
were in love and wanted to get married.

So the Queen, without even thanking him, dismissed the swimming
messenger. After dinner, the company broke up and the Queen retired to
her cave to take a long nap! She was quite tired after entertaining so
much company. Besides, since daddy and mother were away, and there were
no beaus to entertain, since it was a dark night and no moon shining on
the water, why need she get up early in the morning?

So the Mermaid Queen slept much longer than ever before. Indeed, it was
not till near sunset the next day that she awoke. Then, taking her comb
and mirror in hand, she started to swim and splash in the pool, in order
to smooth out her tresses and get ready for supper.

But oh, what a change from the day before! What was the matter? All
around her things looked different. The water had fallen low and the
pool was nearly empty. The river, instead of flowing, was as quiet as a
pond. Horrors! when she swam forward, what should she see but a dyke and
fences! An army of horrid men had come, when she was asleep, and built a
dam. They had fenced round the swamp and were actually beginning to dig
sluices to drain the land. Some were at work, building a windmill to
help in pumping out the water.

The first thing she knew she had bumped her pretty nose against the dam.
She thought at once of escaping over the logs and into the sea. When she
tried to clamber over the top and get through the fence, her hair got so
entangled between the bars that she had to throw away her comb and
mirror and try to untangle her tresses. The more she tried, the worse
became the tangle. Soon her long hair was all twisted up in the timber.
In vain were her struggles to escape. She was ready to die with fright,
when she saw four horrid men rush up to seize her. She attempted to
waddle away, but her long hair held her to the post and rails. Her
modesty was so dreadfully shocked that she fainted away.

When she came to herself, she found she was in a big long tub. A crowd
of curious little girls and boys were looking at her, for she was on
show as a great curiosity. They were bound to see her and get their
money's worth in looking, for they had paid a stiver (two cents)
admission to the show. Again, before all these eyes, her modesty was so
shocked that she gave one groan, flopped over and died in the tub.

Woe to the poor father and mother at Urk! They came back to find their
old home gone. Unable to get into it, they swam out to sea, never
stopping till they reached Spitzbergen.

What became of the body of the Mermaid Queen?

Learned men came from Leyden to examine what was now only a specimen,
and to see how mermaids were made up. Then her skin was stuffed, and
glass eyes put in, where her shining orbs had been. After this, her body
was stuffed and mounted in the museum, that is, set up above a glass
case and resting upon iron rods. Artists came to Leyden to make pictures
of her and no fewer than nine noblemen copied her pretty form and
features into their coats of arms. Instead of the Mermaid's Pool is now
a cheese farm of fifty cows, a fine house and barn, and a family of
pink-cheeked, yellow-haired children who walk and play in wooden shoes.

So this particular mermaid, all because of her entanglement in the
fence, was more famous when stuffed than when living, while all her
young friends and older relatives were forgotten.




THE BOY WHO WANTED MORE CHEESE


Klaas Van Bommel was a Dutch boy, twelve years old, who lived where cows
were plentiful. He was over five feet high, weighed a hundred pounds,
and had rosy cheeks. His appetite was always good and his mother
declared his stomach had no bottom. His hair was of a color half-way
between a carrot and a sweet potato. It was as thick as reeds in a swamp
and was cut level, from under one ear to another.

Klaas stood in a pair of timber shoes, that made an awful rattle when he
ran fast to catch a rabbit, or scuffed slowly along to school over the
brick road of his village. In summer Klaas was dressed in a rough, blue
linen blouse. In winter he wore woollen breeches as wide as coffee bags.
They were called bell trousers, and in shape were like a couple of
cow-bells turned upwards. These were buttoned on to a thick warm jacket.
Until he was five years old, Klaas was dressed like his sisters. Then,
on his birthday, he had boy's clothes, with two pockets in them, of
which he was proud enough.

Klaas was a farmer's boy. He had rye bread and fresh milk for breakfast.
At dinner time, beside cheese and bread, he was given a plate heaped
with boiled potatoes. Into these he first plunged a fork and then dipped
each round, white ball into a bowl of hot melted butter. Very quickly
then did potato and butter disappear "down the red lane." At supper, he
had bread and skim milk, left after the cream had been taken off, with a
saucer, to make butter. Twice a week the children enjoyed a bowl of
bonnyclabber or curds, with a little brown sugar sprinkled on the top.
But at every meal there was cheese, usually in thin slices, which the
boy thought not thick enough. When Klaas went to bed he usually fell
asleep as soon as his shock of yellow hair touched the pillow. In summer
time he slept till the birds began to sing, at dawn. In winter, when the
bed felt warm and Jack Frost was lively, he often heard the cows
talking, in their way, before he jumped out of his bag of straw, which
served for a mattress. The Van Bommels were not rich, but everything was
shining clean.

There was always plenty to eat at the Van Bommels' house. Stacks of rye
bread, a yard long and thicker than a man's arm, stood on end in the
corner of the cool, stone-lined basement. The loaves of dough were put
in the oven once a week. Baking time was a great event at the Van
Bommels' and no men-folks were allowed in the kitchen on that day,
unless they were called in to help. As for the milk-pails and pans,
filled or emptied, scrubbed or set in the sun every day to dry, and the
cheeses, piled up in the pantry, they seemed sometimes enough to feed a
small army.

But Klaas always wanted more cheese. In other ways, he was a good boy,
obedient at home, always ready to work on the cow-farm, and diligent in
school. But at the table he never had enough. Sometimes his father
laughed and asked him if he had a well, or a cave, under his jacket.

Klaas had three younger sisters, Trintjé, Anneké and Saartjé; which is
Dutch for Kate, Annie and Sallie. These, their fond mother, who loved
them dearly, called her "orange blossoms"; but when at dinner, Klaas
would keep on, dipping his potatoes into the hot butter, while others
were all through, his mother would laugh and call him her Buttercup. But
always Klaas wanted more cheese. When unusually greedy, she twitted him
as a boy "worse than Butter-and-Eggs"; that is, as troublesome as the
yellow and white plant, called toad-flax, is to the farmer--very
pretty, but nothing but a weed.

One summer's evening, after a good scolding, which he deserved well,
Klaas moped and, almost crying, went to bed in bad humor. He had teased
each one of his sisters to give him her bit of cheese, and this, added
to his own slice, made his stomach feel as heavy as lead.

Klaas's bed was up in the garret. When the house was first built, one of
the red tiles of the roof had been taken out and another one, made of
glass, was put in its place. In the morning, this gave the boy light to
put on his clothes. At night, in fair weather, it supplied air to his
room.

A gentle breeze was blowing from the pine woods on the sandy slope, not
far away. So Klaas climbed up on the stool to sniff the sweet piny
odors. He thought he saw lights dancing under the tree. One beam seemed
to approach his roof hole, and coming nearer played round the chimney.
Then it passed to and fro in front of him. It seemed to whisper in his
ear, as it moved by. It looked very much as if a hundred fire-flies had
united their cold light into one lamp. Then Klaas thought that the
strange beams bore the shape of a lovely girl, but he only laughed at
himself at the idea. Pretty soon, however, he thought the whisper became
a voice. Again, he laughed so heartily, that he forgot his moping and
the scolding his mother had given him. In fact, his eyes twinkled with
delight, when the voice gave this invitation:

"There's plenty of cheese. Come with us."

To make sure of it, the sleepy boy now rubbed his eyes and cocked his
ears. Again, the light-bearer spoke to him: "Come."

Could it be? He had heard old people tell of the ladies of the wood,
that whispered and warned travellers. In fact, he himself had often seen
the "fairies' ring" in the pine woods. To this, the flame-lady was
inviting him.

Again and again the moving, cold light circled round the red tile roof,
which the moon, then rising and peeping over the chimneys, seemed to
turn into silver plates. As the disc rose higher in the sky, he could
hardly see the moving light, that had looked like a lady; but the voice,
no longer a whisper, as at first, was now even plainer:

"There's plenty of cheese. Come with us."

"I'll see what it is, anyhow," said Klaas, as he drew on his thick
woolen stockings and prepared to go down-stairs and out, without waking
a soul. At the door he stepped into his wooden shoes. Just then the cat
purred and rubbed up against his shins. He jumped, for he was scared;
but looking down, for a moment, he saw the two balls of yellow fire in
her head and knew what they were. Then he sped to the pine woods and
towards the fairy ring.

What an odd sight! At first Klaas thought it was a circle of big
fire-flies. Then he saw clearly that there were dozens of pretty
creatures, hardly as large as dolls, but as lively as crickets. They
were as full of light, as if lamps had wings. Hand in hand, they flitted
and danced around the ring of grass, as if this was fun.

Hardly had Klaas got over his first surprise, than of a sudden he felt
himself surrounded by the fairies. Some of the strongest among them had
left the main party in the circle and come to him. He felt himself
pulled by their dainty fingers. One of them, the loveliest of all,
whispered in his ear:

"Come, you must dance with us."

Then a dozen of the pretty creatures murmured in chorus:

"Plenty of cheese here. Plenty of cheese here. Come, come!"

Upon this, the heels of Klaas seemed as light as a feather. In a moment,
with both hands clasped in those of the fairies, he was dancing in high
glee. It was as much fun as if he were at the kermiss, with a row of
boys and girls, hand in hand, swinging along the streets, as Dutch maids
and youth do, during kermiss week.

Klaas had not time to look hard at the fairies, for he was too full of
the fun. He danced and danced, all night and until the sky in the east
began to turn, first gray and then rosy. Then he tumbled down, tired
out, and fell asleep. His head lay on the inner curve of the fairy ring,
with his feet in the centre.

Klaas felt very happy, for he had no sense of being tired, and he did
not know he was asleep. He thought his fairy partners, who had danced
with him, were now waiting on him to bring him cheeses. With a golden
knife, they sliced them off and fed him out of their own hands. How good
it tasted! He thought now he could, and would, eat all the cheese he had
longed for all his life. There was no mother to scold him, or daddy to
shake his finger at him. How delightful!

But by and by, he wanted to stop eating and rest a while. His jaws were
tired. His stomach seemed to be loaded with cannon-balls. He gasped for
breath.

But the fairies would not let him stop, for Dutch fairies never get
tired. Flying out of the sky--from the north, south, east and west--they
came, bringing cheeses. These they dropped down around him, until the
piles of the round masses threatened first to enclose him as with a
wall, and then to overtop him. There were the red balls from Edam, the
pink and yellow spheres from Gouda, and the gray loaf-shaped ones from
Leyden. Down through the vista of sand, in the pine woods, he looked,
and oh, horrors! There were the tallest and strongest of the fairies
rolling along the huge, round, flat cheeses from Friesland! Any one of
these was as big as a cart wheel, and would feed a regiment. The fairies
trundled the heavy discs along, as if they were playing with hoops. They
shouted hilariously, as, with a pine stick, they beat them forward like
boys at play. Farm cheese, factory cheese, Alkmaar cheese, and, to crown
all, cheese from Limburg--which Klaas never could bear, because of its
strong odor. Soon the cakes and balls were heaped so high around him
that the boy, as he looked up, felt like a frog in a well. He groaned
when he thought the high cheese walls were tottering to fall on him.
Then he screamed, but the fairies thought he was making music. They, not
being human, do not know how a boy feels.

At last, with a thick slice in one hand and a big hunk in the other, he
could eat no more cheese; though the fairies, led by their queen,
standing on one side, or hovering over his head, still urged him to take
more.

At this moment, while afraid that he would burst, Klaas saw the pile of
cheeses, as big as a house, topple over. The heavy mass fell inwards
upon him. With a scream of terror, he thought himself crushed as flat as
a Friesland cheese.

But he wasn't! Waking up and rubbing his eyes, he saw the red sun rising
on the sand-dunes. Birds were singing and the cocks were crowing all
around him, in chorus, as if saluting him. Just then also the village
clock chimed out the hour. He felt his clothes. They were wet with dew.
He sat up to look around. There were no fairies, but in his mouth was a
bunch of grass which he had been chewing lustily.

Klaas never would tell the story of his night with the fairies, nor has
he yet settled the question whether they left him because the
cheese-house of his dream had fallen, or because daylight had come.




THE PRINCESS WITH TWENTY PETTICOATS


Long, long ago, before ever a blue flax-flower bloomed in Holland, and
when Dutch mothers wore wolf-skin clothes, there was a little princess,
very much beloved by her father, who was a great king, or war chief. She
was very pretty and fond of seeing herself. There were no metal mirrors
in those days, nor any looking glass. So she went into the woods and
before the pools and the deep, quiet watercourses, made reflection of
her own lovely face. Of this pleasure she never seemed weary.

Yet sometimes this little princess was very naughty. Then her temper was
not nearly so sweet as her face. She would play in the sand and roll
around in the woods among the leaves and bushes until her curls were all
tangled up. When her nurse combed out her hair with a stone comb--for no
other kinds were then known--she would fret and scold and often stamp
her foot. When very angry, she called her nurse or governess an
"aurochs,"--a big beast like a buffalo. At this, the maid put up her
hands to her face. "Me--an aurochs! Horrible!" Then she would feel her
forehead to see if horns were growing there.

The nurse--they called her "governess," as the years went on--grew tired
of the behavior of the bad young princess. Sometimes she went and told
her mother how naughty her daughter was, even to calling her an aurochs.
Then the little girl only showed her bad temper worse. She rolled among
the leaves all the more and mussed up her ringlets, so that the
governess could hardly comb them out smooth again.

It seemed useless to punish the perverse little maid by boxing her ears,
pinching her arm, or giving her a good spanking. They even tried to
improve her temper by taking away her dinner, but it did no good.

Then the governess and mother went together to her father. When they
complained of his daughter to the king, he was much worried. He could
fight strong men with his club and spear, and even giants with his sword
and battle-axe; but how to correct his little daughter, whom he loved as
his own eyes, was too much for him. He had no son and the princess was
his only child, and the hopes of the family all rested on her. The king
wondered how she would govern his people, after he should die, and she
became the queen. Yet he was glad for one thing: that, with all her
naughtiness, she was, like her father, always kind to animals. Her pet
was a little aurochs calf. Some hunters had killed the mother of the
poor little thing in winter time. So the princess kept the creature warm
and it fed out of her hand daily.

It was in gloom and with a sad face that the king walked in the woods,
thinking how to make a sweet-tempered lady out of his petulant daughter,
who was fast growing up to be a tall, fine-looking woman.

Now when the king had been himself a little boy, he was very kind to all
living creatures, wild and tame, dumb and with voice--yes, even to the
trees in the forest. When a prince, the boy would never let the axe men
cut down an oak until they first begged pardon of the fairy that lived
in the tree.

There was one big oak, especially, which was near the mansion of his
father, the king. It was said that the doctors found little babies in
its leafy branches, and brought them to their mothers. The prince-boy
took great care of this tree. He was taught by a wise man to cut off the
dead limbs, keep off the worms, and warn away all people seeking to
break off branches--even for Yule-tide, which came at our Christmas
time.

Once when some hunters had chased a young she-aurochs, with her two
calves, into the king's park, the prince, though he was then only a boy,
ran out and drove the rough fellows away. Then he sheltered and fed the
aurochs family of three, until they were fresh and fat. After this he
sent a skilled hunter to imitate the sound of an aurochs mother, to call
the aurochs father to the edge of the woods. He then let them all go
free, and was happy to see the dumb brutes frisking together.

Now that the boy-prince was grown to be a man and had long been king,
and had forgotten all about the incident of his earlier years, he was
one day walking in the forest.

Suddenly a gentle breeze arose and the leaves of the old oak tree began
first to rustle and then to whisper. Soon the words were clear, and the
spirit in the oak said:

"I have seen a thousand years pass by, since I was an acorn planted
here. In a few moments I shall die and fall down. Cut my body into
staves. Of these make a wooden petticoat, like a barrel, for your
daughter. When her temper is bad, let her put it on and wear it until
she promises to be good."

The king was sad at the thought of losing the grand old tree, under
which he had played as a boy and his fathers before him. His countenance
fell.

"Cheer up, my friend," said the oak, "for something better shall follow.
When I pass away, you will find on this spot a blue flower growing.
Where the forest was shall be fields, on which the sun shines. Then, if
your daughter be good, young women shall spin something prettier than
wooden petticoats. Watch for the blue flower. Moreover," added the voice
of the tree, "that I may not be forgotten, do you take, henceforth, as
your family name Ten Eyck" (which, in Dutch, means "at the oak ").

At this moment, a huge aurochs rushed into the wood. Its long hair and
shaggy mane were gray with age. The king, thinking the beast would lower
his horns and charge at him, drew his sword to fight the mighty brute
that seemed to weigh well-nigh a ton.

But the aurochs stopped within ten feet of the king and bellowed; but,
in a minute or two, the bellowing changed to a voice and the king heard
these good words:

"I die with the oak, for we are brothers, kept under an enchantment for
a thousand years, which is to end in a few moments. Neither a tree nor
an aurochs can forget your kindness to us, when you were a prince. As
soon as our spirits are released, and we both go back to our home in the
moon, saw off my right horn and make of it a comb for use on your
daughter's curls. It will be smoother than stone."

In a moment a tempest arose, which drove the king for shelter behind
some rocks hard by. After a few minutes, the wind ceased and the sky was
clear. The king looked and there lay the oak, fallen at full length, and
the aurochs lay lifeless beside it.

Just then, the king's woodmen, who were out--thinking their master
might be hurt--drew near. He ordered them to take out the right horn of
the aurochs and to split up part of the oak for slaves. The next day,
they made a wooden petticoat and a horn comb. They were such novelties
that nearly every woman in the kingdom came to see them.

After this, the king called himself the Lord of the Land of Ten Eyck,
and ever after this was his family name, which all his descendants bore.
Whenever the princess showed bad temper, she was forced to wear the
wooden petticoat. To have the boys and girls point at her and make fun
of her was severe punishment.

But a curious thing took place. It was found that every time the maid
combed the hair of the princess she became gentler and more sweet
tempered. She often thanked her governess and said she liked to have her
curls smoothed with the new comb. She even begged her father to let her
own one and have the comb all to herself. It was not long before she
surprised her governess and her parents by combing and curling her own
hair. In truth, such a wonderful change came over the princess that she
did not often have to wear the wooden petticoat, and after a year or
two, not at all. So the gossips nearly forgot all about it.

One summer's day, as the princess was walking in the open, sunny space,
where the old oak had stood, she saw a blue flower. It seemed as
beautiful as it was strange. She plucked it and put it in her hair. When
she reached home, her old aunt, who had been in southern lands, declared
it to be the flower of the flax.

During that spring, millions of tiny green blades sprang up where the
forest had been, and when summer came, the plants were half a yard high.
The women learned how to put the stalks in water and rot the coarse,
outer fibre of the flax. Then they took the silk-like strands from the
inside and spun them on their spinning-wheels. Then they wove them into
pretty cloth.

This, when laid out on the grass, under the sunshine, was bleached
white. The flax thread was made first into linen, and then into lace.

"Let us name the place Groen-e'-veld" (Green Field), the happy people
cried, when they saw how green the earth was where had been the dark
forest. So the place was ever after called the Green Field.

Now when the princess saw what pretty clothes the snow white linen made,
she invented a new style of dress. The upper garment, or "rok," that is,
the one above the waist, she called the "boven rok" and the lower one,
beneath the waist, her "beneden rok." In Dutch "boven" means above and
"beneden" means beneath. By and by, when, at the looms, more of the
beautiful white linen was woven, she had a new petticoat made and put it
on. She was so delighted with this one that she wanted more. One after
the other, she belted them around her waist, until she had on twenty
petticoats at a time. Proud she was of her skirts, even though they made
her look like a barrel. When her mother, and maids, and all the women of
Groen-é-veld, young and old, saw the princess set the fashion, they all
followed. It was not always easy for poor girls, who were to be married,
to buy as many as twenty petticoats. But, as it was the fashion, every
bride had to obey the rule. It grew to be the custom to have at least
twenty; for only this number was thought proper.

So, a new rule, even among the men, grew up. A betrothed young man, or
his female relatives assisting him, was accustomed to make a present of
one or more petticoats to his sweetheart to increase her wardrobe.

Thus the fashion prevailed and still holds among the women of the coast.
Fat or thin, tall or short, they pile on the petticoats and swing their
skirts proudly as they walk or go to market, sell their fish, cry "fresh
herring" in the streets, or do their knitting at home, or in front of
their houses. In some parts of the country, nothing makes a girl so
happy as to present her with a new petticoat. It is the fashion to have
a figure like a barrel and wear one's clothes so as to look like a small
hogshead.

By and by, the men built a dam to get plenty of water in winter for the
rotting of the flax stalks. The linen industry made the people rich. In
time, a city sprang up, which they called Rotterdam, or the dam where
they rotted the flax.

And, because where had been a forest of oaks, with the pool and rivulet,
there was now a silvery stream flowing gently between verdant meadows,
they made the arms and seal of the city green and white, two of the
former and one of the latter; that is, verdure and silver. To this day,
on the arms and flags of the great city, and on the high smoke-stacks of
the mighty steamers that cross the ocean, from land to land, one sees
the wide, white band between the two broad stripes of green.

[Illustration: ON AND ON THE RAGING FLOOD BORE THEM UNTIL DARK NIGHT CAME
DOWN]




THE CAT AND THE CRADLE


In the early ages, when our far-off ancestors lived in the woods, ate
acorns, slept in caves, and dressed in the skins of wild animals, they
had no horses, cows or cats. Their only pets and helpers were dogs. The
men and the dogs were more like each other than they are now.

However, they knew about bees. So the women gathered honey and from it
they made mead. Not having any sugar, the children enjoyed tasting honey
more than anything else, and it was the only sweet thing they had.

By and by, cows were brought into the country and the Dutch soil being
good for grass, the cows had plenty to eat. When these animals
multiplied, the people drank milk and learned to make cheese and butter.
So the Dutch boys and girls grew fat and healthy.

The oxen were so strong that they could pull logs of wood or draw a
plough. So, little by little, the forests were cut down and grassy
meadows, full of bright colored flowers, took their place. Houses were
built and the people were rich and happy.

Yet there were still many cruel men and bad people in the land.
Sometimes, too, floods came and drowned the cattle and covered the
fields with sand, or salt water. In such times, food was very scarce.
Thus it happened that not all the babies born could live, or every
little child be fed. The baby girls especially were often left to die,
because war was common and only boys, that grew into strong warriors,
were wanted.

It grew to be a custom that families would hold a council and decide
whether the baby should be raised or not. But if any one should give the
infant even a tiny drop of milk, or food of any kind, it was allowed to
live and grow up. If no one gave it milk or honey, it died. No matter
how much a mother might love her baby, she was not allowed to put milk
to its lips, if the grandmother or elders forbade it. The young bride,
coming into her husband's home, always had to obey his mother, for she
was now as a daughter and one of the family. All lived together in one
house, and the grandmother ruled all the women and girls that were under
one roof.

This was the way of the world, when our ancestors were pagans, and not
always as kind to little babies as our own mothers and fathers are now.
Many times was the old grandmother angry, when her son had taken a wife
and a girl was born. If the old woman expected a grandson, who should
grow up and be a fighter, with sword and spear, and it turned out to be
a girl, she was mad as fire. Often the pretty bride, brought into the
house, had a hard time of it, with her husband's mother, if she did not
in time have a baby boy. In those days a "Herman," a "War Man" and
"German" were one and the same word.

Now when the good missionaries came into Friesland, one of the first of
the families to receive the gospel was one named Altfrid. With his
bride, who also became a Christian, Altfrid helped the missionary to
build a church. By and by, a sweet little baby was born in the family
and the parents were very happy. They loved the little thing sent from
God, as fathers and mothers love their children now.

But when some one went and told the pagan grandmother that the new baby
was a girl instead of a boy, the old woman flew into a rage and would
have gone at once to get hold of the baby and put it to death. Her
lameness, however, made her move slowly, and she could not find her
crutch; for the midwife, who knew the bad temper of the grandmother, had
purposely hid it. The old woman was angry, because she did not want any
more females in the big house, where she thought there were already too
many mouths to fill. Food was hard to get, and there were not enough war
men to defend the tribe. She meant to get the new baby and throw it to
the wolves. The old grandmother was a pagan and still worshipped the
cruel gods that loved fighting. She hated the new religion, because it
taught gentleness and peace.

But the midwife, who was a neighbor, feared that the old woman was
malicious and she had hid her crutch. This she did, so that if the baby
was a girl, she could save its life. The midwife was a good woman, who
had been taught that the Great Creator loves little girls as well as
boys.

So when the midwife heard the grandmother storm and rave, while hunting
for her crutch, she ran first to the honey jar, dipped her forefinger in
it and put some drops of honey on the baby's tongue. Then she passed it
out the window to some women friends, who were waiting outside. She knew
the law, that if a child tasted food, it must be allowed to live.

The kind women took the baby to their home and fed it carefully. A hole
was drilled in the small end of a cow's horn and the warm milk, fresh
from the cow, was allowed to fall, drop by drop, into the baby's mouth.
In a few days the little one was able to suck its breakfast slowly out
of the horn, while one of the girls held it. So the baby grew bigger
every day. All the time it was carefully hidden.

The foolish old grandmother was foiled, for she could never find out
where the baby girl was, which all the time was growing strong and
plump. Her father secretly made her a cradle and he and the babe's
mother came often to see their child. Every one called her Honig-je', or
Little Honey.

Now about this time, cats were brought into the country and the children
made such pets of them that some of the cows seemed to be jealous of the
attentions paid to Pussy and the kittens. These were the days when cows
and people all lived under one long roof. The children learned to tell
the time of day, whether it was morning, noon or night by looking into
the cats' eyes. These seemed to open and shut, very much as if they had
doors.

The fat pussy, which was brought into the house where Honig-je' was,
seemed to be very fond of the little girl, and the two, the cat and the
child, played much together. It was often said that the cat loved the
baby even more than her own kittens. Every one called the affectionate
animal by the nickname of Dub-belt-je', which means Little Double;
because this puss was twice as loving as most cat mothers are. When her
own furry little babies were very young, she carried them from one place
to another in her mouth. But this way, of holding kittens, she never
tried on the baby. She seemed to know better. Indeed, Dub-belt-je' often
wondered why human babies were born so naked and helpless; for at an age
when her kittens could feed themselves and run about and play with their
tails and with each other, Honig-je' was not yet able to crawl.

But other dangers were in store for the little girl. One day, when the
men were out hunting, and the women went to the woods to gather nuts and
acorns, a great flood came. The waters washed away the houses, so that
everything floated into the great river, and then down towards the sea.

What had, what would, become of our baby? So thought the parents of
Honig-je', when they came back to find the houses swept away and no sign
of their little daughter. Dub-belt-je' and her kittens, and all the
cows, were gone too.

Now it had happened that when the flood came and the house crashed down,
baby was sound asleep. The cat, leaving its kittens, that were now
pretty well grown up, leaped up and on to the top of the cradle and the
two floated off together. Pretty soon they found themselves left alone,
with nothing in sight that was familiar, except one funny thing. That
was a wooden shoe, in which was a fuzzy little yellow chicken hardly
four days old. It had been playing in the shoe, when the floods came
and swept it off from under the very beak of the old hen, that, with all
her other chicks, was speedily drowned.

On and on, the raging flood bore baby and puss, until dark night came
down. For hours more they drifted until, happily, the cradle was swept
into an eddy in front of a village. There it spun round and round, and
might soon have been borne into the greater flood, which seemed to roar
louder as the waters rose.

Now a cat can see sometimes in the night, better even than in the day,
for the darker it becomes, the wider open the eyes of puss. In bright
sunshine, at noon, the inside doors of the cat's eyes close to a narrow
slit, while at night these doors open wide. That is the reason why, in
the days before clocks and watches were made, the children could tell
about the time of day by looking at the cat's eyes. Sometimes they named
their pussy Klok'-oog, which means Clock Eye, or Bell Eye, for bell
clocks are older than clocks with a dial, and because in Holland the
bells ring out the hours and quarter hours.

Puss looked up and saw the church tower looming up in the dark. At once
she began to meouw and caterwaul with all her might. She hoped that some
one in one of the houses near the river bank might catch the sound. But
none seemed to hear or heed. At last, when Puss was nearly dead with
howling, a light appeared at one of the windows. This showed that some
one was up and moving. It was a boy, who was named Dirck, after the
saint Theodoric, who had first, long ago, built a church in the village.
Then Puss opened her mouth and lungs again and set up a regular
cat-scream. This wakened all her other relatives in the village and
every Tom and Kitty made answer, until there was a cat concert of meouws
and caterwauls.

The boy heard, rushed down-stairs, and, opening the door, listened. The
wind blew out his candle, but the brave lad was guided by the sound
which Pussy made. Reaching the bank, he threw off his wooden klomps,
plunged into the boiling waters, and, seizing the cradle, towed it
ashore. Then he woke up his mother and showed her his prize. The way
that baby laughed and crowed, and patted the horn of milk, and kicked up
its toes in delight over the warm milk, which was brought, was a joy to
see. Near the hearth, in the middle of the floor, Dub-belt-je', the
puss, was given some straw for a bed and, after purring joyfully, was
soon, like the baby, sound asleep.

Thus the cat warned the boy, and the boy saved the baby, that was very
welcome in a family where there were no girls, but only a boy. When
Honig-je' grew up to be a young woman, she looked as lovely as a
princess and in the church was married to Dirck! It was the month of
April and all the world was waking to flowers, when the wedding
procession came out of the church and the air was sweet with the opening
of the buds.

Before the next New Year's day arrived, there lay in the same cradle,
and put to sleep over the same rockers, a baby boy. When they brought
him to the font, the good grandmother named him Luid-i-ger. He grew up
to be the great missionary, whose name in Friesland is, even today,
after a thousand years, a household word. He it was who drove out bad
fairies, vile enchanters, wicked spirits and terrible diseases. Best of
all, he banished "eye-bite," which was the name the people gave to
witchcraft. Luid-i-ger, also, made it hard for the naughty elves and
sprites that delude men.

After this, it was easy for all the good spirits, that live in kind
hearts and noble lives, to multiply and prosper. The wolves were driven
away or killed off and became very few, while the cattle and sheep
multiplied, until everybody could have a woollen coat, and there was a
cow to every person in the land.

But the people still suffered from the floods, that from time to time
drowned the cattle and human beings, and the ebb tides, that carried
everything out to sea. Then the good missionary taught the men how to
build dykes, that kept out the ocean and made the water of the rivers
stay between the banks. The floods became fewer and fewer and at last
rarely happened. Then Santa Klaas arrived, to keep alive in the hearts
of the people the spirit of love and kindness and good cheer forever.

At last, when nearly a hundred years had passed away, Honig-je', once
the girl baby, and then the dear old lady, who was kind to everybody and
prepared the way for Santa Klaas, died. Then, also, Dub-belt-je' the
cat, that had nine lives in one, died with her. They buried the old lady
under the church floor and stuffed the pussy that everybody, kittens,
boys, girls and people loved. By and by, when the cat's tail and fur
fell to pieces, and ears tumbled off, and its glass eyes dropped out, a
skilful artist chiselled a statue of Dub-belt-je', which still stands
over the tomb in the church. Every year, on Santa Klaas day, December
sixth, the children put a new collar around its neck and talk about the
cat that saved a baby's life.




PRINCE SPIN HEAD AND MISS SNOW WHITE


Long, long ago, before the Romans came into the land and when the
fairies ruled in the forest, there was a maiden who lived under an oak
tree. When she was a baby they called her Bundlekin. She had four
brothers, who loved their younger sister very dearly and did everything
they could to make her happy. Her fat father was a famous hunter. When
he roamed the woods, no bear, wolf, aurochs, roebuck, deer, or big
animal of any kind, could escape from his arrows, his spear, or his
pit-trap. He taught his sons to be skilful in the chase, but also to be
kind to the dumb creatures when captured. Especially when the mother
beast was killed, the boys were always told to care for the cubs, whelps
and kittens. As for the smaller animals, foxes, hares, weasels, rabbits
and ermine, these were so numerous, that the father left the business of
hunting them to the lads, who had great sport.

The house under the oak tree was always well provided with meat and
furs. The four brothers brought the little animals, which they took in
the woods, to make presents to their sister. So there was always a
plenty of pets, bear and wolf cubs, wildcats' kittens and baby aurochs
for the girl to play with. Every day, while the animals were so young as
to be fed on milk, she enjoyed frolicking with the four-footed babies.
When they grew bigger, she romped and sported with them, as if she and
they were equal members of the same family. The older brother watched
carefully, so that the little brutes, as they increased in size, should
not bite or claw his sister, for he knew the fierce nature that was in
wild creatures. Yet the maiden had wonderful power over these beasts of
the forest, whether little or big. She was not very much afraid of them
and often made them run, by looking at them hard in the eye.

While the girl made a pet of the animals, her parents made a pet of her.
The mother prepared the skins of the wolves and bears, until these were
very soft, keeping the fur on, to make rugs for the floor, and winter
coats for her children. The hides of the aurochs sufficed for rougher
use, but from what had once been the clothes of the fawn, the weasel,
the rabbit, and the ermine, garments were made that were smooth enough
to suit a baby's tender flesh. The forest folk wrapped their infants in
swaddling hands made of these dressed pelts. After feeding the darling,
a mother hung her baby up, warmly covered, to a tree branch. The cradle,
which was a furry bag, was made of the same material and swung in the
wind.

Bundlekin usually fell asleep right after she had had her breakfast.
When she woke up crowing, the squirrels were playing all around her. She
even learned to watch the spiders, spinning their houses of silk,
without being afraid. When Bundlekin grew up, she always called this
curious creature, that could make silk, Spin Head. She jokingly called
it her lover, in remembrance of baby days.

It was funny to see how deft the mother was with her needles, fashioned
from bone, and her rough thread, which was made of the intestines of the
deer. From her own childhood in the woods, Bundlekin's mother had been
used to this kind of dressmaking. Now, when her daughter had grown, from
babyhood and through her teens, to be a lovely maiden, fair of face and
strong of limb, her sweet, unselfish parent was equal to new tasks. To
the soft leather coats, made from the skins of fawns, martens, and
weasels, she added trimmings of snow white ermine. Caps and mittens,
cloaks for the body, and coverings for the feet, were fashioned to fit
neatly. Fringes, here and there, were put on them, until her girl looked
like a king's daughter. In summer, the skins of birds and their feathers
clothed her lightly, and with many and rich colors, while the forest
flowers decked her hair.

In winter, in her white forest robes, the maiden, except for her rosy
face and sparkling eyes, seemed as if she might have been born of the
snow, or was a daughter of the northern ice god at Ulrum. And because
she was so lovely, her parents changed her baby name and called her
Dri'-fa, which means Snow White.

Yet, though no other girl in Gelderland equalled, and none, not even the
princesses, excelled Snow White in beauty of face, form, or raiment, the
maiden was not happy, even though many lovers came to her and offered to
marry her. Some, as proof of their skill as hunters, brought the finest
furs the forest furnished. Others showed their strength or fleetness of
foot. Some bargained with the kabouters, or fairies of the mines, to
bring them shining ore or precious gems which they offered to Snow
White. Others, again, went afar to get strange wonders, amber and
ambergris, from the seashores of the far north to please her. One fine
fellow, who had been in the south and was proud of his travels, told her
of what he had seen in the great cities, and offered her a necklace of
pearls.

But all was in vain. Every lover went away sorrowful, for Snow White
wearied of them and sent each one home, disappointed.

Last of all, among the lovers came a strange looking one, named Spin
Head, resembling a spider, promising a secret worth more than furs,
gold, gems, or necklace; but the mother, seeing the ugly creature, drove
it off with hard words.

So the months and years passed, until her father feared he would not
live to see his daughter a wife.

But one day, when all in the household were absent, the leaves of the
oak tree rustled loudly. There was no wind, and Snow White, surprised,
strained her ears to find out what this might mean. Soon she could make
out these words:

"When the spider, that you called Spin Head, comes to make love to you,
listen to him. He is the wisest being in all the forest. He knows the
future. He will tell you a secret. I shall pass away, but what he
teaches you shall live."

Then the leaves of the oak ceased to rustle and all was quiet and still
again.

While wondering what this message might mean, down came the real spider
she had named Spin Head. He lowered himself from a tree branch, high
above on a silken thread. The creature sat down on the log beside the
maiden; but she was not in the least startled and did not scream nor run
away. Indeed, she spoke to the spider as an old friend:

"Well, playmate of my babyhood, what have you to tell me?"

"I came to offer you my love. You need not marry me yet, but if you will
let me spin a web in your room, I shall live there, and, by and by,
reward you. Let me be in your sight always, and you will not be sorry
for it."

The maiden had no sooner agreed than a terrible tempest uprooted the oak
and levelled the trees of the forest. In a moment more, a new and very
beautiful house rose up out of the ground. It was as noble to look at as
a palace. Near by was a garden, and one day when she walked in it, out
of it sprang a blue flower, almost under her feet.

"Choose the best room for your own self," said Spin Head, "and then show
me my corner. After a hundred days, if you treat me kindly, I shall
reveal the secret of that blue flower."

Dri'-fa, the maiden, chose the sunniest room, and gave Spin Head the
best corner, near the window and close to the ceiling. At once he began
to weave a shining web for his own house. She wondered at such fine
work, which no human weaver could excel, and why she was not able to
spin silk out of her head, nor even with her fingers, like her strange
lover. But the oak had promised that Spin Head would reveal a secret,
and she was curious to know what it was. Like all girls, she was in a
hurry to have the secret. To ease her impatience, Dri'-fa looked on,
while Spin Head was thus busy at making his dwelling place, with shining
threads which he spun out, never ceasing. She was so intent upon
watching him that night came down before she noticed that her room was
not furnished. There was not even a bed to sleep on.

Spin Head looked at her closely and then spoke with a deep voice, like a
man's:

"Ah, I know, you want a bed, and pretty things for your room."

In another moment, soft furs lined the floor, and soon all that Dri'-fa
had possessed in the forest for comfort she had now, and more. Lost in
wonder as she was, in a few minutes she was fast asleep.

She dreamed she wore a dress of some strange, new, white fabric, such as
her people had never seen before. Instead of being close in texture,
like the skin of an animal, it was as open work, full of thousands of
little holes, yet strongly held together. It was light and gauzy, like a
silvery spider's web on the summer grass before sunrise, when pearly
with dewdrops.

The hundred days were passing swiftly by, and Spin Head and Snow White
had become fast friends. Each lived in a different world--a world within
a world. She was waiting for the secret he would tell her. She bravely
resolved not to be impatient, but let Spin Head speak first.

One day, when autumn had come and she was lonely, she sauntered out into
the garden. The chill winds were blowing and the leaves falling, till
they covered the ground like a yellow carpet. One fell into her hand, as
if it bore words of friendly greeting. Yet, though she waited, not one
of the millions of them brought a message to her! Never a word had she
ever heard from her parents and brothers! The blue flower had long ago
fallen away and there was nothing in its place but a hard, rough, black
stalk. Then she said to herself:

"Is there anything in this ugly stick? How will Spin Head reveal his
secret?" Never had she been so cast down.

Again the tempest howled. All the winds of heaven seemed to have broken
loose. Many a sturdy oak lay prostrate. The leaves darkened the air, so
that Snow White could see nothing. Then there was a great calm. The maid
cleared her sight, and lo! there, beside her, stood a youth, more
beautiful than any of her brothers, or her lovers, or any man she had
ever seen. He was dressed in fine white clothing, excelling in its
texture any skin of fawn, or animal of the forest. Instead of being
leather, however soft, it seemed woven of a multitude of threads. In his
hand he held the black stalk of what had been the blue flower.

"I am Spin Head," he said. "The hundred days are over. The spell is
broken and my deliverance from enchantment has come. I bring to you, as
my gift, this ugly stalk, on which the blue flower bloomed."

Between surprise at the change of Spin Head from a spider to a handsome
youth, and disappointment at such a present offered her, Snow White was
dumb. She could hardly draw her breath. Was that all?

"Break it open," said Spin Head.

Splitting the stalk from end to end, the maiden was surprised to find
inside many long silky fibres, almost as fine as the strands in a
spider's web. She pulled them out and her eyes danced with joy.

"Plant the seed and let the blue flowers blossom by the million," said
the youth. "Then gather the stalks and, from the fibres, weave them
together and make this. The black rod is a sceptre of wealth."

Then, separating the delicate strands one by one, Spin Head wove them
together. The result was a rich robe, of a snow white fabric, never seen
in the forest. It was linen.

Snow White clapped her hands with joy.

"'Tis for your wedding dress, if you will marry me," said Spin Head.

Snow White's cheeks blushed red, but she looked at him and her eyes said
"yes."

"Wait," said Spin Head. "I'll make you a bridal veil."

Once more his fingers wrought wonders. He produced yards of a gauzy,
open work stuff. He made it float in the air first. Then he threw it
over her head. It trailed down her back and covered her rosy face. It
was lace.

Happily married, they left the forest and travelled into the land where
the blue flax flowers made a new sky on the earth. Soon on the map men
read the names of cities unknown before. At a time when Europe had no
such masses of happy people, joyous in their toil, Courtrai, Tournay,
Ypres, Ghent, and Bruges told what the blue flower of the flax had done
for the country. More than gold, gems, or the wealth of forest or mine,
was the gift of Spin Head to Snow White, for the making of Belgic Land.




THE BOAR WITH THE GOLDEN BRISTLES


Long, long ago, there were brave fighters and skilful hunters in
Holland, but neither men nor women ever dreamed that food was to be got
out of the ground, but only from the trees and bushes, such as berries,
acorns and honey. They thought the crust of the earth was too hard to be
broken up for seed, even if they knew what grain and bread were. They
supposed that what nature provided in the forest was the only food for
men. Besides this, they made their women do all the work and cook the
acorns and brew the honey into mead, while they went out to fish and
hunt and fight.

So the fairies took pity on the cold, northern people, who lived where
it rained and snowed a great deal. They held a council and agreed that
it was time to send down to the earth an animal, with tusks, to tear up
the ground. Then the people would see the riches of the earth and learn
what soil was. They would be blessed with farms and gardens, barns and
stalls, hay and grain, horses and cattle, wheat and barley, pigs and
clover.

Now there were powerful fairies, of a certain kind, who lived in a Happy
Land far, far away, who had charge of everything in the air and water.
One of them was named Fro, who became lord of the summer sunshine and
warm showers, that make all things grow. It was in this bright region
that the white elves lived.

It was a pretty custom in fairy-land that when a fairy baby cut its
first tooth, the mother's friends should make the little one some pretty
present.

When Nerthus, the mother of the infant Fro, looked into its mouth and
saw the little white thing that had come up through the baby's gums, she
went in great glee and told the glad news to all the other fairies. It
was a great event and she tried to guess what present her wonderful
boy-baby should receive.

There was one giant-like fairy as strong as a polar bear, who agreed to
get, for little Fro, a creature that could put his nose under the sod
and root up the ground. In this way he would show men what the earth,
just under its surface, contained, without their going into mines and
caverns.

One day this giant fairy heard two stout dwarfs talking loudly in the
region under the earth. They were boasting as to which could beat the
other at the fire and bellows, for both were blacksmiths. One was the
king of the dwarfs, who made a bet that he could excel the other. So he
set them to work as rivals, while a third dwarf worked the bellows. The
dwarf-king threw some gold in the flames to melt; but, fearing he might
not win the bet, he went away to get other fairies to help him. He told
the bellows dwarf to keep on pumping air on the fire, no matter what
might happen to him.

So when one giant fairy, in the form of a gadfly, flew at him, and bit
him in the hand, the bellows-blower did not stop for the pain, but kept
on until the fire roared loudly, as to make the cavern echo. Then all
the gold melted and could be transformed. As soon as the dwarf-king came
back, the bellows-blower took up the tongs and drew out of the fire a
boar having golden bristles.

This fire-born golden boar had the power of travelling through the air
as swiftly as a streak of lightning. It was named Gullin, or Golden, and
was given to the fairy Fro, and he, when grown, used the wonderful
creature as his steed. All the other good fairies and the elves
rejoiced, because men on the earth would now be helped to do great
things.

Even more wonderful to tell, this fire-born creature became the father
of all the animals that have tusks and that roam in the woods. A tusk is
a big tooth, of which the hardest and sharpest part grows, long and
sharp, outside of the mouth and it stays there, even when the mouth is
shut.

When Gullin was not occupied, or being ridden by Fro on his errands over
the world, he taught his sons, that is, the wild boars of the forest,
how to root up the ground and make it soft for things to grow in. Then
his master Fro sent the sunbeams and the warm showers to make the
turned-up earth fruitful.

To do this, the wild boars were given two long tusks, as pointed as
needles and sharp as knives. With one sweep of his head a boar could rip
open a dog or a wolf, a bull or a bear, or furrow the earth like a
ploughshare.

Now there were several cousins in the Tusk family. The elephant on land,
and the walrus and narwhal in the seas; but none of these could plough
ground, but because the boar's tusks grew out so long and were so sharp,
and hooked at the end, it could tear open the earth's hard crust and
root up the ground. This made a soil fit for tender plants to grow in,
and even the wild flowers sprang up in them.

All this, when they first noticed it, was very wonderful to human
beings. The children called one to the other to come and see the unusual
sight. The little troughs, made first by the ripping of the boar's
tusks, were widened by rooting with their snouts. These were welcomed by
the birds, for they hopped into the lines thus made, to feed on the
worms. So the birds, supposing that these little gutters in the ground
were made especially for them, made great friends with the boars. They
would even perch near by, or fly to their backs, and ride on them.

As for the men fathers, when they looked at the clods and the loose
earth thus turned over, they found them to be very soft. So the women
and girls were able to break them up with their sticks. Then the seeds,
dropped by the birds that came flying back every spring time, from
far-away lands, sprouted. It was noticed that new kinds of plants grew
up, which had stalks. In the heads or ears of these were a hundredfold
more seeds. When the children tasted them, they found, to their delight,
that the little grains were good to eat. They swallowed them whole, they
roasted them at the fire, or they pounded them with stones. Then they
baked the meal thus made or made it into mush, eating it with honey.

For the first time people in the Dutch world had bread. When they added
the honey, brought by the bees, they had sweet cakes with mead. Then,
saving the seeds over, from one summer to another, they in the spring
time planted them in the little trenches made by the animal's tusks.
Then the Dutch words for "boar" and "row" were put together, meaning
boar row, and there issued, in time, our word "furrow."

The women were the first to become skilful in baking. In the beginning
they used hot stones on which to lay the lump of meal, or flour and
water, or the batter. Then having learned about yeast, which "raised"
the flour, that is, lifted it up, with gas and bubbles, they made real
bread and cakes and baked them in the ovens which the men had made. When
they put a slice of meat between upper and lower layers of bread, they
called it "broodje," that is, little bread; or, sandwich. In time,
instead of one kind of bread, or cake, they had a dozen or twenty
different sorts, besides griddle cakes and waffles.

Now when the wise men of the mark, or neighborhood, saw that the women
did such wonderful things, they put their heads together and said one to
the other:

"We are quite ready to confess that fairies, and elves, and even the
kabouters are smarter than we are. Our women, also, are certainly
wonderful; but it will never do to let the boars think that they know
more than we do. They did indeed teach us how to make furrows, and the
birds brought us grain; but we are the greater, for we can hunt and kill
the boars with our spears.

"Although they can tear up the sod and root in the ground with tusk and
snout, they cannot make cakes, as our women can. So let us see if we
cannot beat both the boars and birds, and even excel our women. We shall
be more like the fairies, if we invent something that will outshine them
all."

So they thought and planned, and, little by little, they made the
plough. First, with a sharp stick in their hands, the men scratched the
surface of the ground into lines that were not very deep. Then they
nailed plates of iron on those sticks. Next, they fixed this iron-shod
wood in a frame to be pulled forward, and, by and by, they added
handles. Men and women, harnessed together, pulled the plough. Indeed it
was ages before they had oxen to do this heavy work for them. At last
the perfect plough was seen. It had a knife in front to cut the clods, a
coulter, a beam, a mould board and handles, and, after a while, a wheel
to keep it straight. Then they set horses to draw it.

Fro the fairy was the owner, not only of the boar with the golden
bristles, but also of the lightning-like horse, Sleipnir, that could
ride through fire and water with the speed of light. Fro also owned the
magic ship, which could navigate both land and sea. It was so very
elastic that it could be stretched out to carry a host of warriors over
the seas to war, or fold up like a lady's handkerchief. With this flying
vessel, Fro was able to move about like a cloud and also to change like
them. He could also appear, or disappear, as he pleased, in one place or
another.

By and by, the wild boars were all hunted to death and disappeared. Yet
in one way, and a glorious one also, their name and fame were kept in
men's memories. Brave knights had the boar's head painted on their
shields and coats of arms. When the faith of the Prince of Peace made
wars less frequent, the temples in honor of Fro were deserted, but the
yule log and the revels, held to celebrate the passing of the Mother
Night, in December, that is, the longest one of the year, were changed
for the Christmas festival.

Then again, the memory of man's teacher of the plough was still kept
green; for the boar was remembered as the giver, not only of nourishing
meat, but of ideas for men's brains. Baked in the oven, and made
delightful to the appetite, served on the dish, with its own savory
odors; withal, decorated with sprigs of rosemary, the boar's head was
brought in for the great dinner, with the singing of Christmas carols.




THE ICE KING AND HIS WONDERFUL GRANDCHILD


In the far-off ages, all the lands of northern Europe were one, for the
deep seas had not yet separated them. Then our forefathers thought that
fairies were gods. They built temples in their honor, and prayed to
them. Then, in the place where is now the little town of Ulrum in
Friesland was the home of the spirit in the ice, Uller. That is what
Ulrum means, the home of the good fairy Uller.

Uller was the patron of boys and girls. They liked him, because he
invented skates and sleds and sleighs. He had charge of things in winter
and enjoyed the cold. He delighted also in hunting. Dressed in thick
furs, he loved to roam over the hills and through the forests, seeking
out the wolf, the bear, the deer, and the aurochs. His bow and arrows
were terrible, for they were very big and he was a sure shot. Being the
patron of archery, hunters always sought his favor. The yew tree was
sacred to Uller, because the best bows were made from its wood. No one
could cut down a yew tree without angering Uller.

Nobody knew who Uller's father was, and if he knew himself, he did not
care to tell any one. He would not bestow many blessings upon mankind;
yet thousands of people used to come to Ulrum every year to invoke his
aid and ask him to send a heavy fall of snow to cover the ground. That
meant good crops of food for the next year. The white snow, lying thick
upon the ground, kept back the frost giants from biting the earth too
hard. Because of deep winter snows, the ground was soft during the next
summer. So the seed sprouted more easily and there was plenty to eat.

When Uller travelled over the winter snow, to go out on hunting trips,
he strapped snow-shoes on his feet. Because these were shaped like a
warrior's shield, Uller was often called the shield-god. His protection
was especially invoked by men who fought duels with sword or spear,
which were very common in early days; or by soldiers or hunters, who
wished to be very brave, or had engaged in perilous ventures.

Now when Uller wanted a wife to marry him, he made love to Skadi,
because she was a huntress and liked the things which he liked. So they
never had a quarrel. She was very strong, fond of sports, and of chasing
the wild animals. She wore a short skirt, which allowed freedom of
motion to her limbs. Then she ranged over the hills and valleys with
wonderful swiftness. So rapid were her movements that many people
likened her to the cold mountain stream, that leaps down from the high
peaks and over the rocks, foaming and dashing to the lowlands. They gave
the same name to both this fairy woman and the water, because they were
so much alike.

Indeed Skadi was very lovely to look at. It was no wonder that many of
the gods, fairies and men fell in love with her. It is even said that
she had had several husbands before marrying Uller. When you look at her
pictures, you will see that she was as pretty as bright winter itself,
when Jack Frost clothes the trees with white and makes the cheeks of the
girls so rosy. She wore armor of shining steel, a silver helmet, short
white skirts and white fur leggings. Her snow-shoes were of the hue of
winter. Besides a glittering spear, she had a bow and sharp arrows.
These were held in a silver quiver slung over her shoulders. Altogether,
she looked like winter alive. She loved to live in the mountains, and
hear the thunders of cataracts, the crash of avalanches, the moaning of
the winds in the pine forests. Even the howling of wolves was music in
her ears. She was afraid of nothing.

Now from such a father and mother one would expect wonderful children,
yet very much like their parents. It turned out that the offspring of
Uller and Skadi were all daughters. To them--one after another--were
given the names meaning Glacier, Cold, Snow, Drift, Snow Whirl, and Snow
Dust, the oldest being the biggest and hardiest. The others were in
degree softer and more easily influenced by the sun and the wind. They
all looked alike, so that some people called them the Six White Sisters.

Yet they were all so great and powerful that many considered them
giantesses. It was not possible for men to tame them, for they did very
much as they pleased. No one could stop their doings or drive them away,
except Woden, who was the god of the sun. Yet in winter, even he left
off ruling the world and went away. During that time, that is, during
seven months, Uller took Woden's throne and governed the affairs of the
world. When summer came, Uller went with his wife up to the North Pole;
or they lived in a house, on the top of the Alps. There they could hunt
and roam on their snow-shoes. To these cold places, which the whole
family enjoyed, their daughters went also and all were very happy so far
above the earth.

Things went on pleasantly in Uller's family so long as his daughters
were young, for then the girls found enough to delight in at their daily
play. But when grown up and their heads began to be filled with notions
about the young giants, who paid visits to them, then the family
troubles began.

[Illustration: YET ALL THE TIME HE WAS CALLING ON HUMAN BEINGS TO HARNESS
HIM TO WHEELS]

There was one young giant fairy named Vuur, who came often to see all
six of Uller's daughters, from the youngest to the oldest. Yet no one
could tell which of them he was in love with, or could name the girl he
liked best; no, not even the daughters themselves. His character and his
qualities were not well known, for he put on many disguises and appeared
in many places. It was believed, however, that he had already done a
good deal of mischief and was likely to do more, for he loved
destruction. Yet he often helped the kabouter dwarfs to do great things;
so that showed he was of some use. In fact he was the fire fairy. He
kept on, courting all the six sisters, long after May day came, and he
lengthened his visits until the heat turned the entire half dozen of
them into water. So they became one.

At this, Uller was so angry at Vuur's having delayed so long before
popping the question, and at his daughters' losing their shapes, that he
made Vuur marry them all and at once, they taking the name of Regen.

Now when the child of Vuur and Regen was born, it turned out to be, in
body and in character, just what people expected from such a father and
mother. It was named in Dutch, Stoom. It grew fast and soon showed that
it was as powerful as its parents had been; yet it was much worse, when
shut up, than when allowed to go free in the air. Stoom loved to do all
sorts of tricks. In the kitchen, it would make the iron kettle lid flop
up and down with a lively noise. If it were confined in a vessel,
whether of iron or earthenware, when set over the fire, it would blow
the pot or kettle all to pieces, in order to get out. Thinking itself a
great singer, it would make rather a pleasant sound, when its mother let
it come out of a spout. Yet it never obeyed either of its parents. When
they tried to shut up Stoom inside of anything, it always escaped with a
terrible sound. In fact, nothing could long hold it in, without an
explosion.

Sometimes Stoom would go down into the bowels of the earth and turn on a
stream of water so as to meet the deep fires which are ever burning far
down below us. Then there would come an awful earthquake, because Stoom
wanted to get out, and the earth crust would not let him, but tried to
hold him down. Sometimes Stoom slipped down into a volcano's mouth. Then
the mountain, in order to save itself from being choked, had to spit
Stoom out, and this always made a terrible mess on the ground, and men
called it lava. Or, Stoom might stay down in the crater as a guest, and
quietly come out, occasionally, in jets and puffs.

Even when Jack Frost was around and froze the pipes in the house, or
turned the water of the pots, pans, kettles and bottles into solid ice,
Stoom behaved very badly. If the frozen kettles, or any other closed
vessel were put over the stove, or near the fire, and the ice melted at
the bottom too fast, Stoom would blow the whole thing up. In this way,
he often put men's lives in danger and made them lose their property.

No one seemed to know how to handle this mischievous fairy. Not one man
on earth could do anything with him. So they let him have his own way.
Yet all the time, though he was enjoying his own tricks and lively fun,
he was, with his own voice, calling on human beings to use him properly,
and harness him to wheels; for he was willing to be useful to them, and
was all ready to pull or drive, lift or lower, grind or pump, as the
need might be.

As long as men did not treat him properly and give him the right to get
out into the air, after he had done his work, Stoom would explode, blow
up and destroy everything. He could be made to sing, hiss, squeal,
whistle, and make all kinds of sounds, but, unless the bands that held
him in were strong enough, or if Vuur got too hot, or his mother would
not give him drink enough, when the iron pipes were red with heat, he
would lose his temper and explode. He had no respect for bad or
neglected boilers, or for lazy or careless firemen and engineers.

Yet properly harnessed and treated well, and fed with the food such as
his mother can give, and roused by his father's persuasion, Stoom is
greater than any giant or fairy that ever was. He can drive a ship, a
locomotive, a submarine, or an aeroplane, as fast as Fro's boar, horse
or ship. Everybody to-day is glad that Stoom is such a good servant and
friend all over the world.




THE ELVES AND THEIR ANTICS


The elves are the little white creatures that live between heaven and
earth. They are not in the clouds, nor down in the caves and mines, like
the kabouters. They are bright and fair, dwelling in the air, and in the
world of light. The direct heat of the sun is usually too much for them,
so they are not often seen during the day, except towards sunset. They
love the silvery moonlight. There used to be many folks, who thought
they had seen the beautiful creatures, full of fun and joy, dancing hand
in hand, in a circle.

In these old days, long since gone by, there were more people than there
are now, who were sure they had many times enjoyed the sight of the
elves. Some places in Holland show, by their names, where this kind of
fairies used to live. These little creatures, that looked as thin as
gauze, were very lively and mischievous, though they often helped honest
and hard working people in their tasks, as we shall see. But first and
most of all, they were fond of fun. They loved to vex cross people and
to please those who were bonnie and blithe. They hated misers, but they
loved the kind and generous. These little folks usually took their
pleasure in the grassy meadows, among the flowers and butterflies. On
bright nights they played among the moonbeams.

There were certain times when the elves were busy, in such a way as to
make men and girls think about them. Then their tricks were generally in
the stable, or in the field among the cows. Sometimes, in the kitchen or
dairy, among the dishes or milk-pans, they made an awful mess for the
maids to clean up. They tumbled over the churns, upset the milk jugs,
and played hoops with the round cheeses. In a bedroom they made things
look as if the pigs had run over them.

When a farmer found his horse's mane twisted into knots, or two cows
with their tails tied together, he said at once, "That's the work of
elves." If the mares did not feel well, or looked untidy, their owners
were sure the elves had taken the animals out and had been riding them
all night. If a cow was sick, or fell down on the grass, it was believed
that the elves had shot an arrow into its body. The inquest, held on
many a dead calf or its mother, was, that it died from an "elf-shot."
They were so sure of this, that even when a stone arrow head--such as
our far-off ancestors used in hunting, when they were cave men--was
picked up off the ground, it was called an "elf bolt," or "elf-arrow."

Near a certain village named Elf-berg or Elf Hill, because there were so
many of the little people in that neighborhood, there was one very old
elf, named Styf, which means Stiff, because though so old he stood up
straight as a lance. Even more than the young elves, he was famous for
his pranks. Sometimes he was nicknamed Haan-e'-kam or Cock's Comb. He
got this name, because he loved to mock the roosters, when they crowed,
early in the morning. With his red cap on, he did look like a rooster.
Sometimes he fooled the hens, that heard him crowing. Old Styf loved
nothing better than to go to a house where was a party indoors. All the
wooden shoes of the twenty or thirty people within, men and women, girls
and boys, would be left outside the door. All good Dutch folks step out
of their heavy timber shoes, or klomps, before they enter a house. It is
always a curious sight, at a country church, or gathering of people at a
party, to see the klomps, big and little, belonging to baby boys and
girls, and to the big men, who wear a number thirteen shoe of wood. One
wonders how each one of the owners knows his own, but he does. Each pair
is put in its own place, but Old Styf would come and mix them all up
together, and then leave them in a pile. So when the people came out to
go home, they had a terrible time in finding and sorting out their
shoes. Often they scolded each other; or, some innocent boy was blamed
for the mischief. Some did not find out, till the next day, that they
had on one foot their own, and on another foot, their neighbor's shoe.
It usually took a week to get the klomps sorted out, exchanged, and the
proper feet into the right shoes. In this way, which was a special trick
with him, this naughty elf, Styf, spoiled the temper of many people.

Beside the meadow elves, there were other kinds in Elfin Land; some
living in the woods, some in the sand-dunes, but those called
Staalkaars, or elves of the stall, were Old Styf's particular friends.
These lived in stables and among the cows. The Moss Maidens, that could
do anything with leaves, even turning them into money, helped Styf, for
they too liked mischief. They teased men-folks, and enjoyed nothing
better than misleading the stupid fellows that fuddled their brains with
too much liquor.

Styf's especially famous trick was played on misers. It was this. When
he heard of any old fellow, who wanted to save the cost of candles, he
would get a kabouter to lead him off in the swamps, where the sooty
elves come out, on dark nights, to dance. Hoping to catch these lights
and use them for candles, the mean fellow would find himself in a swamp,
full of water and chilled to the marrow. Then the kabouters would laugh
loudly.

Old Styf had the most fun with another stingy fellow, who always scolded
children when he found them spending a penny. If he saw a girl buying
flowers, or a boy giving a copper coin for a waffle, he talked roughly
to them for wasting money. Meeting this miser one day, as he was walking
along the brick road, leading from the village, Styf offered to pay the
old man a thousand guilders, in exchange for four striped tulips, that
grew in his garden. The miser, thinking it real silver, eagerly took the
money and put it away in his iron strong box. The next night, when he
went, as he did three times a week, to count, and feel, and rub, and
gloat, over his cash, there was nothing but leaves in a round form.
These, at his touch, crumbled to pieces. The Moss Maidens laughed
uproariously, when the mean old fellow was mad about it.

But let no one suppose that the elves, because they were smarter than
stupid human beings, were always in mischief. No, no! They did, indeed,
have far more intelligence than dull grown folks, lazy boys, or careless
girls; but many good things they did. They sewed shoes for poor
cobblers, when they were sick, and made clothes for children, when the
mother was tired. When they were around, the butter came quick in the
churn.

When the blue flower of the flax bloomed in Holland, the earth, in
spring time, seemed like the sky. Old Styf then saw his opportunity to
do a good thing. Men thought it a great affair to have even coarse linen
tow for clothes. No longer need they hunt the wolf and deer in the
forest, for their garments. By degrees, they learned to make finer
stuff, both linen for clothes and sails for ships, and this fabric they
spread out on the grass until the cloth was well bleached. When taken
up, it was white as the summer clouds that sailed in the blue sky. All
the world admired the product, and soon the word "Holland" was less the
name of a country, than of a dainty fabric, so snow white, that it was
fit to robe a queen. The world wanted more and more of it, and the Dutch
linen weaver grew rich. Yet still there was more to come.

Now, on one moonlight night in summer, the lady elves, beautiful
creatures, dressed in gauze and film, with wings to fly and with feet
that made no sound, came down into the meadows for their fairy dances.
But when, instead of green grass, they saw a white landscape, they
wondered, Was it winter?

Surely not, for the air was warm. No one shivered, or was cold. Yet
there were whole acres as white as snow, while all the old fairy rings,
grass and flowers were hidden.

They found that the meadows had become bleaching grounds, so that the
cows had to go elsewhere to get their dinner, and that this white area
was all linen. However, they quickly got over their surprise, for elves
are very quick to notice things. But now that men had stolen a march on
them, they asked whether, after all, these human beings had more
intelligence than elves. Not one of these fairies but believed that men
and women were the inferiors of elves.

So, then and there, began a battle of wits.

"They have spoiled our dancing floor with their new invention; so we
shall have to find another," said the elfin queen, who led the party.

"They are very proud of their linen, these men are; but, without the
spider to teach them, what could they have done? Even a wild boar can
instruct these human beings. Let us show them, that we, also, can do
even more. I'll get Old Styf to put on his thinking cap. He'll add
something new that will make them prouder yet."

"But we shall get the glory of it," the elves shouted in chorus. Then
they left off talking and began their dances, floating in the air, until
they looked, from a distance, like a wreath of stars.

The next day, a procession of lovely elf maidens and mothers waited on
Styf and asked him to devise something that would excel the invention of
linen; which, after all, men had learned from the spider.

"Yes, and they would not have any grain fields, if they had not learned
from the wild boar," added the elf queen.

Old Styf answered "yes" at once to their request, and put on his red
thinking cap. Then some of the girl elves giggled, for they saw that he
did, really, look like a cock's comb. "No wonder they called him
Haan-e'-kam," said one elf girl to the other.

Now Old Styf enjoyed fooling, just for the fun of it, and he taught all
the younger elves that those who did the most work with their hands and
head, would have the most fun when they were old.

First of all, he went at once to see Fro, the spirit of the golden
sunshine and the warm summer showers, who owned two of the most
wonderful things in the world. One was his sword, which, as soon as it
was drawn out of its sheath, against wicked enemies, fought of its own
accord and won every battle. Fro's chief enemies were the frost giants,
who wilted the flowers and blasted the plants useful to man. Fro was
absent, when Styf came, but his wife promised he would come next day,
which he did. He was happy to meet all the elves and fairies, and they,
in turn, joyfully did whatever he told them. Fro knew all the secrets of
the grain fields, for he could see what was in every kernel of both the
stalks and the ripe ears. He arrived, in a golden chariot, drawn by his
wild boar which served him instead of a horse. Both chariot and boar
drove over the tops of the ears of wheat, and faster than the wind.

The Boar was named Gullin, or Golden Bristles because of its sunshiny
color and splendor. In this chariot, Fro had specimens of all the
grains, fruits, and vegetables known to man, from which Styf could
choose, for these he was accustomed to scatter over the earth.

When Styf told him just what he wanted to do, Fro picked out a sheaf of
wheat and whispered a secret in his ear. Then he drove away, in a burst
of golden glory, which dazzled even the elves, that loved the bright
sunshine. These elves were always glad to see the golden chariot coming
or passing by.

Styf also summoned to his aid the kabouters, and, from these ugly little
fellows, got some useful hints; for they, dwelling in the dark caverns,
know many secrets which men used to name alchemy, and which they now
call chemistry.

Then Styf fenced himself off from all intruders, on the top of a bright,
sunny hilltop, with his thinking cap on and made experiments for seven
days. No elves, except his servants, were allowed to see him. At the end
of a week, still keeping his secret and having instructed a dozen or so
of the elf girls in his new art, he invited all the elves in the Low
Countries to come to a great exhibition, which he intended to give.

What a funny show it was! On one long bench, were half a dozen washtubs;
and on a table, near by, were a dozen more washtubs; and on a longer
table not far away were six ironing boards, with smoothing irons. A
stove, made hot with a peat fire, was to heat the irons. Behind the tubs
and tables, stood the twelve elf maidens, all arrayed in shining white
garments and caps, as spotless as snow. One might almost think they were
white elves of the meadow and not kabouters of the mines. The wonder was
that their linen clothes were not only as dainty as stars, but that they
glistened, as if they had laid on the ground during a hoar frost.

Yet it was still warm summer. Nothing had frozen, or melted, and the
rosy-faced elf-maidens were as dry as an ivory fan. Yet they resembled
the lilies of the garden when pearly with dew-drops.

When all were gathered together, Old Styf called for some of the
company, who had come from afar, to take off their dusty and
travel-stained linen garments and give them to him. These were passed
over to the trained girls waiting to receive them. In a jiffy, they were
washed, wrung out, rinsed and dried. It was noticed that those
elf-maidens, who were standing at the last tub, were intently expecting
to do something great, while those five elf maids at the table took off
the hot irons from the stove. They touched the bottom of the flat-irons
with a drop of water to see if it rolled off hissing. They kept their
eyes fixed on Styf, who now came forward before all and said, in a loud
voice:

"Elves and fairies, moss maidens and stall sprites, one and all, behold
our invention, which our great friend Fro and our no less helpful
friends, the kabouters, have helped me to produce. Now watch me prove
its virtues."

Forthwith he produced before all a glistening substance, partly in
powder, and partly in square lumps, as white as chalk. He easily broke
up a handful under his fingers, and flung it into the fifth tub, which
had hot water in it. After dipping the washed garments in the white
gummy mass, he took them up, wrung them out, dried them with his breath,
and then handed them to the elf ironers. In a few moments, these held
up, before the company, what a few minutes before had been only dusty
and stained clothes. Now, they were white and resplendent. No fuller's
earth could have bleached them thus, nor added so glistening a surface.

It was starch, a new thing for clothes. The fairies, one and all,
clapped their hands in delight.

"What shall we name it?" modestly asked Styf of the oldest gnome
present.

"Hereafter, we shall call you Styf Sterk, Stiff Starch." They all
laughed.

Very quickly did the Dutch folks, men and women, hear and make use of
the elves' invention. Their linen closets now looked like piles of snow.
All over the Low Countries, women made caps, in new fashions, of lace or
plain linen, with horns and wings, flaps and crimps, with quilling and
with whirligigs. Soon, in every town, one could read the sign "Hier
mangled men" (Here we do ironing).

In time, kings, queens and nobles made huge ruffs, often so big that
their necks were invisible, and their heads nearly lost from sight, in
rings of quilled linen, or of lace, that stuck out a foot or so. Worldly
people dyed their starch yellow; zealous folk made it blue; but moderate
people kept it snowy white.

Starch added money and riches to the nation. Kings' treasuries became
fat with money gained by taxes laid on ruffs, and on the cargoes of
starch, which was now imported by the shipload, or made on the spot, in
many countries. So, out of the ancient grain came a new spirit that
worked for sweetness and beauty, cleanliness, and health. From a useful
substance, as old as Egypt, was born a fine art, that added to the sum
of the world's wealth and pleasure.




THE KABOUTERS AND THE BELLS


When the young queen Wilhelmina visited Brabant and Limburg, they amused
her with pageants and plays, in which the little fellows called
kabouters, in Dutch, and kobolds in German, played and showed off their
tricks. Other small folk, named gnomes, took part in the tableaux. The
kabouters are the dark elves, who live in forests and mines. The white
elves live in the open fields and the sunshine.

The gnomes do the thinking, but the kabouters carry out the work of
mining and gathering the precious stones and minerals. They are short,
thick fellows, very strong and are strenuous in digging out coal and
iron, copper and gold. When they were first made, they were so ugly,
that they had to live where they could not be seen, that is, in the dark
places. The grown imps look like old men with beards, but no one ever
heard of a kabouter that was taller than a yardstick. As for the babies,
they are hardly bigger than a man's thumb. The big boys and girls, in
the kabouter kingdom, are not much over a foot high.

[Illustration: THE MASTER OF THE CHOIR TRIED AGAIN AND AGAIN]

What is peculiar about them all is, that they help the good and wise
people to do things better; but they love to plague and punish the dull
folks, that are stupid, or foolish or naughty. In impish glee, they lure
the blockheads, or in Dutch, the "cheese-heads," to do worse.

A long time ago, there were no church spires or bells in the land of the
Dutch folks, as there are now by the thousands. The good teachers from
the South came into the country and taught the people to have better
manners, finer clothes and more wholesome food. They also persuaded them
to forget their cruel gods and habits of revenge. They told of the
Father in Heaven, who loves us all, as his children, and forgives us
when we repent of our evil doings.

Now when the chief gnomes and kabouters heard of the newcomers in the
land, they held a meeting and said one to the other:

"We shall help all the teachers that are good and kind, but we shall
plague and punish the rough fellows among them."

So word was sent to all little people in the mines and hills,
instructing them how they were to act and what they were to do.

Some of the new teachers, who were foreigners, and did not know the
customs of the country, were very rude and rough. Every day they hurt
the feelings of the people. With their axes they cut down the sacred
trees. They laughed scornfully at the holy wells and springs of water.
They reviled the people, when they prayed to great Woden, with his black
ravens that told him everything, or to the gentle Freya, with her white
doves, who helped good girls to get kind husbands. They scolded the
children at play, and this made their fathers and mothers feel
miserable. This is the reason why so many people were angry and sullen,
and would not listen to the foreign teachers.

Worse than this, many troubles came to these outsiders. Their bread was
sour, when they took it out of the oven. So was the milk, in their pans.
Sometimes they found their beds turned upside down. Gravel stones
rattled down into their fireplaces. Their hats and shoes were missing.
In fact, they had a terrible time generally and wanted to go back home.
When the kabouter has a grudge against any one, he knows how to plague
him.

But the teachers that were wise and gentle had no trouble. They
persuaded the people with kind words, and, just as a baby learns to eat
other food at the table, so the people were weaned away from cruel
customs and foolish beliefs. Many of the land's folk came to listen to
the teachers and helped them gladly to build churches.

More wonderful than this, were the good things that came to these kind
teachers, they knew not how. Their bread and milk were always sweet and
in plenty. They found their beds made up and their clothes kept clean,
gardens planted with blooming flowers, and much hard work done for them.
When they would build a church in a village, they wondered how it was
that the wood and the nails, the iron necessary to brace the beams, and
the copper and brass for the sacred vessels, came so easily and in
plenty. When, on some nights, they wondered where they would get food to
eat, they found, on waking up in the morning, that there was always
something good ready for them. Thus many houses of worship were built,
and the more numerous were the churches, the more did farms, cows, grain
fields, and happy people multiply.

Now when the gnomes and kabouters, who like to do work for pleasant
people, heard that the good teachers wanted church bells, to call the
people to worship, they resolved to help the strangers. They would make
not only a bell, or a chime, but, actually a carillon, or concert of
bells to hang up in the air.

The dark dwarfs did not like to dig metal for swords or spears, or what
would hurt people; but the church bells would guide travellers in the
forest, and quiet the storms, that destroyed houses and upset boats and
killed or drowned people, besides inviting the people to come and pray
and sing. They knew that the good teachers were poor and could not buy
bells in France or Italy. Even if they had money, they could not get
them through the thick forests, or over the stormy seas, for they were
too heavy.

When all the kabouters were told of this, they came together to work,
night and day, in the mines. With pick and shovel, crowbar and chisel,
and hammer and mallet, they broke up the rocks containing copper and
tin. Then they built great roaring fires, to smelt the ore into ingots.
They would show the teachers that the Dutch kabouters could make bells,
as well as the men in the lands of the South. These dwarfish people are
jealous of men and very proud of what they can do.

It was the funniest sight to see these short legged fellows, with tiny
coats coming just below their thighs, and little red caps, looking like
a stocking and ending in a tassel, on their heads, and in shoes that had
no laces, but very long points. They flew around as lively as monkeys,
and when the fire was hot they threw off everything and worked much
harder and longer than men do.

Were they like other fairies? Well, hardly. One must put away all his
usual thoughts, when he thinks of kabouters. No filmy wings on their
backs! No pretty clothes or gauzy garments, or stars, or crowns, or
wands! Instead of these were hammers, pickaxes, and chisels. But how
diligent, useful and lively these little folks, in plain, coarse coats
and with bare legs, were! In place of things light, clean and easy, the
kabouters had furnaces, crucibles and fires of coal and wood.

Sometimes they were grimy, with smoke and coal dust, and the sweat ran
down their faces and bodies. Yet there was always plenty of water in the
mines, and when hard work was over they washed and looked plain but
tidy. Besides their stores of gold, and silver, and precious stones,
which they kept ready, to give to good people, they had tools with which
to tease or tantalize cruel, mean or lazy folks.

Now when the kabouter daddies began the roaring fires for the making of
the bells, the little mothers and the small fry in the kabouter world
could not afford to be idle. One and all, they came down from off the
earth, and into the mines they went in a crowd. They left off teasing
milkmaids, tangling skeins of flax, tearing fishermen's nets, tying
knots in cows' tails, tumbling pots, pans and dishes, in the kitchen, or
hiding hats, and throwing stones down the chimneys onto the fireplaces.
They even ceased their fun of mocking children, who were calling the
cows home, by hiding behind the rocks and shouting to them. Instead of
these tricks, they saved their breath to blow the fires into a blast.
Everybody wondered where the "kabs" were, for on the farms and in town
nothing happened and all was as quiet as when a baby is asleep.

For days and weeks underground, the dwarfs toiled, until their skins,
already dark, became as sooty as the rafters in the houses of our
ancestors. Finally, when all the labor was over, the chief gnomes were
invited down into the mines to inspect the work.

What a sight! There were at least a hundred bells, of all sizes, like as
in a family; where there are daddy, mother, grown ups, young sons and
daughters, little folk and babies, whether single, twins or triplets.
Big bells, that could scarcely be put inside a hogshead, bells that
would go into a barrel, bells that filled a bushel, and others a peck,
stood in rows. From the middle, and tapering down the row, were scores
more, some of them no larger than cow-bells. Others, at the end, were so
small, that one had to think of pint and gill measures.

Besides all these, there were stacks of iron rods and bars, bolts, nuts,
screws, and wires and yokes on which to hang the bells.

One party of the strongest of the kabouters had been busy in the forest,
close to a village, where some men, ordered to do so by a foreign
teacher, had begun to cut down some of the finest and most sacred of the
grand old trees. They had left their tools in the woods; but the "kabs,"
at night, seized their axes and before morning, without making any
noise, they had levelled all but the holy trees. Those they spared.
Then, the timber, all cut and squared, ready to hold the bells, was
brought to the mouth of the mine.

Now in Dutch, the name for bell is "klok." So a wise and gray-bearded
gnome was chosen by the high sounding title of klokken-spieler, or bell
player, to test the bells for a carillon. They were all hung, for
practice, on the big trestles, in a long row. Each one of these frames
was called a "hang," for they were just like those on which fishermen's
nets were laid to dry and be mended.

So when all were ready, washed, and in their clean clothes, every one of
the kabouter families, daddies, mothers, and young ones, were ranged in
lines and made to sing. The heavy male tenors and baritones, the female
sopranos and contraltos, the trebles of the little folks, and the
squeaks of the very small children, down to the babies' cooing, were all
heard by the gnomes, who were judges. The high and mighty
klokken-spieler, or master of the carillon, chose those voices with best
tone and quality, from which to set in order and regulate the bells.

It was pitiful to see how mad and jealous some of the kabouters, both
male and female, were, when they were not appointed to the first row, in
which were some of the biggest of the males, and some of the fattest of
the females. Then the line tapered off, to forty or fifty young folks,
including urchins of either sex, down to mere babies, that could hardly
stand. These had bibs on and had to be held up by their fond mothers.
Each one by itself could squeal and squall, coo and crow lustily; but,
at a distance, their voices blended and the noise they made sounded like
a tinkle.

All being ready, the old gnome bit his tuning fork, hummed a moment, and
then started a tune. Along the line, at a signal from the chief gnome,
they started a tune.

In the long line, there were, at first, booms and peals, twanging and
clanging, jangling and wrangling, making such a clangor that it sounded
more like an uproar than an opera. The chief gnome was almost
discouraged.

But neither a gnome nor a kabouter ever gives up. The master of the
choir tried again and again. He scolded one old daddy, for singing too
low. He frowned at a stalwart young fellow, who tried to drown out all
the rest with his bull-like bellow. He shook his finger at a kabouter
girl, that was flirting with a handsome lad near her. He cheered up the
little folks, encouraging them to hold up their voices, until finally he
had all in order. Then they practiced, until the master gnome thought he
had his scale of notation perfect and gave orders to attune the bells.
To the delight of all the gnomes, kabouters and elves, that had been
invited to the concert, the rows of bells, a hundred or more, from
boomers to tinklers, made harmony. Strung one above the other, they
could render merriment, or sadness, in solos, peals, chimes, cascades
and carillons, with sweetness and effect. At the low notes the babies
called out "cow, cow;" but at the high notes, "bird, bird."

So it happened that, on the very day that the bishop had his great
church built, with a splendid bulb spire on the top, and all nicely
furnished within, but without one bell to ring in it, that the kabouters
planned a great surprise.

It was night. The bishop was packing his saddle bags, ready to take a
journey, on horseback, to Rheims. At this city, the great caravans from
India and China ended, bringing to the annual fair, rugs, spices, gems,
and things Oriental, and the merchants of Rheims rolled in gold. Here
the bishop would beg the money, or ask for a bell, or chimes.

Suddenly, in the night, while in his own house, there rang out music in
the air, such as the bishop had never heard in Holland, or in any of the
seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. Not even in the old lands,
France, or Spain, or Italy, where the Christian teachers, builders and
singers, and the music of the bells had long been heard, had such a
flood of sweet sounds ever fallen on human ears. Here, in these northern
regions, rang out, not a solo, nor a peal, nor a chime, nor even a
cascade, from one bell, or from many bells; but, a long programme of
richest music in the air--something which no other country, however rich
or old, possessed. It was a carillon, that is, a continued mass of real
music, in which whole tunes, songs, and elaborate pieces of such length,
mass and harmony, as only a choir of many voices, a band of music, or an
orchestra of many performers could produce.

To get this grand work of hanging in the spire done in one night, and
before daylight, also, required a whole regiment of fairy toilers, who
must work like bees. For if one ray of sunshine struck any one of the
kabouters, he was at once petrified. The light elves lived in the
sunshine and thrived on it; but for dark elves, like the kabouters,
whose home was underground, sunbeams were as poisoned arrows bringing
sure death; for by these they were turned into stone. Happily the task
was finished before the eastern sky grew gray, or the cocks crowed.
While it was yet dark, the music in the air flooded the earth. The
people in their beds listened with rapture.

"Laus Deo" (Praise God), devoutly cried the surprised bishop. "It sounds
like a choir of angels. Surely the cherubim and seraphim are here. Now
is fulfilled the promise of the Psalmist: 'The players on instruments
shall be there.'"

So, from this beginning, so mysterious to the rough, unwise and stupid
teachers, but, by degrees, clearer to the tactful ones, who were kind
and patient, the carillons spread over all the region between the
forests of Ardennes and the island in the North Sea. The Netherlands
became the land of melodious symphonies and of tinkling bells. No town,
however poor, but in time had its carillon. Every quarter of an hour,
the sweet music of hymn or song, made the air vocal, while at the
striking of the hours, the pious bowed their heads and the workmen heard
the call for rest, or they took cheer, because their day's toil was
over. At sunrise, noon, or sunset, the Angelus, and at night the curfew
sounded their calls.

It grew into a fashion, that, on stated days, great concerts were given,
lasting over an hour, when the grand works of the masters of music were
rendered and famous carillon players came from all over the Netherlands,
to compete for prizes. The Low Countries became a famous school, in
which klokken-spielers (bell players) by scores were trained. Thus no
kingdom, however rich or great, ever equalled the Land of the Carillon,
in making the air sweet with both melody and harmony.

Nobody ever sees a kabouter nowadays, for in the new world, when the
woods are nearly all cut down, the world made by the steam engine, and
telegraph, and wireless message, the automobile, aeroplane and
submarine, cycle and under-sea boat, the little folks in the mines and
forests are forgotten. The chemists, miners, engineers and learned men
possess the secrets which were once those of the fairies only. Yet the
artists and architects, the clockmakers and bellfounders, who love
beauty, remember what their fathers once thought and believed. That is
the reason why, on many a famous clock, either in front of the dial or
near the pendulum, are figures of the gnomes, who thought, and the
kabouters who wrought, to make the carillons. In Teuton lands, where
their cousins are named kobolds, and in France where they are called
fée, and in England brownies, they have tolling and ringing of bells,
with peals, chimes and cascades of sweet sound; but the Netherlands,
still, above all others on earth, is the home of the carillon.




THE WOMAN WITH THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX CHILDREN


Long, long ago, before the oldest stork was young and big deer and
little fawns were very many in the Dutch forests, there was a pond,
famous for its fish, which lay in the very heart of Holland, with woods
near by. Hunters came with their bows and arrows to hunt the stags. Or,
out of the bright waters, boys and men in the sunshine drew out the fish
with shining scales, or lured the trout, with fly-bait, from their
hiding places. In those days the fish-pond was called the Vijver, and
the woods where the deer ran, Rensselaer, or the Deer's Lair.

So, because the forests of oak, and beech, and alder trees were so fine,
and game on land and in water so plentiful, the lord of the country came
here and built his castle. He made a hedge around his estate, so that
the people called the place the Count's Hedge; or, as we say, The Hague.

Even to-day, within the beautiful city, the forests, with their grand
old trees, still remain, and the fish-pond, called the Vijver, is there
yet, with its swans. On the little island, the fluffy, downy cygnets are
born and grow to be big birds, with long necks, bent like an arch. In
another part of the town, also, with their trees for nesting, and their
pond for wading, are children of the same storks, whose fathers and
mothers lived there before America was discovered.

By and by, many people of rank and fortune came to The Hague, for its
society. They built their grand houses at the slope of the hill, not far
away from the Vijver, and in time a city grew up.

It was a fine sight to see the lords and ladies riding out from the
castle into the country. The cavalcade was very splendid, when they went
hawking. There were pretty women on horseback, and gentlemen in velvet
clothes, with feathers in their hats, and the horses seemed proud to
bear them. The falconers followed on foot, with the hunting birds
perched on a hoop, which the man inside the circle carried round him.
Each falcon had on a little cap or hood, which was fastened over its
head. When this was taken off, it flew high up into the air, on its hunt
for the big and little birds, which it brought down for its masters.
There were also men with dogs, to beat the reeds and bushes, and drive
the smaller birds from shelter. The huntsmen were armed with spears,
lest a wild boar, or bear, should rush out and attack them. It was
always a merry day, when a hawking party, in their fine clothes and gay
trappings, started out.

There were huts, as well as palaces, and poor people, also, at The
Hague. Among these, was a widow, whose twin babies were left without
anything to eat--for her husband and their father had been killed in the
war. Having no money to buy a cradle, and her babies being too young to
be left alone, she put the pair of little folks on her back and went out
to beg.

Now there was a fine lady, a Countess, who lived with her husband, the
Count, near the Vijver. She was childless and very jealous of other
women who were mothers and had children playing around them. On this
day, when the beggar woman, with her two babies on her back, came along,
the grand lady was in an unusually bad temper. For all her pretty
clothes, she was not a person of fine manners. Indeed, she often acted
more like a snarling dog, ready to snap at any one who should speak to
her. Although she had cradles and nurses and lovely baby clothes all
ready, there was no baby. This spoiled her disposition, so that her
husband and the servants could hardly live with her.

One day, after dinner, when there had been everything good to eat and
drink on her table, and plenty of it, the Countess went out to walk in
front of her house. It was the third day of January, but the weather was
mild. The beggar woman, with her two babies on her back and their arms
round her neck, crying with hunger, came trudging along. She went into
the garden and asked the Countess for food or an alms. She expected
surely, at least a slice of bread, a cup of milk, or a small coin.

But the Countess was rude to her and denied her both food and money. She
even burst into a bad temper, and reviled the woman for having two
children, instead of one.

"Where did you get those brats? They are not yours. You just brought
them here to play on my feelings and excite my jealousy. Begone!"

But the poor woman kept her temper. She begged piteously and said: "For
the love of Heaven, feed my babies, even if you will not feed me."

"No! they are not yours. You're a cheat," said the fine lady, nursing
her rage.

"Indeed, Madame, they are both my children and born on one day. They
have one father, but he is dead. He was killed in the war, while serving
his grace, your husband."

"Don't tell me such a story," snapped back the Countess, now in a fury.
"I don't believe that any one, man or woman, could have two children at
once. Away with you," and she seized a stick to drive off the poor
woman.

Now, it was the turn of the beggar to answer back. Both had lost their
temper, and the two angry women seemed more like she-bears robbed of
their whelps.

"Heaven punish you, you wicked, cruel, cold-hearted woman," cried the
mother. Her two babies were almost choking her in their eagerness for
food. Yet their cries never moved the rich lady, who had bread and good
things to spare, while their poor parent had not a drop of milk to give
them. The Countess now called her men-servants to drive the beggar away.
This they did, most brutally. They pushed the poor woman outside the
garden gate and closed it behind her. As she turned away, the poor
mother, taking each of her children by its back, one in each hand, held
them up before the grand lady and cried out loudly, so that all heard
her:

"May you have as many children as there are days in the year."

Now with all her wrath burning in her breast, what the beggar woman
really meant was this: It was the third of January, and so there were
but three days in the year, so far. She intended to say that, instead of
having to care for two children, the Countess might have the trouble of
rearing three, and all born on the same day.

But the fine lady, in her mansion, cared nothing for the beggar woman's
words. Why should she? She had her lordly husband, who was a count, and
he owned thousands of acres. Besides, she possessed vast riches. In her
great house, were ten men-servants and thirty-one maid-servants,
together with her rich furniture, and fine clothes and jewels. The lofty
brick church, to which she went on Sundays, was hung with the coats of
arms of her famous ancestors. The stone floor, with its great slabs, was
so grandly carved with the crests and heraldry of her family, that to
walk over these was like climbing a mountain, or tramping across a
ploughed field. Common folks had to be careful, lest they should stumble
over the bosses and knobs of the carved tombs. A long train of her
servants, and tenants on the farms followed her, when she went to
worship. Inside the church, the lord and lady sat, in high seats, on
velvet cushions and under a canopy.

By the time summer had come, according to the fashion in all good Dutch
families, all sorts of pretty baby clothes were made ready. There were
soft, warm, swaddling bands, tiny socks, and long white linen dresses. A
baptismal blanket, covered with silk, was made for the christening, and
daintily embroidered. Plenty of lace, and pink and blue ribbons--pink
for a girl and blue for a boy--were kept at hand. And, because there
might be twins, a double set of garments was provided, besides baby
bathtubs and all sorts of nice things for the little stranger or
strangers--whether one or two--to come. Even the names were chosen--one
for a boy and the other for a girl. Would it be Wilhelm or Wilhelmina?

It was real fun to think over the names, but it was hard to choose out
of so many. At last, the Countess crossed off all but forty-six; or the
following; nearly every girl's name ending in _je_, as in our
"Polly," "Sallie."

       _Girls_                        _Boys_

  Magtel        Catharyna         Gerrit          Gysbert
  Nelletje      Alida             Cornelis        Jausze
  Zelia         Annatje           Volkert         Myndert
  Jannetje      Christina         Kilian          Adrian
  Zara          Katrina           Johannes        Joachim
  Marytje       Bethje            Petrus          Arendt
  Willemtje     Eva               Barent          Dirck
  Geertruy      Dirkje            Wessel          Nikolaas
  Petronella    Mayken            Hendrik         Staats
  Margrieta     Hilleke           Teunis          Gozen
  Josina        Bethy             Wouter          Willemtje
                                  Japik           Evert

But before the sun set on the expected day, it was neither one boy nor
one girl, nor both; nor were all the forty-six names chosen sufficient;
for the beggar woman's wish had come true, in a way not expected. There
were as many as, and no fewer children than, there were days in the
year; and, since this was leap year, there were three hundred and
sixty-six little folks in the house; so that other names, besides the
forty-six, had to be used.

Yet none of these wee creatures was bigger than a mouse. Beginning at
daylight, one after another appeared--first a girl and then a boy; so
that after the forty-eighth, the nurse was at her wit's end, to give
them names. It was not possible to keep the little babies apart. The
thirty-one servant maids of the mansion were all called in to help in
sorting out the girls from the boys; but soon it seemed hopeless to try
to pick out Peter from Henry, or Catalina from Annetje. After an hour or
two spent at the task, and others coming along, the women found that it
was useless to try any longer. It was found that little Piet, Jan and
Klaas, Hank, Douw and Japik, among the boys; and Molly, Mayka, Lena,
Elsje, Annatje and Marie were getting all mixed up. So they gave up the
attempt in despair. Besides, the supply of pink and blue ribbons had
given out long before, after the first dozen or so were born. As for
the baby clothes made ready, they were of no use, for all the garments
were too big. In one of the long dresses, tied up like a bag, one might
possibly, with stuffing, have put the whole family of three hundred and
sixty-six brothers and sisters.

It was not likely such small fry of human beings could live long. So,
the good Bishop Guy, of Utrecht, when he heard that the beggar woman's
curse had come true, in so unexpected a manner, ordered that the babies
should be all baptized at once. The Count, who was strict in his ideas
of both custom and church law, insisted on it too.

So nothing would do but to carry the tiny infants to church. How to get
them there, was a question. The whole house had been rummaged to provide
things to carry the little folks in: but the supply of trays, and mince
pie dishes, and crocks, was exhausted at the three hundred and sixtieth
baby. So there was left only a Turk's Head, or round glazed earthen
dish, fluted and curved, which looked like the turban of a Turk. Hence
its name. Into this, the last batch of babies, or extra six girls, were
stowed. Curiously enough, number 366 was an inch taller than the others.
To thirty house maids was given a tray, for each was to carry twelve
mannikins, and one the last six, in the Turk's Head. Instead of rich
silk blankets a wooden tray, and no clothes on, must suffice.

In the Groote Kerk, or Great Church, the Bishop was waiting, with his
assistants, holding brass basins full of holy water, for the
christening. All the town, including the dogs, were out to see what was
going on. Many boys and girls climbed up on the roofs of the one-story
houses, or in the trees to get a better view of the curious
procession--the like of which had never been seen in The Hague before.
Neither has anything like it ever been seen since.

So the parade began. First went the Count, with his captains and the
trumpeters, blowing their trumpets. These were followed by the
men-servants, all dressed in their best Sunday clothes, who had the
crest and arms of their master, the Count, on their backs and breasts.
Then came on the company of thirty-one maids, each one carrying a tray,
on which were twelve mannikins, or minikins. Twenty of these trays were
round and made of wood, lined with velvet, smooth and soft; but ten were
of earthenware, oblong in shape, like a manger. In these, every year,
were baked the Christmas pies.

At first, all went on finely, for the outdoor air seemed to put the
babies asleep and there was no crying. But no sooner were they inside
the church, than about two hundred of the brats began wailing and
whimpering. Pretty soon, they set up such a squall that the Count felt
ashamed of his progeny and the Bishop looked very unhappy.

To make matters worse, one of the maids, although warned of the danger,
stumbled over the helmet of an old crusader, carved in stone, that rose
some six inches or so above the floor. In a moment, she fell and lay
sprawling, spilling out at least a dozen babies. "Heilige Mayke" (Holy
Mary!), she cried, as she rolled over. "Have I killed them?"

Happily the wee ones were thrown against the long-trained gown of an old
lady walking directly in front of her, so that they were unhurt. They
were easily picked up and laid on the tray again, and once more the line
started.

Happily the Bishop had been notified that he would not have to call out
the names of all the infants, that is, three hundred and sixty-six; for
this would have kept him at the solemn business all day long. It had
been arranged that, instead of any on the list of the chosen forty-six,
to be so named, all the boys should be called John, and all the girls
Elizabeth; or, in Dutch, Jan and Lisbet, or Lizbethje. Yet even to say
"John" one hundred and eighty times, and "Lisbet" one hundred and
eighty-six times, nearly tired the old gentleman to death, for he was
fat and slow.

So, after the first six trays full of wee folks had been sprinkled, one
at a time, the Bishop decided to "asperse" them, that is, shake, from a
mop or brush, the holy water, on a tray full of babies at one time. So
he called for the "aspersorium." Then, clipping this in the basin of
holy water, he scattered the drops over the wee folk, until all, even
the six extra girl babies in the Turk's Head, were sprinkled. Probably,
because the Bishop thought a Turk was next door to a heathen, he dropped
more water than usual on these last six, until the young ones squealed
lustily with the cold. It was noted, on the contrary, that the little
folks in the mince pie dishes were gently handled, as if the good man
had visions of Christmas coming and the good things on the table.

Yet it was evident that such tiny people could not bear what healthy
babies of full size would think nothing of. Whether it was because of
the damp weather, or the cold air in the brick church, or too much
excitement, or because there were not three hundred and sixty-six
nurses, or milk bottles ready, it came to pass that every one of the wee
creatures died when the sun went down.

Just where they were buried is not told, but, for hundreds of years,
there was, in one of The Hague churches, a monument in honor of these
little folks, who lived but a day. It was graven with portraits in stone
of the Count and Countess and told of their children, as many as the
days of the year. Near by, were hung up the two basins, in which the
holy water, used by the Bishop, in sprinkling the babies, was held. The
year, month and day of the wonderful event were also engraved. Many and
many people from various lands came to visit the tomb. The guide books
spoke of it, and tender women wept, as they thought how three hundred
and sixty-six little cradles, in the Count's castle, would have looked,
had each baby lived.




THE ONI ON HIS TRAVELS


Across the ocean, in Japan, there once lived curious creatures called
Onis. Every Japanese boy and girl has heard of them, though one has not
often been caught. In one museum, visitors could see the hairy leg of a
specimen. Falling out of the air in a storm, the imp had lost his limb.
It had been torn off by being caught in the timber side of a well curb.
The story-teller was earnestly assured by one Japanese lad that his
grandfather had seen it tumble from the clouds.

Many people are sure that the Onis live in the clouds and occasionally
fall off, during a peal of thunder. Then they escape and hide down in a
well. Or, they get loose in the kitchen, rattle the dishes around, and
make a great racket. They behave like cats, with a dog after them. They
do a great deal of mischief, but not much harm. There are even some old
folks who say that, after all, Onis are only unruly children, that
behave like angels in the morning and act like imps in the afternoon. So
we see that not much is known about the Onis.

Many things that go wrong are blamed on the Onis. Foolish folks, such as
stupid maid-servants, and dull-witted fellows, that blunder a good deal,
declare that the Onis made them do it. Drunken men, especially, that
stumble into mud-holes at night, say the Onis pushed them in. Naughty
boys that steal cake, and girls that take sugar, often tell fibs to
their parents, charging it on the Onis.

The Onis love to play jokes on people, but they are not dangerous. There
are plenty of pictures of them in Japan, though they never sat for their
portraits, but this is the way they looked.

Some Onis have only one eye in their forehead, others two, and, once in
a while, a big fellow has three. There are little, short horns on their
heads, but these are no bigger than those on a baby deer and never grow
long. The hair on their heads gets all snarled up, just like a little
girl's that cries when her tangled tresses are combed out; for the Onis
make use of neither brushes nor looking glasses. As for their faces,
they never wash them, so they look sooty. Their skin is rough, like an
elephant's. On each of their feet are only three toes. Whether an Oni
has a nose, or a snout, is not agreed upon by the learned men who have
studied them.

No one ever heard of an Oni being higher than a yardstick, but they are
so strong that one of them can easily lift two bushel bags of rice at
once. In Japan, they steal the food offered to the idols. They can live
without air. They like nothing better than to drink both the rice spirit
called saké, and the black liquid called soy, of which only a few drops,
as a sauce on fish, are enough for a man. Of this sauce, the Dutch, as
well as the Japanese, are very fond.

Above all things else, the most fun for a young Oni is to get into a
crockery shop. Once there, he jumps round among the cups and dishes,
hides in the jars, straddles the shelves and turns somersaults over the
counter. In fact, the Oni is only a jolly little imp. The Japanese
girls, on New Year's eve, throw handfuls of dried beans in every room of
the house and cry, "In, with good luck; and out with you, Onis!" Yet
they laugh merrily all the time. The Onis cannot speak, but they can
chatter like monkeys. They often seem to be talking to each other in
gibberish.

Now it once happened in Japan that the great Tycoon of the country
wanted to make a present to the Prince of the Dutch. So he sent all over
the land, from the sweet potato fields in the south to the seal and
salmon waters in the north, to get curiosities of all sorts. The
products of Japan, from the warm parts, where grow the indigo and the
sugar cane, to the cold regions, in which are the bear and walrus, were
sent as gifts to go to the Land of Dykes and Windmills. The Japanese had
heard that the Dutch people like cheese, walk in wooden shoes, eat with
forks, instead of chopsticks, and the women wear twenty petticoats
apiece, while the men sport jackets with two gold buttons, and folks
generally do things the other way from that which was common in Japan.

Now it chanced that while they were packing the things that were piled
up in the palace at Yedo, a young Oni, with his horns only half grown,
crawled into the kitchen, at night, through the big bamboo water pipe
near the pump. Pretty soon he jumped into the storeroom. There, the
precious cups, vases, lacquer boxes, pearl-inlaid pill-holders, writing
desks, jars of tea, and bales of silk, were lying about, ready to be put
into their cases. The yellow wrappings for covering the pretty things of
gold and silver, bronze and wood, and the rice chaff, for the packing of
the porcelain, were all at hand. What a jolly time the Oni did have, in
tumbling them about and rolling over them! Then he leaped like a monkey
from one vase to another. He put on a lady's gay silk kimono and wrapped
himself around with golden embroidery. Then he danced and played the
game of the Ka-gu'-ra, or Lion of Korea, pretending to make love to a
girl-Oni. Such funny capers as he did cut! It would have made a cat
laugh to see him. It was broad daylight, before his pranks were over,
and the Dutch church chimes were playing the hour of seven.

Suddenly the sound of keys in the lock told him that, in less than a
minute, the door would open.

Where should he hide? There was no time to be lost. So he seized some
bottles of soy from the kitchen shelf and then jumped into the big
bottom drawer of a ladies' cabinet, and pulled it shut.

"Namu Amida" (Holy Buddha!), cried the man that opened the door. "Who
has been here? It looks like a rat's picnic."

However, the workmen soon came and set everything to rights. Then they
packed up the pretty things. They hammered down the box lids and before
night the Japanese curiosities were all stored in the hold of a swift,
Dutch ship, from Nagasaki, bound for Rotterdam. After a long voyage, the
vessel arrived safely in good season, and the boxes were sent on to The
Hague, or capital city. As the presents were for the Prince, they were
taken at once to the pretty palace, called the House in the Wood. There
they were unpacked and set on exhibition for the Prince and Princess to
see the next day.

When the palace maid came in next morning to clean up the floor and dust
the various articles, her curiosity led her to pull open the drawer of
the ladies' cabinet; when out jumped something hairy. It nearly
frightened the girl out of her wits. It was the Oni, which rushed off
and down stairs, tumbling over a half dozen servants, who were sitting
at their breakfast. All started to run except the brave butler, who
caught up a carving knife and showed fight. Seeing this, the Oni ran
down into the cellar, hoping to find some hole or crevice for escape.
All around, were shelves filled with cheeses, jars of sour-krout,
pickled herring, and stacks of fresh rye bread standing in the corners.
But oh! how they did smell in his Japanese nostrils! Oni, as he was, he
nearly fainted, for no such odors had ever beaten upon his nose, when in
Japan. Even at the risk of being carved into bits, he must go back. So
up into the kitchen again he ran. Happily, the door into the garden
stood wide open.

Grabbing a fresh bottle of soy from the kitchen shelf, the Oni, with a
hop, skip and jump, reached outdoors. Seeing a pair of klomps, or wooden
shoes, near the steps, the Oni put his pair of three toes into them, to
keep the dogs from scenting its tracks. Then he ran into the fields,
hiding among the cows, until he heard men with pitchforks coming. At
once the Oni leaped upon a cow's back and held on to its horns, while
the poor animal ran for its life into its stall, in the cow stable,
hoping to brush the monster off.

The dairy farmer's wife was at that moment pulling open her bureau
drawer, to put on a new clean lace cap. Hearing her favorite cow moo and
bellow, she left the drawer open and ran to look through the pane of
glass in the kitchen. Through this, she could peep, at any minute, to
see whether this or that cow, or its calf, was sick or well.

Meanwhile, at the House in the Wood, the Princess, hearing the maid
scream and the servants in an uproar, rushed out in her embroidered
white nightie, to ask who, and what, and why, and wherefore. All
different and very funny were the answers of maid, butler, cook, valet
and boots.

The first maid, who had pulled open the drawer and let the Oni get out,
held up broom and duster, as if to take oath. She declared:

"It was a monkey, or baboon; but he seemed to talk--Russian, I think."

"No," said the butler. "I heard the creature--a black ram, running on
its hind legs; but its language was German, I'm sure."

The cook, a fat Dutch woman, told a long story. She declared, on honor,
that it was a black dog like a Chinese pug, that has no hair. However,
she had only seen its back, but she was positive the creature talked
English, for she heard it say "soy."

The valet honestly avowed that he was too scared to be certain of
anything, but was ready to swear that to his ears the words uttered
seemed to be Swedish. He had once heard sailors from Sweden talking, and
the chatter sounded like their lingo.

Then there was Boots, the errand boy, who believed that it was the
Devil; but, whatever or whoever it was, he was ready to bet a week's
wages that its lingo was all in French.

Now when the Princess found that not one of her servants could speak or
understand any language but their own, she scolded them roundly in
Dutch, and wound up by saying, "You're a lot of cheese-heads, all of
you."

Then she arranged the wonderful things from the Far East, with her own
dainty hands, until the House in the Wood was fragrant with Oriental
odors, and soon it became famous throughout all Europe. Even when her
grandchildren played with the pretty toys from the land of Fuji and
flowers, of silk and tea, cherry blossoms and camphor trees, it was not
only the first but the finest Japanese collection in all Europe.

Meanwhile, the Oni, in a strange land, got into one trouble after
another. In rushed men with clubs, but as an Oni was well used to seeing
these at home, he was not afraid. He could outrun, outjump, or outclimb
any man, easily. The farmer's vrouw (wife) nearly fainted when the Oni
leaped first into her room and then into her bureau drawer. As he did
so, the bottle of soy, held in his three-fingered paw, hit the wood and
the dark liquid, as black as tar, ran all over the nicely starched
laces, collars and nightcaps. Every bit of her quilled and crimped
hear-gear and neckwear, once as white as snow, was ruined.

"Donder en Bliksem" (thunder and lightning), cried the vrouw. "There's
my best cap, that cost twenty guilders, utterly ruined." Then she
bravely ran for the broomstick.

The Oni caught sight of what he thought was a big hole in the wall and
ran into it. Seeing the blue sky above, he began to climb up. Now there
were no chimneys in Japan and he did not know what this was. The soot
nearly blinded and choked him. So he slid down and rushed out, only to
have his head nearly cracked by the farmer's wife, who gave him a whack
of her broomstick. She thought it was a crazy goat that she was
fighting. She first drove the Oni into the cellar and then bolted the
door.

An hour later, the farmer got a gun and loaded it. Then, with his hired
man he came near, one to pull open the door, and the other to shoot.
What they expected to find was a monster.

But no! So much experience, even within an hour, of things unknown in
Japan, including chimneys, had been too severe for the poor, lonely,
homesick Oni. There it lay dead on the floor, with its three fingers
held tightly to its snout and closing it. So much cheese, zuur kool
(sour krout), gin (schnapps), advocaat (brandy and eggs), cows' milk,
both sour and fresh, wooden shoes, lace collars and crimped neckwear,
with the various smells, had turned both the Oni's head and his stomach.
The very sight of these strange things being so unusual, gave the Oni
first fright, and then a nervous attack, while the odors, such as had
never tortured his nose before, had finished him.

The wise men of the village were called together to hold an inquest.
After summoning witnesses, and cross-examining them and studying the
strange creature, their verdict was that it could be nothing less than a
_Hersen Schim_, that is, a spectre of the brain. They meant by this
that there was no such animal.

However, a man from Delft, who followed the business of a knickerbocker,
or baker of knickers, or clay marles, begged the body of the Oni. He
wanted it to serve as a model for a new gargoyle, or rain spout, for the
roof of churches. Carved in stone, or baked in clay, which turns red and
is called terra cotta, the new style of monster became very popular. The
knickerbocker named it after a new devil, that had been expelled by the
prayers of the saints, and speedily made a fortune, by selling it to
stone cutters and architects. So for one real Oni, that died and was
buried in Dutch soil, there are thousands of imaginary ones, made of
baked clay, or stone, in the Dutch land, where things, more funny than
in fairy-land, constantly take place.

The dead Japanese Oni serving as a model, which was made into a water
gutter, served more useful purposes, for a thousand years, than ever he
had done, in the land where his relations still live and play their
pranks.




THE LEGEND OF THE WOODEN SHOE


In years long gone, too many for the almanac to tell of, or for clocks
and watches to measure, millions of good fairies came down from the sun
and went into the earth. There, they changed themselves into roots and
leaves, and became trees. There were many kinds of these, as they
covered the earth, but the pine and birch, ash and oak, were the chief
ones that made Holland. The fairies that lived in the trees bore the
name of Moss Maidens, or Tree "Trintjes," which is the Dutch pet name
for Kate, or Katharine.

The oak was the favorite tree, for people lived then on acorns, which
they ate roasted, boiled or mashed, or made into meal, from which
something like bread was kneaded and baked. With oak bark, men tanned
hides and made leather, and, from its timber, boats and houses. Under
its branches, near the trunk, people laid their sick, hoping for help
from the gods. Beneath the oak boughs, also, warriors took oaths to be
faithful to their lords, women made promises, or wives joined hand in
hand around its girth, hoping to have beautiful children. Up among its
leafy branches the new babies lay, before they were found in the cradle
by the other children. To make a young child grow up to be strong and
healthy, mothers drew them through a split sapling or young tree. Even
more wonderful, as medicine for the country itself, the oak had power to
heal. The new land sometimes suffered from disease called the _val_
(or fall). When sick with the _val_, the ground sunk. Then people,
houses, churches, barns and cattle all went down, out of sight, and were
lost forever, in a flood of water.

But the oak, with its mighty roots, held the soil firm. Stories of dead
cities, that had tumbled beneath the waves, and of the famous Forest of
Reeds, covering a hundred villages, which disappeared in one night, were
known only too well.

Under the birch tree, lovers met to plight their vows, and on its smooth
bark was often cut the figure of two hearts joined in one. In summer,
the forest furnished shade, and in winter warmth from the fire. In the
spring time, the new leaves were a wonder, and in autumn the pigs grew
fat on the mast, or the acorns, that had dropped on the ground.

So, for thousands of years, when men made their home in the forest, and
wanted nothing else, the trees were sacred.

But by and by, when cows came into the land and sheep and horses
multiplied, more open ground was needed for pasture, grain fields and
meadows. Fruit trees, bearing apples and pears, peaches and cherries,
were planted, and grass, wheat, rye and barley were grown. Then, instead
of the dark woods, men liked to have their gardens and orchards open to
the sunlight. Still, the people were very rude, and all they had on
their bare feet were rough bits of hard leather, tied on through their
toes; though most of them went barefooted.

The forests had to be cut down. Men were so busy with the axe, that in a
few years, the Wood Land was gone. Then the new "Holland," with its
people and red roofed houses, with its chimneys and windmills, and dykes
and storks, took the place of the old Holt Land of many trees.

Now there was a good man, a carpenter and very skilful with his tools,
who so loved the oak that he gave himself, and his children after him,
the name of Eyck, which is pronounced Ike, and is Dutch for oak. When,
before his neighbors and friends, according to the beautiful Dutch
custom, he called his youngest born child, to lay the corner-stone of
his new house, he bestowed upon her, before them all, the name of
Neeltje (or Nellie) Van Eyck.

The carpenter daddy continued to mourn over the loss of the forests. He
even shed tears, fearing lest, by and by, there should not one oak tree
be left in the country. Moreover, he was frightened at the thought that
the new land, made by pushing back the ocean and building dykes, might
sink down again and go back to the fishes. In such a case, all the
people, the babies and their mothers, men, women, horses and cattle,
would be drowned. The Dutch folks were a little too fast, he thought, in
winning their acres from the sea.

One day, while sitting on his door-step, brooding sorrowfully, a Moss
Maiden and a Tree Elf appeared, skipping along, hand in hand. They came
up to him and told him that his ancestral oak had a message for him.
Then they laughed and ran away. Van Eyck, which was now the man's full
family name, went into the forest and stood under the grand old oak
tree, which his fathers loved, and which he would allow none to cut
down.

Looking up, the leaves of the tree rustled, and one big branch seemed to
sweep near him. Then it whispered in his ear:

"Do not mourn, for your descendants, even many generations hence, shall
see greater things than you have witnessed. I and my fellow oak trees
shall pass away, but the sunshine shall be spread over the land and make
it dry. Then, instead of its falling down, like acorns from the trees,
more and better food shall come up from out of the earth. Where green
fields now spread, and the cities grow where forests were, we shall come
to life again, but in another form. When most needed, we shall furnish
you and your children and children's children, with warmth, comfort,
fire, light, and wealth. Nor need you fear for the land, that it will
fall; for, even while living, we, and all the oak trees that are left,
and all the birch, beech, and pine trees shall stand on our heads for
you. We shall hold up your houses, lest they fall into the ooze and you
shall walk and run over our heads. As truly as when rooted in the soil,
will we do this. Believe what we tell you, and be happy. We shall turn
ourselves upside down for you."

"I cannot see how all these things can be," said Van Eyck.

"Fear not, my promise will endure."

The leaves of the branch rustled for another moment. Then, all was
still, until the Moss Maiden and Trintje, the Tree Elf, again, hand in
hand, as they tripped along merrily, appeared to him.

"We shall help you and get our friends, the elves, to do the same. Now,
do you take some oak wood and saw off two pieces, each a foot long. See
that they are well dried. Then set them on the kitchen table to-night,
when you go to bed." After saying this, and looking at each other and
laughing, just as girls do, they disappeared.

Pondering on what all this might mean, Van Eyck went to his wood-shed
and sawed off the oak timber. At night, after his wife had cleared off
the supper table, he laid the foot-long pieces in their place.

When Van Eyck woke up in the morning, he recalled his dream, and, before
he was dressed, hurried to the kitchen. There, on the table, lay a pair
of neatly made wooden shoes. Not a sign of tools, or shavings could be
seen, but the clean wood and pleasant odor made him glad. When he
glanced again at the wooden shoes, he found them perfectly smooth, both
inside and out. They had heels at the bottom and were nicely pointed at
the toes, and, altogether, were very inviting to the foot. He tried them
on, and found that they fitted him exactly. He tried to walk on the
kitchen floor, which his wife kept scrubbed and polished, and then
sprinkled with clean white sand, with broomstick ripples scored in the
layers, but for Van Eyck it was like walking on ice. After slipping and
balancing himself, as if on a tight rope, and nearly breaking his nose
against the wall, he took off the wooden shoes, and kept them off, while
inside the house. However, when he went outdoors, he found his new shoes
very light, pleasant to the feet and easy to walk in. It was not so much
like trying to skate, as it had been in the kitchen.

At night, in his dreams, he saw two elves come through the window into
the kitchen. One, a kabouter, dark and ugly, had a box of tools. The
other, a light-faced elf, seemed to be the guide. The kabouter at once
got out his saw, hatchet, auger, long, chisel-like knife, and smoothing
plane. At first, the two elves seemed to be quarrelling, as to who
should be boss. Then they settled down quietly to work. The kabouter
took the wood and shaped it on the outside. Then he hollowed out, from
inside of it, a pair of shoes, which the elf smoothed and polished. Then
one elf put his little feet in them and tried to dance, but he only
slipped on the smooth floor and flattened his nose; but the other fellow
pulled the nose straight again, so it was all right. They waltzed
together upon the wooden shoes, then took them off, jumped out the
window, and ran away.

When Van Eyck put the wooden shoes on, he found that out in the fields,
in the mud, and on the soft soil, and in sloppy places, this sort of
foot gear was just the thing. They did not sink in the mud and the man's
feet were comfortable, even after hours of labor. They did not "draw"
his feet, and they kept out the water far better than leather possibly
could.

When the Van Eyck vrouw and the children saw how happy Daddy was, they
each one wanted a pair. Then they asked him what he called them.

"Klompen," said he, in good Dutch, and klompen, or klomps, they are to
this day.

"I'll make a fortune out of this," said Van Eyck. "I'll set up a
klomp-winkel (shop for wooden shoes) at once."

So, going out to the blacksmith's shop, in the village, he had the man
who pounded iron fashion for him on his anvil, a set of tools, exactly
like those used by the kabouter and the elf, which he had seen in his
dream. Then he hung out a sign, marked "Wooden blocks for shoes." He
made klomps for the little folks just out of the nursery, for boys and
girls, for grown men and women, and for all who walked out-of-doors, in
the street or on the fields.

Soon klomps came to be the fashion in all the country places. It was
good manners, when you went into a house, to take off your wooden shoes
and leave them at the door. Even in the towns and cities, ladies wore
wooden slippers, especially when walking or working in the garden.

Klomps also set the fashion for soft, warm socks, and stockings made
from sheep's wool. Soon, a thousand needles were clicking, to put a soft
cushion between one's soles and toes and the wood. Women knitted, even
while they walked to market, or gossiped on the streets. The
klomp-winkels, or shops of the shoe carpenters, were seen in every
village.

When rich beyond his day-dreams, Van Eyck had another joyful night
vision. The next day, he wore a smiling countenance. Everybody, who met
him on the street, saluted him and asked, in a neighborly way:

"Good-morning, Mynheer Bly-moe-dig (Mr. Cheerful). How do you sail
to-day?"

That's the way the Dutch talk--not "how do you do," but, in their watery
country, it is this, "How do you sail?" or else, "Hoe gat het u al?"
(How goes it with you, already?)

Then Van Eyck told his dream. It was this: The Moss Maiden and Trintje,
the wood elf, came to him again at night and danced. They were lively
and happy.

"What now?" asked the dreamer, smilingly, of his two visitors.

[Illustration: The kabouter took the wood and shaped it on the inside.]

He had hardly got the question out of his mouth, when in walked a
kabouter, all smutty with blacksmith work. In one hand, he grasped his
tool box. In the other, he held a curious looking machine. It was a big
lump of iron, set in a frame, with ropes to pull it up and let it fall
down with a thump.

"What is it?" asked Van Eyck.

"It's a Hey" (a pile driver), said the kabouter, showing him how to use
it. "When men say to you, on the street, to-morrow, 'How do you sail?'
laugh at them," said the Moss Maiden, herself laughing.

"Yes, and now you can tell the people how to build cities, with mighty
churches with lofty towers, and with high houses like those in other
lands. Take the trees, trim the branches off, sharpen the tops, turn
them upside down and pound them deep in the ground. Did not the ancient
oak promise that the trees would be turned upside down for you? Did they
not say you could walk on top of them?"

By this time, Van Eyck had asked so many questions, and kept the elves
so long, that the Moss Maiden peeped anxiously through the window.
Seeing the day breaking, she and Trintje and the kabouter flew away, so
as not to be petrified by the sunrise.

"I'll make another fortune out of this, also," said the happy man, who,
next morning, was saluted as Mynheer Blyd-schap (Mr. Joyful).

At once, Van Eyck set up a factory for making pile drivers. Sending men
into the woods, who chose the tall, straight trees, he had their
branches cut off. Then he sharpened the trunks at one end, and these
were driven, by the pile driver, down, far and deep, into the ground. So
a foundation, as good as stone, was made in the soft and spongy soil,
and well built houses uprose by the thousands. Even the lofty walls of
churches stood firm. The spires were unshaken in the storm.

Old Holland had not fertile soil like France, or vast flocks of sheep,
producing wool, like England, or armies of weavers, as in the Belgic
lands. Yet, soon there rose large cities, with splendid mansions and
town halls. As high towards heaven as the cathedrals and towers in other
lands, which had rock for foundation, her brick churches rose in the
air. On top of the forest trees, driven deep into the sand and clay,
dams and dykes were built, that kept out the ocean. So, instead of the
old two thousand square miles, there were, in the realm, in the course
of years, twelve thousand, rich in green fields and cattle. Then, for
all the boys and girls that travel in this land of quaint customs,
Holland was a delight.




THE CURLY-TAILED LION


Once upon a time, some Dutch hunters went to Africa, hoping to capture a
whole family of lions. In this they succeeded. With a pack of hounds and
plenty of aborigines to poke the jungle with sticks, they drove a big
male lion, with his wife and four whelps, out of the undergrowth into a
circle. In the centre, they had dug a pit and covered it over with
sticks and grass. Into this, the whole lion family tumbled. Then, by
nets and ropes, the big, fierce creatures and the little cubs were
lifted out. They were put in cages and brought to Holland. The baby
lions, no bigger than pug dogs, were as pretty and harmless as kittens.
The sailors delighted to play with them.

Now lions, even before one was ever seen among the Dutch, enjoyed a
great reputation for strength, courage, dignity and power. It was
believed that they had all the traits of character supposed to belong to
kings, and which boys like to possess. Many fathers had named their sons
Leo, which is Latin for lion. Dutch daddies had their baby boys
christened with the name of Leeuw, which is their word for the king of
beasts.

Before lions were brought from the hot countries into colder lands, the
bear and wolf were most admired; because, besides possessing plenty of
fur, as well as great claws and terrible teeth, they had great courage.
For these reasons, many royal and common folks had taken the wolf and
bear as namesakes for their hopeful sons.

But the male lion could make more noise than wolves, for he could roar,
while they could only howl. He had a shaggy mane and a very long tail.
This had a nail at the end, for scratching and combing out his hair,
when tangled up. If he were angry, the mighty brute could stick out his
red tongue, curled like a pump handle, and nearly half a yard long.

So the lion was called the king of beasts, and the crowned rulers and
knights took him as their emblem. They had pictures of the huge creature
painted on their flags, shields and armor. Sometimes they stuck a gold
or brass lion on their iron war hats, which they called helmets. No
knight was allowed to have more than one lion on his shield, but kings
might have three or four, or even a whole menagerie of meat-eating
creatures. These painted or sculptured lions were in all sorts of
action, running, walking, standing up and looking behind or before.

Now there was a Dutch artist, who noticed what funny fellows kings were,
and how they liked to have all sorts of beasts and birds of prey, and
sea creatures that devour, on their banners. There were dragons,
two-headed eagles, boars with tusks, serpents with fangs, hawks,
griffins, wyverns, lions, dragons and dragon-lions, besides horses with
wings, mermaids with scaly tails, and even night mares that went flying
through the dark. With such a funny variety of beast, bird, and fish,
some wondered why there were not cows with two tails, cats with two
noses, rams with four horns, and creatures that were half veal and half
mutton. He noticed that kings did not care much for tame, quiet,
peaceable, or useful creatures, such as oxen or horses, doves or sheep;
but only for those brutes that hunt and kill the more defenceless
creatures.

Since, then, kings of the country must have a lion, the artist resolved
to make a new one. He would have some fun, at any rate.

So as painter or sculptor select men and women to pose for them in their
study as their heroes and heroines, and just as they picture plump
little boys and girls as cherubs and angels, so the Dutchman would make
of the cubs and the father beast of prey his models for coats of arms.

Poor lions! They did not know, but they soon found out how tiresome it
was to pose. They must hold their paws up, down, sideways or behind,
according as they were told. They must stand or kneel, for a long time,
in awkward positions. They must stick out their tongues to full length,
walk on their hind legs, twist their necks, to one side or the other,
look forward or backward, and in many tiresome ways do just as they were
ordered. They must also make of their tails every sort of use, whether
to wrap around posts or bundles, to stick out of their cage, or put
between their legs, as they ran away, or to whisk them around, as they
roared; or hoist them up high when rampant.

In some cases, they were expected, even, to put on spectacles, and
pretend to be reading, to hold in their paws books and scrolls, or town
arms, or shop signs. They must pose, not only as companions of Daniel,
in the lions' den at Babylon, which was proper; but also to sit, as
companion of St. Mark, and even to stand on their legs on the top of a
high column, without falling off.

In a word, this artist belonged to the college of heralds, and he
introduced the king of beasts into Dutch heraldry.

So from that day forth, the life of that family of African lions, from
the daddy to the youngest cub, was made a burden. When at home in the
jungle and even in the cage, the father lion's favorite position was
that of lolling on one side, with his paws stretched out, and half
asleep and all day, until he went out, towards dark, to hunt. Now, he
must stand up, nearly all day. Daddy lion had to do most of the posing,
until the poor beast's front legs and paws were weary with standing so
long. Moreover, the hair was all worn off his body at the place where he
had to sit on the hard wooden floor. He must do all this, on penalty of
being punched with a red hot poker, if he refused. A charcoal furnace
and long andirons were kept near by, and these were attended to by a
Dutch boy. Or, it might be that the whole family of lions were not
allowed to have any dinner till Daddy obeyed and did what he was told,
though often with a snarl or a roar.

First, Leo must rise upon his hind legs and look in front of him. This
posture was not hard, for in his native jungle, he had often thus
obtained a breakfast of venison for his wife and family. But oh, to
stand a half hour on two legs only, when he had four, and would gladly
have used all of them, was hard. Yet this was the position, called "the
lion rampant," which kings liked best.

But the king's uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, and his wife's
relations generally, every one of them, wanted a lion on his or her
stationery and pocket handkerchiefs, as well as on their shields and
flags. So the old lion was tortured--the hot poker being always in
sight--and he was made to take a great variety of positions. The artist
called out to Leo, just as a driver says to his cart horse, "whoa," "get
up," "golong," etc. When he yelled in this fashion, the lion had to
obey.

Pretty soon lions in heraldry, on flags, armor, town arms, family crests
and city seals became all the fashion. The whole country went lion-mad.
There were lions carved in stone, wood and iron, and every sort and
kind, possible or impossible. Some of them seemed to be engaged in a
variety of tricks, as if they belonged to a circus, or were having a
holiday. They laughed, giggled, yawned, stuck out their tongues, held
boards for hotels, bundles for the shopkeepers, or barrels for beer
halls, and made excellent shop signs, which the boys and girls enjoyed
looking at.

Mrs. Leo was not in much demand, for Mr. Leo did not approve of his
wife's appearing in public. She was kept busy in taking care of her
cubs. Daddy Lion had to do multiple work for his family, until the cubs
were grown. Yet long before this time had come, their Dad had died and
been stuffed for a museum. How this first king of beasts in the
Netherlands came to his untimely end was on this wise.

Not satisfied with posing Leo in every posture, and with all possible
gestures, his master, the artist, wanted him to look "heraldical"; that
is, like some of the mythical beasts that were combinations of any and
all creatures having fins, fur, feathers, or scales, such as the dragon
or griffin. One day, he attempted to make out of a live lion a fanciful
creature of curlicues and curliewurlies. So he strapped the lion down,
and used a curling iron on his mane until he looked like a bearded bull
of Babylon. Then he combed out, and, with curl papers, twisted the long
line of hair, which is seen in front of Leo's stomach. In like manner,
he treated the bunches of hair that grow over the animal's kneepans and
elbows. Last of all, he took a hair brush, and smoothed out the tuft, at
the end of the animal's long tail. Then the artist made a picture of him
in this condition, all curled and rich in ringlets, like a dandy.

By this time, the father of the lion family looked as if he had come out
fresh from a hairdresser's parlor. Indeed, Mrs. Leo was so struck with
her husband's appearance, that she immediately licked her cubs all over,
until their fur shone, so they should look like their father. Then,
having used her tongue as a comb, to make her own skin smooth and
glossy, she completed the job by using the nail in her tail, to do the
finishing work. Altogether, this was the curliest family of lions ever
seen, and Daddy Leo appeared to be the funniest curly-headed and
curly-bodied lion ever seen. In fact he was all curls, from head to
tail.

Notwithstanding all his pains, the artist was not yet satisfied with his
job. He wanted a circle of long hair to grow in the middle of the lion's
tail. His curly lion should beat all creation, and in this way he
proceeded.

His own daughter, being a young lady and having some trouble of the
throat, the doctor had ordered medicine for the girl, charging her not
to spill any drops of the liquid on her face, or clothes.

But, in giving the dose, either the mother, or the daughter, was
careless. At that very moment the cat ran across the room, after the
mouse, and just as she held the spoon to her mouth, Puss got twisted in
her skirts. So most of the medicine splashed upon her upper lip and then
ran down to her chin, on either side of her mouth. She laughed over the
spill, wiped off the liquid, and thought no more of the matter.

But a week later, she was astonished. On waking, she looked in the
glass, only to shrink back in horror. On her face had grown both
moustaches and a beard. True, both were rather downy, but still they
were black; and, until the barber came, and shaved off the growth, she
was a bearded woman. Yet, strange to tell, after one or two shaves by
the barber, no more hair grew again on her face, which was smooth again.

"By Saint Servatus! I'll make a fortune on this," cried the artist, when
he saw his daughter's hairy face.

So, he sold his secret to a druggist, and this man made an ointment,
giving it a Chinese name, meaning "beard-grower." This wonderful
medicine, as his sign declared, would "force the growth of luxuriant
moustaches and a beard, on the smoothest face of any young man," who
should buy and apply it.

Soon the whole town rang with the news of the wonderful discovery. The
druggist sold out his stock, in two days, to happy purchasers. Other
young fellows, that wanted to outrival their companions, had to wait a
fortnight for the new medicine to be made. By that time, a full crop of
downy hair had come out on the cheeks and chin and upper lip of many a
youth. Some, who had been trying for years to raise moustaches, in order
duly to impress the girls, to whom they were making love, were now
jubilant. In several cases, a lover was able to cut out his rival and
win the maid he wanted. Several courtings were hastened and became
genuine matches, because a face, long very smooth, and like a desert as
to hair, bore a promising crop. Beard and cheeks had at last met
together. So the new medicine was called a "match-maker."

The artist rubbed his hands in glee, at the prospect of a fortune. He
argued that if the wonderful ointment made beards for men, it must be
good for lions also. So again, Daddy Lion was coerced by the threat of
the hot poker. Then his tail was seized, and, by means of a rope, tied
to a post on one side of the cage, he was held fast. Then the artist
anointed about six inches of the middle of the smooth tail with the
magic liquid. For fear the lion might lick it off, the poor beast was
held in this tiresome position for a whole week, so that he could not
turn round, and he nearly died of fatigue.

But it happened to the lion's tail, as it did with the young men's
chins, cheeks and upper lips. A beard did indeed grow, but once shaved
off--and many did shave, thinking to promote greater growth--no more
hair ever appeared again. The ointment forced a downy growth but it
killed the roots of the hair.

A worse fate befell the lion. A crop of hair, perhaps an inch longer
than common, grew out. But this time, the bad medicine, which had
deceived men, and was unfit for lions, struck in.

From this cause, added to nervous prostration, old Leo fell dead. As
lion fathers go, he was a good one, and his widow and children mourned
for him. He had never once, however hungry, tried to eat up his cubs,
which was something in his favor.

Soon after these exploits, the old artist died also. His son, hearing
there was still a demand, among kings, for lions, and those especially
with centre curls in their tails, took the most promising of the whelps
and petted and fed him well. In the seventh year, when his mane and
elbow and knee hair had grown out, this cub was mated to a young lioness
of like promise. When, of this couple, a male whelp was born, it was
found that in due time its knees, elbows, tail-tuft, and the front of
its body were all rich in furry growth. In the middle of its tail, also,
thick ringlets, several inches long, were growing. Evidently, the hair
tonic had done some good. So this one became the father of all the
curly-tailed lions in the Netherlands. Not only was this lion, thus
distinguished for so novel an ornament, copied into heraldry, but it
adorned many city seals and town arms. In time, the lion of the
Netherlands was pictured with a crown on its head, a sword in its right
hand, a bundle of seven arrows--in token of a union of seven
states--and, still later, the new Order of the Netherlands Lion was
founded. The original curly lion, with long hair in the middle of its
tail, boasts of a long line of descendants that are proud of their
ancestor.




BRABO AND THE GIANT


Ages ago, when the giants were numerous on the earth, there lived a big
fellow named Antigonus. That was not what his mother had called him, but
some one told him of a Greek general of that name; so he took this for
his own. He was rough and cruel. His castle was on the Scheldt River,
where the city of Antwerp now stands. Many ships sailed out of France
and Holland, down this stream. They were loaded with timber, flax, iron,
cheese, fish, bread, linen, and other things made in the country. It was
by this trade that many merchants grew rich, and their children had
plenty of toys to play with. The river was very grand, deep, and wide.
The captains of the ships liked to sail on it, because there was no
danger from rocks, and the country through which it flowed was so
pretty.

So every day, one could see hundreds of white-sailed craft moving
towards the sea, or coming in from the ocean. Boys and girls came down
to stand in their wooden shoes on the banks, to see the vessels moving
to and fro. The incoming ships brought sugar, wine, oranges, lemons,
olives and other good things to eat, and wool to make warm clothes.
Often craftsmen came from the wonderful countries in the south to tell
of the rich cities there, and help to build new and fine houses, and
splendid churches, and town halls. So all the Belgian people were happy.

But one day, this wicked giant came into the country to stop the ships
and make them pay him money. He reared a strong castle on the river
banks. It had four sides and high walls, and deep down in the earth were
dark, damp dungeons. One had to light a candle to find his way to the
horrid places.

What was it all for? The people wondered, but they soon found out. The
giant, with a big knotted club, made out of an oak tree, strode through
the town. He cried out to all the people to assemble in the great open
square.

"From this day forth," he roared, "no ship, whether up or down the
river, shall pass by this place, without my permission. Every captain
must pay me toll, in money or goods. Whoever refuses, shall have both
his hands cut off and thrown into the river.

"Hear ye all and obey. Any one caught in helping a ship go by without
paying toll, whether it be night, or whether it be day, shall have his
thumbs cut off and be put in the dark dungeon for a month. Again I say,
Obey!"

With this, the giant swung and twirled his club aloft and then brought
it down on a poor countryman's cart, smashing it into flinders. This was
done to show his strength.

So every day, when the ships hove in sight, they were hailed from the
giant's castle and made to pay heavy toll. Poor or rich, they had to
hand over their money. If any captain refused, he was brought ashore and
made to kneel before a block and place one hand upon the other. Then the
giant swung his axe and cut off both hands, and flung them into the
river. If a ship master hesitated, because he had no money, he was cast
into a dungeon, until his friends paid his ransom.

Soon, on account of this, the city got a bad name. The captains from
France kept in, and the ship men from Spain kept out. The merchants
found their trade dwindling, and they grew poorer every day. So some of
them slipped out of the city and tried to get the ships to sail in the
night, and silently pass the giant's castle.

But the giant's watchers, on the towers, were as wide awake as owls and
greedy as hawks. They pounced on the ship captains, chopped off their
hands and tossed them into the river. The townspeople, who were found on
board, were thrown into the dungeons and had their thumbs cut off.

So the prosperity of the city was destroyed, for the foreign merchants
were afraid to send their ships into the giant's country. The reputation
of the city grew worse. It was nicknamed by the Germans Hand Werpen, or
Hand Throwing; while the Dutchmen called it Antwerp, which meant the
same thing. The Duke of Brabant, or Lord of the land, came to the big
fellow's fortress and told him to stop. He even shook his fist under the
giant's huge nose, and threatened to attack his castle and burn it. But
Antigonus only snapped his fingers, and laughed at him. He made his
castle still stronger and kept on hailing ships, throwing some of the
crews into dungeons and cutting off the hands of the captains, until the
fish in the river grew fat.

Now there was a brave young fellow named Brabo, who lived in the
province of Brabant. He was proud of his country and her flag of yellow,
black and red, and was loyal to his lord. He studied the castle well and
saw a window, where he could climb up into the giant's chamber.

Going to the Duke, Brabo promised if his lord's soldiers would storm the
gates of the giant's castle, that he would seek out and fight the
ruffian. While they battered down the gates, he would climb the walls.
"He's nothing but a 'bulle-wak'" (a bully and a boaster), said Brabo,
"and we ought to call him that, instead of Antigonus."

The Duke agreed. On a dark night, one thousand of his best men-at-arms
were marched with their banners, but with no drums or trumpets, or
anything that could make a noise and alarm the watchmen.

Reaching a wood full of big trees near the castle, they waited till
after midnight. All the dogs in the town and country, for five miles
around, were seized and put into barns, so as not to bark and wake the
giant up. They were given plenty to eat, so that they quickly fell
asleep and were perfectly quiet.

At the given signal, hundreds of men holding ship's masts, or tree
trunks, marched against the gates. They punched and pounded and at last
smashed the iron-bound timbers and rushed in. After overcoming the
garrison, they lighted candles, and unlocking the dungeons, went down
and set the poor half-starved captives free. Some of them pale, haggard
and thin as hop poles, could hardly stand. About the same time, the barn
doors where the dogs had been kept, were thrown open. In full cry, a
regiment of the animals, from puppies to hounds, were at once out,
barking, baying, and yelping, as if they knew what was going on and
wanted to see the fun.

But where was the giant? None of the captains could find him. Not one of
the prisoners or the garrison could tell where he had hid.

But Brabo knew that the big fellow, Antigonus, was not at all brave, but
really only a bully and a coward. So the lad was not afraid. Some of his
comrades outside helped him to set up a tall ladder against the wall.
Then, while all the watchers and men-at-arms inside, had gone away to
defend the gates, Brabo climbed into the castle, through a slit in the
thick wall. This had been cut out, like a window, for the bow-and-arrow
men, and was usually occupied by a sentinel. Sword in hand, Brabo made
for the giant's own room. Glaring at the youth, the big fellow seized
his club and brought it down with such force that it went through the
wooden floor. But Brabo dodged the blow and, in a trice, made a sweep
with his sword. Cutting off the giant's head, he threw it out the
window. It had hardly touched the ground, before the dogs arrived. One
of the largest of these ran away with the trophy and the big, hairy
noddle of the bully was never found again.

But the giant's huge hands! Ah, they were cut off by Brabo, who stood on
the very top of the highest tower, while all below looked up and
cheered. Brabo laid one big hand on top of the other, as the giant used
to do, when he cut off the hands of captains. He took first the right
hand and then the left hand and threw them, one at a time, into the
river.

A pretty sight now revealed the fact that the people knew what had been
going on and were proud of Brabo's valor. In a moment, every house in
Antwerp showed lighted candles, and the city was illuminated. Issuing
from the gates came a company of maidens. They were dressed in white,
but their leader was robed in yellow, red, and black, the colors of the
Brabant flag. They all sang in chorus the praises of Brabo their hero.

"Let us now drop the term of disgrace to the city--that of the
Hand-Throwing and give it a new name," said one of the leading men of
Antwerp.

"No," said the chief ruler, "let us rather keep the name, and, more than
ever, invite all peaceful ships to come again, 'an-'t-werf' (at the
wharf), as of old. Then, let the arms of Antwerp be two red hands above
a castle."

"Agreed," cried the citizens with a great shout. The Duke of Brabant
approved and gave new privileges to the city, on account of Brabo's
bravery. So, from high to low, all rejoiced to honor their hero, who
was richly rewarded.

After this, thousands of ships, from many countries, loaded or unloaded
their cargoes on the wharves, or sailed peacefully by. Antwerp excelled
all seaports and became very rich again. Her people loved their native
city so dearly, that they coined the proverb "All the world is a ring,
and Antwerp is the pearl set in it."

To this day, in the great square, rises the splendid bronze monument of
Brabo the Brave. The headless and handless hulk of the giant Antigonus
lies sprawling, while on his body rests Antwerp castle. Standing over
all, at the top, is Brabo high in air. He holds one of the hands of
Antigonus, which he is about to toss into the Scheldt River.

No people honor valor more than the Belgians. Themselves are to-day, as
of old, among the bravest.




THE FARM THAT RAN AWAY AND CAME BACK


There was once a Dutchman, who lived in the province called Drenthe.
Because there was a row of little trees on his farm, his name was Ryer
Van Boompjes; that is, Ryer of the Little Trees. After a while, he moved
to the shore of the Zuyder Zee and into Overijssel. Overijssel means
over the Ijssel River. There he bought a new farm, near the village of
Blokzyl. By dyking and pumping, certain wise men had changed ten acres,
of sand and heath, into pasture and land for plowing. They surrounded it
on three sides with canals. The fourth side fronted on the Zuyder Zee.
Then they advertised, in glowing language, the merits of the new land
and Ryer Van Boompjes bought it and paid for his real estate. He was as
proud as a popinjay of his island and he ruled over it like a Czar or a
Kaiser.

A few years before, Ryer had married a "queezel," as the Dutch call
either a nun, or a maid who is no longer young. At this date, when our
story begins, he had four blooming, but old-fashioned children, with
good appetites. They could eat cabbage and potatoes, rye bread and
cheese, by the half peck, and drink buttermilk by the quart. In
addition, Ryer owned four horses, six cows, two dogs, some roosters and
hens, a flock of geese, two dozen ducks, and a donkey.

Yet although Ryer was rich, as wealth is reckoned in Drenthe, whence he
had come, he was greedy for more. He skimped the food of his animals. So
much did he do this, that his neighbors declared that they had seen him
put green spectacles on his cows and the donkey. Then he mixed straws
and shavings with the hay to make the animals think they were eating
fresh grass.

When he ploughed, he drove his horses close to the edge next to the
water, so as to make use of every half inch of land. When sometimes bits
of fen land, from his neighbor's farms, got loose and floated on the
water, Ryer felt he was in luck. He would go out at night, grapple the
boggy stuff and fasten it to his own land.

After this had happened several times, and Ryer had added a half acre to
his holdings, his greed possessed him like a bad fairy. He began to
steal the land on the other side of the Zuyder Zee. In the course of
time, he became a regular land thief. Whenever he saw, or heard of, a
floating bit of territory, he rowed his boat after it by night. Before
morning, aided by wicked helpers, who shared in the plunder, and were in
his pay, he would have the bog attached to his own farm.

All this time, he hardly realized that his ill-gotten property, now
increased to twelve acres or more, was itself a very shaky bit of real
estate. In fact, it was not real at all. His wife one day told him so,
for she knew of her mean husband's trickery.

About this time, heavy rains fell, for many days, and without ceasing,
until all the region was reduced to pulp and the country seemed afloat.
The dykes appeared ready to burst. Thousands feared that the land had an
attack of the disease called val (fall) and that the soil would sink
under the waves as portions of the realm had done before, in days long
gone by.

Yet none of this impending trouble worried Ryer, whose greed grew by
what it fed upon. In fact, the first day the sun shone again, quickly
drying up parts of his farm, he had two horses harnessed up for work.
Then he drove them so near the edge of the ditch that plough, man, and
horses tumbled, and down they went, into the shiny mess of mud and
water.

At this moment, also, the water, from below the bottom of the Zuyder
Zee, welled up, in a great wave, like a mushroom, and the whole of
Ryer's soggy estate was on the point of breaking loose and seemed ready
to float away.

The stingy fellow, as he fell overboard, bumped his head so hard on the
plough beam, that he lay senseless for a half hour. He would certainly
have been drowned, had not Pete, his stout son, who was not far away,
and had seen the tumble, ran to the house, launched a boat and rowed
quickly to the spot, where he had last seen his father. Grabbing his
daddy by the collar, he hauled him, half dead, into the boat. Between
his bump and his fright, and the cold bath, old Ryer was a long time
coming to his wits. With filial piety, Pete kept on rubbing the paternal
hands and restoring the circulation.

All this, however, took a long time, even an hour or more. When his
father was able to sit up and talk, Pete started to row back to the
little wharf in front of his home.

But where was it,--the farm, with the house and fields? Whither had they
gone? Ryer was too mystified to get his bearings, but Pete knew the
points of the compass. Yet his father's farm was not there. He looked at
the shore of Overijssel, which he had left. Instead of the old, straight
lines of willow trees, with the church spire beyond, there was a hollow
and empty place. It looked as if a giant, as big as the world itself,
had bitten out a piece of land and swallowed it down. Dumbfounded,
father and son looked, the one at the other, but said nothing, for there
was nothing to say.

Meanwhile, what had become of the farm and "the Queezel," as the
neighbors still called her--that is, the mother with the children. These
good people soon saw that they were floating off somewhere. The mainland
was every moment receding further into the distance. In fact, the farm
was moving from Overijssel northward, towards Friesland. One by one, the
church spires of the village near by faded from sight.

But when the wind changed from south to west, they seemed as if on a
ship, with sails set, and to be making due west, for North Holland. The
younger children, so far from being afraid, clapped their hands in glee.
They thought it great fun to ferry across the big water, which they had
so long seen before their eyes. Their stingy father had never owned a
carriage, or allowed the horses to be ridden. He always made his family
walk to church. Whether it were to the sermon, in the morning, or to
hear the catechism expounded by the Domine, in the afternoon, all the
family had to tramp on their wooden shoes there and back.

As for the floating farm, the cows could not understand it. They mooed
piteously, while the donkey brayed loudly. At night, and day after day,
no one could attend properly to the animals, to see that they were fed
and given water. One always sees a big tub in the middle of a Dutch
pasture field. Neither ducks, nor geese, nor chickens minded it in the
least, but the thirsty cattle and horses, at the end of the first day,
had drunk the tub dry. None of the dumb brutes, even if they had not
been afraid of being drowned, could drink from the Zuyder Zee, for it
was chiefly sea water, that is, salt, or at least brackish.

Occasionally this errant farm, that had thus broken loose, passed by
fishermen, who wondered at so much land thus adrift. Yet they feared to
hail, and go on board, lest the owners might think them intruding.
Others thought it none of their business, supposing some crazy fellow
was using his farm as a ship, to move his lands, goods and household,
and thus save expense. In some of the villages, the runaway farm was
descried from the tops of the church towers. Then, it furnished a
subject for chat and gossip, during three days, to the women, as they
milked the cows, or knitted stockings. To the men, also, while they
smoked, or drank their coffee, it was a lively topic.

"There were real people on it and a house and stables," said the sexton
of a church, who declared that he had seen this new sort of a flying
Dutchman. It was the usual sight--"cow, dog, and stork," and then he
quoted the old Dutch proverb.

At last, after several days, and when Ryer and his son were nearly
finished, with fatigue and fright, in trying to row their boat to catch
up with the runaway farm, they finally reached a village across the
Zuyder Zee, in North Holland, where rye bread and turnips satisfied
their hunger and they had waffles for dessert. Their small change went
quickly, and then the two men were at their wit's end to know what
further to do.

By this time, out on the floating farm, the mother and children were
wild with fear of starving. All the food for the cattle had been eaten
up, the dog had no meat, the cat no milk, and the stork had run out of
its supply of frogs. There was no sugar or coffee, and neither rye nor
currant-bread, or sliced sausage or wafer-thin cheese for any one; but
only potatoes and some barley grain. Happily, however, in drifting
within sight of the village of Osterbeek, the mother and the children
noticed that the east wind was freshening. Soon they descried the tops
of the church towers of North Holland. The smell of cows and cheese and
of burning peat fires from the chimneys made both animals and human
beings happy, as the wind blew the island westward to the village.

Curiously enough, this was the very place at which, by hard rowing, Ryer
and Pete had also arrived. Father and son were sitting in the hotel
parlor, with their eyes down on the sandy floor, wondering how they were
to pay for their next sandwich and coffee, for their money was all gone.

At that moment, a small boy clattered over the bricks in his klomps. He
kicked these off, at the door, and rushed into the room. He had on his
yellow baggy trousers and his hair, of the same color, was cut level
with his ears. Half out of breath, he announced the coming, afloat, of
what looked like a combination of farm and menagerie. A house, a woman,
some girls, a dog, a cat, and a stork were on it and afloat.

At once, old man Ryer, still stiff from his long, cold bath, hobbled
out, and Pete ran before him. Yes, it was mother, the children and all
the animals! For the first time in his life, the mean old sinner felt
his heart thumping, in grateful emotion, under his woolen jacket, with
its two gold buttons. Something like real religion had finally oozed out
from under his crusted soul.

A whole convoy of boys, fishermen, farmers, and a fat vrouw or two,
volunteered to go out and tow the runaway farm to the village wharf.
They succeeded in grappling the float and held it fast by ropes tied to
a horse post.

That night all were happy. The farm was made fast by another rope put
round the town pump. Then the villagers all went to bed. They were happy
in having rescued a runaway farm, and they expected a good "loon"
(reward) from the rich old Ryer, who, in the barroom, had talked big
about his wealth.

As for the Van Boompjes, in order to save a landlord's bill for beds,
they slept in their house, on board the farm, amid the lowing of their
cattle that called out, in their own way, for more fodder; while the
people in the village wondered at roosters crowing out on the water, and
evidently the barn-yard birds were frightened.

And so they were; for, before midnight, when all other creatures were
asleep, and not even a mouse was stirring on land, whether hard fast, or
floating, the west wind rose mightily and blew to a terrific gale.

In a moment, the tow lines, that held the vagrant farm to the village
pump and horse post, snapped. The Van Boompjes estate left the wharf and
was driven, at a furious rate, across the Zuyder Zee. For several hours,
like a ship under full sail, it was pushed westward by the wind. Yet so
soundly did all sleep, man and wife, children and hens, that none
awakened during this strange voyage. Even the roosters, after their
first concert, held in their voices.

Suddenly, and as straight as if steered by a skilled pilot, the Van
Boompjes farm, now an accomplished traveller, after its many adventures,
shot into its old place. This took place with such violence, that Ryer
Van Boompjes and his wife were both thrown out of bed. The cows were
knocked over in the stable. The dog barked, supposing some one had
kicked him. One old rooster, jostled off his perch, set up a tremendous
crowing, that brought some of the early risers out to rub their eyes and
see what was going on.

"Hemel en aard, bliksem en regen" (Heaven and earth, lightning and
rain), they cried, "the old farm is back in its place."

In fact, the Van Boompjes real estate was snugly fitted once more to the
mainland, and again in the niche it had left. It had struck so hard,
that a ridge of raised sod, five inches high, marked the place of
junction. At least twenty fishes and wriggling eels were smashed in the
collision.

From that day forth the conscience of Van Boompjes returned, and he
actually became an honest man. He sawed off, from time to time, portions
of his big farm, and returned them home, with money paid as interest, to
the owners. He found out all the mynheers, whose bits of land had
drifted off. He sent a tidy sum of gold to the village in North Holland,
where his farm had been moored, for a few hours. With a good conscience,
he went to church and worshipped. His action, at each of the two
collections, which Dutch folks always take up on Sundays, was noticed
and praised as a sure and public sign of the old sinner's true
repentance. When the deacons, with their white gloves on, poked under
his nose their black velvet bags, hung at the end of fishing poles, ten
feet long, this man, who had been for years a skinflint, dropped in a
silver coin each time.

On the farm, all the animals, from duck to stork, and from dog to ox,
now led happier lives. In the family, all declared that the behavior of
the farm and the wind of the Zuyder Zee had combined to make a new man
and a delightful father of old Van Boompjes. He lived long and happily
and died greatly lamented.




SANTA KLAAS AND BLACK PETE


Who is Santa Klaas? How did he get his name? Where does he live? Did you
ever see him?

These are questions, often asked of the storyteller, by little folks.

Before Santa Klaas came into the Netherlands, that is, to Belgium and
Holland, he was called by many names, in the different countries in
which he lived, and where he visited. Some people say he was born in
Myra, many hundred years ago before the Dutch had a dyke or a windmill,
or waffles, or wooden shoes. Others tell us how, in time of famine, the
good saint found the bodies of three little boys, pickled in a tub, at a
market for sale, and to be eaten up. They had been salted down to keep
till sold. The kind gentleman and saint, whose name was Nicholas,
restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his
temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the
story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up
long afterward. How could a saint lose his temper so?

Another story they tell of this same Nicholas was this. There were three
lovely maidens, whose father had lost all his money. They wanted
husbands very badly, but had no money to buy fine clothes to get married
in. He took pity on both their future husbands and themselves. So he
came to the window, and left three bags of gold, one after the other.
Thus these three real girls all got real husbands, just as the novels
tell us of the imaginary ones. They lived happily ever afterward, and
never scolded their husbands.

By and by, men who were goldsmiths, bankers or pawnbrokers, made a sign
of these three bags of gold, in the shape of balls. Now they hang them
over their shop doors, two above one. This means "two to one, you will
never get it again"--when you put your ring, furs, or clothes, or watch,
or spoons, in pawn.

It is ridiculous how many stories they do tell of this good man,
Nicholas, who was said to be what they call a bishop, or inspector, who
goes around seeing that things are done properly in the churches. It was
because the Reverend Mr. Nicholas had to travel about a good deal, that
the sailors and travellers built temples and churches in his honor. To
travel, one must have a ship on the sea and a horse on the land, or a
reindeer up in the cold north; though now, it is said, he comes to
Holland in a steamship, and uses an automobile.

On Santa Klaas eve, each of the Dutch children sets out in the chimney
his wooden shoe. Into it, he puts a whisp of hay, to feed the
traveller's horse. When St. Nicholas first came to Holland, he arrived
in a sailing ship from Spain and rode on a horse. Now he arrives in a
big steamer, made of steel. Perhaps he will come in the future by
aeroplane. To fill all the shoes and stockings, the good saint must have
an animal to ride. Now the fast white horse, named Sleipnir, was ready
for him, and on Sleipnir's back he made his journeys.

How was Santa Klaas dressed?

His clothes were those of a bishop. He wore a red coat and his cap,
higher than a turban and called a mitre, was split along two sides and
pointed at the top. In his hands, he held a crozier, which was a staff
borrowed from shepherds, who tended sheep; and with the crozier he
helped the lambs over rough places; but the crozier of Santa Klaas was
tipped with gold. He had white hair and rosy cheeks. For an old man, he
was very active, but his heart and feelings never got to be one day
older than a boy's, for these began when mother love was born and
father's care was first in the world, but it never grows old.

When Santa Klaas travelled up north to Norway and into the icy cold
regions, where there were sleighs and reindeer, he changed his clothes.
Instead of his red robe, he wears a jacket, much shorter and trimmed
with ermine, white as snow. Taking off his mitre, he wears a cap of fur
also, and has laid aside his crozier. In the snow, wheels are no good,
and runners are the best for swift travel. So, instead of his white
horse and a wagon, he drives in a sleigh, drawn by two stags with large
horns. In every country, he puts into the children's stockings hung up,
or shoes set in the fireplace, something which they like. In Greenland,
for example, he gives the little folks seal blubber, and fish hooks. So
his presents are not the same in every country. However, for naughty
boys and girls everywhere, instead of filling shoes and stockings, he
may leave a switch, or pass them by empty.

When Santa Klaas travels, he always brings back good things. Now when he
first came to New Netherland in America, what did he find to take back
to Holland?

Well, it was here, on our continent, that he found corn, potatoes,
pumpkins, maple sugar, and something to put in pipes to smoke; besides
strange birds and animals, such as turkeys and raccoons, in addition to
many new flowers. What may be called a weed, like the mullein, for
example, is considered very pretty in Europe, where they did not have
such things. There it is called the American Velvet Plant, or the King's
Candlestick.

But, better than all, Santa Klaas found a negro boy, Pete, who became
one of the most faithful of his helpers. At Utrecht, in Holland, the
students of the University give, every year, a pageant representing
Santa Klaas on his white horse, with Black Pete, who is always on hand
and very busy. Black Pete's father brought peanuts from Africa to
America, and sometimes Santa Klaas drops a bagful of these, as a great
curiosity, into the shoes of the Dutch young folks.

Santa Klaas was kept very busy visiting the homes and the public schools
in New Netherland; for in these schools all the children, girls as well
as boys, and not boys only, received a free education. In later visits
he heard of Captain Kidd and his fellow pirates, who wore striped shirts
and red caps, and had pigtails of hair, tied in eel skins, and hanging
down their backs. These fellows wore earrings and stuck pistols in their
belts and daggers at their sides. Instead of getting their gold
honestly, and giving it to the poor, or making presents to the children,
the pirates robbed ships. Then, as 'twas said, they buried their
treasure. Lunatics and boys that read too many novels, have ever since
been digging in the land to find Captain Kidd's gold.

Santa Klaas does not like such people. Moreover, he was just as good to
the poor slaves, as to white children. So the colored people loved the
good saint also. Their pickaninnies always hung up their stockings on
the evening of December sixth.

Santa Klaas filled the souls of the people in New Netherland so full of
his own spirit, that now children all over the United States, and those
of Americans living in other countries, hang up their stockings and look
for a visit from him.

In Holland, Black Pete was very loyal and true to his master, carrying
not only the boxes and bundles of presents for the good children, but
also the switches for bad boys and girls. Between the piles of pretty
things to surprise good children, on one side, and the boxes of birch
and rattan, the straps and hard hair-brush backs for naughty youngsters,
Pete holds the horn of plenty. In this are dolls, boats, trumpets,
drums, balls, toy houses, flags, the animals in Noah's Ark, building
blocks, toy castles and battleships, story and picture books, little
locomotives, cars, trains, automobiles, aeroplanes, rocking horses,
windmills, besides cookies, candies, marbles, tops, fans, lace, and more
nice things than one can count.

Pete also takes care of the horse of Santa Klaas, named Sleipnir, which
goes so fast that, in our day, the torpedo and submarine U-boats are
named after him. This wonderful animal used to have eight feet, for
swiftness. That was when Woden rode him, but, in course of time, four of
his legs dropped off, so that the horse of Santa Klaas looks less like a
centipede and more like other horses. Whenever Santa Klaas walks, Pete
has to go on foot also, even though the chests full of presents for the
children are very heavy and Pete has to carry them.

Santa Klaas cares nothing about rich girls or poor girls, for all the
kinds of boys he knows about or thinks of are good boys and bad boys. A
youngster caught stealing jam out of the closet, or cookies from the
kitchen, or girls lifting lumps of sugar out of the sugar bowl, or
eating too much fudge, or that are mean, stingy, selfish, or have bad
tempers, are considered naughty and more worthy of the switch than of
presents. So are the boys who attend Sunday School for a few weeks
before Christmas, and then do not come any more till next December.
These Santa Klaas turns over to Pete, to be well thrashed.

[Illustration: Santa Klaas and Black Pete.]

In Holland, Pete still keeps on the old dress of the time of New
Netherland. He wears a short jacket, with wide striped trousers, in
several bright colors, shoes strapped on his feet, a red cap and a ruff
around his neck. Sometimes he catches bad boys, to put them in a bag for
a half hour, to scare them; or, he shuts them up in a dark closet, or
sends them to bed without any supper. Or, instead of allowing them
eleven buckwheat cakes at breakfast, he makes them stop at five. When
Santa Klaas leaves Holland to go back to Spain, or elsewhere, Pete takes
care of the nag Sleipnir, and hides himself until Santa Klaas comes
again next year.

The story-teller knows where Santa Klaas lives, but he won't tell.




THE GOBLINS TURNED TO STONE


When the cow came to Holland, the Dutch folks had more and better things
to eat. Fields of wheat and rye took the place of forests. Instead of
acorns and the meat of wild game, they now enjoyed milk and bread. The
youngsters made pets of the calves and all the family lived under one
roof. The cows had a happy time of it, because they were kept so clean,
fed well, milked regularly, and cared for in winter.

By and by the Dutch learned to make cheese and began to eat it every
day. They liked it, whether it was raw, cooked, toasted, sliced, or in
chunks, or served with other good things. Even the foxes and wild
creatures were very fond of the smell and taste of toasted cheese. They
came at night close to the houses, often stealing the cheese out of the
pantry. When a fox would not, or could not, be caught in a trap by any
other bait, a bit of cooked cheese would allure him so that he was
caught and his fur made use of.

When the people could not get meat, or fish, they had toasted bread and
cheese, which in Dutch is "geroostered brod met kaas." Then they
laughed, and named the new dish after whatever they pretended it was. It
was just the same, as when they called goodies, made out of flour and
sugar, "nuts," "fingers," "calves" and "lambs." Even grown folks love to
play and pretend things like children.

Soon, it became the fashion to have cheese parties. Men and women would
sit around the fire, by the hour, nibbling the toast that had melted
cheese poured over it. But after they had gone to bed, some of them
dreamed.

Now some dreams may be pleasant, but cheese-dreams were not usually of
this sort. The dreamer thought that a big she-horse had climbed upon the
bed and sat down upon his stomach. Once there, the beast grinned
hideously, snored, and pressed its hoofs down on the sleeper's breast,
so that he could not breathe or speak. The feeling was a horrible one;
but, just when the dreamer expected to choke, he seemed to jump off some
high place, and come down somewhere, very far off. Then the animal ran
away and the terrible dream was over.

This was called a nightmare, or in Dutch a "nacht merrie." "Nacht" means
night, and "merrie" a filly or a mare. In the dream, it was not a small
or a young horse, but always a big mare that squatted down on a man's
stomach.

In those days, instead of seeking for the trouble inside, or asking
whether there was any connection between nightmares and too hearty
eating of cheese, the Dutch fathers laid it all on the goblins.

The goblins, or sooty elves, that used to live in Holland, were ugly,
short fellows, very smart, quick in action and able to travel far in a
second. They were first cousins to the kabouters. They had big heads,
green eyes and split feet, like cows. They were so ugly, that they were
ordered to live under ground and never come out during the day. If they
did, they would be turned to stone.

The goblins had a bad reputation for mischief. They liked to have fun
with human beings. They would listen to the conversation of people and
then mock them by repeating the last word. That is the reason why echoes
were called "week klank," or dwarf's talk.

Because these goblins were short, they envied men their greater stature
and wanted to grow to the height of human beings. As they were not able
of themselves to do this, they often sneaked into a house and snatched a
child out of the cradle. In place of the stolen baby, one of their own
wizened children was laid. That was the reason why many a poor little
baby, that grew puny and thin, was called a "wiseel-kind," or
changeling. When the sick baby could not get well, and medicine or care
seemed to do no good, the mother thought that the goblins had taken away
her own child.

It was only the female goblins that would change themselves into night
mares and sit on the body of the dreamer. They usually came in through a
hole or a crack; but if that person in the house could plug up the hole,
or stop the crack, he could conquer the female goblin, and do what he
pleased with her. If a man wanted to, he could make her his wife. So
long as the hole was kept stopped up, by which the goblin entered, she
made a good wife. If this crack was left open, or if the plug dropped
out of the hole, the she-goblin was off and could never be found again.

The ruler of the goblins lived beneath the earth, as the king of the
underworld. His palace was made of gold and glittered with gems. He had
riches more than men could count. All the goblins and kabouters, who
worked in the mines and at the forges and anvils, making swords, spears,
bells, or jewels, obeyed him.

The most wonderful things about these dwarfs was the way in which they
made themselves invisible, so that men were able to see neither the
night mares nor the male goblins, while at their mischief. This was a
little red cap which every goblin possessed, and which he was careful
never to lose. The red cap acted like a snuffer on a candle, to put it
out, and while under it, no goblin could be seen by mortal eyes.

Now it happened that one night, as a dear old lady lay dying on her bed,
a middle-sized goblin, with his red cap on, came in through a crack into
the room, and stood at the foot of her bed. Just for mischief and to
frighten her by making himself visible, he took off his red cap.

When the old lady saw the imp, she cried out loudly:

"Go way, go way. Don't you know I belong to my Lord?"

But the goblin dwarf only laughed at her, with his green eyes.

Calling her daughter Alida, the old lady whispered in her ear:

"Bring me my wooden shoes."

Rising up in her bed, the old lady hurled the heavy klomps, one after
the other, at the goblin's head. At this, he started to get out through
the crack, and away, but before his body was half out, Alida snatched
his red cap away. Then she stuck a needle in his cloven foot that made
him howl with pain. Alida looked at the crack through which he escaped
and found it quite sooty.

Twirling the little red cap around on her forefinger, a brilliant
thought struck her. She went and told the men her plan, and they agreed
to it. This was to gather hundreds of farmers and townfolk, boys and men
together, on the next moonlight night, and round up all the goblins in
Drenthe. By pulling off their caps, and holding them till the sun rose,
when they would be petrified, the whole brood could be exterminated.

So, knowing that the goblin would come the next night, to steal back his
red cap, she left a note outside the crack, telling him to bring several
hundred goblins to the great moor, or veldt. There, at a certain hour
near midnight, he would find the red cap on a bush. With his companions,
he could celebrate the return of the cap. In exchange for this, she
asked the goblin to bring her a gold necklace.

The moonlight night came round and hundreds of the men of Drenthe
gathered together. They were armed with horseshoes, and with witch-hazel
and other plants, which are like poison to the sooty elves. They had
also bits of parchment covered with runes, a strange kind of writing,
and various charms which are supposed to be harmful to goblins. It was
agreed to move together in a circle towards the centre, where the lady
Alida was to hang the red cap upon a bush. Then, with a rush, the men
were to snatch off all the goblins' caps, pulling and grabbing, whether
they could see, or even feel anything, or not.

The placing of the red cap upon the bush in the centre, by the lady
Alida, was the signal.

So, when the great round-up narrowed to a small space, the men began to
grab, snatch and pull. Putting their hands out in the air, at the height
of about a yard from the ground, they hustled and pushed hard. In a few
minutes, hundreds of red caps were in their hands, and as many goblins
became visible. They were, indeed, an ugly host.

Yet hundreds of other goblins escaped, with their caps on, and were
still invisible. As they broke away in groups, however, they were seen,
for in each bunch was one or more visible fellow, because he was
capless. So the men divided into squads, to chase the imps a long
distance, even to many distant places. It was a most curious night
battle. Here could be seen groups of men in a tussle with the goblins,
many more of which, but by no means all, were made capless and visible.

[Illustration: AT THE FIRST LEVEL RAY THE GOBLINS WERE ALL TURNED TO STONE]

The racket kept up till the sky in the east was gray. Had all the
goblins run away, it would have been well with them. Hundreds of them
did, but the others were so anxious to help their fellows, or to get
back their own caps, fearing the disgrace of returning head bare to
their king, and getting a good scolding, that the sun suddenly rose on
them, before they knew it was day.

At the first level ray, the goblins were all turned to stone.

The treeless, desolate land, which, a moment before, was full of
struggling goblins and men, became as quiet as the blue sky above.
Nothing but some rounded rocks or stones, in groups, marked the spot
where the bloodless battle of imps and men had been fought.

There, these stones, big and little, lie to this day. Among the
buckwheat, and the potato blossoms of the summer, under the shadows and
clouds, and whispering breezes of autumn, or covered with the snows of
winter, they are seen on desolate heaths. Over some of them, oak trees,
centuries old, have grown. Others are near, or among, the farmers' grain
fields, or, not far from houses and barn-yards. The cows wander among
them, knowing nothing of their past. And the goblins come no more.




THE MOULDY PENNY


"Gold makes a woman penny-white," said the Dutch, in the days when
fairies were plentiful and often in their thoughts. What did the proverb
mean? Who ever saw a white penny?

Well, that was long ago, when pennies were white, because they were then
made of silver. Each one was worth a denary, which was a coin worth
about a shilling, or a quarter of a dollar.

As the Dutch had pounds, shillings and pence, before the English had
them, we see what _d_ in the signs £ s. d. means, that is, a
denary, or a white penny, made of silver.

In the old days, before the Dutch had houses with glass windows or
clothes of cloth or linen, or hats or shoes, cows and horses, or butter
and cheese, they knew nothing of money and they cared less. Almost
everything, even the land, was owned in common by all. Their wants were
few. Whenever they needed anything from other countries they swapped or
bartered. In this way they traded salt for furs, or fish for iron. But
when they met with, or had to fight, another tribe that was stronger or
richer, or knew more than they did, they required other things, which
the forests and waters could not furnish. So, by and by, pedlars and
merchants came up from the south. They brought new and strange articles,
such as mirrors, jewelry, clothes, and pretty things, which the girls
and women wanted and had begged their daddies and husbands to get for
them. For the men, they brought iron tools and better weapons, improved
traps, to catch wild beasts, and wagons, with wheels that had spokes.
When regular trade began, it became necessary to have money of some
kind.

Then coins of gold, silver, and copper were seen in the towns and
villages, and even in the woods and on the heaths of Holland. Yet there
was a good deal that was strange and mysterious about these round,
shining bits of metal, called money.

"Money. What is money?" asked many a proud warrior disdainfully.

Then the wise men explained to the fighting men, that money was named
after Juno Moneta, a goddess in Rome. She told men that no one would
ever want for money who was honest and just. Then, by and by, the mint
was in her temple and money was coined there. Then, later, in Holland,
the word meant money, but many people, who wanted to get rich quickly,
worshipped her. In time, however, the word "gold" meant money in
general.

When a great ruler, named Charlemagne, conquered or made treaties with
our ancestors, he allowed them to have mints and to coin money. Then,
again, it seemed wonderful how the pedlars and the goldsmiths and the
men called Lombards--strange long-bearded men from the south, who came
among the Dutch--grew rich faster than the work people. They seemed to
amass gold simply by handling money.

When a man who knew what a silver penny would do, made a present of one
to his wife, her face lighted up with joy. So in time, the word "penny
white," meant the smiling face of a happy woman. Yet it was also noticed
that the more people had, the more they wanted. The girls and boys
quickly found that money would buy what the pedlars brought. In the
towns, shops sprang up, in which were many curious things, which tempted
people to buy.

Some tried to spend their money and keep it too--to eat their cake and
have it also--but they soon found that they could not do this. There
were still many foolish, as well as wise people, in the land, even
during the new time of money. A few saved their coins and were happy in
giving some to the poor and needy. Many fathers had what was called a
"sparpot," or home savings bank, and taught their children the right use
of money. It began to be the custom for people to have family names, so
that a girl was not merely the daughter of so-and-so, nor a boy the son
of a certain father. In the selection of names, those which had the word
"penny" in them proved to be very popular. To keep a coin in the little
home bank, without spending it, long enough for it to gather mould,
which it did easily in the damp climate of Holland, that is, to darken
and get a crust on it, was considered a great virtue in the owner. This
showed that the owner had a strong mind and power of self-control. So
the name "Schimmelpennig," or "mouldy penny," became honorable, because
such people were wise and often kind and good. They did not waste their
money, but made good use of it.

On the other hand, were some mean and stingy folks, who liked to hear
the coins jingle. Instead of wisely spending their cash, or trading with
it, they hoarded their coins; that is, they hid them away in a stocking,
or a purse, or in a jar, or a cracked cooking pot, that couldn't be
used. Often they put it away somewhere in the chimney, behind a loose
brick. Then, at night, when no one was looking, these miserly folks
counted, rubbed, jingled, and gloated over the shining coins and never
helped anybody. So there grew up three sorts of people, called the
thrifty, the spendthrifts, and the misers. These last were the meanest
and most disliked of all. Others, again, hid their money away, so as to
have some, when sick, or old, and they talked about it. No one found
fault with these, though some laughed and said "a penny in the savings
jar makes more noise than when it is full of gold." Even when folks got
married they were exhorted by the minister to save money, "so as to have
something to give to the poor."

Now when the fairies, that work down underground, heard that the Dutch
had learned the use of money, and had even built a mint to stamp the
metal, they held a feast to talk over what they should do to help or
harm. In any event, they wanted to have some fun with the mortals above
ground.

That has always been the way with kabouters. They are in for fun, first,
last, and always. So, with punches and hammers, they made counterfeit
money. Then, in league with the elves, they began also to delude misers
and make them believe that much money makes men happy.

A long time after the mint had been built, two kabouters met to talk
over their adventures.

"It is wonderful what fools these creatures called men are," said the
first one. "There's old Vrek. He has been hoarding coins for the last
fifty years. Now, he has a pile of gold in guilders and stivers, but
there's hardly anything of his old self left. His soul is as small as a
shrimp. I whispered to him not to let out his money in trade, but to
keep it shut up. His strong box is full to bursting, but what went into
the chest has oozed out of the man. He died, last night, and hardly
anybody considers him worth burying. Some one on the street to-day asked
what Vrek had left behind. The answer was 'Nothing--he took it all with
him, for he had so little to take.'"

"That's jolly," said the older kabouter, who was a wicked looking
fellow. "I'll get some fun out of this. To shrivel up souls will be my
business henceforth. There's nothing like this newfangled business of
getting money, that will do it so surely."

So this ugly old imp went "snooping" around, as the Dutch say, about
people who sneak and dodge in and out of places, to which they ought not
to go, and in houses where they should not be found. This imp's purpose
was to make men crazy on the subject of making money, when they tried,
as many of them did, to get rich quickly in mean ways. Sorry to tell,
the imp found a good many promising specimens to work upon, at his
business of making some wise men foolish. He taught them to take out of
their souls what they hoarded away. To such fellows, when they became
misers, he gave the name of "Schim," which means a shadow. It was
believed by some people that such shrivelled up wretches had no bowels.

Soon after this, a great meeting of kabouters was held, in the dark
realms below ground. Each one told what he had been doing on the earth.
After the little imps had reported, the chief kabouter, when his turn
came, cried out:

"I shall tell of three brothers, and what each one did with the first
silver penny he earned."

"Go on," they all cried.

"I've caught one schim young. He married a wife only last year, but he
won't give her one gulden a year to dress on. He skimps the table, pares
the cheese till the rind is as thin as paper, and makes her live on skim
milk and barley. Besides this, he won't help the poor with a stiver. I
saw him put away a bright and shining silver penny, fresh from the mint.
He hid coin and pocketbook in the bricks of a chimney. So I climbed down
from the roof, seized both and ran away. I smeared the purse with wax
and hid it in the thick rib of a boat, by the wharf. There the penny
will gather mould enough. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

At this, the little imps broke out into a titter that sounded like the
cackle of a hen trying to tell she had laid an egg.

"Good for you! Serves the old schim right," said a good kabouter, who
loved to help human beings. "Now, I'll tell you about his brother, who
has a wife and baby. He feeds and clothes them well, and takes good care
of his old mother.

"Almost every week he helps some poor little boy, or girl, that has no
mother or father. I heard him say he wished he could take care of poor
orphans. So, when he was asleep, at night, I whispered in his ear and
made him dream.

"'Put away your coin where it won't get mouldy and show that a penny
that keeps moving is not like a rolling stone that gathers no moss.
Deliver it to the goldsmiths for interest and leave it in your will to
increase, until it becomes a great sum. Then, long after you are dead,
the money you have saved and left for the poor _weesies_ (orphans)
will build a house for them. It will furnish food and beds and pay for
nurses that will care for them, and good women who will be like mothers.
Other folks, seeing what you have done, will build orphan houses. Then
we shall have a Wees House (orphan asylum) in every town. No child,
without a father or mother, in all Holland, will have to cry for milk or
bread. Don't let your penny mould.'

"The third brother, named Spill-penny, woke up on the same morning, with
a headache. He remembered that he had spent his silver penny at the gin
house, buying drinks for a lot of worthless fellows like himself. He and
his wife, with little to eat, had to wear ragged clothes, and the baby
had not one toy to play with. When his wife gently chided him, he ran
out of the house in bad humor. Going to the tap room, he ordered a drink
of what we call 'Dutch courage,' that is, a glass of gin, and drank it
down. Then what do you think he did?"

"Tell us," cried the imps uproariously.

"He went into a clothing house, bought a suit of clothes, and had it
'charged.'"

"That's it. I've known others like him," said an old imp.

"Now it was kermiss day in the village, and all that afternoon and
evening this spendthrift was roystering with his fellow 'zuip zaks'
(boon companions). With them, it was 'always drunk, always dry.' Near
midnight, being too full of gin, he stumbled in the gutter, struck his
head on the curb, and fell down senseless.

"Her husband not coming home that night, the distracted wife went out
early in the morning. She found several men lying asleep on the
sidewalks or in the gutters. She turned each one over, just as she did
buckwheat cakes on the griddle, to see if this man or that was hers. At
last she discovered her worthless husband, but no shaking or pulling
could awake him. He was dead.

"Now there was a covetous undertaker in town, who carted away the
corpse, and then told the widow that she must spend much money on the
funeral, in order to have her husband buried properly; or else, the
tongues of the neighbors would wag. So the poor woman had to sell her
cow, the only thing she had, and was left poorer than ever. That was the
end of Spill-penny."

"A jolly story," cried the kabouters in chorus. "Served him right. Now
tell us about Vrek the miser. Go on."

"Well, the saying 'Much coin, much care,' is hardly true of him, for I
and my trusty helpers ran away with all he had. With his first silver
penny he began to hoard his money. He has been hunting for years for
that penny, but has not found it. It will be rather mouldy, should he
find it, but that he never will."

"Why not?" asked a young imp.

"For a good reason. He would not pay his boatmen their wages. So they
struck, and refused to work. When he tried to sail his own boat, it
toppled over and sunk, and Vrek was drowned. His wife was saved the
expenses of a funeral, for his carcass was never found, and the covetous
undertaker lost a job."

"What of the third one?" they asked.

"Oh, Mynheer Eerlyk, you mean? No harm can come to him. Everybody loves
him and he cares for the orphans. There will be no mouldy penny in his
house."

Then the meeting broke up. The good kabouters were happy. The bad ones,
the imps, were sorry to miss what they hoped would be a jolly story.

When a thousand years passed away and the age of newspapers and copper
pennies had come, there were no descendants of the two brothers
Spill-penny and Schim; but of Mynheer Eerlyk there were as many as the
years that had flown since he made a will. In this document, he ordered
that his money, in guilders of gold and pennies of silver, should remain
at compound interest for four hundred years. In time, the ever
increasing sum passed from the goldsmiths to the bankers, and kept on
growing enormously. At last this large fortune was spent in building
hundreds of homes for orphans.

According to his wish, each girl in the asylum dressed in clothes that
were of the colors on the city arms. In Amsterdam, for example, each
orphan child's frock is half red and half black, with white aprons, and
the linen and lace caps are very neat and becoming to their rosy faces.
In Friesland, where golden hair and apple blossom cheeks are so often
seen with the white lace and linen, some one has called the orphan girls
"Apples of gold in pictures of silver." Among the many glories of the
Netherlands is her care for the aged and the orphans.

One of the thirty generations of the Eerlyks read one day in the
newspaper:

"Last week, while digging a very deep canal, some workman struck his
pickaxe against timbers that were black with age, and nearly as hard as
stone. These, on being brought up, showed that they were the ribs of an
ancient boat. Learned men say that there was once a river here, which
long since dried up. All the pieces of the boat were recovered, and,
under the skilful hands of our ship carpenters, have been put together
and the whole vessel is now set up and on view in our museum."

"We'll go down to-morrow on our way home from school, and see the
curiosity," cried one of the Eerlyk boys, clapping his hands.

"Wait," said his father, "there's more in the story.

"To-day, the janitor of the museum, while examining a wide crack in one
of the ribs, which was covered with wax, picked this substance away. He
poked his finger in the crack, and finding something soft, pulled it
out. It was a rough leather purse, inside of which was a coin, mouldy
with age and dark as the wood. Even after cleaning it with acid, it was
hard to read what was stamped on it; but, strange to say, the face of
the coin had left its impression on the leather, which had been covered
with wax. From this, though the metal of the coin was black, and the
mould thick on the coin, what they saw showed that it was a silver penny
of the age of Charlemagne, or the ninth century."

"Charlemagne is French, father, but we call him Karel de Groot, or
Charles the Great."

"Yes, my son. Don't you hear Karel's Klok (the curfew) sounding? 'Tis
time for little folks to go to bed."




THE GOLDEN HELMET


For centuries, more than can be counted on the fingers of both hands,
the maidens and mothers of Friesland have worn a helmet of gold covering
the crown and back of their heads, and with golden rosettes at each ear.
It marks the Frisian girl or woman. She is thus known by this head-dress
as belonging to a glorious country, that has never been conquered and is
proudly called Free Frisia. It is a relic of the age of gold, when this
precious metal was used in a thousand forms, not seen to-day.

Of how and why the golden helmet is worn, this is the story:

In days gone by, when forests covered the land and bears and wolves were
plentiful, there were no churches in Friesland. The people were pagans
and all worshipped Woden, whom the Frisians called Fos-i-te'. Certain
trees were sacred to him. When a baby was ill, or grown people had a
disease, which medicine could not help, they laid the sick one at the
foot of the holy tree, hoping for health soon to come. But, should the
patient die under the tree, then the sorrowful friends were made glad,
if the leaves of the tree fell upon the corpse. It was death to any
person who touched the sacred tree with an axe, or made kindling wood,
even of its branches.

Now among the wild people of the north, who ate acorns and were clothed
in the skins of animals, there came, from the Christian lands of the
south, a singer with his harp. Invited to the royal court, he sang sweet
songs. To these the king's daughter listened with delight, until the
tears, first of sorrow and then of joy, rolled down her lovely cheeks.

This maiden was the pride of her father, because of her sweet temper and
willing spirit, while all the people boasted of her beauty. Her eyes
were of the color of a sky without clouds. No spring flower could equal
the pink and rose in her cheeks. Her lips were like the red coral, which
the ship men brought from distant shores. Her long tresses rivalled gold
in their glory. And, because her father worshipped Fos-i-té', the god of
justice, and his daughter was always so fair to all her playmates, he,
in his pride of her, gave her the name Fos-te-dí'-na, that is, the
darling of Fos-i-té', or the Lady of Justice.

[Illustration: WHICH WAS THE MORE GLORIOUS, HER LONG TRESSES OR THE
SHINING CROWN ABOVE.]

The singer from the south sang a new song, and when he played upon his
harp his music was apt to be soft and low; sometimes sad, even, and
often appealing. It was so much finer, and oh! so different, from what
the glee men and harpers in the king's court usually rendered for the
listening warriors. Instead of being about fighting and battle, or the
hunting of wolves and bears, of stags and the aurochs, it was of healing
the sick and helping the weak. In place of battles and the exploits of
war lords, in fighting and killing Danes, the harper's whole story was
of other things and about gentle people. He sang neither of war, nor of
the chase, nor of fighting gods, nor of the storm maidens, that carry up
to the sky, and into the hall of Woden, the souls of the slain on the
battlefield.

The singer sang of the loving Father in Heaven, who sent his dear Son to
earth to live and die, that men might be saved. He made music with voice
and instrument about love, and hope, and kindness to the sick and poor,
of charity to widows and to orphans, and about the delights of doing
good. He closed by telling the story of the crown of thorns, how wicked
men nailed this good prophet to a cross, and how, when tender-hearted
women wept, the Holy Teacher told them not to weep for him, but for
themselves and their children. This mighty lord of noble thoughts and
words lived what he taught. He showed greatness in the hour of death, by
first remembering his mother, and then by forgiving his enemies.

"What! forgive an enemy? Forgive even the Danes? What horrible doctrine
do we hear!" cried the men of war. "Let us kill this singer from the
south." And they beat their swords on their metal shields, till the
clangor was deafening. The great hall rang with echoes of the din, as if
for battle. The Druids, or pagan priests, even more angry, applauded the
action of the fighting men.

But Fos-te-dí-na rushed forward to shield the harper, and her long
golden hair covered him.

"No!" said the king to his warriors. "This man is my guest. I invited
him and he shall be safe here."

Sullen and bitter in their hearts, both priests and war men left the
hall, breathing out revenge and feeling bound to kill the singer. Soon
all were quiet in slumber, for the hour was late.

Why were the pagan followers of the king so angry with the singer?

The answer to this question is a story in itself.

Only three days before, a party of Christian Danes had been taken
prisoners in the forest. They had come, peaceably and without arms, into
the country; for they wanted to tell the Frisians about the new
religion, which they had themselves received. In the cold night air,
they had, unwittingly, cut off some of the dead branches of a tree
sacred to the god Fos-i-té to kindle a fire.

A spy, who had closely watched them, ran and told his chief. Now, the
Christian Danes were prisoners and would be given to the hungry wolves
to be torn to pieces. That was the law concerning sacrilege against the
trees of the gods.

Some of the Frisians had been to Rome, the Eternal City, and had there
learned, from the cruel Romans, how to build great enclosures, not of
stone but of wood. Here, on holidays, they gave their prisoners of war
to the wild beasts, for the amusement of thousands of the people. The
Frisians could get no lions or tigers, for these fierce brutes live in
hot countries; but they sent hundreds of hunters into the woods for many
miles around. These bold fellows drove the deer, bears, wolves, and the
aurochs within an ever narrowing circle towards the pits. Into these,
dug deep in the ground and covered with branches and leaves, the animals
fell down and were hauled out with ropes. The deer were kept for their
meat, but the bears and wolves were shut up, in pens, facing the great
enclosure. When maddened with hunger, these ravenous beasts of prey were
to be let loose on the Christian Danes. Several aurochs, made furious by
being goaded with pointed sticks, or pricked by spears, were to rush out
and trample the poor victims to death.

The heart of the beautiful Fos-te-dí-na, who had heard the songs of the
singer of faith in the one God and love for his creatures, was deeply
touched. She resolved to set the captives free. Being a king's daughter,
she was brave as a man. So, at midnight, calling a trusty maid-servant,
she, with a horn lantern, went out secretly to the prison pen. She
unbolted the door, and, in the name of their God and hers, she bade the
prisoners return to their native land.

How the wolves in their pen did roar, when, on the night breeze, they
sniffed the presence of a newcomer! They hoped for food, but got none.

The next morning, when the crowd assembled, but found that they were to
be cheated of their bloody sport, they raged and howled. Coming to the
king, they demanded his daughter's punishment. The pagan priests
declared that the gods had been insulted, and that their anger would
fall on the whole tribe, because of the injury done to their sacred
tree. The hunters swore they would invade the Danes' land and burn all
their churches.

Fos-te-dí-na was summoned before the council of the priests, who were to
decide on the punishment due her. Being a king's daughter, they could
not put her to death by throwing her to the wolves.

Even as the white-bearded high priest spoke, the beautiful girl heard
the fierce creatures howling, until her blood curdled, but she was brave
and would not recant.

In vain they threatened the maiden, and invoked the wrath of the gods
upon her. Bravely she declared that she would suffer, as her Lord did,
rather than deny him.

"So be it," cried the high priest. "Your own words are your sentence.
You shall wear a crown of thorns."

Fos-te-di'-na was dismissed. Then the old men sat long, in brooding over
what should be done. They feared the gods, but were afraid, also, to
provoke their ruler to wrath. They finally decided that the maiden's
life should be spared, but that for a whole day, from sunrise to sunset,
she should stand in the market-place, with a crown of sharp thorns
pressed down hard upon her head. The crowd should be allowed to revile
her for being a Christian and none be punished; but no vile language was
to be allowed, or stones or sticks were to be thrown at her.

Fos-te-di'-na refused to beg for mercy and bravely faced the ordeal. She
dressed herself in white garments, made from the does and fawns--free
creatures of the forest--and unbound her golden tresses. Then she walked
with a firm step to the centre of the market-place.

"Bring the thorn-crown for the blasphemer of Fos-i-té," cried the high
priest.

This given to him, the king's daughter kneeled, and the angry old man,
his eyes blazing like fire, pressed the sharp thorns slowly, down and
hard, upon the maiden's brow. Quickly the red blood trickled down over
her golden hair and face. Then in long, narrow lines of red, the drops
fell, until the crimson stains were seen over the back, front, and sides
of her white garments.

But without wincing, the brave girl stood up, and all day long, while
the crowd howled, in honor of their gods, and rough fellows jeered at
her, Fos-te-dí-na was silent and patient, like her Great Example.
Inwardly, she prayed the Father of all to pardon and forgive. There were
not a few who pitied the bleeding maiden wearing the cruel crown, that
drew the blood that stained her shining hair and once white clothing.

Years passed by and a great change came over land and people. The very
scars on Fos-te-dí-na's forehead softened the hearts of the people.
Thousands of them heard the words of the good missionaries. Churches
arose, on which was seen the shining cross. Idols were abolished and the
trees, once sacred to the old gods, were cut down. Meadows, rich with
cows, smiled where wolves had roamed. The changes, even in ten years,
were like those in a fairy tale. Best of all, a Christian prince from
the south, grandson of Charlemagne, fell in love with Fos-te-dí-na, now
queen of the country. He sought her hand, and won her heart, and the
date for the marriage was fixed. It was a great day for Free Frisia. The
wedding was to be in a new church, built on the very spot where
Fos-te-dí-na had stood, in pain and sorrow, when the crown of thorns was
pressed upon her brow.

On that morning, a bevy of pretty maidens, all dressed in white, came in
procession to the palace. One of them bore in her hands a golden crown,
with plates coming down over the forehead and temples. It was made in
such a way that, like a helmet, it completely covered and concealed the
scars of the sovereign lady. So Fos-te-dí-na was married, with the
golden helmet on her head. "But which," asked some, "was the more
glorious, her long tresses, floating down her back, or the shining crown
above it?" Few could be sure in making answer.

Instead of a choir singing hymns, the harper, who had once played in the
king's hall, now an older man, had been summoned, with his harp, to sing
in solo. In joyous spirits, he rendered into the sweet Frisian tongue,
two tributes in song to the crowned and glorified Lord of all.

One praised the young guest at the wedding at Cana, Friend of man, who
turned water into wine; the other, "The Great Captain of our Salvation,"
who, in full manly strength, suffered, thorn-crowned, for us all.

Then the solemn silence, that followed the song, was broken by the
bride's coming out of the church. Though by herself alone, without
adornment, Fos-te-dí-na was a vision of beauty. Her head-covering looked
so pretty, and the golden helmet was so becoming, that other maidens,
also, when betrothed, wished to wear it. It became the fashion-for
Christian brides, on their wedding days, to put on this glorified crown
of thorns.

All the jewelers approved of the new bridal head-dress, and in time this
golden ornament was worn in Friesland every day. Thus it has come to
pass that the Frisian helmet, which is the glorified crown of thorns,
is, in one form or another, worn even in our day. When Fos-te-dí-na's
first child, a boy, was born, the happy parents named him William, which
is only another word for Gild Helm. Out from this northern region, and
into all the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, the custom spread.
In one way or another, one can discern, in the headdresses or costumes
of the Dutch and Flemish women, the relics of ancient history.

When Her Majesty, the Dutch Queen, visits the Frisians, in the old land
of the north, which her fathers held so dear, she, out of compliment to
Free Frisia, wears the ancient costume, surmounted by the golden helm.
Those who know the origin of the name Wilhelmina read in it the true
meaning, which is,

"The Sovereign Lady of the Golden Helm."




WHEN WHEAT WORKED WOE


Many a day has the story-teller wandered along the dykes, which overlook
the Zuyder Zee. Once there were fertile fields, and scores of towns,
where water now covers all. Then fleets of ships sailed on the bosom of
Lake Flevo, and in the river which ran into the sea. Bright and
beautiful cities dotted the shores, and church bells chimed merrily for
the bridal, or tolled in sympathy for the sorrowing. Many were the
festal days, because of the wealth, which the ships brought from lands
near and far.

But to-day the waters roll over the spot and "The Dead Cities of the
Zuyder Zee" are a proverb. Yet all are not dead, in one and the same
sense. Some lie far down under the waves, their very names forgotten,
because of the ocean's flood, which in one night, centuries ago, rushed
in to destroy. Others languished, because wealth came no longer in the
ships, and the seaports dried up. And one, because of a foolish woman,
instead of holding thousands of homes and people, is to-day only a
village nestling behind the dykes. It holds a few hundred people and
only a fragment of land remains of its once great area.

In the distant ages of ice and gravel, when the long and high glaciers
of Norway poked their cold noses into Friesland, Stavoren held the
shrine of Stavo, the storm-god. The people were very poor, but many
pilgrims came to worship at Stavo's altars. After the new religion came
into the land, wealth increased, because the ships traded with the warm
lands in the south. A great city sprang up, to which the counts of
Holland granted a charter, with privileges second to none. It was
written that Stavoren should have "the same freedom which a free city
enjoys from this side of the mountains (the Alps) to the sea."

Then there came an age of gold in Stavoren. People were so rich, that
the bolts and hinges and the keys and locks of their doors were made of
this precious yellow metal. In some of the houses, the parlor floor was
paved with ducats from Spain.

Now in this city lived a married couple, whose wealth came from the
ships. The man, a merchant, was a simple hearted and honest fellow, who
worked hard and was easily pleased.

But his wife was discontented, always peevish and never satisfied with
anything. Even her neighbors grew tired of her whining and complaints.
They declared that on her tombstone should be carved these words:

"_She wanted something else_"

Now on every voyage, made by the many ships he owned, the merchant
charged his captains to bring home something rare and fine, as a present
to his wife. Some pretty carving or picture, a roll of silk for a dress,
a lace collar, a bit of splendid tapestry, a shining jewel; or, it may
be, a singing bird, a strange animal for a pet, a barrel of fruit, or a
box of sweetmeats was sure to be brought. With such gifts, whether large
or small, the husband hoped to please his wife.

But in this good purpose, he could never succeed. So he began to think
that it was his own fault. Being only a man, he could not tell what a
woman wanted. So he resolved to try his own wits and tastes, to see if
he could meet his wife's desires.

One day, when one of his best captains was about to sail on a voyage to
the northeast, to Dantzig, which is almost as far as Russia, he inquired
of his bad-tempered vrouw what he should bring her.

"I want the best thing in the world," said she. "Now this time, do bring
it to me."

The merchant was now very happy. He told the captain to seek out and
bring back what he himself might think was the best thing on earth; but
to make sure, he must buy a cargo of wheat.

The skipper went on board, hoisted anchor and set sail. Using his man's
wits, he also decided that wheat, which makes bread, was the very thing
to be desired. In talking to his mates and sailors, they agreed with
him. Thus, all the men, in this matter, were of one mind, and the
captain dreamed only of jolly times when on shore. On other voyages,
when he had hunted around for curiosities to please the wife of the
boss, he had many and anxious thoughts; but now, he was care-free.

In Dantzig, all the ship's men had a good time, for the captain made
"goed koop" (a fine bargain). Then the vessel, richly loaded with grain,
turned its prow homeward. Arriving at Stavoren, the skipper reported to
the merchant, to tell him of much money made, of a sound cargo obtained,
of safe arrival, and, above all, plenty of what would please his wife;
for what on earth could be more valuable than wheat, which makes bread,
the staff of life?

At lunch time, when the merchant came home, his wife wanted to know what
made him look so joyful. Had he made "goed koop" that day?

Usually, at meal time, this quiet man hardly spoke two words an hour. To
tell the truth, he sometimes irritated his wife because of his silence,
but to-day he was voluble.

The man of wealth answered, "I have a joyful surprise for you. I cannot
tell you now. You must come with me and see."

After lunch, he took his wife on board the ship, giving a wink of his
eye to the skipper, who nodded to the sailors, and then the stout
fellows opened the hatches. There, loaded to the very deck, was the
precious grain. The merchant looked up, expecting to see and hear his
wife clap her hands with joy.

But the greedy woman turned her back on him, and flew into a rage.

"Throw it all overboard, into the water," she screamed. "You wretch, you
have deceived me."

The husband tried to calm her and explain that it was his thought to get
wheat, as the world's best gift, hoping thus to please her.

At that moment, some hungry beggars standing on the wharf, heard the
lady's loud voice, and falling on their knees cried to her:

"Please, madame, give us some of this wheat; we are starving."

"Yes, lady, and there are many poor in Stavoren, in spite of all its
gold," said the captain. "Why not divide this wheat among the needy, if
you are greatly disappointed? You will win praise for yourself. In the
name of God, forgive my boldness, and do as I ask. Then, on the next
voyage, I shall sail as far as China and will get you anything you ask!"

But the angry woman would listen to no one. She stayed on the ship,
urging on the sailors, with their shovels, until every kernel was cast
overboard.

"Never again will I try to please you," said her husband. "The hungry
will curse you, and you may yet suffer for food, because of this wilful
waste, which will make woful want. Even you will suffer."

She listened at first in silence, and then put her fingers in her ears
to hear no more. Proud of her riches, with her voice in a high key, she
shouted, "I ever want? What folly to say so! I am too rich." Then, to
show her contempt for such words, she slipped off a ring from her finger
and threw it into the waters of the harbor. Her husband almost died of
grief and shame, when he saw that it was her wedding ring, which she had
cast overboard.

"Hear you all! When that ring comes back to me, I shall be hungry and
not before," said she, loud enough to be heard on ship, wharf, and
street. Gathering up her skirts, she stepped upon the gangway, tripping
to the shore, and past the poor people, who looked at her in mingled
hate and fear. Then haughtily, she strode to her costly mansion.

Now to celebrate the expected new triumph and to show off her wealth and
luxury, with the numerous curiosities brought her from many lands, the
proud lady had already invited a score of guests. When they were all
seated, the first course of soup was served in silver dishes, which
every one admired. As the fish was about to be brought in, to be eaten
off golden plates, the butler begged the lady's permission to bring in
first, from the chief cook, something rare and wonderful, that he had
found in the mouth of the fish, which was waiting, already garnished, on
the big dish. Not dreaming what it might be, the hostess clapped her
hands in glee, saying to those at the table:

"Perhaps now, at last, I shall get what I have long waited for--the best
thing in the world."

"We shall all hope so," the guests responded in chorus.

But when the chief cook came into the banquet hall, and, bowing low,
held before his mistress a golden salver, with a finger ring on it, the
proud lady turned pale.

It was the very ring which, in her anger, she had tossed overboard the
day before. To add to her shame, she saw from the look of horror on
their faces, that the guests had recognized the fact that it was her
wedding token.

This was only the beginning of troubles. That night, her husband died of
grief and vexation. The next day, the warehouses, stored with valuable
merchandise of all sorts, were burned to the ground.

Before her husband had been decently buried, a great tempest blew down
from the north, and news came that four of his ships had been wrecked.
Their sailors hardly escaped with their lives, and both they and their
families in Stavoren were now clamoring for bread.

Even when she put on her weeds of grief, these did not protect the widow
from her late husband's creditors. She had to sell her house and all
that was in it, to satisfy them and pay her debts. She had even to pawn
her ring to the Lombards, the goldsmiths of the town, to buy money for
bread.

Now that she was poor, none of the former rich folks, who had come to
her grand dinners, would look at her. She had even to beg her bread on
the streets; for who wanted to help the woman who wasted wheat? She was
glad to go to the cow stalls, and eat what the cattle left. Before the
year ended, she was found dead in a stable, in rags and starvation. Thus
her miserable life ended. Without a funeral, but borne on a bier, by two
men, she was buried at the expense of the city, in the potter's field.

But even this was not the end of the fruits of her wickedness, for the
evil she did lived after her. It was found that, from some mysterious
cause, a sand bar was forming in the river. This prevented the ships
from coming up to the docks. With its trade stopped, the city grew
poorer every day. What was the matter?

By and by, at low tide, some fishermen saw a green field under the
surface of the harbor. It was not a garden of seaweed, for instead of
leaves whirling with the tide, there were stalks that stood up high. The
wheat had sprouted and taken root. In another month the tops of these
stalks were visible above the water. But in such soil as sand, the wheat
had reverted to its wild state. It was good for nothing, but only did
harm.

For, while producing no grain for food, it held together the sand, which
rolled down the river and had come all the way from the Alps to the
ocean. Of old, this went out to sea and kept the harbor scoured clean,
so that the ships came clear up to the wharves. Then, on many a morning,
a wealthy merchant, whose house was close to the docks, looked out of
his window to find the prows, of his richly laden ships, poked almost
into his bedroom, and he liked it. Venturesome boys even climbed from
their cots down the bowsprits, on to the deck of their fathers' vessels.
Of such sons, the fathers were proud, knowing that they would make brave
sailors and navigate spice ships from the Indies. It was because of her
brave mariners, that Stavoren had gained her glory and greatness, being
famed in all the land.

But now, within so short a time, the city's renown and wealth had faded
like a dream. By degrees, the population diminished, commerce became a
memory, and ships a curiosity. The people, that were left, had to eat
rye and barley bread, instead of wheat. Floods ruined the farmers and
washed away large parts of the town, so that dykes had to be built to
save what was left.

More terrible than all, the ocean waves rolled in and wiped out cities,
towns, and farms, sinking churches, convents, monasteries, warehouses,
wharves, and docks, in one common ruin, hidden far down below.

To this day the worthless wheat patch, that spoiled Stavoren, is called
"Vrouwen Zand," or the Lady's Sand. Instead of being the staff of life,
as Nature intended, the wheat, because of a power of evil greater than
that of a thousand wicked fairies, became the menace of death to ruin a
rich city.

No wonder the Dutch have a proverb, which might be thus translated:

  "Peevishness perverts wheat into weeds
  But a sweet temper turns a field into gold."




WHY THE STORK LOVES HOLLAND


Above all countries in Europe, this bird, wise in the head and long in
the legs, loves Holland. Flying all the way from Africa, the stork is at
home among dykes and windmills.

Storks are seen by the thousands in Holland and Friesland. Sometimes
they strut in the streets, not in the least frightened or disturbed.
They make their nests among the tiles and chimneys, on the red roofs of
the houses, and they rear their young even on the church towers.

If a man sets an old cart wheel flat on a tree-top, the storks accept
this, as an invitation to come and stay. At once they proceed, first of
all, to arrange their toilet, after their long flight. They do this,
even before they build their nest. You can see them, by the hour,
preening their feathers and combing their plumage, with their long
bills. Then, as solemnly as a boss mason, they set about gathering
sticks and hay for their house. They never seem to be in a hurry.

A stork lays on a bit of wood, and then goes at his toilet again,
looking around to see that other folks are busy. Year after year, a pair
of storks will use the same nest, rebuilding, or repairing it, each
spring time. The stork is a steady citizen and does not like to change.
Once treated well in one place, by the landlord, Mr. and Mrs. Stork keep
the same apartments and watch over the family cradle inside the house,
to see that it is always occupied by a baby. The return of the stork is,
in Holland, a household celebration.

Out in the fields, Mr. Stork is happy indeed, for Holland is the
paradise of frogs; so the gentleman of the red legs finds plenty to eat.
He takes his time for going to dinner, and rarely rushes for quick
lunch. After business hours in the morning, he lays his long beak among
his thick breast feathers, until it is quite hidden. Then, perched up in
the air on one long leg, like a stilt, he takes a nap, often for hours.

With the other leg crossed, he seems to be resting on the figure four
(4).

Towards evening he shakes out his wings, flaps them once or twice, and
takes a walk, but he is never in haste. Beginning his hunt, he soon has
enough frogs, mice, grubs, worms or insects to make a good meal. It is
because this bird feels so much at home, in town and country, making
part of the landscape, that we so associate together Holland and the
stork, as we usually do.

The Dutch proverb pictures the scene, which is so common. "In the same
field, the cow eats grass; the grayhound hunts the hare; and the stork
helps himself to the frogs." Indeed, if it were not for the stork,
Holland would, like old Egypt, in the time of Moses, be overrun with
frogs.

The Dutch call the stork by the sweet name "Ooijevaar," or the
treasure-bringer. Every spring time, the boys and girls, fathers and
mothers, shout welcome to the white bird from Egypt.

"What do you bring me?" is their question or thought.

If the bird deserts its old home on their roof, the family is in grief,
thinking it has lost its luck; but if Daddy Stork, with Mrs. Stork's
approval, chooses a new place for their nest, there is more rejoicing in
that house, than if money had been found. "Where there are nestlings on
the roof, there will be babies in the house," is what the Dutch say; for
both are welcome.

To tell why the stork loves Holland, we must go back to the Africa of a
million years ago. Then, we shall ask the Dutch fairies how they
succeeded in making the new land, in the west, so popular in the stork
world. For what reason did the wise birds emigrate to the cold country a
thousand miles away? They were so regular and punctual, that a great
prophet wrote:

"Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times."

Ages ago, there were camels and caravans in Africa, but there was no
Holland, for the land was still under the waves. In India, also, the
stork was an old bird, that waded in the pools and kept the frogs from
croaking in terms of the multiplication table. Sometimes the stork
population increased too fast and some went hungry for food; for, the
proverb tells us that a stork "died while waiting for the ocean to dry,
hoping to get a supply of dried fish."

When on the coast of the North Sea, the Land of a Million Islands was
made, the frog emigrants were there first. They poured in so fast, that
it seemed a question as to who should own the country-frogs or men. Some
were very big, as if ambitious to be bulls. They croaked so loud, that
they drowned out the fairy music, and made the night hideous with their
noises. The snakes spoiled the country for the little birds, while the
toads seemed to think that the salt ocean had been kept out, and the
land made, especially for them.

The Dutch fairies were disgusted at the way these reptiles behaved, for
they could not enjoy themselves, as in the old days. If they went to
dance in the meadow, on moonlight nights, they always found a big
bullfrog sitting in their ring, mocking them with its bellowing. So when
they heard about the storks in Africa, and what hearty appetites they
had, for the various wrigglers, crawlers, jumpers and splashers in the
waters, they resolved to invite them, in a body, to Holland.

The Dutch fairies knew nothing of the habits of the bird and scarcely
imagined how such a creature might look, but they heard many pleasant
things about the stork's good character. The wise bird had an excellent
reputation, not only for being kind to its young, but also for attending
to the wants of its parents, when they were old. It was even said that
in some countries the stork was the symbol for filial piety.

So the fairies of all the Netherlands despatched a delegation to Egypt
and a congress of storks was called to consider this invitation to go
west. Messengers were at once sent to all the red-legged birds, among
the bulrushes of the Nile, or that lived on the roofs of the temples, or
that perched on the pyramids, or dwelt on the top of old columns, or
that stood in rows along the eaves of the town houses. The town birds
gained their living by acting as street cleaners, but the river birds
made their meals chiefly on fish, frogs, and mice.

The invitation was discussed in stork meeting, and it was unanimously
accepted; except by some old grannies and grandpops that feared in the
strange land they would not be well fed. On a second motion, it was
agreed that only the strongest birds should attempt the flight. Those
afraid, or too weak to go, must stay behind and attend to the old folks.
Such a rattle of mandibles was never heard in Egypt before, as when this
stork meeting adjourned.

Now when storks travel, they go in flocks. Thousands of them left Egypt
together. High in the air, with their broad wings spread and their long
legs stretched out behind them, they covered Europe in a few hours. Then
they scattered all over the marshy lands of the new country. It was
agreed that each pair was to find its own home. When the cold autumn
should come, they were to assemble again for flight to Egypt.

It was a new sight for the fairies, the frogs and the men, to look over
the landscape and see these snow white strangers. They were so pretty to
look at, while promenading over the meadows, wading in the ponds and
ditches, or standing silently by the river banks. Soon, however, these
foreign birds were very unpopular in bullfrog land, and as for the
snakes, they thought that Holland would be ruined by these hungry
strangers. On the other hand, it was good news, in fairy-land, that all
fairies could dance safely on their meadow rings, for the bullfrogs were
now afraid to venture in the grass, lest they should be gobbled up, for
the frogs could not hide from the storks. The new birds could poke their
big bills so far into the mud-holes, that no frog, or snake, big or
little, was safe. The stork's red legs were so long, and the birds could
wade in such deep water, that hundreds of frogs were soon eaten up, and
there were many widows and orphans in the ponds and puddles.

When the fairies got more acquainted with their new guests, and saw how
they behaved, they nearly died of laughing. They were not surprised at
their diet, or eating habits, but they soon discovered that the storks
were not song birds. Instead of having voices, they seemed to talk to
each other by clattering their long jaws, or snapping their mandibles
together. Their snowy plumage--all being white but their wing
feathers--was admired, was envied, and their long bright colored legs
were a wonder. At first the fairies thought their guests wore red
stockings and they thought how heavy must be the laundry work on wash
days; for in Holland, everything must be clean.

Of all creatures on earth, as the fairies thought, the funniest was seen
when Mr. Stork was in love. To attract and please his lady love, he made
the most grotesque gestures. He would leap up from the ground and move
with a hop, skip, and jump. Then he spread out his wings, as if to hug
his beloved. Then he danced around her, as if he were filled with wine.
All the time he made the best music he knew how, by clattering his
mandibles together. He intended this performance for a sort of love
ditty, or serenade. The whole program was more amusing than anything
that an ape, goat, or donkey could get up. How the fairies did laugh!

Yet the fairies were very grateful to the storks for ridding their
meadows of so much vermin. How these delicate looking, snow white and
graceful creatures could put so many snails, snakes, tadpoles, and toads
into their stomachs and turn them into snow white feathers, wonderful
wings and long legs, as red as a rose, was a mystery to them. It seemed
more wonderful than anything which they could do, but as fairies have no
stomachs and do not eat, this whole matter of digestion was a mystery to
them.

Besides the terror and gloom in the frog world, every reptile winced and
squirmed, when he heard of this new enemy. All crawlers, creepers, and
jumpers had so long imagined that the land was theirs and had been made
solely for their benefit! Nor did they know how to conquer the storks.
The frog daddies could do nothing, and the frog mothers were every
moment afraid to let either the tadpoles or froggies go out of their
sight. They worried lest they should see their babies caught up in a
pair of long, bony jaws, as sharp as scissors, there to wriggle and
crow, until their darlings disappeared within the monster.

One anecdote of the many that were long told in the old Dutch frog ponds
was this: showing into what clangers curiosity may lead youngsters. We
put it in quotation marks to show that it was told as a true story, and
not printed in a book, or made up.

"A tadpole often teased its froggy mother to let it go and see a red
pole, of which it had heard from a traveller. Mrs. Frog would not at
first let her son go, but promised that as soon as the tadpole lost his
tail, and his flippers had turned into fore legs, and his hind quarters
had properly sprouted, so that he could hop out of danger, he might then
venture on his travels. She warned him, however, not to go too near to
that curious red pole, of which he had heard. Nobody as yet found out
just what this red thing, standing in the water, was; but danger was
suspected by old heads, and all little froggies were warned to be
careful and keep away. In reality, the red stick was the leg of a stork,
sound asleep, for it was taking its usual afternoon nap. The frogs on
the bank, and those in the pool that held their noses above water, to
get their breath, had never before seen anything like this red stilt, or
its cross pole; for no bird of this sort had ever before flown into
their neighborhood. They never suspected that it was a stork, with its
legs shaped like the figure four (4). Indeed, they knew nothing of its
long bill, that could open and shut like a trap, catching a frog or
snake, and swallowing it in a moment.

"Unfortunately for this uneducated young frog, that had never travelled
from home, it now went too near the red pole, and, to show how brave it
was, rubbed its nose against the queer thing. Suddenly the horrible
creature, that had only been asleep, woke up and snapped its jaws. In a
moment, a wriggling froggy disappeared from sight into the stomach of a
monster, that had two red legs, instead of one. At the sight of such
gluttony, there was an awful splash, for a whole row of frogs had jumped
from the bank into the pool. After this, it was evident that Holland was
not to belong entirely to the frogs."

As for the human beings, they were so happy over the war with the vermin
and the victory of the storks, that they made this bird their pride and
joy. They heaped honors upon the stork as the savior of their country.
They placed boxes on the roofs of their houses for these birds to nest
in. All the old cart wheels in the land were hunted up. They sawed off
the willow trees a few feet above the ground, and set the wheels in
flat, which the storks used as their parlors and dressing rooms.

As for the knights, they placed the figure of the stork on their
shields, banners, and coats of arms, while citizens made this bird
prominent on their city seals. The capital of the country, The Hague,
was dedicated to this bird, and, for all time, a pond was dug within the
city limits, where storks were fed and cared for at the public expense.
Even to-day, many a good story, illustrating the tender affection of The
Hague storks for their young, is told and enjoyed as an example to Dutch
mothers to be the best in the world.

Out in the country at large, in any of the eleven provinces, whenever
they drained a swamp, or pumped out a pond to make a village, it was not
looked upon as a part of Holland, unless there were storks. Even in the
new wild places they planted stakes on the pumped out dry land, called
polders. On the top of these sticks were laid as invitations for the
stork families to come and live with the people. Along the roads they
stuck posts for storks' nests. It became a custom with farmers, when the
storks came back, to kill the fatted calf, or lamb, and leave the refuse
meat out in the fields for a feast to these bird visitors. A score of
Dutch proverbs exist, all of them complimentary to the bird that loves
babies and cradles.

Last of all, the Dutch children, even in the reign of Queen Wilhelmina,
made letter carriers of their friends the treasure-bringers. Tying tiny
slips of paper to their red legs, they sent messages, in autumn, to the
boys and girls in the old land of the sphinx and pyramids, of Moses, and
the children of Israel. In the spring time, the children's return
messages were received in the country which bids eternal welcome to the
bird named the Bringer of Blessings.

This is why the storks love Holland.


HET EINDECONNLA AND THE FAIRY MAIDEN

Connla of the Fiery Hair was son of Conn of the Hundred Fights. One day
as he stood by the side of his father on the height of Usna, he saw a
maiden clad in strange attire coming towards him.

"Whence comest thou, maiden?" said Connla.

"I come from the Plains of the Ever Living," she said, "there where
there is neither death nor sin. There we keep holiday alway, nor need
we help from any in our joy. And in all our pleasure we have no strife.
And because we have our homes in the round green hills, men call us the
Hill Folk."

The king and all with him wondered much to hear a voice when they saw
no one. For save Connla alone, none saw the Fairy Maiden.

"To whom art thou talking, my son?" said Conn the king.

Then the maiden answered, "Connla speaks to a young, fair maid, whom
neither death nor old age awaits. I love Connla, and now I call him
away to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king for aye,
nor has there been complaint or sorrow in that land since he has held
the kingship. Oh, come with me, Connla of the Fiery Hair, ruddy as the
dawn with thy tawny skin. A fairy crown awaits thee to grace thy comely
face and royal form. Come, and never shall thy comeliness fade, nor thy
youth, till the last awful day of judgment."

The king in fear at what the maiden said, which he heard though he
could not see her, called aloud to his Druid, Coran by name.

"Oh, Coran of the many spells," he said, "and of the cunning magic, I
call upon thy aid. A task is upon me too great for all my skill and
wit, greater than any laid upon me since I seized the kingship. A
maiden unseen has met us, and by her power would take from me my dear,
my comely son. If thou help not, he will be taken from thy king by
woman's wiles and witchery."

Then Coran the Druid stood forth and chanted his spells towards the
spot where the maiden's voice had been heard. And none heard her voice
again, nor could Connla see her longer. Only as she vanished before the
Druid's mighty spell, she threw an apple to Connla.

For a whole month from that day Connla would take nothing, either to
eat or to drink, save only from that apple. But as he ate it grew again
and always kept whole. And all the while there grew within him a mighty
yearning and longing after the maiden he had seen.

But when the last day of the month of waiting came, Connla stood by the
side of the king his father on the Plain of Arcomin, and again he saw
the maiden come towards him, and again she spoke to him.

"'Tis a glorious place, forsooth, that Connla holds among short-lived
mortals awaiting the day of death. But now the folk of life, the
ever-living ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of
Pleasure, for they have learnt to know thee, seeing thee in thy home
among thy dear ones."

When Conn the king heard the maiden's voice he called to his men aloud
and said:

"Summon swift my Druid Coran, for I see she has again this day the
power of speech."

Then the maiden said: "Oh, mighty Conn, fighter of a hundred fights,
the Druid's power is little loved; it has little honour in the mighty
land, peopled with so many of the upright. When the Law will come, it
will do away with the Druid's magic spells that come from the lips of
the false black demon."

Then Conn the king observed that since the maiden came, Connla his son
spoke to none that spake to him. So Conn of the hundred fights said to
him, "Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?"

"'Tis hard upon me," then said Connla; "I love my own folk above all
things; but yet, but yet a longing seizes me for the maiden."

When the maiden heard this, she answered and said "The ocean is not so
strong as the waves of thy longing. Come with me in my curragh, the
gleaming, straight-gliding crystal canoe. Soon we can reach Boadag's
realm. I see the bright sun sink, yet far as it is, we can reach it
before dark. There is, too, another land worthy of thy journey, a land
joyous to all that seek it. Only wives and maidens dwell there. If thou
wilt, we can seek it and live there alone together in joy."

When the maiden ceased to speak, Connla of the Fiery Hair rushed away
from them and sprang into the curragh, the gleaming, straight-gliding
crystal canoe. And then they all, king and court, saw it glide away
over the bright sea towards the setting sun. Away and away, till eye
could see it no longer, and Connla and the Fairy Maiden went their way
on the sea, and were no more seen, nor did any know where they came.




GULEESH

There was once a boy in the County Mayo; Guleesh was his name. There
was the finest rath a little way off from the gable of the house, and
he was often in the habit of seating himself on the fine grass bank
that was running round it. One night he stood, half leaning against the
gable of the house, and looking up into the sky, and watching the
beautiful white moon over his head. After he had been standing that way
for a couple of hours, he said to himself: "My bitter grief that I am
not gone away out of this place altogether. I'd sooner be any place in
the world than here. Och, it's well for you, white moon," says he,
"that's turning round, turning round, as you please yourself, and no
man can put you back. I wish I was the same as you."

Hardly was the word out of his mouth when he heard a great noise coming
like the sound of many people running together, and talking, and
laughing, and making sport, and the sound went by him like a whirl of
wind, and he was listening to it going into the rath. "Musha, by my
soul," says he, "but ye're merry enough, and I'll follow ye."

What was in it but the fairy host, though he did not know at first that
it was they who were in it, but he followed them into the rath. It's
there he heard the _fulparnee_, and the _folpornee_, the
_rap-lay-hoota_, and the _roolya-boolya_, that they had there, and
every man of them crying out as loud as he could: "My horse, and
bridle, and saddle! My horse, and bridle, and saddle!"

"By my hand," said Guleesh, "my boy, that's not bad. I'll imitate ye,"
and he cried out as well as they: "My horse, and bridle, and saddle! My
horse, and bridle, and saddle!" And on the moment there was a fine
horse with a bridle of gold, and a saddle of silver, standing before
him. He leaped up on it, and the moment he was on its back he saw
clearly that the rath was full of horses, and of little people going
riding on them.

Said a man of them to him: "Are you coming with us to-night, Guleesh?"

"I am surely," said Guleesh.

"If you are, come along," said the little man, and out they went all
together, riding like the wind, faster than the fastest horse ever you
saw a-hunting, and faster than the fox and the hounds at his tail.

The cold winter's wind that was before them, they overtook her, and the
cold winter's wind that was behind them, she did not overtake them. And
stop nor stay of that full race, did they make none, until they came to
the brink of the sea.

Then every one of them said: "Hie over cap! Hie over cap!" and that
moment they were up in the air, and before Guleesh had time to remember
where he was, they were down on dry land again, and were going like the
wind.

At last they stood still, and a man of them said to Guleesh: "Guleesh,
do you know where you are now?"

"Not a know," says Guleesh.

"You're in France, Guleesh," said he. "The daughter of the king of
France is to be married to-night, the handsomest woman that the sun
ever saw, and we must do our best to bring her with us; if we're only
able to carry her off; and you must come with us that we may be able to
put the young girl up behind you on the horse, when we'll be bringing
her away, for it's not lawful for us to put her sitting behind
ourselves. But you're flesh and blood, and she can take a good grip of
you, so that she won't fall off the horse. Are you satisfied, Guleesh,
and will you do what we're telling you?"

"Why shouldn't I be satisfied?" said Guleesh. "I'm satisfied, surely,
and anything that ye will tell me to do I'll do it without doubt."

They got off their horses there, and a man of them said a word that
Guleesh did not understand, and on the moment they were lifted up, and
Guleesh found himself and his companions in the palace. There was a
great feast going on there, and there was not a nobleman or a gentleman
in the kingdom but was gathered there, dressed in silk and satin, and
gold and silver, and the night was as bright as the day with all the
lamps and candles that were lit, and Guleesh had to shut his two eyes
at the brightness. When he opened them again and looked from him, he
thought he never saw anything as fine as all he saw there. There were a
hundred tables spread out, and their full of meat and drink on each
table of them, flesh-meat, and cakes and sweetmeats, and wine and ale,
and every drink that ever a man saw. The musicians were at the two ends
of the hall, and they were playing the sweetest music that ever a man's
ear heard, and there were young women and fine youths in the middle of
the hall, dancing and turning, and going round so quickly and so
lightly, that it put a _soorawn_ in Guleesh's head to be looking at
them. There were more there playing tricks, and more making fun and
laughing, for such a feast as there was that day had not been in France
for twenty years, because the old king had no children alive but only
the one daughter, and she was to be married to the son of another king
that night. Three days the feast was going on, and the third night she
was to be married, and that was the night that Guleesh and the
sheehogues came, hoping, if they could, to carry off with them the
king's young daughter.

Guleesh and his companions were standing together at the head of the
hall, where there was a fine altar dressed up, and two bishops behind
it waiting to marry the girl, as soon as the right time should come.
Now nobody could see the sheehogues, for they said a word as they came
in, that made them all invisible, as if they had not been in it at all.

"Tell me which of them is the king's daughter," said Guleesh, when he
was becoming a little used to the noise and the light.

"Don't you see her there away from you?" said the little man that he
was talking to.

Guleesh looked where the little man was pointing with his finger, and
there he saw the loveliest woman that was, he thought, upon the ridge
of the world. The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face,
and one could not tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and
hands were like the lime, her mouth as red as a strawberry when it is
ripe, her foot was as small and as light as another one's hand, her
form was smooth and slender, and her hair was falling down from her
head in buckles of gold. Her garments and dress were woven with gold
and silver, and the bright stone that was in the ring on her hand was
as shining as the sun.

Guleesh was nearly blinded with all the loveliness and beauty that was
in her; but when he looked again, he saw that she was crying, and that
there was the trace of tears in her eyes. "It can't be," said Guleesh,
"that there's grief on her, when everybody round her is so full of
sport and merriment."

"Musha, then, she is grieved," said the little man; "for it's against
her own will she's marrying, and she has no love for the husband she is
to marry. The king was going to give her to him three years ago, when
she was only fifteen, but she said she was too young, and requested him
to leave her as she was yet. The king gave her a year's grace, and when
that year was up he gave her another year's grace, and then another;
but a week or a day he would not give her longer, and she is eighteen
years old to-night, and it's time for her to marry; but, indeed," says
he, and he crooked his mouth in an ugly way--"indeed, it's no king's
son she'll marry, if I can help it."

Guleesh pitied the handsome young lady greatly when he heard that, and
he was heart-broken to think that it would be necessary for her to
marry a man she did not like, or, what was worse, to take a nasty
sheehogue for a husband. However, he did not say a word, though he
could not help giving many a curse to the ill-luck that was laid out
for himself, to be helping the people that were to snatch her away from
her home and from her father.

He began thinking, then, what it was he ought to do to save her, but he
could think of nothing. "Oh! if I could only give her some help and
relief," said he, "I wouldn't care whether I were alive or dead; but I
see nothing that I can do for her."

He was looking on when the king's son came up to her and asked her for
a kiss, but she turned her head away from him. Guleesh had double pity
for her then, when he saw the lad taking her by the soft white hand,
and drawing her out to dance. They went round in the dance near where
Guleesh was, and he could plainly see that there were tears in her eyes.

When the dancing was over, the old king, her father, and her mother the
queen, came up and said that this was the right time to marry her, that
the bishop was ready, and it was time to put the wedding-ring on her
and give her to her husband.

The king took the youth by the hand, and the queen took her daughter,
and they went up together to the altar, with the lords and great people
following them.

When they came near the altar, and were no more than about four yards
from it, the little sheehogue stretched out his foot before the girl,
and she fell. Before she was able to rise again he threw something that
was in his hand upon her, said a couple of words, and upon the moment
the maiden was gone from amongst them. Nobody could see her, for that
word made her invisible. The little man_een_ seized her and raised her
up behind Guleesh, and the king nor no one else saw them, but out with
them through the hall till they came to the door.

Oro! dear Mary! it's there the pity was, and the trouble, and the
crying, and the wonder, and the searching, and the _rookawn_, when that
lady disappeared from their eyes, and without their seeing what did it.
Out of the door of the palace they went, without being stopped or
hindered, for nobody saw them, and, "My horse, my bridle, and saddle!"
says every man of them. "My horse, my bridle, and saddle!" says
Guleesh; and on the moment the horse was standing ready caparisoned
before him. "Now, jump up, Guleesh," said the little man, "and put the
lady behind you, and we will be going; the morning is not far off from
us now."

Guleesh raised her up on the horse's back, and leaped up himself before
her, and, "Rise, horse," said he; and his horse, and the other horses
with him, went in a full race until they came to the sea.

"Hie over cap!" said every man of them.

"Hie over cap!" said Guleesh; and on the moment the horse rose under
him, and cut a leap in the clouds, and came down in Erin.

They did not stop there, but went of a race to the place where was
Guleesh's house and the rath. And when they came as far as that,
Guleesh turned and caught the young girl in his two arms, and leaped
off the horse.

"I call and cross you to myself, in the name of God!" said he; and on
the spot, before the word was out of his mouth, the horse fell down,
and what was in it but the beam of a plough, of which they had made a
horse; and every other horse they had, it was that way they made it.
Some of them were riding on an old besom, and some on a broken stick,
and more on a bohalawn or a hemlock-stalk.

The good people called out together when they heard what Guleesh said:

"Oh! Guleesh, you clown, you thief, that no good may happen you, why
did you play that trick on us?"

But they had no power at all to carry off the girl, after Guleesh had
consecrated her to himself.

"Oh! Guleesh, isn't that a nice turn you did us, and we so kind to you?
What good have we now out of our journey to France. Never mind yet, you
clown, but you'll pay us another time for this. Believe us, you'll
repent it."

"He'll have no good to get out of the young girl," said the little man
that was talking to him in the palace before that, and as he said the
word he moved over to her and struck her a slap on the side of the
head. "Now," says he, "she'll be without talk any more; now, Guleesh,
what good will she be to you when she'll be dumb? It's time for us to
go--but you'll remember us, Guleesh!"

When he said that he stretched out his two hands, and before Guleesh
was able to give an answer, he and the rest of them were gone into the
rath out of his sight, and he saw them no more.

He turned to the young woman and said to her: "Thanks be to God,
they're gone. Would you not sooner stay with me than with them?" She
gave him no answer. "There's trouble and grief on her yet," said
Guleesh in his own mind, and he spoke to her again: "I am afraid that
you must spend this night in my father's house, lady, and if there is
anything that I can do for you, tell me, and I'll be your servant."

The beautiful girl remained silent, but there were tears in her eyes,
and her face was white and red after each other.

"Lady," said Guleesh, "tell me what you would like me to do now. I
never belonged at all to that lot of sheehogues who carried you away
with them. I am the son of an honest farmer, and I went with them
without knowing it. If I'll be able to send you back to your father
I'll do it, and I pray you make any use of me now that you may wish."

He looked into her face, and he saw the mouth moving as if she was
going to speak, but there came no word from it.

"It cannot be," said Guleesh, "that you are dumb. Did I not hear you
speaking to the king's son in the palace to-night? Or has that devil
made you really dumb, when he struck his nasty hand on your jaw?"

The girl raised her white smooth hand, and laid her finger on her
tongue, to show him that she had lost her voice and power of speech,
and the tears ran out of her two eyes like streams, and Guleesh's own
eyes were not dry, for as rough as he was on the outside he had a soft
heart, and could not stand the sight of the young girl, and she in that
unhappy plight.

He began thinking with himself what he ought to do, and he did not like
to bring her home with himself to his father's house, for he knew well
that they would not believe him, that he had been in France and brought
back with him the king of France's daughter, and he was afraid they
might make a mock of the young lady or insult her.

As he was doubting what he ought to do, and hesitating, he chanced to
remember the priest. "Glory be to God," said he, "I know now what I'll
do; I'll bring her to the priest's house, and he won't refuse me to
keep the lady and care for her." He turned to the lady again and told
her that he was loth to take her to his father's house, but that there
was an excellent priest very friendly to himself, who would take good
care of her, if she wished to remain in his house; but that if there
was any other place she would rather go, he said he would bring her to
it.

She bent her head, to show him she was obliged, and gave him to
understand that she was ready to follow him any place he was going. "We
will go to the priest's house, then," said he; "he is under an
obligation to me, and will do anything I ask him."

They went together accordingly to the priest's house, and the sun was
just rising when they came to the door. Guleesh beat it hard, and as
early as it was the priest was up, and opened the door himself. He
wondered when he saw Guleesh and the girl, for he was certain that it
was coming wanting to be married they were.

"Guleesh, Guleesh, isn't it the nice boy you are that you can't wait
till ten o'clock or till twelve, but that you must be coming to me at
this hour, looking for marriage, you and your sweetheart? You ought to
know that I can't marry you at such a time, or, at all events, can't
marry you lawfully. But ubbubboo!" said he, suddenly, as he looked
again at the young girl, "in the name of God, who have you here? Who is
she, or how did you get her?"

"Father," said Guleesh, "you can marry me, or anybody else, if you
wish; but it's not looking for marriage I came to you now, but to ask
you, if you please, to give a lodging in your house to this young lady."

The priest looked at him as though he had ten heads on him; but without
putting any other question to him, he desired him to come in, himself
and the maiden, and when they came in, he shut the door, brought them
into the parlour, and put them sitting.

"Now, Guleesh," said he, "tell me truly who is this young lady, and
whether you're out of your senses really, or are only making a joke of
me."

"I'm not telling a word of lie, nor making a joke of you," said
Guleesh; "but it was from the palace of the king of France I carried
off this lady, and she is the daughter of the king of France."

He began his story then, and told the whole to the priest, and the
priest was so much surprised that he could not help calling out at
times, or clapping his hands together.

When Guleesh said from what he saw he thought the girl was not
satisfied with the marriage that was going to take place in the palace
before he and the sheehogues broke it up, there came a red blush into
the girl's cheek, and he was more certain than ever that she had sooner
be as she was--badly as she was--than be the married wife of the man
she hated. When Guleesh said that he would be very thankful to the
priest if he would keep her in his own house, the kind man said he
would do that as long as Guleesh pleased, but that he did not know what
they ought to do with her, because they had no means of sending her
back to her father again.

Guleesh answered that he was uneasy about the same thing, and that he
saw nothing to do but to keep quiet until they should find some
opportunity of doing something better. They made it up then between
themselves that the priest should let on that it was his brother's
daughter he had, who was come on a visit to him from another county,
and that he should tell everybody that she was dumb, and do his best to
keep every one away from her. They told the young girl what it was they
intended to do, and she showed by her eyes that she was obliged to them.

Guleesh went home then, and when his people asked him where he had
been, he said that he had been asleep at the foot of the ditch, and had
passed the night there.

There was great wonderment on the priest's neighbours at the girl who
came so suddenly to his house without any one knowing where she was
from, or what business she had there. Some of the people said that
everything was not as it ought to be, and others, that Guleesh was not
like the same man that was in it before, and that it was a great story,
how he was drawing every day to the priest's house, and that the priest
had a wish and a respect for him, a thing they could not clear up at
all.

That was true for them, indeed, for it was seldom the day went by but
Guleesh would go to the priest's house, and have a talk with him, and
as often as he would come he used to hope to find the young lady well
again, and with leave to speak; but, alas! she remained dumb and
silent, without relief or cure. Since she had no other means of
talking, she carried on a sort of conversation between herself and
himself, by moving her hand and fingers, winking her eyes, opening and
shutting her mouth, laughing or smiling, and a thousand other signs, so
that it was not long until they understood each other very well.
Guleesh was always thinking how he should send her back to her father;
but there was no one to go with her, and he himself did not know what
road to go, for he had never been out of his own country before the
night he brought her away with him. Nor had the priest any better
knowledge than he; but when Guleesh asked him, he wrote three or four
letters to the king of France, and gave them to buyers and sellers of
wares, who used to be going from place to place across the sea; but
they all went astray, and never a one came to the king's hand.

This was the way they were for many months, and Guleesh was falling
deeper and deeper in love with her every day, and it was plain to
himself and the priest that she liked him. The boy feared greatly at
last, lest the king should really hear where his daughter was, and take
her back from himself, and he besought the priest to write no more, but
to leave the matter to God.

So they passed the time for a year, until there came a day when Guleesh
was lying by himself, on the grass, on the last day of the last month
in autumn, and he was thinking over again in his own mind of everything
that happened to him from the day that he went with the sheehogues
across the sea. He remembered then, suddenly, that it was one November
night that he was standing at the gable of the house, when the
whirlwind came, and the sheehogues in it, and he said to himself: "We
have November night again to-day, and I'll stand in the same place I
was last year, until I see if the good people come again. Perhaps I
might see or hear something that would be useful to me, and might bring
back her talk again to Mary"--that was the name himself and the priest
called the king's daughter, for neither of them knew her right name. He
told his intention to the priest, and the priest gave him his blessing.

Guleesh accordingly went to the old rath when the night was darkening,
and he stood with his bent elbow leaning on a grey old flag, waiting
till the middle of the night should come. The moon rose slowly; and it
was like a knob of fire behind him; and there was a white fog which was
raised up over the fields of grass and all damp places, through the
coolness of the night after a great heat in the day. The night was calm
as is a lake when there is not a breath of wind to move a wave on it,
and there was no sound to be heard but the _cronawn_ of the insects
that would go by from time to time, or the hoarse sudden scream of the
wild-geese, as they passed from lake to lake, half a mile up in the air
over his head; or the sharp whistle of the golden and green plover,
rising and lying, lying and rising, as they do on a calm night. There
were a thousand thousand bright stars shining over his head, and there
was a little frost out, which left the grass under his foot white and
crisp.

He stood there for an hour, for two hours, for three hours, and the
frost increased greatly, so that he heard the breaking of the
_traneens_ under his foot as often as he moved. He was thinking, in his
own mind, at last, that the sheehogues would not come that night, and
that it was as good for him to return back again, when he heard a sound
far away from him, coming towards him, and he recognised what it was at
the first moment. The sound increased, and at first it was like the
beating of waves on a stony shore, and then it was like the falling of
a great waterfall, and at last it was like a loud storm in the tops of
the trees, and then the whirlwind burst into the rath of one rout, and
the sheehogues were in it.

It all went by him so suddenly that he lost his breath with it, but he
came to himself on the spot, and put an ear on himself, listening to
what they would say.

Scarcely had they gathered into the rath till they all began shouting,
and screaming, and talking amongst themselves; and then each one of
them cried out: "My horse, and bridle, and saddle! My horse, and
bridle, and saddle!" and Guleesh took courage, and called out as loudly
as any of them: "My horse, and bridle, and saddle! My horse, and
bridle, and saddle!" But before the word was well out of his mouth,
another man cried out: "Ora! Guleesh, my boy, are you here with us
again? How are you getting on with your woman? There's no use in your
calling for your horse to-night. I'll go bail you won't play such a
trick on us again. It was a good trick you played on us last year?"

"It was," said another man; "he won't do it again."

"Isn't he a prime lad, the same lad! to take a woman with him that
never said as much to him as, 'How do you do?' since this time last
year!" says the third man.

"Perhaps be likes to be looking at her," said another voice.

"And if the _omadawn_ only knew that there's an herb growing up by his
own door, and if he were to boil it and give it to her, she'd be well,"
said another voice.

"That's true for you."

"He is an omadawn."

"Don't bother your head with him; we'll be going."

"We'll leave the _bodach_ as he is."

And with that they rose up into the air, and out with them with one
_roolya-boolya_ the way they came; and they left poor Guleesh standing
where they found him, and the two eyes going out of his head, looking
after them and wondering.

He did not stand long till he returned back, and he thinking in his own
mind on all he saw and heard, and wondering whether there was really an
herb at his own door that would bring back the talk to the king's
daughter. "It can't be," says he to himself, "that they would tell it
to me, if there was any virtue in it; but perhaps the sheehogue didn't
observe himself when he let the word slip out of his mouth. I'll search
well as soon as the sun rises, whether there's any plant growing beside
the house except thistles and dockings."

He went home, and as tired as he was he did not sleep a wink until the
sun rose on the morrow. He got up then, and it was the first thing he
did to go out and search well through the grass round about the house,
trying could he get any herb that he did not recognise. And, indeed, he
was not long searching till he observed a large strange herb that was
growing up just by the gable of the house.

He went over to it, and observed it closely, and saw that there were
seven little branches coming out of the stalk, and seven leaves growing
on every branch_een_ of them; and that there was a white sap in the
leaves. "It's very wonderful," said he to himself, "that I never
noticed this herb before. If there's any virtue in an herb at all, it
ought to be in such a strange one as this."

He drew out his knife, cut the plant, and carried it into his own
house; stripped the leaves off it and cut up the stalk; and there came
a thick, white juice out of it, as there comes out of the sow-thistle
when it is bruised, except that the juice was more like oil.

He put it in a little pot and a little water in it, and laid it on the
fire until the water was boiling, and then he took a cup, filled it
half up with the juice, and put it to his own mouth. It came into his
head then that perhaps it was poison that was in it, and that the good
people were only tempting him that he might kill himself with that
trick, or put the girl to death without meaning it. He put down the cup
again, raised a couple of drops on the top of his finger, and put it to
his mouth. It was not bitter, and, indeed, had a sweet, agreeable
taste. He grew bolder then, and drank the full of a thimble of it, and
then as much again, and he never stopped till he had half the cup
drunk. He fell asleep after that, and did not wake till it was night,
and there was great hunger and great thirst on him.

He had to wait, then, till the day rose; but he determined, as soon as
he should wake in the morning, that he would go to the king's daughter
and give her a drink of the juice of the herb.

As soon as he got up in the morning, he went over to the priest's house
with the drink in his hand, and he never felt himself so bold and
valiant, and spirited and light, as he was that day, and he was quite
certain that it was the drink he drank which made him so hearty.

When he came to the house, he found the priest and the young lady
within, and they were wondering greatly why he had not visited them for
two days.

He told them all his news, and said that he was certain that there was
great power in that herb, and that it would do the lady no hurt, for he
tried it himself and got good from it, and then he made her taste it,
for he vowed and swore that there was no harm in it.

Guleesh handed her the cup, and she drank half of it, and then fell
back on her bed and a heavy sleep came on her, and she never woke out
of that sleep till the day on the morrow.

Guleesh and the priest sat up the entire night with her, waiting till
she should awake, and they between hope and unhope, between expectation
of saving her and fear of hurting her.

She awoke at last when the sun had gone half its way through the
heavens. She rubbed her eyes and looked like a person who did not know
where she was. She was like one astonished when she saw Guleesh and the
priest in the same room with her, and she sat up doing her best to
collect her thoughts.

The two men were in great anxiety waiting to see would she speak, or
would she not speak, and when they remained silent for a couple of
minutes, the priest said to her: "Did you sleep well, Mary?"

And she answered him: "I slept, thank you."

No sooner did Guleesh hear her talking than he put a shout of joy out
of him, and ran over to her and fell on his two knees, and said: "A
thousand thanks to God, who has given you back the talk; lady of my
heart, speak again to me."

The lady answered him that she understood it was he who boiled that
drink for her, and gave it to her; that she was obliged to him from her
heart for all the kindness he showed her since the day she first came
to Ireland, and that he might be certain that she never would forget it.

Guleesh was ready to die with satisfaction and delight. Then they
brought her food, and she ate with a good appetite, and was merry and
joyous, and never left off talking with the priest while she was eating.

After that Guleesh went home to his house, and stretched himself on the
bed and fell asleep again, for the force of the herb was not all spent,
and he passed another day and a night sleeping. When he woke up he went
back to the priest's house, and found that the young lady was in the
same state, and that she was asleep almost since the time that he left
the house.

He went into her chamber with the priest, and they remained watching
beside her till she awoke the second time, and she had her talk as well
as ever, and Guleesh was greatly rejoiced. The priest put food on the
table again, and they ate together, and Guleesh used after that to come
to the house from day to day, and the friendship that was between him
and the king's daughter increased, because she had no one to speak to
except Guleesh and the priest, and she liked Guleesh best.

So they married one another, and that was the fine wedding they had,
and if I were to be there then, I would not be here now; but I heard it
from a birdeen that there was neither cark nor care, sickness nor
sorrow, mishap nor misfortune on them till the hour of their death, and
may the same be with me, and with us all!




THE FIELD OF BOLIAUNS

One fine day in harvest--it was indeed Lady-day in harvest, that
everybody knows to be one of the greatest holidays in the year--Tom
Fitzpatrick was taking a ramble through the ground, and went along the
sunny side of a hedge; when all of a sudden he heard a clacking sort of
noise a little before him in the hedge. "Dear me," said Tom, "but isn't
it surprising to hear the stonechatters singing so late in the season?"
So Tom stole on, going on the tops of his toes to try if he could get a
sight of what was making the noise, to see if he was right in his
guess. The noise stopped; but as Tom looked sharply through the bushes,
what should he see in a nook of the hedge but a brown pitcher, that
might hold about a gallon and a half of liquor; and by-and-by a little
wee teeny tiny bit of an old man, with a little _motty_ of a cocked hat
stuck upon the top of his head, a deeshy daushy leather apron hanging
before him, pulled out a little wooden stool, and stood up upon it, and
dipped a little piggin into the pitcher, and took out the full of it,
and put it beside the stool, and then sat down under the pitcher, and
began to work at putting a heel-piece on a bit of a brogue just fit for
himself. "Well, by the powers," said Tom to himself, "I often heard
tell of the Lepracauns, and, to tell God's truth, I never rightly
believed in them--but here's one of them in real earnest. If I go
knowingly to work, I'm a made man. They say a body must never take
their eyes off them, or they'll escape."

Tom now stole on a little further, with his eye fixed on the little man
just as a cat does with a mouse. So when he got up quite close to him,
"God bless your work, neighbour," said Tom.

The little man raised up his head, and "Thank you kindly," said he.

"I wonder you'd be working on the holiday!" said Tom.

"That's my own business, not yours," was the reply.

"Well, may be you'd be civil enough to tell _us_ what you've got in the
pitcher there?" said Tom.

"That I will, with pleasure," said he; "it's good beer."

"Beer!" said Tom. "Thunder and fire! where did you get it?"

"Where did I get it, is it?  Why, I made it. And what do you think I
made it of?"

"Devil a one of me knows," said Tom; "but of malt, I suppose, what
else?"

"There you're out. I made it of heath."

"Of heath!" said Tom, bursting out laughing; "sure you don't think me
to be such a fool as to believe that?"

"Do as you please," said he, "but what I tell you is the truth. Did you
never hear tell of the Danes?"

"Well, what about _them_?" said Tom.

"Why, all the about them there is, is that when they were here they
taught us to make beer out of the heath, and the secret's in my family
ever since."

"Will you give a body a taste of your beer?" said Tom.

"I'll tell you what it is, young man, it would be fitter for you to be
looking after your father's property than to be bothering decent quiet
people with your foolish questions. There now, while you're idling away
your time here, there's the cows have broke into the oats, and are
knocking the corn all about."

Tom was taken so by surprise with this that he was just on the very
point of turning round when he recollected himself; so, afraid that the
like might happen again, he made a grab at the Lepracaun, and caught
him up in his hand; but in his hurry he overset the pitcher, and spilt
all the beer, so that he could not get a taste of it to tell what sort
it was. He then swore that he would kill him if he did not show him
where his money was. Tom looked so wicked and so bloody-minded that the
little man was quite frightened; so says he, "Come along with me a
couple of fields off, and I'll show you a crock of gold."

So they went, and Tom held the Lepracaun fast in his hand, and never
took his eyes from off him, though they had to cross hedges and
ditches, and a crooked bit of bog, till at last they came to a great
field all full of boliauns, and the Lepracaun pointed to a big boliaun,
and says he, "Dig under that boliaun, and you'll get the great crock
all full of guineas."

Tom in his hurry had never thought of bringing a spade with him, so he
made up his mind to run home and fetch one; and that he might know the
place again he took off one of his red garters, and tied it round the
boliaun.

Then he said to the Lepracaun, "Swear ye'll not take that garter away
from that boliaun." And the Lepracaun swore right away not to touch it.

"I suppose," said the Lepracaun, very civilly, "you have no further
occasion for me?"

"No," says Tom; "you may go away now, if you please, and God speed you,
and may good luck attend you wherever you go."

"Well, good-bye to you, Tom Fitzpatrick," said the Lepracaun; "and much
good may it do you when you get it."

So Tom ran for dear life, till he came home and got a spade, and then
away with him, as hard as he could go, back to the field of boliauns;
but when he got there, lo and behold! not a boliaun in the field but
had a red garter, the very model of his own, tied about it; and as to
digging up the whole field, that was all nonsense, for there were more
than forty good Irish acres in it. So Tom came home again with his
spade on his shoulder, a little cooler than he went, and many's the
hearty curse he gave the Lepracaun every time he thought of the neat
turn he had served him.



THE HORNED WOMEN

A rich woman sat up late one night carding and preparing wool, while
all the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly a knock was given at
the door, and a voice called, "Open! open!"

"Who is there?" said the woman of the house.

"I am the Witch of one Horn," was answered.

The mistress, supposing that one of her neighbours had called and
required assistance, opened the door, and a woman entered, having in
her hand a pair of wool-carders, and bearing a horn on her forehead, as
if growing there. She sat down by the fire in silence, and began to
card the wool with violent haste. Suddenly she paused, and said aloud:
"Where are the women? they delay too long."

Then a second knock came to the door, and a voice called as before,
"Open! open!"

The mistress felt herself obliged to rise and open to the call, and
immediately a second witch entered, having two horns on her forehead,
and in her hand a wheel for spinning wool.

"Give me place," she said; "I am the Witch of the two Horns," and she
began to spin as quick as lightning.

And so the knocks went on, and the call was heard, and the witches
entered, until at last twelve women sat round the fire--the first with
one horn, the last with twelve horns.

And they carded the thread, and turned their spinning-wheels, and wound
and wove, all singing together an ancient rhyme, but no word did they
speak to the mistress of the house. Strange to hear, and frightful to
look upon, were these twelve women, with their horns and their wheels;
and the mistress felt near to death, and she tried to rise that she
might call for help, but she could not move, nor could she utter a word
or a cry, for the spell of the witches was upon her.

Then one of them called to her in Irish, and said, "Rise, woman, and
make us a cake."

Then the mistress searched for a vessel to bring water from the well
that she might mix the meal and make the cake, but she could find none.

And they said to her, "Take a sieve and bring water in it."

And she took the sieve and went to the well; but the water poured from
it, and she could fetch none for the cake, and she sat down by the well
and wept.

Then a voice came by her and said, "Take yellow clay and moss, and bind
them together, and plaster the sieve so that it will hold."

This she did, and the sieve held the water for the cake; and the voice
said again:

"Return, and when thou comest to the north angle of the house, cry
aloud three times and say, 'The mountain of the Fenian women and the
sky over it is all on fire.'"

And she did so.

When the witches inside heard the call, a great and terrible cry broke
from their lips, and they rushed forth with wild lamentations and
shrieks, and fled away to Slievenamon, where was their chief abode. But
the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress of the house to enter and
prepare her home against the enchantments of the witches if they
returned again.

And first, to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which she
had washed her child's feet, the feet-water, outside the door on the
threshold; secondly, she took the cake which in her absence the witches
had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn from the sleeping family,
and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a bit in the mouth of each
sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the cloth they had woven,
and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock; and
lastly, she secured the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the
jambs, so that the witches could not enter, and having done these
things she waited.

Not long were the witches in coming back, and they raged and called for
vengeance.

"Open! open!" they screamed; "open, feet-water!"

"I cannot," said the feet-water; "I am scattered on the ground, and my
path is down to the Lough."

"Open, open, wood and trees and beam!" they cried to the door.

"I cannot," said the door, "for the beam is fixed in the jambs and I
have no power to move."

"Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with blood!" they cried
again.

"I cannot," said the cake, "for I am broken and bruised, and my blood
is on the lips of the sleeping children."

Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and fled back
to Slievenamon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who
had wished their ruin; but the woman and the house were left in peace,
and a mantle dropped by one of the witches in her flight was kept hung
up by the mistress in memory of that night; and this mantle was kept by
the same family from generation to generation for five hundred years
after.



CONALL YELLOWCLAW

Conall Yellowclaw was a sturdy tenant in Erin: he had three sons. There
was at that time a king over every fifth of Erin. It fell out for the
children of the king that was near Conall, that they themselves and the
children of Conall came to blows. The children of Conall got the upper
hand, and they killed the king's big son. The king sent a message for
Conall, and he said to him--"Oh, Conall! what made your sons go to
spring on my sons till my big son was killed by your children? but I
see that though I follow you revengefully, I shall not be much better
for it, and I will now set a thing before you, and if you will do it, I
will not follow you with revenge. If you and your sons will get me the
brown horse of the king of Lochlann, you shall get the souls of your
sons."

"Why," said Conall, "should not I do the pleasure of the king, though
there should be no souls of my sons in dread at all. Hard is the matter
you require of me, but I will lose my own life, and the life of my
sons, or else I will do the pleasure of the king."

After these words Conall left the king, and he went home: when he got
home he was under much trouble and perplexity. When he went to lie down
he told his wife the thing the king had set before him. His wife took
much sorrow that he was obliged to part from herself, while she knew
not if she should see him more.

"Oh, Conall," said she, "why didst not thou let the king do his own
pleasure to thy sons, rather than be going now, while I know not if
ever I shall see thee more?"

When he rose on the morrow, he set himself and his three sons in order,
and they took their journey towards Lochlann, and they made no stop but
tore through ocean till they reached it. When they reached Lochlann
they did not know what they should do. Said the old man to his sons,
"Stop ye, and we will seek out the house of the king's miller."

When they went into the house of the king's miller, the man asked them
to stop there for the night. Conall told the miller that his own
children and the children of his king had fallen out, and that his
children had killed the king's son, and there was nothing that would
please the king but that he should get the brown horse of the king of
Lochlann.

"If you will do me a kindness, and will put me in a way to get him, for
certain I will pay ye for it."

"The thing is silly that you are come to seek," said the miller; "for
the king has laid his mind on him so greatly that you will not get him
in any way unless you steal him; but if you can make out a way, I will
keep it secret."

"This is what I am thinking," said Conall, "since you are working every
day for the king, you and your gillies could put myself and my sons
into five sacks of bran."

"The plan that has come into your head is not bad," said the miller.

The miller spoke to his gillies, and he said to them to do this, and
they put them in five sacks. The king's gillies came to seek the bran,
and they took the five sacks with them, and they emptied them before
the horses. The servants locked the door, and they went away.

When they rose to lay hand on the brown horse, said Conall, "You shall
not do that. It is hard to get out of this; let us make for ourselves
five hiding holes, so that if they hear us we may go and hide." They
made the holes, then they laid hands on the horse. The horse was pretty
well unbroken, and he set to making a terrible noise through the
stable. The king heard the noise. "It must be my brown horse," said he
to his gillies; "find out what is wrong with him."

The servants went out, and when Conall and his sons saw them coming
they went into the hiding holes. The servants looked amongst the
horses, and they did not find anything wrong; and they returned and
they told this to the king, and the king said to them that if nothing
was wrong they should go to their places of rest. When the gillies had
time to be gone, Conall and his sons laid their hands again on the
horse. If the noise was great that he made before, the noise he made
now was seven times greater. The king sent a message for his gillies
again, and said for certain there was something troubling the brown
horse. "Go and look well about him." The servants went out, and they
went to their hiding holes. The servants rummaged well, and did not
find a thing. They returned and they told this.

"That is marvellous for me," said the king: "go you to lie down again,
and if I notice it again I will go out myself."

When Conall and his sons perceived that the gillies were gone, they
laid hands again on the horse, and one of them caught him, and if the
noise that the horse made on the two former times was great, he made
more this time.

"Be this from me," said the king; "it must be that some one is
troubling my brown horse." He sounded the bell hastily, and when his
waiting-man came to him, he said to him to let the stable gillies know
that something was wrong with the horse. The gillies came, and the king
went with them. When Conall and his sons perceived the company coming
they went to the hiding holes.

The king was a wary man, and he saw where the horses were making a
noise.

"Be wary," said the king, "there are men within the stable, let us get
at them somehow."

The king followed the tracks of the men, and he found them. Every one
knew Conall, for he was a valued tenant of the king of Erin, and when
the king brought them up out of the holes he said, "Oh, Conall, is it
you that are here?"

"I am, O king, without question, and necessity made me come. I am under
thy pardon, and under thine honour, and under thy grace." He told how
it happened to him, and that he had to get the brown horse for the king
of Erin, or that his sons were to be put to death. "I knew that I
should not get him by asking, and I was going to steal him."

"Yes, Conall, it is well enough, but come in," said the king. He
desired his look-out men to set a watch on the sons of Conall, and to
give them meat. And a double watch was set that night on the sons of
Conall.

"Now, O Conall," said the king, "were you ever in a harder place than
to be seeing your lot of sons hanged tomorrow? But you set it to my
goodness and to my grace, and say that it was necessity brought it on
you, so I must not hang you. Tell me any case in which you were as hard
as this, and if you tell that, you shall get the soul of your youngest
son."

"I will tell a case as hard in which I was," said Conall. "I was once a
young lad, and my father had much land, and he had parks of year-old
cows, and one of them had just calved, and my father told me to bring
her home. I found the cow, and took her with us. There fell a shower of
snow. We went into the herd's bothy, and we took the cow and the calf
in with us, and we were letting the shower pass from us. Who should
come in but one cat and ten, and one great one-eyed fox-coloured cat as
head bard over them. When they came in, in very deed I myself had no
liking for their company. 'Strike up with you,' said the head bard,
'why should we be still? and sing a cronan to Conall Yellowclaw.' I was
amazed that my name was known to the cats themselves. When they had
sung the cronan, said the head bard, 'Now, O Conall, pay the reward of
the cronan that the cats have sung to thee.' 'Well then,' said I
myself, 'I have no reward whatsoever for you, unless you should go down
and take that calf.' No sooner said I the word than the two cats and
ten went down to attack the calf, and in very deed, he did not last
them long. 'Play up with you, why should you be silent? Make a cronan
to Conall Yellowclaw,' said the head bard. Certainly I had no liking at
all for the cronan, but up came the one cat and ten, and if they did
not sing me a cronan then and there! 'Pay them now their reward,' said
the great fox-coloured cat. 'I am tired myself of yourselves and your
rewards,' said I. 'I have no reward for you unless you take that cow
down there.' They betook themselves to the cow, and indeed she did not
last them long.

"'Why will you be silent? Go up and sing a cronan to Conall
Yellowclaw,' said the head bard. And surely, oh king, I had no care for
them or for their cronan, for I began to see that they were not good
comrades. When they had sung me the cronan they betook themselves down
where the head bard was. 'Pay now their reward, said the head bard; and
for sure, oh king, I had no reward for them; and I said to them, 'I
have no reward for you.' And surely, oh king, there was catterwauling
between them. So I leapt out at a turf window that was at the back of
the house. I took myself off as hard as I might into the wood. I was
swift enough and strong at that time; and when I felt the rustling
toirm of the cats after me I climbed into as high a tree as I saw in
the place, and one that was close in the top; and I hid myself as well
as I might. The cats began to search for me through the wood, and they
could not find me; and when they were tired, each one said to the other
that they would turn back. 'But,' said the one-eyed fox-coloured cat
that was commander-in-chief over them, 'you saw him not with your two
eyes, and though I have but one eye, there's the rascal up in the
tree.' When he had said that, one of them went up in the tree, and as
he was coming where I was, I drew a weapon that I had and I killed him.
'Be this from me!' said the one-eyed one--'I must not be losing my
company thus; gather round the root of the tree and dig about it, and
let down that villain to earth.' On this they gathered about the tree,
and they dug about the root, and the first branching root that they
cut, she gave a shiver to fall, and I myself gave a shout, and it was
not to be wondered at.

"There was in the neighbourhood of the wood a priest, and he had ten
men with him delving, and he said, 'There is a shout of a man in
extremity and I must not be without replying to it.' And the wisest of
the men said, 'Let it alone till we hear it again.' The cats began
again digging wildly, and they broke the next root; and I myself gave
the next shout, and in very deed it was not a weak one. 'Certainly,'
said the priest, 'it is a man in extremity--let us move.' They set
themselves in order for moving. And the cats arose on the tree, and
they broke the third root, and the tree fell on her elbow. Then I gave
the third shout. The stalwart men hastened, and when they saw how the
cats served the tree, they began at them with the spades; and they
themselves and the cats began at each other, till the cats ran away.
And surely, oh king, I did not move till I saw the last one of them
off. And then I came home. And there's the hardest case in which I ever
was; and it seems to me that tearing by the cats were harder than
hanging to-morrow by the king of Lochlann."

"Och! Conall," said the king, "you are full of words. You have freed
the soul of your son with your tale; and if you tell me a harder case
than that you will get your second youngest son, and then you will have
two sons."

"Well then," said Conall, "on condition that thou dost that, I will
tell thee how I was once in a harder case than to be in thy power in
prison to-night."

"Let's hear," said the king.

"I was then," said Conall, "quite a young lad, and I went out hunting,
and my father's land was beside the sea, and it was rough with rocks,
caves, and rifts. When I was going on the top of the shore, I saw as if
there were a smoke coming up between two rocks, and I began to look
what might be the meaning of the smoke coming up there. When I was
looking, what should I do but fall; and the place was so full of
heather, that neither bone nor skin was broken. I knew not how I should
get out of this. I was not looking before me, but I kept looking
overhead the way I came--and thinking that the day would never come
that I could get up there. It was terrible for me to be there till I
should die. I heard a great clattering coming, and what was there but a
great giant and two dozen of goats with him, and a buck at their head.
And when the giant had tied the goats, he came up and he said to me,
'Hao O! Conall, it's long since my knife has been rusting in my pouch
waiting for thy tender flesh.' 'Och!' said I, 'it's not much you will
be bettered by me, though you should tear me asunder; I will make but
one meal for you. But I see that you are one-eyed. I am a good leech,
and I will give you the sight of the other eye.' The giant went and he
drew the great caldron on the site of the fire. I myself was telling
him how he should heat the water, so that I should give its sight to
the other eye. I got heather and I made a rubber of it, and I set him
upright in the caldron. I began at the eye that was well, pretending to
him that I would give its sight to the other one, till I left them as
bad as each other; and surely it was easier to spoil the one that was
well than to give sight to the other.

"When he saw that he could not see a glimpse, and when I myself said to
him that I would get out in spite of him, he gave a spring out of the
water, and he stood in the mouth of the cave, and he said that he would
have revenge for the sight of his eye. I had but to stay there crouched
the length of the night, holding in my breath in such a way that he
might not find out where I was.

"When he felt the birds calling in the morning, and knew that the day
was, he said--'Art thou sleeping? Awake and let out my lot of goats.' I
killed the buck. He cried, 'I do believe that thou art killing my buck.'

"'I am not,' said I, 'but the ropes are so tight that I take long to
loose them.' I let out one of the goats, and there he was caressing
her, and he said to her, 'There thou art thou shaggy, hairy white goat;
and thou seest me, but I see thee not.' I kept letting them out by the
way of one and one, as I flayed the buck, and before the last one was
out I had him flayed bag-wise. Then I went and I put my legs in place
of his legs, and my hands in place of his forelegs, and my head in
place of his head, and the horns on top of my head, so that the brute
might think that it was the buck. I went out. When I was going out the
giant laid his hand on me, and he said, 'There thou art, thou pretty
buck; thou seest me, but I see thee not.' When I myself got out, and I
saw the world about me, surely, oh, king! joy was on me. When I was out
and had shaken the skin off me, I said to the brute, 'I am out now in
spite of you.'

"'Aha!' said he, 'hast thou done this to me. Since thou wert so
stalwart that thou hast got out, I will give thee a ring that I have
here; keep the ring, and it will do thee good.'

"'I will not take the ring from you,' said I, 'but throw it, and I will
take it with me.' He threw the ring on the flat ground, I went myself
and I lifted the ring, and I put it on my finger. When he said me then,
'Is the ring fitting thee?' I said to him, 'It is.' Then he said,
'Where art thou, ring?' And the ring said, 'I am here.' The brute went
and went towards where the ring was speaking, and now I saw that I was
in a harder case than ever I was. I drew a dirk. I cut the finger from
off me, and I threw it from me as far as I could out on the loch, and
there was a great depth in the place. He shouted, 'Where art thou,
ring?' And the ring said, 'I am here,' though it was on the bed of
ocean. He gave a spring after the ring, and out he went in the sea. And
I was as pleased then when I saw him drowning, as though you should
grant my own life and the life of my two sons with me, and not lay any
more trouble on me.

"When the giant was drowned I went in, and I took with me all he had of
gold and silver, and I went home, and surely great joy was on my people
when I arrived. And as a sign now look, the finger is off me."

"Yes, indeed, Conall, you are wordy and wise," said the king. "I see
the finger is off you. You have freed your two sons, but tell me a case
in which you ever were that is harder than to be looking on your son
being hanged tomorrow, and you shall get the soul of your eldest son."

"Then went my father," said Conall, "and he got me a wife, and I was
married. I went to hunt. I was going beside the sea, and I saw an
island over in the midst of the loch, and I came there where a boat was
with a rope before her, and a rope behind her, and many precious things
within her. I looked myself on the boat to see how I might get part of
them. I put in the one foot, and the other foot was on the ground, and
when I raised my head what was it but the boat over in the middle of
the loch, and she never stopped till she reached the island. When I
went out of the boat the boat returned where she was before. I did not
know now what I should do. The place was without meat or clothing,
without the appearance of a house on it. I came out on the top of a
hill. Then I came to a glen; I saw in it, at the bottom of a hollow, a
woman with a child, and the child was naked on her knee, and she had a
knife in her hand. She tried to put the knife to the throat of the
babe, and the babe began to laugh in her face, and she began to cry,
and she threw the knife behind her. I thought to myself that I was near
my foe and far from my friends, and I called to the woman, 'What are
you doing here?' And she said to me, 'What brought you here?' I told
her myself word upon word how I came. 'Well then,' said she, 'it was so
I came also.' She showed me to the place where I should come in where
she was. I went in, and I said to her, 'What was the matter that you
were putting the knife on the neck of the child?' 'It is that he must
be cooked for the giant who is here, or else no more of my world will
be before me.' Just then we could be hearing the footsteps of the
giant, 'What shall I do? what shall I do?' cried the woman. I went to
the caldron, and by luck it was not hot, so in it I got just as the
brute came in. 'Hast thou boiled that youngster for me?' he cried.
'He's not done yet,' said she, and I cried out from the caldron,
'Mammy, mammy, it's boiling I am.' Then the giant laughed out HAI, HAW,
HOGARAICH, and heaped on wood under the caldron.

"And now I was sure I would scald before I could get out of that. As
fortune favoured me, the brute slept beside the caldron. There I was
scalded by the bottom of the caldron. When she perceived that he was
asleep, she set her mouth quietly to the hole that was in the lid, and
she said to me 'was I alive?' I said I was. I put up my head, and the
hole in the lid was so large, that my head went through easily.
Everything was coming easily with me till I began to bring up my hips.
I left the skin of my hips behind me, but I came out. When I got out of
the caldron I knew not what to do; and she said to me that there was no
weapon that would kill him but his own weapon. I began to draw his
spear and every breath that he drew I thought I would be down his
throat, and when his breath came out I was back again just as far. But
with every ill that befell me I got the spear loosed from him. Then I
was as one under a bundle of straw in a great wind for I could not
manage the spear. And it was fearful to look on the brute, who had but
one eye in the midst of his face; and it was not agreeable for the like
of me to attack him. I drew the dart as best I could, and I set it in
his eye. When he felt this he gave his head a lift, and he struck the
other end of the dart on the top of the cave, and it went through to
the back of his head. And he fell cold dead where he was; and you may
be sure, oh king, that joy was on me. I myself and the woman went out
on clear ground, and we passed the night there. I went and got the boat
with which I came, and she was no way lightened, and took the woman and
the child over on dry land; and I returned home."

The king of Lochlann's mother was putting on a fire at this time, and
listening to Conall telling the tale about the child.

"Is it you," said she, "that were there?"

"Well then," said he, "'twas I."

"Och! och!" said she, "'twas I that was there, and the king is the
child whose life you saved; and it is to you that life thanks should be
given." Then they took great joy.

The king said, "Oh, Conall, you came through great hardships. And now
the brown horse is yours, and his sack full of the most precious things
that are in my treasury."

They lay down that night, and if it was early that Conall rose, it was
earlier than that that the queen was on foot making ready. He got the
brown horse and his sack full of gold and silver and stones of great
price, and then Conall and his three sons went away, and they returned
home to the Erin realm of gladness. He left the gold and silver in his
house, and he went with the horse to the king. They were good friends
evermore. He returned home to his wife, and they set in order a feast;
and that was a feast if ever there was one, oh son and brother.



HUDDEN AND DUDDEN AND DONALD O'NEARY

There was once upon a time two farmers, and their names were Hudden and
Dudden. They had poultry in their yards, sheep on the uplands, and
scores of cattle in the meadow-land alongside the river. But for all
that they weren't happy. For just between their two farms there lived a
poor man by the name of Donald O'Neary. He had a hovel over his head
and a strip of grass that was barely enough to keep his one cow, Daisy,
from starving, and, though she did her best, it was but seldom that
Donald got a drink of milk or a roll of butter from Daisy. You would
think there was little here to make Hudden and Dudden jealous, but so
it is, the more one has the more one wants, and Donald's neighbours lay
awake of nights scheming how they might get hold of his little strip of
grass-land. Daisy, poor thing, they never thought of; she was just a
bag of bones.

One day Hudden met Dudden, and they were soon grumbling as usual, and
all to the tune of "If only we could get that vagabond Donald O'Neary
out of the country."

"Let's kill Daisy," said Hudden at last; "if that doesn't make him
clear out, nothing will."

No sooner said than agreed, and it wasn't dark before Hudden and Dudden
crept up to the little shed where lay poor Daisy trying her best to
chew the cud, though she hadn't had as much grass in the day as would
cover your hand. And when Donald came to see if Daisy was all snug for
the night, the poor beast had only time to lick his hand once before
she died.

Well, Donald was a shrewd fellow, and downhearted though he was, began
to think if he could get any good out of Daisy's death. He thought and
he thought, and the next day you could have seen him trudging off early
to the fair, Daisy's hide over his shoulder, every penny he had
jingling in his pockets. Just before he got to the fair, he made
several slits in the hide, put a penny in each slit, walked into the
best inn of the town as bold as if it belonged to him, and, hanging the
hide up to a nail in the wall, sat down.

"Some of your best whisky," says he to the landlord.

But the landlord didn't like his looks. "Is it fearing I won't pay you,
you are?" says Donald; "why I have a hide here that gives me all the
money I want." And with that he hit it a whack with his stick and out
hopped a penny. The landlord opened his eyes, as you may fancy.

"What'll you take for that hide?"

"It's not for sale, my good man."

"Will you take a gold piece?"

"It's not for sale, I tell you. Hasn't it kept me and mine for years?"
and with that Donald hit the hide another whack and out jumped a second
penny.

Well, the long and the short of it was that Donald let the hide go,
and, that very evening, who but he should walk up to Hudden's door?

"Good-evening, Hudden. Will you lend me your best pair of scales?"

Hudden stared and Hudden scratched his head, but he lent the scales.

When Donald was safe at home, he pulled out his pocketful of bright
gold and began to weigh each piece in the scales. But Hudden had put a
lump of butter at the bottom, and so the last piece of gold stuck fast
to the scales when he took them back to Hudden.

If Hudden had stared before, he stared ten times more now, and no
sooner was Donald's back turned, than he was of as hard as he could
pelt to Dudden's.

"Good-evening, Dudden. That vagabond, bad luck to him--"

"You mean Donald O'Neary?"

"And who else should I mean? He's back here weighing out sackfuls of
gold."

"How do you know that?"

"Here are my scales that he borrowed, and here's a gold piece still
sticking to them."

Off they went together, and they came to Donald's door. Donald had
finished making the last pile of ten gold pieces. And he couldn't
finish because a piece had stuck to the scales.

In they walked without an "If you please" or "By your leave."

"Well, _I_ never!" that was all _they_ could say.

"Good-evening, Hudden; good-evening, Dudden. Ah! you thought you had
played me a fine trick, but you never did me a better turn in all your
lives. When I found poor Daisy dead, I thought to myself, 'Well, her
hide may fetch something;' and it did. Hides are worth their weight in
gold in the market just now."

Hudden nudged Dudden, and Dudden winked at Hudden.

"Good-evening, Donald O'Neary."

"Good-evening, kind friends."

The next day there wasn't a cow or a calf that belonged to Hudden or
Dudden but her hide was going to the fair in Hudden's biggest cart
drawn by Dudden's strongest pair of horses.

When they came to the fair, each one took a hide over his arm, and
there they were walking through the fair, bawling out at the top of
their voices: "Hides to sell! hides to sell!"

Out came the tanner:

"How much for your hides, my good men?"

"Their weight in gold."

"It's early in the day to come out of the tavern."

That was all the tanner said, and back he went to his yard.

"Hides to sell! Fine fresh hides to sell!"

Out came the cobbler.

"How much for your hides, my men?"

"Their weight in gold."

"Is it making game of me you are! Take that for your pains," and the
cobbler dealt Hudden a blow that made him stagger.

Up the people came running from one end of the fair to the other.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" cried they.

"Here are a couple of vagabonds selling hides at their weight in gold,"
said the cobbler.

"Hold 'em fast; hold 'em fast!" bawled the innkeeper, who was the last
to come up, he was so fat. "I'll wager it's one of the rogues who
tricked me out of thirty gold pieces yesterday for a wretched hide."

It was more kicks than halfpence that Hudden and Dudden got before they
were well on their way home again, and they didn't run the slower
because all the dogs of the town were at their heels.

Well, as you may fancy, if they loved Donald little before, they loved
him less now.

"What's the matter, friends?" said he, as he saw them tearing along,
their hats knocked in, and their coats torn off, and their faces black
and blue. "Is it fighting you've been? or mayhap you met the police,
ill luck to them?"

"We'll police you, you vagabond. It's mighty smart you thought
yourself, deluding us with your lying tales."

"Who deluded you? Didn't you see the gold with your own two eyes?"

But it was no use talking. Pay for it he must, and should. There was a
meal-sack handy, and into it Hudden and Dudden popped Donald O'Neary,
tied him up tight, ran a pole through the knot, and off they started
for the Brown Lake of the Bog, each with a pole-end on his shoulder,
and Donald O'Neary between.

But the Brown Lake was far, the road was dusty, Hudden and Dudden were
sore and weary, and parched with thirst. There was an inn by the
roadside.

"Let's go in," said Hudden; "I'm dead beat. It's heavy he is for the
little he had to eat."

If Hudden was willing, so was Dudden. As for Donald, you may be sure
his leave wasn't asked, but he was lumped down at the inn door for all
the world as if he had been a sack of potatoes.

"Sit still, you vagabond," said Dudden; "if we don't mind waiting, you
needn't."

Donald held his peace, but after a while he heard the glasses clink,
and Hudden singing away at the top of his voice.

"I won't have her, I tell you; I won't have her!" said Donald. But
nobody heeded what he said.

"I won't have her, I tell you; I won't have her!" said Donald, and this
time he said it louder; but nobody heeded what he said.

"I won't have her, I tell you; I won't have her!" said Donald; and this
time he said it as loud as he could.

"And who won't you have, may I be so bold as to ask?" said a farmer,
who had just come up with a drove of cattle, and was turning in for a
glass.

"It's the king's daughter. They are bothering the life out of me to
marry her."

"You're the lucky fellow. I'd give something to be in your shoes."

"Do you see that now! Wouldn't it be a fine thing for a farmer to be
marrying a princess, all dressed in gold and jewels?"

"Jewels, do you say? Ah, now, couldn't you take me with you?"

"Well, you're an honest fellow, and as I don't care for the king's
daughter, though she's as beautiful as the day, and is covered with
jewels from top to toe, you shall have her. Just undo the cord, and let
me out; they tied me up tight, as they knew I'd run away from her."

Out crawled Donald; in crept the farmer.

"Now lie still, and don't mind the shaking; it's only rumbling over the
palace steps you'll be. And maybe they'll abuse you for a vagabond, who
won't have the king's daughter; but you needn't mind that. Ah! it's a
deal I'm giving up for you, sure as it is that I don't care for the
princess."

"Take my cattle in exchange," said the farmer; and you may guess it
wasn't long before Donald was at their tails driving them homewards.

Out came Hudden and Dudden, and the one took one end of the pole, and
the other the other.

"I'm thinking he's heavier," said Hudden.

"Ah, never mind," said Dudden; "it's only a step now to the Brown Lake."

"I'll have her now! I'll have her now!" bawled the farmer, from inside
the sack.

"By my faith, and you shall though," said Hudden, and he laid his stick
across the sack.

"I'll have her! I'll have her!" bawled the farmer, louder than ever.

"Well, here you are," said Dudden, for they were now come to the Brown
Lake, and, unslinging the sack, they pitched it plump into the lake.

"You'll not be playing your tricks on us any longer," said Hudden.

"True for you," said Dudden. "Ah, Donald, my boy, it was an ill day
when you borrowed my scales."

Off they went, with a light step and an easy heart, but when they were
near home, who should they see but Donald O'Neary, and all around him
the cows were grazing, and the calves were kicking up their heels and
butting their heads together.

"Is it you, Donald?" said Dudden. "Faith, you've been quicker than we
have."

"True for you, Dudden, and let me thank you kindly; the turn was good,
if the will was ill. You'll have heard, like me, that the Brown Lake
leads to the Land of Promise. I always put it down as lies, but it is
just as true as my word. Look at the cattle."

Hudden stared, and Dudden gaped; but they couldn't get over the cattle;
fine fat cattle they were too.

"It's only the worst I could bring up with me," said Donald O'Neary;
"the others were so fat, there was no driving them. Faith, too, it's
little wonder they didn't care to leave, with grass as far as you could
see, and as sweet and juicy as fresh butter."

"Ah, now, Donald, we haven't always been friends," said Dudden, "but,
as I was just saying, you were ever a decent lad, and you'll show us
the way, won't you?"

"I don't see that I'm called upon to do that; there is a power more
cattle down there. Why shouldn't I have them all to myself?"

"Faith, they may well say, the richer you get, the harder the heart.
You always were a neighbourly lad, Donald. You wouldn't wish to keep
the luck all to yourself?"

"True for you, Hudden, though 'tis a bad example you set me. But I'll
not be thinking of old times. There is plenty for all there, so come
along with me."

Off they trudged, with a light heart and an eager step. When they came
to the Brown Lake, the sky was full of little white clouds, and, if the
sky was full, the lake was as full.

"Ah! now, look, there they are," cried Donald, as he pointed to the
clouds in the lake.

"Where? where?" cried Hudden, and "Don't be greedy!" cried Dudden, as
he jumped his hardest to be up first with the fat cattle. But if he
jumped first, Hudden wasn't long behind.

They never came back. Maybe they got too fat, like the cattle. As for
Donald O'Neary, he had cattle and sheep all his days to his heart's
content.



THE SHEPHERD OF MYDDVAI

Up in the Black Mountains in Caermarthenshire lies the lake known as
Lyn y Van Vach. To the margin of this lake the shepherd of Myddvai once
led his lambs, and lay there whilst they sought pasture. Suddenly, from
the dark waters of the lake, he saw three maidens rise. Shaking the
bright drops from their hair and gliding to the shore, they wandered
about amongst his flock. They had more than mortal beauty, and he was
filled with love for her that came nearest to him. He offered her the
bread he had with him, and she took it and tried it, but then sang to
him:

  Hard-baked is thy bread,
  'Tis not easy to catch me,

and then ran off laughing to the lake.

Next day he took with him bread not so well done, and watched for the
maidens. When they came ashore he offered his bread as before, and the
maiden tasted it and sang:

  Unbaked is thy bread,
  I will not have thee,

and again disappeared in the waves.

A third time did the shepherd of Myddvai try to attract the maiden, and
this time he offered her bread that he had found floating about near
the shore. This pleased her, and she promised to become his wife if he
were able to pick her out from among her sisters on the following day.
When the time came the shepherd knew his love by the strap of her
sandal. Then she told him she would be as good a wife to him as any
earthly maiden could be unless he should strike her three times without
cause. Of course he deemed that this could never be; and she, summoning
from the lake three cows, two oxen, and a bull, as her marriage
portion, was led homeward by him as his bride.

The years passed happily, and three children were born to the shepherd
and the lake-maiden. But one day here were going to a christening, and
she said to her husband it was far to walk, so he told her to go for
the horses.

"I will," said she, "if you bring me my gloves which I've left in the
house."

But when he came back with the gloves, he found she had not gone for
the horses; so he tapped her lightly on the shoulder with the gloves,
and said, "Go, go."

"That's one," said she.

Another time they were at a wedding, when suddenly the lake-maiden fell
a-sobbing and a-weeping, amid the joy and mirth of all around her.

Her husband tapped her on the shoulder, and asked her, "Why do you
weep?"

"Because they are entering into trouble; and trouble is upon you; for
that is the second causeless blow you have given me. Be careful; the
third is the last."

The husband was careful never to strike her again. But one day at a
funeral she suddenly burst out into fits of laughter. Her husband
forgot, and touched her rather roughly on the shoulder, saying, "Is
this a time for laughter?"

"I laugh," she said, "because those that die go out of trouble, but
your trouble has come. The last blow has been struck; our marriage is
at an end, and so farewell." And with that she rose up and left the
house and went to their home.

Then she, looking round upon her home, called to the cattle she had
brought with her:

  Brindle cow, white speckled,
  Spotted cow, bold freckled,
  Old white face, and gray Geringer,
  And the white bull from the king's coast,
  Grey ox, and black calf,
  All, all, follow me home,

Now the black calf had just been slaughtered, and was hanging on the
hook; but it got off the hook alive and well and followed her; and the
oxen, though they were ploughing, trailed the plough with them and did
her bidding. So she fled to the lake again, they following her, and
with them plunged into the dark waters.

And to this day is the furrow seen which the plough left as it was
dragged across the mountains to the tarn.

Only once did she come again, when her sons were grown to manhood, and
then she gave them gifts of healing by which they won the name of
Meddygon Myddvai, the physicians of Myddvai.



THE SPRIGHTLY TAILOR

A sprightly tailor was employed by the great Macdonald, in his castle
at Saddell, in order to make the laird a pair of trews, used in olden
time. And trews being the vest and breeches united in one piece, and
ornamented with fringes, were very comfortable, and suitable to be worn
in walking or dancing. And Macdonald had said to the tailor, that if he
would make the trews by night in the church, he would get a handsome
reward. For it was thought that the old ruined church was haunted, and
that fearsome things were to be seen there at night.

The tailor was well aware of this; but he was a sprightly man, and when
the laird dared him to make the trews by night in the church, the
tailor was not to be daunted, but took it in hand to gain the prize.
So, when night came, away he went up the glen, about half a mile
distance from the castle, till he came to the old church. Then he chose
him a nice gravestone for a seat and he lighted his candle, and put on
his thimble, and set to work at the trews; plying his needle nimbly,
and thinking about the hire that the laird would have to give him.

For some time he got on pretty well, until he felt the floor all of a
tremble under his feet; and looking about him, but keeping his fingers
at work, he saw the appearance of a great human head rising up through
the stone pavement of the church. And when the head had risen above the
surface, there came from it a great, great voice. And the voice said:
"Do you see this great head of mine?"

"I see that, but I'll sew this!" replied the sprightly tailor; and he
stitched away at the trews.

Then the head rose higher up through the pavement, until its neck
appeared. And when its neck was shown, the thundering voice came again
and said: "Do you see this great neck of mine?"

"I see that, but I'll sew this!" said the sprightly tailor; and he
stitched away at his trews.

Then the head and neck rose higher still, until the great shoulders and
chest were shown above the ground. And again the mighty voice
thundered: "Do you see this great chest of mine?"

And again the sprightly tailor replied: "I see that, but I'll sew
this!" and stitched away at his trews.

And still it kept rising through the pavement, until it shook a great
pair of arms in the tailor's face, and said: "Do you see these great
arms of mine?"

"I see those, but I'll sew this!" answered the tailor; and he stitched
hard at his trews, for he knew that he had no time to lose.

The sprightly tailor was taking the long stitches, when he saw it
gradually rising and rising through the floor, until it lifted out a
great leg, and stamping with it upon the pavement, said in a roaring
voice: "Do you see this great leg of mine?"

"Aye, aye: I see that, but I'll sew this!" cried the tailor; and his
fingers flew with the needle, and he took such long stitches, that he
was just come to the end of the trews, when it was taking up its other
leg. But before it could pull it out of the pavement, the sprightly
tailor had finished his task; and, blowing out his candle, and
springing from off his gravestone, he buckled up, and ran out of the
church with the trews under his arm. Then the fearsome thing gave a
loud roar, and stamped with both his feet upon the pavement, and out of
the church he went after the sprightly tailor.

Down the glen they ran, faster than the stream when the flood rides it;
but the tailor had got the start and a nimble pair of legs, and he did
not choose to lose the laird's reward. And though the thing roared to
him to stop, yet the sprightly tailor was not the man to be beholden to
a monster. So he held his trews tight, and let no darkness grow under
his feet, until he had reached Saddell Castle. He had no sooner got
inside the gate, and shut it, than the apparition came up to it; and,
enraged at losing his prize, struck the wall above the gate, and left
there the mark of his five great fingers. Ye may see them plainly to
this day, if ye'll only peer close enough.

But the sprightly tailor gained his reward: for Macdonald paid him
handsomely for the trews, and never discovered that a few of the
stitches were somewhat long.



THE STORY OF DEIRDRE

There was a man in Ireland once who was called Malcolm Harper. The man
was a right good man, and he had a goodly share of this world's goods.
He had a wife, but no family. What did Malcolm hear but that a
soothsayer had come home to the place, and as the man was a right good
man, he wished that the soothsayer might come near them. Whether it was
that he was invited or that he came of himself, the soothsayer came to
the house of Malcolm.

"Are you doing any soothsaying?" says Malcolm.

"Yes, I am doing a little. Are you in need of soothsaying?"

"Well, I do not mind taking soothsaying from you, if you had
soothsaying for me, and you would be willing to do it."

"Well, I will do soothsaying for you. What kind of soothsaying do you
want?"

"Well, the soothsaying I wanted was that you would tell me my lot or
what will happen to me, if you can give me knowledge of it."

"Well, I am going out, and when I return, I will tell you."

And the soothsayer went forth out of the house and he was not long
outside when he returned.

"Well," said the soothsayer, "I saw in my second sight that it is on
account of a daughter of yours that the greatest amount of blood shall
be shed that has ever been shed in Erin since time and race began. And
the three most famous heroes that ever were found will lose their heads
on her account."

After a time a daughter was born to Malcolm, he did not allow a living
being to come to his house, only himself and the nurse. He asked this
woman, "Will you yourself bring up the child to keep her in hiding far
away where eye will not see a sight of her nor ear hear a word about
her?"

The woman said she would, so Malcolm got three men, and he took them
away to a large mountain, distant and far from reach, without the
knowledge or notice of any one. He caused there a hillock, round and
green, to be dug out of the middle, and the hole thus made to be
covered carefully over so that a little company could dwell there
together. This was done.

Deirdre and her foster-mother dwelt in the bothy mid the hills without
the knowledge or the suspicion of any living person about them and
without anything occurring, until Deirdre was sixteen years of age.
Deirdre grew like the white sapling, straight and trim as the rash on
the moss. She was the creature of fairest form, of loveliest aspect,
and of gentlest nature that existed between earth and heaven in all
Ireland--whatever colour of hue she had before, there was nobody that
looked into her face but she would blush fiery red over it.

The woman that had charge of her, gave Deirdre every information and
skill of which she herself had knowledge and skill. There was not a
blade of grass growing from root, nor a bird singing in the wood, nor a
star shining from heaven but Deirdre had a name for it. But one thing,
she did not wish her to have either part or parley with any single
living man of the rest of the world. But on a gloomy winter night, with
black, scowling clouds, a hunter of game was wearily travelling the
hills, and what happened but that he missed the trail of the hunt, and
lost his course and companions. A drowsiness came upon the man as he
wearily wandered over the hills, and he lay down by the side of the
beautiful green knoll in which Deirdre lived, and he slept. The man was
faint from hunger and wandering, and benumbed with cold, and a deep
sleep fell upon him. When he lay down beside the green hill where
Deirdre was, a troubled dream came to the man, and he thought that he
enjoyed the warmth of a fairy broch, the fairies being inside playing
music. The hunter shouted out in his dream, if there was any one in the
broch, to let him in for the Holy One's sake. Deirdre heard the voice
and said to her foster-mother: "O foster-mother, what cry is that?" "It
is nothing at all, Deirdre--merely the birds of the air astray and
seeking each other. But let them go past to the bosky glade. There is
no shelter or house for them here." "Oh, foster-mother, the bird asked
to get inside for the sake of the God of the Elements, and you yourself
tell me that anything that is asked in His name we ought to do. If you
will not allow the bird that is being benumbed with cold, and done to
death with hunger, to be let in, I do not think much of your language
or your faith. But since I give credence to your language and to your
faith, which you taught me, I will myself let in the bird." And Deirdre
arose and drew the bolt from the leaf of the door, and she let in the
hunter. She placed a seat in the place for sitting, food in the place
for eating, and drink in the place for drinking for the man who came to
the house. "Oh, for this life and raiment, you man that came in, keep
restraint on your tongue!" said the old woman. "It is not a great thing
for you to keep your mouth shut and your tongue quiet when you get a
home and shelter of a hearth on a gloomy winter's night."

"Well," said the hunter, "I may do that--keep my mouth shut and my
tongue quiet, since I came to the house and received hospitality from
you; but by the hand of thy father and grandfather, and by your own two
hands, if some other of the people of the world saw this beauteous
creature you have here hid away, they would not long leave her with
you, I swear."

"What men are these you refer to?" said Deirdre.

"Well, I will tell you, young woman," said the hunter.

"They are Naois, son of Uisnech, and Allen and Arden his two brothers."

"What like are these men when seen, if we were to see them?" said
Deirdre.

"Why, the aspect and form of the men when seen are these," said the
hunter: "they have the colour of the raven on their hair, their skin
like swan on the wave in whiteness, and their cheeks as the blood of
the brindled red calf, and their speed and their leap are those of the
salmon of the torrent and the deer of the grey mountain side. And Naois
is head and shoulders over the rest of the people of Erin."

"However they are," said the nurse, "be you off from here and take
another road. And, King of Light and Sun! in good sooth and certainty,
little are my thanks for yourself or for her that let you in!"

The hunter went away, and went straight to the palace of King
Connachar. He sent word in to the king that he wished to speak to him
if he pleased. The king answered the message and came out to speak to
the man. "What is the reason of your journey?" said the king to the
hunter.

"I have only to tell you, O king," said the hunter, "that I saw the
fairest creature that ever was born in Erin, and I came to tell you of
it."

"Who is this beauty and where is she to be seen, when she was not seen
before till you saw her, if you did see her?"

"Well, I did see her," said the hunter. "But, if I did, no man else can
see her unless he get directions from me as to where she is dwelling."

"And will you direct me to where she dwells? and the reward of your
directing me will be as good as the reward of your message," said the
king.

"Well, I will direct you, O king, although it is likely that this will
not be what they want," said the hunter.

Connachar, King of Ulster, sent for his nearest kinsmen, and he told
them of his intent. Though early rose the song of the birds mid the
rocky caves and the music of the birds in the grove, earlier than that
did Connachar, King of Ulster, arise, with his little troop of dear
friends, in the delightful twilight of the fresh and gentle May; the
dew was heavy on each bush and flower and stem, as they went to bring
Deirdre forth from the green knoll where she stayed. Many a youth was
there who had a lithe leaping and lissom step when they started whose
step was faint, failing, and faltering when they reached the bothy on
account of the length of the way and roughness of the road.

"Yonder, now, down in the bottom of the glen is the bothy where the
woman dwells, but I will not go nearer than this to the old woman,"
said the hunter.

Connachar with his band of kinsfolk went down to the green knoll where
Deirdre dwelt and he knocked at the door of the bothy. The nurse
replied, "No less than a king's command and a king's army could put me
out of my bothy to-night. And I should be obliged to you, were you to
tell who it is that wants me to open my bothy door."

"It is I, Connachar, King of Ulster." When the poor woman heard who was
at the door, she rose with haste and let in the king and all that could
get in of his retinue.

When the king saw the woman that was before him that he had been in
quest of, he thought he never saw in the course of the day nor in the
dream of night a creature so fair as Deirdre and he gave his full
heart's weight of love to her. Deirdre was raised on the topmost of the
heroes' shoulders and she and her foster-mother were brought to the
Court of King Connachar of Ulster.

With the love that Connachar had for her, he wanted to marry Deirdre
right off there and then, will she nill she marry him. But she said to
him, "I would be obliged to you if you will give me the respite of a
year and a day." He said "I will grant you that, hard though it is, if
you will give me your unfailing promise that you will marry me at the
year's end." And she gave the promise. Connachar got for her a
woman-teacher and merry modest maidens fair that would lie down and
rise with her, that would play and speak with her. Deirdre was clever
in maidenly duties and wifely understanding, and Connachar thought he
never saw with bodily eye a creature that pleased him more.

Deirdre and her women companions were one day out on the hillock behind
the house enjoying the scene, and drinking in the sun's heat. What did
they see coming but three men a-journeying. Deirdre was looking at the
men that were coming, and wondering at them. When the men neared them,
Deirdre remembered the language of the huntsman, and she said to
herself that these were the three sons of Uisnech, and that this was
Naois, he having what was above the bend of the two shoulders above the
men of Erin all. The three brothers went past without taking any notice
of them, without even glancing at the young girls on the hillock. What
happened but that love for Naois struck the heart of Deirdre, so that
she could not but follow after him. She girded up her raiment and went
after the men that went past the base of the knoll, leaving her women
attendants there. Allen and Arden had heard of the woman that
Connachar, King of Ulster, had with him, and they thought that, if
Naois, their brother, saw her, he would have her himself, more
especially as she was not married to the King. They perceived the woman
coming, and called on one another to hasten their step as they had a
long distance to travel, and the dusk of night was coming on. They did
so. She cried: "Naois, son of Uisnech, will you leave me?" "What
piercing, shrill cry is that--the most melodious my ear ever heard, and
the shrillest that ever struck my heart of all the cries I ever heard?"
"It is anything else but the wail of the wave-swans of Connachar," said
his brothers. "No! yonder is a woman's cry of distress," said Naois,
and he swore he would not go further until he saw from whom the cry
came, and Naois turned back. Naois and Deirdre met, and Deirdre kissed
Naois three times, and a kiss each to his brothers. With the confusion
that she was in, Deirdre went into a crimson blaze of fire, and her
colour came and went as rapidly as the movement of the aspen by the
stream side. Naois thought he never saw a fairer creature, and Naois
gave Deirdre the love that he never gave to thing, to vision, or to
creature but to herself.

Then Naois placed Deirdre on the topmost height of his shoulder, and
told his brothers to keep up their pace, and they kept up their pace.
Naois thought that it would not be well for him to remain in Erin on
account of the way in which Connachar, King of Ulster, his uncle's son,
had gone against him because of the woman, though he had not married
her; and he turned back to Alba, that is, Scotland. He reached the side
of Loch-Ness and made his habitation there. He could kill the salmon of
the torrent from out his own door, and the deer of the grey gorge from
out his window. Naois and Deirdre and Allen and Arden dwelt in a tower,
and they were happy so long a time as they were there.

By this time the end of the period came at which Deirdre had to marry
Connachar, King of Ulster. Connachar made up his mind to take Deirdre
away by the sword whether she was married to Naois or not. So he
prepared a great and gleeful feast. He sent word far and wide through
Erin all to his kinspeople to come to the feast. Connachar thought to
himself that Naois would not come though he should bid him; and the
scheme that arose in his mind was to send for his father's brother,
Ferchar Mac Ro, and to send him on an embassy to Naois. He did so; and
Connachar said to Ferchar, "Tell Naois, son of Uisnech, that I am
setting forth a great and gleeful feast to my friends and kinspeople
throughout the wide extent of Erin all, and that I shall not have rest
by day nor sleep by night if he and Allen and Arden be not partakers of
the feast."

Ferchar Mac Ro and his three sons went on their journey, and reached
the tower where Naois was dwelling by the side of Loch Etive. The sons
of Uisnech gave a cordial kindly welcome to Ferchar Mac Ro and his
three sons, and asked of him the news of Erin. "The best news that I
have for you," said the hardy hero, "is that Connachar, King of Ulster,
is setting forth a great sumptuous feast to his friends and kinspeople
throughout the wide extent of Erin all, and he has vowed by the earth
beneath him, by the high heaven above him, and by the sun that wends to
the west, that he will have no rest by day nor sleep by night if the
sons of Uisnech, the sons of his own father's brother, will not come
back to the land of their home and the soil of their nativity, and to
the feast likewise, and he has sent us on embassy to invite you."

"We will go with you," said Naois.

"We will," said his brothers.

But Deirdre did not wish to go with Ferchar Mac Ro, and she tried every
prayer to turn Naois from going with him--she said:

"I saw a vision, Naois, and do you interpret it to me," said
Deirdre--then she sang:

  O Naois, son of Uisnech, hear
  What was shown in a dream to me.

  There came three white doves out of the South
    Flying over the sea,
  And drops of honey were in their mouth
    From the hive of the honey-bee.

  O Naois, son of Uisnech, hear,
  What was shown in a dream to me.

  I saw three grey hawks out of the south
    Come flying over the sea,
  And the red red drops they bare in their mouth
    They were dearer than life to me.

Said Naois:--

  It is nought but the fear of woman's heart,
  And a dream of the night, Deirdre.

"The day that Connachar sent the invitation to his feast will be
unlucky for us if we don't go, O Deirdre."

"You will go there," said Ferchar Mac Ro; "and if Connachar show
kindness to you, show ye kindness to him; and if he will display wrath
towards you display ye wrath towards him, and I and my three sons will
be with you."

"We will," said Daring Drop. "We will," said Hardy Holly. "We will,"
said Fiallan the Fair.

"I have three sons, and they are three heroes, and in any harm or
danger that may befall you, they will be with you, and I myself will be
along with them." And Ferchar Mac Ro gave his vow and his word in
presence of his arms that, in any harm or danger that came in the way
of the sons of Uisnech, he and his three sons would not leave head on
live body in Erin, despite sword or helmet, spear or shield, blade or
mail, be they ever so good.

Deirdre was unwilling to leave Alba, but she went with Naois. Deirdre
wept tears in showers and she sang:

  Dear is the land, the land over there,
    Alba full of woods and lakes;
  Bitter to my heart is leaving thee,
    But I go away with Naois.

Ferchar Mac Ro did not stop till he got the sons of Uisnech away with
him, despite the suspicion of Deirdre.

  The coracle was put to sea,
    The sail was hoisted to it;
  And the second morrow they arrived
    On the white shores of Erin.

As soon as the sons of Uisnech landed in Erin, Ferchar Mac Ro sent word
to Connachar, king of Ulster, that the men whom he wanted were come,
and let him now show kindness to them. "Well," said Connachar, "I did
not expect that the sons of Uisnech would come, though I sent for them,
and I am not quite ready to receive them. But there is a house down
yonder where I keep strangers, and let them go down to it today, and my
house will be ready before them tomorrow."

But he that was up in the palace felt it long that he was not getting
word as to how matters were going on for those down in the house of the
strangers. "Go you, Gelban Grednach, son of Lochlin's King, go you down
and bring me information as to whether her former hue and complexion
are on Deirdre. If they be, I will take her out with edge of blade and
point of sword, and if not, let Naois, son of Uisnech, have her for
himself," said Connachar.

Gelban, the cheering and charming son of Lochlin's King, went down to
the place of the strangers, where the sons of Uisnech and Deirdre were
staying. He looked in through the bicker-hole on the door-leaf. Now she
that he gazed upon used to go into a crimson blaze of blushes when any
one looked at her. Naois looked at Deirdre and knew that some one was
looking at her from the back of the door-leaf. He seized one of the
dice on the table before him and fired it through the bicker-hole, and
knocked the eye out of Gelban Grednach the Cheerful and Charming, right
through the back of his head. Gelban returned back to the palace of
King Connachar.

"You were cheerful, charming, going away, but you are cheerless,
charmless, returning. What has happened to you, Gelban? But have you
seen her, and are Deirdre's hue and complexion as before?" said
Connachar.

"Well, I have seen Deirdre, and I saw her also truly, and while I was
looking at her through the bicker-hole on the door, Naois, son of
Uisnech, knocked out my eye with one of the dice in his hand. But of a
truth and verity, although he put out even my eye, it were my desire
still to remain looking at her with the other eye, were it not for the
hurry you told me to be in," said Gelban.

"That is true," said Connachar; "let three hundred bravo heroes go down
to the abode of the strangers, and let them bring hither to me Deirdre,
and kill the rest."

Connachar ordered three hundred active heroes to go down to the abode
of the strangers and to take Deirdre up with them and kill the rest.
"The pursuit is coming," said Deirdre.

"Yes, but I will myself go out and stop the pursuit," said Naois.

"It is not you, but we that will go," said Daring Drop, and Hardy
Holly, and Fiallan the Fair; "it is to us that our father entrusted
your defence from harm and danger when he himself left for home." And
the gallant youths, full noble, full manly, full handsome, with
beauteous brown locks, went forth girt with battle arms fit for fierce
fight and clothed with combat dress for fierce contest fit, which was
burnished, bright, brilliant, bladed, blazing, on which were many
pictures of beasts and birds and creeping things, lions and
lithe-limbed tigers, brown eagle and harrying hawk and adder fierce;
and the young heroes laid low three-thirds of the company.

Connachar came out in haste and cried with wrath: "Who is there on the
floor of fight, slaughtering my men?"

"We, the three sons of Ferchar Mac Ro."

"Well," said the king, "I will give a free bridge to your grandfather,
a free bridge to your father, and a free bridge each to you three
brothers, if you come over to my side tonight."

"Well, Connachar, we will not accept that offer from you nor thank you
for it. Greater by far do we prefer to go home to our father and tell
the deeds of heroism we have done, than accept anything on these terms
from you. Naois, son of Uisnech, and Allen and Arden are as nearly
related to yourself as they are to us, though you are so keen to shed
their blood, and you would shed our blood also, Connachar." And the
noble, manly, handsome youths with beauteous, brown locks returned
inside. "We are now," said they, "going home to tell our father that
you are now safe from the hands of the king." And the youths all fresh
and tall and lithe and beautiful, went home to their father to tell
that the sons of Uisnech were safe. This happened at the parting of the
day and night in the morning twilight time, and Naois said they must go
away, leave that house, and return to Alba.

Naois and Deirdre, Allan and Arden started to return to Alba. Word came
to the king that the company he was in pursuit of were gone. The king
then sent for Duanan Gacha Druid, the best magician he had, and he
spoke to him as follows:--"Much wealth have I expended on you, Duanan
Gacha Druid, to give schooling and learning and magic mystery to you,
if these people get away from me today without care, without
consideration or regard for me, without chance of overtaking them, and
without power to stop them."

"Well, I will stop them," said the magician, "until the company you
send in pursuit return." And the magician placed a wood before them
through which no man could go, but the sons of Uisnech marched through
the wood without halt or hesitation, and Deirdre held on to Naois's
hand.

"What is the good of that? that will not do yet," said Connachar. "They
are off without bending of their feet or stopping of their step,
without heed or respect to me, and I am without power to keep up to
them or opportunity to turn them back this night."

"I will try another plan on them," said the druid; and he placed before
them a grey sea instead of a green plain. The three heroes stripped and
tied their clothes behind their heads, and Naois placed Deirdre on the
top of his shoulder.

  They stretched their sides to the stream,
    And sea and land were to them the same,
  The rough grey ocean was the same
    As meadow-land green and plain.

"Though that be good, O Duanan, it will not make the heroes return,"
said Connachar; "they are gone without regard for me, and without
honour to me, and without power on my part to pursue them or to force
them to return this night."

"We shall try another method on them, since yon one did not stop them,"
said the druid. And the druid froze the grey ridged sea into hard rocky
knobs, the sharpness of sword being on the one edge and the poison
power of adders on the other. Then Arden cried that he was getting
tired, and nearly giving over. "Come you, Arden, and sit on my right
shoulder," said Naois. Arden came and sat, on Naois's shoulder. Arden
was long in this posture when he died; but though he was dead Naois
would not let him go. Allen then cried out that he was getting faint
and nigh-well giving up. When Naois heard his prayer, he gave forth the
piercing sigh of death, and asked Allen to lay hold of him and he would
bring him to land.

Allen was not long when the weakness of death came on him and his hold
failed. Naois looked around, and when he saw his two well-beloved
brothers dead, he cared not whether he lived or died, and he gave forth
the bitter sigh of death, and his heart burst.

"They are gone," said Duanan Gacha Druid to the king, "and I have done
what you desired me. The sons of Uisnech are dead and they will trouble
you no more; and you have your wife hale and whole to yourself."

"Blessings for that upon you and may the good results accrue to me,
Duanan. I count it no loss what I spent in the schooling and teaching
of you. Now dry up the flood, and let me see if I can behold Deirdre,"
said Connachar. And Duanan Gacha Druid dried up the flood from the
plain and the three sons of Uisnech were lying together dead, without
breath of life, side by side on the green meadow plain and Deirdre
bending above showering down her tears.

Then Deirdre said this lament: "Fair one, loved one, flower of beauty;
beloved upright and strong; beloved noble and modest warrior. Fair one,
blue-eyed, beloved of thy wife; lovely to me at the trysting-place came
thy clear voice through the woods of Ireland. I cannot eat or smile
henceforth. Break not to-day, my heart: soon enough shall I lie within
my grave. Strong are the waves of sorrow, but stronger is sorrow's
self, Connachar."

The people then gathered round the heroes' bodies and asked Connachar
what was to be done with the bodies. The order that he gave was that
they should dig a pit and put the three brothers in it side by side.

Deirdre kept sitting on the brink of the grave, constantly asking the
gravediggers to dig the pit wide and free. When the bodies of the
brothers were put in the grave, Deirdre said:--

  Come over hither, Naois, my love,
  Let Arden close to Allen lie;
  If the dead had any sense to feel,
  Ye would have made a place for Deirdre.

The men did as she told them. She jumped into the grave and lay down by
Naois, and she was dead by his side.

The king ordered the body to be raised from out the grave and to be
buried on the other side of the loch. It was done as the king bade, and
the pit closed. Thereupon a fir shoot grew out of the grave of Deirdre
and a fir shoot from the grave of Naois, and the two shoots united in a
knot above the loch. The king ordered the shoots to be cut down, and
this was done twice, until, at the third time, the wife whom the king
had married caused him to stop this work of evil and his vengeance on
the remains of the dead.




MUNACHAR AND MANACHAR

There once lived a Munachar and a Manachar, a long time ago, and it is
a long time since it was, and if they were alive now they would not be
alive then. They went out together to pick raspberries, and as many as
Munachar used to pick Manachar used to eat. Munachar said he must go
look for a rod to make a gad to hang Manachar, who ate his raspberries
every one; and he came to the rod. "What news the day?" said the rod.
"It is my own news that I'm seeking. Going looking for a rod, a rod to
make a gad, a gad to hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the rod, "until you get an axe to cut me."
He came to the axe. "What news to-day?" said the axe. "It's my own news
I'm seeking. Going looking for an axe, an axe to cut a rod, a rod to
make a gad, a gad to hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the axe, "until you get a flag to edge me."
He came to the flag. "What news today?" says the flag. "It's my own
news I'm seeking. Going looking for a flag, flag to edge axe, axe to
cut a rod, a rod to make a gad, a gad to hang Manachar, who ate my
raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," says the flag, "till you get water to wet me."
He came to the water. "What news to-day?" says the water. "It's my own
news that I'm seeking. Going looking for water, water to wet flag, flag
to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a rod to make a gad, a gad to hang
Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the water, "until you get a deer who will
swim me." He came to the deer. "What news to-day?" says the deer. "It's
my own news I'm seeking. Going looking for a deer, deer to swim water,
water to wet flag, flag to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a rod to make a
gad, a gad to hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the deer, "until you get a hound who will
hunt me." He came to the hound. "What news to-day?" says the hound.
"It's my own news I'm seeking. Going looking for a hound, hound to hunt
deer, deer to swim water, water to wet flag, flag to edge axe, axe to
cut a rod, a rod to make a gad, a gad to hang Manachar, who ate my
raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the hound, "until you get a bit of butter
to put in my claw." He came to the butter. "What news to-day?" says the
butter. "It's my own news I'm seeking. Going looking for butter, butter
to go in claw of hound, hound to hunt deer, deer to swim water, water
to wet flag, flag to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a rod to make a gad, a
gad to hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the butter, "until you get a cat who shall
scrape me." He came to the cat. "What news to-day?" said the cat. "It's
my own news I'm seeking. Going looking for a cat, cat to scrape butter,
butter to go in claw of hound, hound to hunt deer, deer to swim water,
water to wet flag, flag to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a rod to make a
gad, gad to hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get me," said the cat, "until you will get milk which you
will give me." He came to the cow. "What news to-day?" said the cow.
"It's my own news I'm seeking. Going looking for a cow, cow to give me
milk, milk I will give to the cat, cat to scrape butter, butter to go
in claw of hound, hound to hunt deer, deer to swim water, water to wet
flag, flag to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a rod to make a gad, a gad to
hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get any milk from me," said the cow, "until you bring me
a whisp of straw from those threshers yonder." He came to the
threshers. "What news to-day?" said the threshers. "It's my own news
I'm seeking. Going looking for a whisp of straw from ye to give to the
cow, the cow to give me milk, milk I will give to the cat, cat to
scrape butter, butter to go in claw of hound, hound to hunt deer, deer
to swim water, water to wet flag, flag to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a
rod to make a gad, a gad to hang Manachar, who ate my raspberries every
one."

"You will not get any whisp of straw from us," said the threshers,
"until you bring us the makings of a cake from the miller over yonder."
He came to the miller. "What news to-day?" said the miller. "It's my
own news I'm seeking. Going looking for the makings of a cake which I
will give to the threshers, the threshers to give me a whisp of straw,
the whisp of straw I will give to the cow, the cow to give me milk,
milk I will give to the cat, cat to scrape butter, butter to go in claw
of hound, hound to hunt deer, deer to swim water, water to wet flag,
flag to edge axe, axe to cut a rod, a rod to make a gad, a gad to hang
Manachar, who ate my raspberries every one."

"You will not get any makings of a cake from me," said the miller,
"till you bring me the full of that sieve of water from the river over
there."

He took the sieve in his hand and went over to the river, but as often
as ever he would stoop and fill it with water, the moment he raised it
the water would run out of it again, and sure, if he had been there
from that day till this, he never could have filled it. A crow went
flying by him, over his head. "Daub! daub!" said the crow.

"My blessings on ye, then," said Munachar, "but it's the good advice
you have," and he took the red clay and the daub that was by the brink,
and he rubbed it to the bottom of the sieve, until all the holes were
filled, and then the sieve held the water, and he brought the water to
the miller, and the miller gave him the makings of a cake, and he gave
the makings of the cake to the threshers, and the threshers gave him a
whisp of straw, and he gave the whisp of straw to the cow, and the cow
gave him milk, the milk he gave to the cat, the cat scraped the butter,
the butter went into the claw of the hound, the hound hunted the deer,
the deer swam the water, the water wet the flag, the flag sharpened the
axe, the axe cut the rod, and the rod made a gad, and when he had it
ready to hang Manachar he found that Manachar had BURST.




GOLD-TREE AND SILVER-TREE

Once upon a time there was a king who had a wife, whose name was
Silver-tree, and a daughter, whose name was Gold-tree. On a certain day
of the days, Gold-tree and Silver-tree went to a glen, where there was
a well, and in it there was a trout.

Said Silver-tree, "Troutie, bonny little fellow, am not I the most
beautiful queen in the world?"

"Oh! indeed you are not."

"Who then?"

"Why, Gold-tree, your daughter."

Silver-tree went home, blind with rage. She lay down on the bed, and
vowed she would never be well until she could get the heart and the
liver of Gold-tree, her daughter, to eat.

At nightfall the king came home, and it was told him that Silver-tree,
his wife, was very ill. He went where she was, and asked her what was
wrong with her.

"Oh! only a thing--which you may heal if you like."

"Oh! indeed there is nothing at all which I could do for you that I
would not do."

"If I get the heart and the liver of Gold-tree, my daughter, to eat, I
shall be well."

Now it happened about this time that the son of a great king had come
from abroad to ask Gold-tree for marrying. The king now agreed to this,
and they went abroad.

The king then went and sent his lads to the hunting-hill for a he-goat,
and he gave its heart and its liver to his wife to eat; and she rose
well and healthy.

A year after this Silver-tree went to the glen, where there was the
well in which there was the trout.

"Troutie, bonny little fellow," said she, "am not I the most beautiful
queen in the world?"

"Oh! indeed you are not."

"Who then?"

"Why, Gold-tree, your daughter."

"Oh! well, it is long since she was living. It is a year since I ate
her heart and liver."

"Oh! indeed she is not dead. She is married to a great prince abroad."

Silver-tree went home, and begged the king to put the long-ship in
order, and said, "I am going to see my dear Gold-tree, for it is so
long since I saw her." The long-ship was put in order, and they went
away.

It was Silver-tree herself that was at the helm, and she steered the
ship so well that they were not long at all before they arrived.

The prince was out hunting on the hills. Gold-tree knew the long-ship
of her father coming.

"Oh!" said she to the servants, "my mother is coming, and she will kill
me."

"She shall not kill you at all; we will lock you in a room where she
cannot get near you."

This is how it was done; and when Silver-tree came ashore, she began to
cry out:

"Come to meet your own mother, when she comes to see you," Gold-tree
said that she could not, that she was locked in the room, and that she
could not get out of it.

"Will you not put out," said Silver-tree, "your little finger through
the key-hole, so that your own mother may give a kiss to it?"

She put out her little finger, and Silver-tree went and put a poisoned
stab in it, and Gold-tree fell dead.

When the prince came home, and found Gold-tree dead, he was in great
sorrow, and when he saw how beautiful she was, he did not bury her at
all, but he locked her in a room where nobody would get near her.

In the course of time he married again, and the whole house was under
the hand of this wife but one room, and he himself always kept the key
of that room. On a certain day of the days he forgot to take the key
with him, and the second wife got into the room. What did she see there
but the most beautiful woman that she ever saw.

She began to turn and try to wake her, and she noticed the poisoned
stab in her finger. She took the stab out, and Gold-tree rose alive, as
beautiful as she was ever.

At the fall of night the prince came home from the hunting-hill,
looking very downcast.

"What gift," said his wife, "would you give me that I could make you
laugh?"

"Oh! indeed, nothing could make me laugh, except Gold-tree were to come
alive again."

"Well, you'll find her alive down there in the room."

When the prince saw Gold-tree alive he made great rejoicings, and he
began to kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her. Said the second wife,
"Since she is the first one you had it is better for you to stick to
her, and I will go away."

"Oh! indeed you shall not go away, but I shall have both of you."

At the end of the year, Silver-tree went to the glen, where there was
the well, in which there was the trout.

"Troutie, bonny little fellow," said she, "am not I the most beautiful
queen in the world?"

"Oh! indeed you are not."

"Who then?"

"Why, Gold-tree, your daughter."

"Oh! well, she is not alive. It is a year since I put the poisoned stab
into her finger."

"Oh! indeed she is not dead at all, at all."

Silver-tree, went home, and begged the king to put the long-ship in
order, for that she was going to see her dear Gold-tree, as it was so
long since she saw her. The long-ship was put in order, and they went
away. It was Silver-tree herself that was at the helm, and she steered
the ship so well that they were not long at all before they arrived.

The prince was out hunting on the hills. Gold-tree knew her father's
ship coming.

"Oh!" said she, "my mother is coming, and she will kill me."

"Not at all," said the second wife; "we will go down to meet her."

Silver-tree came ashore. "Come down, Gold-tree, love," said she, "for
your own mother has come to you with a precious drink."

"It is a custom in this country," said the second wife, "that the
person who offers a drink takes a draught out of it first."

Silver-tree put her mouth to it, and the second wife went and struck it
so that some of it went down her throat, and she fell dead. They had
only to carry her home a dead corpse and bury her.

The prince and his two wives were long alive after this, pleased and
peaceful.

I left them there.




KING O'TOOLE AND HIS GOOSE

Och, I thought all the world, far and near, had heerd o' King
O'Toole--well, well, but the darkness of mankind is untellible! Well,
sir, you must know, as you didn't hear it afore, that there was a king,
called King O'Toole, who was a fine old king in the old ancient times,
long ago; and it was he that owned the churches in the early days. The
king, you see, was the right sort; he was the real boy, and loved sport
as he loved his life, and hunting in particular; and from the rising o'
the sun, up he got, and away he went over the mountains after the deer;
and fine times they were.

Well, it was all mighty good, as long as the king had his health; but,
you see, in course of time the king grew old, by raison he was stiff in
his limbs, and when he got stricken in years, his heart failed him, and
he was lost entirely for want o' diversion, because he couldn't go
a-hunting no longer; and, by dad, the poor king was obliged at last to
get a goose to divert him. Oh, you may laugh, if you like, but it's
truth I'm telling you; and the way the goose diverted him was
this-a-way: You see, the goose used to swim across the lake, and go
diving for trout, and catch fish on a Friday for the king, and flew
every other day round about the lake, diverting the poor king. All went
on mighty well until, by dad, the goose got stricken in years like her
master, and couldn't divert him no longer, and then it was that the
poor king was lost entirely. The king was walkin' one mornin' by the
edge of the lake, lamentin' his cruel fate, and thinking of drowning
himself, that could get no diversion in life, when all of a sudden,
turning round the corner, who should he meet but a mighty decent young
man coming up to him.

"God save you," says the king to the young man.

"God save you kindly, King O'Toole," says the young man.

"True for you," says the king. "I am King O'Toole," says he, "prince
and plennypennytinchery of these parts," says he; "but how came ye to
know that?" says he.

"Oh, never mind," says St. Kavin.

You see it was Saint Kavin, sure enough--the saint himself in disguise,
and nobody else. "Oh, never mind," says he, "I know more than that. May
I make bold to ask how is your goose, King O'Toole?" says he.

"Blur-an-agers, how came ye to know about my goose?" says the king.

"Oh, no matter; I was given to understand it," says Saint Kavin.

After some more talk the king says, "What are you?"

"I'm an honest man," says Saint Kavin.

"Well, honest man," says the king, "and how is it you make your money
so aisy?"

"By makin' old things as good as new," says Saint Kavin.

"Is it a tinker you are?" says the king.

"No," says the saint; "I'm no tinker by trade, King O'Toole; I've a
better trade than a tinker," says he--"what would you say," says he,
"if I made your old goose as good as new?"

My dear, at the word of making his goose as good as new, you'd think
the poor old king's eyes were ready to jump out of his head. With that
the king whistled, and down came the poor goose, just like a hound,
waddling up to the poor cripple, her master, and as like him as two
peas. The minute the saint clapt his eyes on the goose, "I'll do the
job for you," says he, "King O'Toole."

"By _Jaminee_!" says King O'Toole, "if you do, I'll say you're the
cleverest fellow in the seven parishes."

"Oh, by dad," says St. Kavin, "you must say more nor that--my horn's
not so soft all out," says he, "as to repair your old goose for
nothing; what'll you gi' me if I do the job for you?--that's the chat,"
says St. Kavin.

"I'll give you whatever you ask," says the king; "isn't that fair?"

"Divil a fairer," says the saint; "that's the way to do business. Now,"
says he, "this is the bargain I'll make with you, King O'Toole: will
you gi' me all the ground the goose flies over, the first offer, after
I make her as good as new?"

"I will," says the king.

"You won't go back o' your word?" says St. Kavin.

"Honour bright!" says King O'Toole, holding out his fist.

"Honour bright!" says St. Kavin, back agin, "it's a bargain. Come
here!" says he to the poor old goose--"come here, you unfortunate ould
cripple, and it's I that'll make you the sporting bird." With that, my
dear, he took up the goose by the two wings--"Criss o' my cross an
you," says he, markin' her to grace with the blessed sign at the same
minute--and throwing her up in the air, "whew," says he, jist givin'
her a blast to help her; and with that, my jewel, she took to her
heels, flyin' like one o' the eagles themselves, and cutting as many
capers as a swallow before a shower of rain.

Well, my dear, it was a beautiful sight to see the king standing with
his mouth open, looking at his poor old goose flying as light as a
lark, and better than ever she was: and when she lit at his feet,
patted her on the head, and "_Ma vourneen_," says he, "but you are the
_darlint_ o' the world."

"And what do you say to me," says 'Saint Kavin, "for making her the
like?"

"By Jabers," says the king, "I say nothing beats the art o' man,
barring the bees."

"And do you say no more nor that?" says Saint Kavin.

"And that I'm beholden to you," says the king.

"But will you gi'e me all the ground the goose flew over?" says Saint
Kavin.

"I will," says King O'Toole, "and you're welcome to it," says he,
"though it's the last acre I have to give."

"But you'll keep your word true?" says the saint.

"As true as the sun," says the king.

"It's well for you, King O'Toole, that you said that word," says he;
"for if you didn't say that word, the devil the bit o' your goose would
ever fly agin."

When the king was as good as his word, Saint Kavin was pleased with
him, and then it was that he made himself known to the king. "And,"
says he, "King O'Toole, you're a decent man, for I only came here to
try you. You don't know me," says he, "because I'm disguised."

"Musha! then," says the king, "who are you?"

"I'm Saint Kavin," said the saint, blessing himself.

"Oh, queen of heaven!" says the king, making the sign of the cross
between his eyes, and falling down on his knees before the saint; "is
it the great Saint Kavin," says he, "that I've been discoursing all
this time without knowing it," says he, "all as one as if he was a lump
of a _gossoon_?--and so you're a saint?" says the king.

"I am," says Saint Kavin.

"By Jabers, I thought I was only talking to a dacent boy," says the
king.

"Well, you know the difference now," says the saint. "I'm Saint Kavin,"
says he, "the greatest of all the saints."

And so the king had his goose as good as new, to divert him as long as
he lived: and the saint supported him after he came into his property,
as I told you, until the day of his death--and that was soon after; for
the poor goose thought he was catching a trout one Friday; but, my
jewel, it was a mistake he made--and instead of a trout, it was a
thieving horse-eel; and instead of the goose killing a trout for the
king's supper--by dad, the eel killed the king's goose--and small blame
to him; but he didn't ate her, because he darn't ate what Saint Kavin
had laid his blessed hands on.




THE WOOING OF OLWEN

Shortly after the birth of Kilhuch, the son of King Kilyth, his mother
died. Before her death she charged the king that he should not take a
wife again until he saw a briar with two blossoms upon her grave, and
the king sent every morning to see if anything were growing thereon.
After many years the briar appeared, and he took to wife the widow of
King Doged. She foretold to her stepson, Kilhuch, that it was his
destiny to marry a maiden named Olwen, or none other, and he, at his
father's bidding, went to the court of his cousin, King Arthur, to ask
as a boon the hand of the maiden. He rode upon a grey steed with
shell-formed hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold, and a saddle also
of gold. In his hand were two spears of silver, well-tempered, headed
with steel, of an edge to wound the wind and cause blood to flow, and
swifter than the fall of the dew-drop from the blade of reed grass upon
the earth when the dew of June is at its heaviest. A gold-hilted sword
was on his thigh, and the blade was of gold, having inlaid upon it a
cross of the hue of the lightning of heaven. Two brindled,
white-breasted greyhounds, with strong collars of rubies, sported round
him, and his courser cast up four sods with its four hoofs like four
swallows about his head. Upon the steed was a four-cornered cloth of
purple, and an apple of gold was at each corner. Precious gold was upon
the stirrups and shoes, and the blade of grass bent not beneath them,
so light was the courser's tread as he went towards the gate of King
Arthur's palace.

Arthur received him with great ceremony, and asked him to remain at the
palace; but the youth replied that he came not to consume meat and
drink, but to ask a boon of the king.

Then said Arthur, "Since thou wilt not remain here, chieftain, thou
shalt receive the boon, whatsoever thy tongue may name, as far as the
wind dries and the rain moistens, and the sun revolves, and the sea
encircles, and the earth extends, save only my ships and my mantle, my
sword, my lance, my shield, my dagger, and Guinevere my wife."

So Kilhuch craved of him the hand of Olwen, the daughter of Yspathaden
Penkawr, and also asked the favour and aid of all Arthur's court.

Then said Arthur, "O chieftain, I have never heard of the maiden of
whom thou speakest, nor of her kindred, but I will gladly send
messengers in search of her."

And the youth said, "I will willingly grant from this night to that at
the end of the year to do so."

Then Arthur sent messengers to every land within his dominions to seek
for the maiden; and at the end of the year Arthur's messengers returned
without having gained any knowledge or information concerning Olwen
more than on the first day.

Then said Kilhuch, "Every one has received his boon, and I yet lack
mine. I will depart and bear away thy honour with me."

Then said Kay, "Rash chieftain! dost thou reproach Arthur? Go with us,
and we will not part until thou dost either confess that the maiden
exists not in the world, or until we obtain her."

Thereupon Kay rose up.

Kay had this peculiarity, that his breath lasted nine nights and nine
days under water, and he could exist nine nights and nine days without
sleep. A wound from Kay's sword no physician could heal. Very subtle
was Kay. When it pleased him he could render himself as tall as the
highest tree in the forest. And he had another peculiarity--so great
was the heat of his nature, that, when it rained hardest, whatever he
carried remained dry for a handbreadth above and a handbreadth below
his hand; and when his companions were coldest, it was to them as fuel
with which to light their fire.

And Arthur called Bedwyr, who never shrank from any enterprise upon
which Kay was bound. None was equal to him in swiftness throughout this
island except Arthur and Drych Ail Kibthar. And although he was
one-handed, three warriors could not shed blood faster than he on the
field of battle. Another property he had; his lance would produce a
wound equal to those of nine opposing lances.

And Arthur called to Kynthelig the guide. "Go thou upon this expedition
with the Chieftain." For as good a guide was he in a land which he had
never seen as he was in his own.

He called Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoedd, because he knew all tongues.

He called Gwalchmai, the son of Gwyar, because he never returned home
without achieving the adventure of which he went in quest. He was the
best of footmen and the best of knights. He was nephew to Arthur, the
son of his sister, and his cousin.

And Arthur called Menw, the son of Teirgwaeth, in order that if they
went into a savage country, he might cast a charm and an illusion over
them, so that none might see them whilst they could see every one.

They journeyed on till they came to a vast open plain, wherein they saw
a great castle, which was the fairest in the world. But so far away was
it that at night it seemed no nearer, and they scarcely reached it on
the third day. When they came before the castle they beheld a vast
flock of sheep, boundless and without end. They told their errand to
the herdsman, who endeavoured to dissuade them, since none who had come
thither on that quest had returned alive. They gave to him a gold ring,
which he conveyed to his wife, telling her who the visitors were.

On the approach of the latter, she ran out with joy to greet them, and
sought to throw her arms about their necks. But Kay, snatching a billet
out of the pile, placed the log between her two hands, and she squeezed
it so that it became a twisted coil.

"O woman," said Kay, "if thou hadst squeezed me thus, none could ever
again have set their affections on me. Evil love were this."

They entered the house, and after meat she told them that the maiden
Olwen came there every Saturday to wash. They pledged their faith that
they would not harm her, and a message was sent to her. So Olwen came,
clothed in a robe of flame-coloured silk, and with a collar of ruddy
gold, in which were emeralds and rubies, about her neck. More golden
was her hair than the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than
the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than
the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow
fountain. Brighter were her glances than those of a falcon; her bosom
was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheek redder than
the reddest roses. Whoso beheld was filled with her love. Four white
trefoils sprang up wherever she trod, and therefore was she called
Olwen.

Then Kilhuch, sitting beside her on a bench, told her his love, and she
said that he would win her as his bride if he granted whatever her
father asked.

Accordingly they went up to the castle and laid their request before
him.

"Raise up the forks beneath my two eyebrows which have fallen over my
eyes," said Yspathaden Penkawr, "that I may see the fashion of my
son-in-law."

They did so, and he promised, them an answer on the morrow. But as they
were going forth, Yspathaden seized one of the three poisoned darts
that lay beside him and threw it back after them.

And Bedwyr caught it and flung it back, wounding Yspathaden in the knee.

Then said he, "A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly. I shall ever walk
the worse for his rudeness. This poisoned iron pains me like the bite
of a gad-fly. Cursed be the smith who forged it, and the anvil whereon
it was wrought."

The knights rested in the house of Custennin the herdsman, but the next
day at dawn they returned to the castle and renewed their request.

Yspathaden said it was necessary that he should consult Olwen's four
great-grandmothers and her four great-grand-sires.

The knights again withdrew, and as they were going he took the second
dart and cast it after them.

But Menw caught it and flung it back, piercing Yspathaden's breast with
it, so that it came out at the small of his back.

"A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly," says he, "the hard iron pains me
like the bite of a horse-leech. Cursed be the hearth whereon it was
heated! Henceforth whenever I go up a hill, I shall have a scant in my
breath and a pain in my chest."

On the third day the knights returned once more to the palace, and
Yspathaden took the third dart and cast it at them.

But Kilhuch caught it and threw it vigorously, and wounded him through
the eyeball, so that the dart came out at the back of his head.

"A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly. As long as I remain alive my
eyesight will be the worse. Whenever I go against the wind my eyes will
water, and peradventure my head will burn, and I shall have a giddiness
every new moon. Cursed be the fire in which it was forged. Like the
bite of a mad dog is the stroke of this poisoned iron."

And they went to meat.

Said Yspathaden Penkawr, "Is it thou that seekest my daughter?"

"It is I," answered Kilhuch.

"I must have thy pledge that thou wilt not do towards me otherwise than
is just, and when I have gotten that which I shall name, my daughter
thou shalt have."

"I promise thee that willingly," said Kilhuch, "name what thou wilt."

"I will do so," said he.

"Throughout the world there is not a comb or scissors with which I can
arrange my hair, on, account of its rankness, except the comb and
scissors that are between the two ears of Turch Truith, the son of
Prince Tared. He will not give them of his own free will, and thou wilt
not be able to compel him."

"It will be easy for me to compass this, although thou mayest think
that it will not be easy."

"Though thou get this, there is yet that which thou wilt not get. It
will not be possible to hunt Turch Truith without Drudwyn the whelp of
Greid, the son of Eri, and know that throughout the world there is not
a huntsman who can hunt with this dog, except Mabon the son of Modron.
He was taken from his mother when three nights old, and it is not known
where he now is, nor whether he is living or dead."

"It will be easy for me to compass this, although thou mayest think
that it will not be easy."

"Though thou get this, there is yet that which thou wilt not get. Thou
wilt not get Mabon, for it is not known where he is, unless thou find
Eidoel, his kinsman in blood, the son of Aer. For it would be useless
to seek for him. He is his cousin."

"It will be easy for me to compass this, although thou mayest think
that it will not be easy. Horses shall I have, and chivalry; and my
lord and kinsman Arthur will obtain for me all these things. And I
shall gain thy daughter, and thou shalt lose thy life."

"Go forward. And thou shalt not be chargeable for food or raiment for
my daughter while thou art seeking these things; and when thou hast
compassed all these marvels, thou shalt have my daughter for wife."

Now, when they told Arthur how they had sped, Arthur said, "Which of
these marvels will it be best for us to seek first?"

"It will be best," said they, "to seek Mabon the son of Modron; and he
will not be found unless we first find Eidoel, the son of Aer, his
kinsman."

Then Arthur rose up, and the warriors of the Islands of Britain with
him, to seek for Eidoel; and they proceeded until they came before the
castle of Glivi, where Eidoel was imprisoned.

Glivi stood on the summit of his castle, and said, "Arthur, what
requirest thou of me, since nothing remains to me in this fortress, and
I have neither joy nor pleasure in it; neither wheat nor oats?"

Said Arthur, "Not to injure thee came I hither, but to seek for the
prisoner that is with thee."

"I will give thee my prisoner, though I had not thought to give him up
to any one; and therewith shalt thou have my support and my aid."

His followers then said unto Arthur, "Lord, go thou home, thou canst
not proceed with thy host in quest of such small adventures as these."

Then said Arthur, "It were well for thee, Gwrhyr Gwalstawt Ieithoedd,
to go upon this quest, for thou knowest all languages, and art familiar
with those of the birds and the beasts. Go, Eidoel, likewise with my
men in search of thy cousin. And as for you, Kay and Bedwyr, I have
hope of whatever adventure ye are in quest of, that ye will achieve it.
Achieve ye this adventure for me."

These went forward until they came to the Ousel of Cilgwri, and Gwrhyr
adjured her for the sake of Heaven, saying, "Tell me if thou knowest
aught of Mabon, the son of Modron, who was taken when three nights old
from between his mother and the wall."

And the Ousel answered, "When I first came here there was a smith's
anvil in this place, and I was then a young bird, and from that time no
work has been done upon it, save the pecking of my beak every evening,
and now there is not so much as the size of a nut remaining thereof;
yet the vengeance of Heaven be upon me if during all that time I have
ever heard of the man for whom you inquire. Nevertheless, there is a
race of animals who were formed before me, and I will be your guide to
them."

So they proceeded to the place where was the Stag of Redynvre.

"Stag of Redynvre, behold we are come to thee, an embassy from Arthur,
for we have not heard of any animal older than thou. Say, knowest thou
aught of Mabon?"

The stag said, "When first I came hither there was a plain all around
me, without any trees save one oak sapling, which grew up to be an oak
with an hundred branches. And that oak has since perished, so that now
nothing remains of it but the withered stump; and from that day to this
I have been here, yet have I never heard of the man for whom you
inquire. Nevertheless, I will be your guide to the place where there is
an animal which was formed before I was."

So they proceeded to the place where was the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, to
inquire of him concerning Mabon.

And the owl said, "If I knew I would tell you. When first I came
hither, the wide valley you see was a wooded glen. And a race of men
came and rooted it up. And there grew there a second wood, and this
wood is the third. My wings, are they not withered stumps? Yet all this
time, even until to-day, I have never heard of the man for whom you
inquire. Nevertheless, I will be the guide of Arthur's embassy until
you come to the place where is the oldest animal in this world, and the
one who has travelled most, the eagle of Gwern Abwy."

When they came to the eagle, Gwrhyr asked it the same question; but it
replied, "I have been here for a great space of time, and when I first
came hither there was a rock here, from the top of which I pecked at
the stars every evening, and now it is not so much as a span high. From
that day to this I have been here, and I have never heard of the man
for whom you inquire, except once when I went in search of food as far
as Llyn Llyw.  And when I came there, I struck my talons into a salmon,
thinking he would serve me as food for a long time. But he drew me into
the deep, and I was scarcely able to escape from him. After that I went
with my whole kindred to attack him and to try to destroy him, but he
sent messengers and made peace with me, and came and besought me to
take fifty fish-spears out of his back. Unless he know something of him
whom you seek, I cannot tell you who may. However, I will guide you to
the place where he is."

So they went thither, and the eagle said, "Salmon of Llyn Llyw, I have
come to thee with an embassy from Arthur to ask thee if thou knowest
aught concerning Mabon, the son of Modron, who was taken away at three
nights old from between his mother and the wall."

And the salmon answered, "As much as I know I will tell thee. With
every tide I go along the river upwards, until I come near to the walls
of Gloucester, and there have I found such wrong as I never found
elsewhere; and to the end that ye may give credence thereto, let one of
you go thither upon each of my two shoulders."

So Kay and Gwrhyr went upon his shoulders, and they proceeded till they
came to the wall of the prison, and they heard a great wailing and
lamenting from the dungeon. Said Gwrhyr, "Who is it that laments in
this house of stone?"

And the voice replied, "Alas, it is Mabon, the son of Modron, who is
here imprisoned!"

Then they returned and told Arthur, who, summoning his warriors,
attacked the castle.

And whilst the fight was going on, Kay and Bedwyr, mounting on the
shoulders of the fish, broke into the dungeon, and brought away with
them Mabon, the son of Modron.

Then Arthur summoned unto him all the warriors that were in the three
islands of Britain and in the three islands adjacent; and he went as
far as Esgeir Ocrvel in Ireland where the Boar Truith was with his
seven young pigs. And the dogs were let loose upon him from all sides.
But he wasted the fifth part of Ireland, and then set forth through the
sea to Wales. Arthur and his hosts, and his horses, and his dogs
followed hard after him. But ever and awhile the boar made a stand, and
many a champion of Arthur's did he slay. Throughout all Wales did
Arthur follow him, and one by one the young pigs were killed. At
length, when he would fain have crossed the Severn and escaped into
Cornwall, Mabon the son of Modron came up with him, and Arthur fell
upon him together with the champions of Britain. On the one side Mabon
the son of Modron spurred his steed and snatched his razor from him,
whilst Kay came up with him on the other side and took from him the
scissors. But before they could obtain the comb he had regained the
ground with his feet, and from the moment that he reached the shore,
neither dog nor man nor horse could overtake him until he came to
Cornwall. There Arthur and his hosts followed in his track until they
overtook him in Cornwall. Hard had been their trouble before, but it
was child's play to what they met in seeking the comb. Win it they did,
and the Boar Truith they hunted into the deep sea, and it was never
known whither he went.

Then Kilhuch set forward, and as many as wished ill to Yspathaden
Penkawr. And they took the marvels with them to his court. And Kaw of
North Britain came and shaved his beard, skin and flesh clean off to
the very bone from ear to ear.

"Art thou shaved, man?" said Kilhuch.

"I am shaved," answered he.

"Is thy daughter mine now?"

"She is thine, but therefore needst thou not thank me, but Arthur who
hath accomplished this for thee. By my free will thou shouldst never
have had her, for with her I lose my life."

Then Goreu the son of Custennin seized him by the hair of his head and
dragged him after him to the keep, and cut off his head and placed it
on a stake on the citadel.

Thereafter the hosts of Arthur dispersed themselves each man to his own
country.

Thus did Kilhuch son of Kelython win to wife Olwen, the daughter of
Yspathaden Penkawr.




JACK AND HIS COMRADES

Once there was a poor widow, as often there has been, and she had one
son. A very scarce summer came, and they didn't know how they'd live
till the new potatoes would be fit for eating. So Jack said to his
mother one evening, "Mother, bake my cake, and kill my hen, till I go
seek my fortune; and if I meet it, never fear but I'll soon be back to
share it with you."

So she did as he asked her, and he set out at break of day on his
journey. His mother came along with him to the yard gate, and says she,
"Jack, which would you rather have, half the cake and half the hen with
my blessing, or the whole of 'em with my curse?"

"O musha, mother," says Jack, "why do you ax me that question? sure you
know I wouldn't have your curse and Damer's estate along with it."

"Well, then, Jack," says she, "here's the whole lot of 'em with my
thousand blessings along with them." So she stood on the yard fence and
blessed him as far as her eyes could see him.

Well, he went along and along till he was tired, and ne'er a farmer's
house he went into wanted a boy. At last his road led by the side of a
bog, and there was a poor ass up to his shoulders near a big bunch of
grass he was striving to come at.

"Ah, then, Jack asthore," says he, "help me out or I'll be drowned."

"Never say't twice," says Jack, and he pitched in big stones and sods
into the slob, till the ass got good ground under him.

"Thank you, Jack," says he, when he was out on the hard road; "I'll do
as much for you another time. Where are you going?"

"Faith, I'm going to seek my fortune till harvest comes in, God bless
it!"

"And if you like," says the ass, "I'll go along with you; who knows
what luck we may have!"

"With all my heart, it's getting late, let us be jogging."

Well, they were going through a village, and a whole army of gossoons
were hunting a poor dog with a kettle tied to his tail. He ran up to
Jack for protection, and the ass let such a roar out of him, that the
little thieves took to their heels as if the ould boy was after them.

"More power to you, Jack," says the dog.

"I'm much obleeged to you: where is the baste and yourself going?"

"We're going to seek our fortune till harvest comes in."

"And wouldn't I be proud to go with you!" says the dog, "and get rid of
them ill conducted boys; purshuin' to 'em."

"Well, well, throw your tail over your arm, and come along."

They got outside the town, and sat down under an old wall, and Jack
pulled out his bread and meat, and shared with the dog; and the ass
made his dinner on a bunch of thistles. While they were eating and
chatting, what should come by but a poor half-starved cat, and the
moll-row he gave out of him would make your heart ache.

"You look as if you saw the tops of nine houses since breakfast," says
Jack; "here's a bone and something on it."

"May your child never know a hungry belly!" says Tom; "it's myself
that's in need of your kindness. May I be so bold as to ask where yez
are all going?"

"We're going to seek our fortune till the harvest comes in, and you may
join us if you like."

"And that I'll do with a heart and a half," says the cat, "and thank'ee
for asking me."'

Off they set again, and just as the shadows of the trees were three
times as long as themselves, they heard a great cackling in a field
inside the road, and out over the ditch jumped a fox with a fine black
cock in his mouth.

"Oh, you anointed villain!" says the ass, roaring like thunder.

"At him, good dog!" says Jack, and the word wasn't out of his mouth
when Coley was in full sweep after the Red Dog. Reynard dropped his
prize like a hot potato, and was off like shot, and the poor cock came
back fluttering and trembling to Jack and his comrades.

"O musha, naybours!" says he, "wasn't it the height o' luck that threw
you in my way! Maybe I won't remember your kindness if ever I find you
in hardship; and where in the world are you all going?"

"We're going to seek our fortune till the harvest comes in; you may
join our party if you like, and sit on Neddy's crupper when your legs
and wings are tired."

Well, the march began again, and just as the sun was gone down they
looked around, and there was neither cabin nor farm house in sight.

"Well, well," says Jack, "the worse luck now the better another time,
and it's only a summer night after all. We'll go into the wood, and
make our bed on the long grass."

No sooner said than done. Jack stretched himself on a bunch of dry
grass, the ass lay near him, the dog and cat lay in the ass's warm lap,
and the cock went to roost in the next tree.

Well, the soundness of deep sleep was over them all, when the cock took
a notion of crowing.

"Bother you, Black Cock!" says the ass: "you disturbed me from as nice
a wisp of hay as ever I tasted. What's the matter?"

"It's daybreak that's the matter: don't you see light yonder?"

"I see a light indeed," says Jack, "but it's from a candle it's coming,
and not from the sun. As you've roused us we may as well go over, and
ask for lodging."

So they all shook themselves, and went on through grass, and rocks, and
briars, till they got down into a hollow, and there was the light
coming through the shadow, and along with it came singing, and
laughing, and cursing.

"Easy, boys!" says Jack: "walk on your tippy toes till we see what sort
of people we have to deal with."

So they crept near the window, and there they saw six robbers inside,
with pistols, and blunderbushes, and cutlashes, sitting at a table,
eating roast beef and pork, and drinking mulled beer, and wine, and
whisky punch.

"Wasn't that a fine haul we made at the Lord of Dunlavin's!" says one
ugly-looking thief with his mouth full, "and it's little we'd get only
for the honest porter! here's his purty health!"

"The porter's purty health!" cried out every one of them, and Jack bent
his finger at his comrades.

"Close your ranks, my men," says he in a whisper, "and let every one
mind the word of command."

So the ass put his fore-hoofs on the sill of the window, the dog got on
the ass's head, the cat on the dog's head, and the cock on the cat's
head. Then Jack made a sign, and they all sung out like mad.

"Hee-haw, hee-haw!" roared the ass; "bow-wow!" barked the dog;
"meaw-meaw!" cried the cat; "cock-a-doodle-doo!" crowed the cock.

"Level your pistols!" cried Jack, "and make smithereens of 'em. Don't
leave a mother's son of 'em alive; present, fire!"  With that they gave
another halloo, and smashed every pane in the window. The robbers were
frightened out of their lives. They blew out the candles, threw down
the table, and skelped out at the back door as if they were in earnest,
and never drew rein till they were in the very heart of the wood.

Jack and his party got into the room, closed the shutters, lighted the
candles, and ate and drank till hunger and thirst were gone. Then they
lay down to rest;--Jack in the bed, the ass in the stable, the dog on
the door-mat, the cat by the fire, and the cock on the perch.

At first the robbers were very glad to find themselves safe in the
thick wood, but they soon began to get vexed.

"This damp grass is very different from our warm room," says one.

"I was obliged to drop a fine pig's foot," says another.

"I didn't get a tayspoonful of my last tumbler," says another.

"And all the Lord of Dunlavin's gold and silver that we left behind!"
says the last.

"I think I'll venture back," says the captain, "and see if we can
recover anything."

"That's a good boy!" said they all, and away he went.

The lights were all out, and so he groped his way to the fire, and
there the cat flew in his face, and tore him with teeth and claws. He
let a roar out of him, and made for the room door, to look for a candle
inside. He trod on the dog's tail, and if he did, he got the marks of
his teeth in his arms, and legs, and thighs.

"Thousand murders!" cried he; "I wish I was out of this unlucky house."

When he got to the street door, the cock dropped down upon him with his
claws and bill, and what the cat and dog done to him was only a
flay-bite to what he got from the cock.

"Oh, tattheration to you all, you unfeeling vagabones!" says he, when
he recovered his breath; and he staggered and spun round and round till
he reeled into the stable, back foremost, but the ass received him with
a kick on the broadest part of his small clothes, and laid him
comfortably on the dunghill.

When he came to himself, he scratched his head, and began to think what
happened him; and as soon as he found that his legs were able to carry
him, he crawled away, dragging one foot after another, till he reached
the wood.

"Well, well," cried them all, when he came within hearing, "any chance
of our property?"

"You may say chance," says he, "and it's itself is the poor chance all
out. Ah, will any of you pull a bed of dry grass for me? All the
sticking-plaster in Enniscorthy will be too little for the cuts and
bruises I have on me. Ah, if you only knew what I have gone through for
you! When I got to the kitchen fire, looking for a sod of lighted turf,
what should be there but an old woman carding flax, and you may see the
marks she left on my face with the cards. I made to the room door as
fast as I could, and who should I stumble over but a cobbler and his
seat, and if he did not work at me with his awls and his pinchers you
may call me a rogue. Well, I got away from him somehow, but when I was
passing through the door, it must be the divel himself that pounced
down on me with his claws, and his teeth, that were equal to sixpenny
nails, and his wings--ill luck be in his road! Well, at last I reached
the stable, and there, by way of salute, I got a pelt from a
sledge-hammer that sent me half a mile off. If you don't believe me,
I'll give you leave to go and judge for yourselves."

"Oh, my poor captain," says they, "we believe you to the nines. Catch
us, indeed, going within a hen's race of that unlucky cabin!"

Well, before the sun shook his doublet next morning, Jack and his
comrades were up and about. They made a hearty breakfast on what was
left the night before, and then they all agreed to set off to the
castle of the Lord of Dunlavin, and give him back all his gold and
silver. Jack put it all in the two ends of a sack and laid it across
Neddy's back, and all took the road in their hands. Away they went,
through bogs, up hills, down dales, and sometimes along the yellow high
road, till they came to the hall-door of the Lord of Dunlavin, and who
should be there, airing his powdered head, his white stockings, and his
red breeches, but the thief of a porter.

He gave a cross look to the visitors, and says he to Jack, "What do you
want here, my fine fellow? there isn't room for you all."

"We want," says Jack, "what I'm sure you haven't to give us--and that
is, common civility."

"Come, be off, you lazy strollers!" says he, "while a cat 'ud be
licking her ear, or I'll let the dogs at you."

"Would you tell a body," says the cock that was perched on the ass's
head, "who was it that opened the door for the robbers the other night?"

Ah! maybe the porter's red face didn't turn the colour of his frill,
and the Lord of Dunlavin and his pretty daughter, that were standing at
the parlour window unknownst to the porter, put out their heads.

"I'd be glad, Barney," says the master, "to hear your answer to the
gentleman with the red comb on him."

"Ah, my lord, don't believe the rascal; sure I didn't open the door to
the six robbers."

"And how did you know there were six, you poor innocent?" said the lord.

"Never mind, sir," says Jack, "all your gold and silver is there in
that sack, and I don't think you will begrudge us our supper and bed
after our long march from the wood of Athsalach."

"Begrudge, indeed! Not one of you will ever see a poor day if I can
help it."

So all were welcomed to their heart's content, and the ass and the dog
and the cock got the best posts in the farmyard, and the cat took
possession of the kitchen. The lord took Jack in hands, dressed him
from top to toe in broadcloth, and frills as white as snow, and
turnpumps, and put a watch in his fob. When they sat down to dinner,
the lady of the house said Jack had the air of a born gentleman about
him, and the lord said he'd make him his steward. Jack brought his
mother, and settled her comfortably near the castle, and all were as
happy as you please.




THE SHEE AN GANNON AND THE GRUAGACH GAIRE

The Shee an Gannon was born in the morning, named at noon, and went in
the evening to ask his daughter of the king of Erin.

"I will give you my daughter in marriage," said the king of Erin; "you
won't get her, though, unless you go and bring me back the tidings that
I want, and tell me what it is that put a stop to the laughing of the
Gruagach Gaire, who before this laughed always, and laughed so loud
that the whole world heard him. There are twelve iron spikes out here
in the garden behind my castle. On eleven of the spikes are the heads
of kings' sons who came seeking my daughter in marriage, and all of
them went away to get the knowledge I wanted. Not one was able to get
it and tell me what stopped the Gruagach Gaire from laughing. I took
the heads off them all when they came back without the tidings for
which they went, and I'm greatly in dread that your head'll be on the
twelfth spike, for I'll do the same to you that I did to the eleven
kings' sons unless you tell what put a stop to the laughing of the
Gruagach."

The Shee an Gannon made no answer, but left the king and pushed away to
know could he find why the Gruagach was silent.

He took a glen at a step, a hill at a leap, and travelled all day till
evening. Then he came to a house. The master of the house asked him
what sort was he, and he said: "A young man looking for hire."

"Well," said the master of the house, "I was going tomorrow to look for
a man to mind my cows. If you'll work for me, you'll have a good place,
the best food a man could have to eat in this world, and a soft bed to
lie on."

The Shee an Gannon took service, and ate his supper. Then the master of
the house said: "I am the Gruagach Gaire; now that you are my man and
have eaten your supper, you'll have a bed of silk to sleep on."

Next morning after breakfast the Gruagach said to the Shee an Gannon:
"Go out now and loosen my five golden cows and my bull without horns,
and drive them to pasture; but when you have them out on the grass, be
careful you don't let them go near the land of the giant."

The new cowboy drove the cattle to pasture, and when near the land of
the giant, he saw it was covered with woods and surrounded by a high
wall. He went up, put his back against the wall, and threw in a great
stretch of it; then he went inside and threw out another great stretch
of the wall, and put the five golden cows and the bull without horns on
the land of the giant.

Then he climbed a tree, ate the sweet apples himself, and threw the
sour ones down to the cattle of the Gruagach Gaire.

Soon a great crashing was heard in the woods,--the noise of young trees
bending, and old trees breaking. The cowboy looked around and saw a
five-headed giant pushing through the trees; and soon he was before him.

"Poor miserable creature!" said the giant; "but weren't you impudent to
come to my land and trouble me in this way? You're too big for one
bite, and too small for two. I don't know what to do but tear you to
pieces."

"You nasty brute," said the cowboy, coming down to him from the tree,
"'tis little I care for you;" and then they went at each other. So
great was the noise between them that there was nothing in the world
but what was looking on and listening to the combat.

They fought till late in the afternoon, when the giant was getting the
upper hand; and then the cowboy thought that if the giant should kill
him, his father and mother would never find him or set eyes on him
again, and he would never get the daughter of the king of Erin. The
heart in his body grew strong at this thought. He sprang on the giant,
and with the first squeeze and thrust he put him to his knees in the
hard ground, with the second thrust to his waist, and with the third to
his shoulders.

"I have you at last; you're done for now!", said the cowboy. Then he
took out his knife, cut the five heads off the giant, and when he had
them off he cut out the tongues and threw the heads over the wall.

Then he put the tongues in his pocket and drove home the cattle. That
evening the Gruagach couldn't find vessels enough in all his place to
hold the milk of the five golden cows.

But when the cowboy was on the way home with the cattle, the son of the
king of Tisean came and took the giant's heads and claimed the princess
in marriage when the Gruagach Gaire should laugh.

After supper the cowboy would give no talk to his master, but kept his
mind to himself, and went to the bed of silk to sleep.

On the morning the cowboy rose before his master, and the first words
he said to the Gruagach were:

"What keeps you from laughing, you who used to laugh so loud that the
whole world heard you?"

"I'm sorry," said the Gruagach, "that the daughter of the king of Erin
sent you here."

"If you don't tell me of your own will, I'll make you tell me," said
the cowboy; and he put a face on himself that was terrible to look at,
and running through the house like a madman, could find nothing that
would give pain enough to the Gruagach but some ropes made of untanned
sheepskin hanging on the wall.

He took these down, caught the Gruagach, fastened him by the three
smalls, and tied him so that his little toes were whispering to his
ears. When he was in this state the Gruagach said: "I'll tell you what
stopped my laughing if you set me free."

So the cowboy unbound him, the two sat down together, and the Gruagach
said:--

"I lived in this castle here with my twelve sons. We ate, drank, played
cards, and enjoyed ourselves, till one day when my sons and I were
playing, a slender brown hare came rushing in, jumped on to the hearth,
tossed up the ashes to the rafters and ran away.

"On another day he came again; but if he did, we were ready for him, my
twelve sons and myself. As soon as he tossed up the ashes and ran off,
we made after him, and followed him till nightfall, when he went into a
glen. We saw a light before us. I ran on, and came to a house with a
great apartment, where there was a man named Yellow Face with twelve
daughters, and the hare was tied to the side of the room near the women.

"There was a large pot over the fire in the room, and a great stork
boiling in the pot. The man of the house said to me: 'There are bundles
of rushes at the end of the room, go there and sit down with your men!'

"He went into the next room and brought out two pikes, one of wood, the
other of iron, and asked me which of the pikes would I take. I said,
'I'll take the iron one;' for I thought in my heart that if an attack
should come on me, I could defend myself better with the iron than the
wooden pike.

"Yellow Face gave me the iron pike, and the first chance of taking what
I could out of the pot on the point of the pike. I got but a small
piece of the stork, and the man of the house took all the rest on his
wooden pike. We had to fast that night; and when the man and his twelve
daughters ate the flesh of the stork, they hurled the bare bones in the
faces of my sons and myself. We had to stop all night that way, beaten
on the faces by the bones of the stork.

"Next morning, when we were going away, the man of the house asked me
to stay a while; and going into the next room, he brought out twelve
loops of iron and one of wood, and said to me: 'Put the heads of your
twelve sons into the iron loops, or your own head into the wooden one;'
and I said: 'I'll put the twelve heads of my sons in the iron loops,
and keep my own out of the wooden one.'

"He put the iron loops on the necks of my twelve sons, and put the
wooden one on his own neck. Then he snapped the loops one after
another, till he took the heads off my twelve sons and threw the heads
and bodies out of the house; but he did nothing to hurt his own neck.

"When he had killed my sons he took hold of me and stripped the skin
and flesh from the small of my back down, and when he had done that he
took the skin of a black sheep that had been hanging on the wall for
seven years and clapped it on my body in place of my own flesh and
skin; and the sheepskin grew on me, and every year since then I shear
myself, and every bit of wool I use for the stockings that I wear I
clip off my own back."

When he had said this, the Gruagach showed the cowboy his back covered
with thick black wool.

After what he had seen and heard, the cowboy said: "I know now why you
don't laugh, and small blame to you. But does that hare come here
still?"

"He does indeed," said the Gruagach.

Both went to the table to play, and they were not long playing cards
when the hare ran in; and before they could stop him he was out again.

But the cowboy made after the hare, and the Gruagach after the cowboy,
and they ran as fast as ever their legs could carry them till
nightfall; and when the hare was entering the castle where the twelve
sons of the Gruagach were killed, the cowboy caught him by the two hind
legs and dashed out his brains against the wall; and the skull of the
hare was knocked into the chief room of the castle, and fell at the
feet of the master of the place.

"Who has dared to interfere with my fighting pet?" screamed Yellow Face.

"I," said the cowboy; "and if your pet had had manners, he might be
alive now."

The cowboy and the Gruagach stood by the fire. A stork was boiling in
the pot, as when the Gruagach came the first time. The master of the
house went into the next room and brought out an iron and a wooden
pike, and asked the cowboy which would he choose.

"I'll take the wooden one," said the cowboy; "and you may keep the iron
one for yourself."

So he took the wooden one; and going to the pot, brought out on the
pike all the stork except a small bite, and he and the Gruagach fell to
eating, and they were eating the flesh of the stork all night. The
cowboy and the Gruagach were at home in the place that time.

In the morning the master of the house went into the next room, took
down the twelve iron loops with a wooden one, brought them out, and
asked the cowboy which would he take, the twelve iron or the one wooden
loop.

"What could I do with the twelve iron ones for myself or my master?
I'll take the wooden one."

He put it on, and taking the twelve iron loops, put them on the necks
of the twelve daughters of the house, then snapped the twelve heads off
them, and turning to their father, said: "I'll do the same thing to you
unless you bring the twelve sons of my master to life, and make them as
well and strong as when you took their heads."

The master of the house went out and brought the twelve to life again;
and when the Gruagach saw all his sons alive and as well as ever, he
let a laugh out of himself, and all the Eastern world heard the laugh.

Then the cowboy said to the Gruagach: "It's a bad thing you have done
to me, for the daughter of the king of Erin will be married the day
after your laugh is heard."

"Oh! then we must be there in time," said the Gruagach; and they all
made away from the place as fast as ever they could, the cowboy, the
Gruagach, and his twelve sons.

They hurried on; and when within three miles of the king's castle there
was such a throng of people that no one could go a step ahead. "We must
clear a road through this," said the cowboy.

"We must indeed," said the Gruagach; and at it they went, threw the
people some on one side and some on the other, and soon they had an
opening for themselves to the king's castle.

As they went in, the daughter of the king of Erin and the son of the
king of Tisean were on their knees just going to be married. The cowboy
drew his hand on the bride-groom, and gave a blow that sent him
spinning till he stopped under a table at the other side of the room.

"What scoundrel struck that blow?" asked the king of Erin.

"It was I," said the cowboy.

"What reason had you to strike the man who won my daughter?"

"It was I who won your daughter, not he; and if you don't believe me,
the Gruagach Gaire is here himself. He'll tell you the whole story from
beginning to end, and show you the tongues of the giant."

So the Gruagach came up and told the king the whole story, how the Shee
an Gannon had become his cowboy, had guarded the five golden cows and
the bull without horns, cut off the heads of the five-headed giant,
killed the wizard hare, and brought his own twelve sons to life. "And
then," said the Gruagach, "he is the only man in the whole world I have
ever told why I stopped laughing, and the only one who has ever seen my
fleece of wool."

When the king of Erin heard what the Gruagach said, and saw the tongues
of the giant fitted in the head, he made the Shee an Gannon kneel down
by his daughter, and they were married on the spot.

Then the son of the king of Tisean was thrown into prison, and the next
day they put down a great fire, and the deceiver was burned to ashes.

The wedding lasted nine days, and the last day was better than the
first.




THE STORY-TELLER AT FAULT

At the time when the Tuatha De Dannan held the sovereignty of Ireland,
there reigned in Leinster a king, who was remarkably fond of hearing
stories. Like the other princes and chieftains of the island, he had a
favourite story-teller, who held a large estate from his Majesty, on
condition of telling him a new story every night of his life, before he
went to sleep. Many indeed were the stories he knew, so that he had
already reached a good old age without failing even for a single night
in his task; and such was the skill he displayed that whatever cares of
state or other annoyances might prey upon the monarch's mind, his
story-teller was sure to send him to sleep.

One morning the story-teller arose early, and as his custom was,
strolled out into his garden turning over in his mind incidents which
he might weave into a story for the king at night. But this morning he
found himself quite at fault; after pacing his whole demesne, he
returned to his house without being able to think of anything new or
strange. He found no difficulty in "there was once a king who had three
sons" or "one day the king of all Ireland," but further than that he
could not get. At length he went in to breakfast, and found his wife
much perplexed at his delay.

"Why don't you come to breakfast, my dear?" said she.

"I have no mind to eat anything," replied the story-teller; "long as I
have been in the service of the king of Leinster, I never sat down to
breakfast without having a new story ready for the evening, but this
morning my mind is quite shut up, and I don't know what to do. I might
as well lie down and die at once. I'll be disgraced for ever this
evening, when the king calls for his story-teller."

Just at this moment the lady looked out of the window.

"Do you see that black thing at the end of the field?" said she.

"I do," replied her husband.

They drew nigh, and saw a miserable looking old man lying on the ground
with a wooden leg placed beside him.

"Who are you, my good man?" asked the story-teller.

"Oh, then, 'tis little matter who I am. I'm a poor, old, lame,
decrepit, miserable creature, sitting down here to rest awhile."

"An' what are you doing with that box and dice I see in your hand?"

"I am waiting here to see if any one will play a game with me," replied
the beggar man.

"Play with you! Why what has a poor old man like you to play for?"

"I have one hundred pieces of gold in this leathern purse," replied the
old man.

"You may as well play with him," said the story-teller's wife; "and
perhaps you'll have something to tell the king in the evening."

A smooth stone was placed between them, and upon it they cast their
throws.

It was but a little while and the story-teller lost every penny of his
money.

"Much good may it do you, friend," said he. "What better hap could I
look for, fool that I am!"

"Will you play again?" asked the old man.

"Don't be talking, man: you have all my money."

"Haven't you chariot and horses and hounds?"

"Well, what of them!"

"I'll stake all the money I have against thine."

"Nonsense, man! Do you think for all the money in Ireland, I'd run the
risk of seeing my lady tramp home on foot?"

"Maybe you'd win," said the bocough.

"Maybe I wouldn't," said the story-teller.

"Play with him, husband," said his wife. "I don't mind walking, if you
do, love."

"I never refused you before," said the story-teller, "and I won't do so
now."

Down he sat again, and in one throw lost houses, hounds, and chariot.

"Will you play again?" asked the beggar.

"Are you making game of me, man; what else have I to stake?"

"I'll stake all my winnings against your wife," said the old man.

The story-teller turned away in silence, but his wife stopped him.

"Accept his offer," said she. "This is the third time, and who knows
what luck you may have? You'll surely win now."

They played again, and the story-teller lost. No sooner had he done so,
than to his sorrow and surprise, his wife went and sat down near the
ugly old beggar.

"Is that the way you're leaving me?" said the story-teller.

"Sure I was won," said she. "You would not cheat the poor man, would
you?"

"Have you any more to stake?" asked the old man.

"You know very well I have not," replied the story-teller.

"I'll stake the whole now, wife and all, against your own self," said
the old man.

Again they played, and again the story-teller lost.

"Well! here I am, and what do you want with me?"

"I'll soon let you know," said the old man, and he took from his pocket
a long cord and a wand.

"Now," said he to the story-teller, "what kind of animal would you
rather be, a deer, a fox, or a hare? You have your choice now, but you
may not have it later."

To make a long story short, the story-teller made his choice of a hare;
the old man threw the cord round him, struck him with the wand, and lo!
a long-eared, frisking hare was skipping and jumping on the green.

But it wasn't for long; who but his wife called the hounds, and set
them on him. The hare fled, the dogs followed. Round the field ran a
high wall, so that run as he might, he couldn't get out, and mightily
diverted were beggar and lady to see him twist and double.

In vain did he take refuge with his wife, she kicked him back again to
the hounds, until at length the beggar stopped the hounds, and with a
stroke of the wand, panting and breathless, the story-teller stood
before them again.

"And how did you like the sport?" said the beggar.

"It might be sport to others," replied the story-teller looking at his
wife, "for my part I could well put up with the loss of it."

"Would it be asking too much," he went on to the beggar, "to know who
you are at all, or where you come from, or why you take a pleasure in
plaguing a poor old man like me?"

"Oh!" replied the stranger, "I'm an odd kind of good-for-little fellow,
one day poor, another day rich, but if you wish to know more about me
or my habits, come with me and perhaps I may show you more than you
would make out if you went alone."

"I'm not my own master to go or stay," said the story-teller, with a
sigh.

The stranger put one hand into his wallet and drew out of it before
their eyes a well-looking middle-aged man, to whom he spoke as follows:

"By all you heard and saw since I put you into my wallet, take charge
of this lady and of the carriage and horses, and have them ready for me
whenever I want them."

Scarcely had he said these words when all vanished, and the
story-teller found himself at the Foxes' Ford, near the castle of Red
Hugh O'Donnell. He could see all but none could see him.

O'Donnell was in his hall, and heaviness of flesh and weariness of
spirit were upon him.

"Go out," said he to his doorkeeper, "and see who or what may be
coming."

The doorkeeper went, and what he saw was a lank, grey beggarman; half
his sword bared behind his haunch, his two shoes full of cold
road-a-wayish water sousing about him, the tips of his two ears out
through his old hat, his two shoulders out through his scant tattered
cloak, and in his hand a green wand of holly.

"Save you, O'Donnell," said the lank grey beggarman.

"And you likewise," said O'Donnell. "Whence come you, and what is your
craft?"

  "I come from the outmost stream of earth,
  From the glens where the white swans glide,
  A night in Islay, a night in Man,
  A night on the cold hillside."

"It's the great traveller you are," said O'Donnell.

"Maybe you've learnt something on the road."

"I am a juggler," said the lank grey beggarman, "and for five pieces of
silver you shall see a trick of mine."

"You shall have them," said O'Donnell; and the lank grey beggarman took
three small straws and placed them in his hand.

"The middle one," said he, "I'll blow away; the other two I'll leave."

"Thou canst not do it," said one and all.

But the lank grey beggarman put a finger on either outside straw and,
whiff, away he blew the middle one.

"'Tis a good trick," said O'Donnell; and he paid him his five pieces of
silver.

"For half the money," said one of the chief's lads, "I'll do the same
trick."

"Take him at his word, O'Donnell."

The lad put the three straws on his hand, and a finger on either
outside straw and he blew; and what happened but that the fist was
blown away with the straw.

"Thou art sore, and thou wilt be sorer," said O'Donnell.

"Six more pieces, O'Donnell, and I'll do another trick for thee," said
the lank grey beggarman.

"Six shalt thou have."

"Seest thou my two ears! One I'll move but not t'other."

"'Tis easy to see them, they're big enough, but thou canst never move
one ear and not the two together."

The lank grey beggarman put his hand to his ear, and he gave it a pull.

O'Donnell laughed and paid him the six pieces.

"Call that a trick," said the fistless lad, "any one can do that," and
so saying, he put up his hand, pulled his ear, and what happened was
that he pulled away ear and head.

"Sore thou art; and sorer thou'lt be," said O'Donnell.

"Well, O'Donnell," said the lank grey beggarman, "strange are the
tricks I've shown thee, but I'll show thee a stranger one yet for the
same money."

"Thou hast my word for it," said O'Donnell.

With that the lank grey beggarman took a bag from under his armpit, and
from out the bag a ball of silk, and he unwound the ball and he flung
it slantwise up into the clear blue heavens, and it became a ladder;
then he took a hare and placed it upon the thread, and up it ran; again
he took out a red-eared hound, and it swiftly ran up after the hare.

"Now," said the lank grey beggarman; "has any one a mind to run after
the dog and on the course?"

"I will," said a lad of O'Donnell's.

"Up with you then," said the juggler; "but I warn you if you let my
hare be killed I'll cut off your head when you come down."

The lad ran up the thread and all three soon disappeared. After looking
up for a long time, the lank grey beggarman said: "I'm afraid the hound
is eating the hare, and that our friend has fallen asleep."

Saying this he began to wind the thread, and down came the lad fast
asleep; and down came the red-eared hound and in his mouth the last
morsel of the hare.

He struck the lad a stroke with the edge of his sword, and so cast his
head off. As for the hound, if he used it no worse, he used it no
better.

"It's little I'm pleased, and sore I'm angered," said O'Donnell, "that
a hound and a lad should be killed at my court."

"Five pieces of silver twice over for each of them," said the juggler,
"and their heads shall be on them as before."

"Thou shalt get that," said O'Donnell.

Five pieces, and again five were paid him, and lo! the lad had his head
and the hound his. And though they lived to the uttermost end of time,
the hound would never touch a hare again, and the lad took good care to
keep his eyes open.

Scarcely had the lank grey beggarman done this when he vanished from
out their sight, and no one present could say if he had flown through
the air or if the earth had swallowed him up.

  He moved as wave tumbling o'er wave
  As whirlwind following whirlwind,
  As a furious wintry blast,
  So swiftly, sprucely, cheerily,
  Right proudly,
  And no stop made
  Until he came
  To the court of Leinster's King,
  He gave a cheery light leap
  O'er top of turret,
  Of court and city
  Of Leinster's King.

Heavy was the flesh and weary the spirit of Leinster's king. 'Twas the
hour he was wont to hear a story, but send he might right and left, not
a jot of tidings about the story-teller could he get.

"Go to the door," said he to his doorkeeper, "and see if a soul is in
sight who may tell me something about my story-teller."

The doorkeeper went, and what he saw was a lank grey beggarman, half
his sword bared behind his haunch, his two old shoes full of cold
road-a-wayish water sousing about him, the tips of his two ears out
through his old hat, his two shoulders out through his scant tattered
cloak, and in his hand a three-stringed harp.

"What canst thou do?" said the doorkeeper.

"I can play," said the lank grey beggarman.

"Never fear," added he to the story-teller, "thou shalt see all, and
not a man shall see thee."

When the king heard a harper was outside, he bade him in.

"It is I that have the best harpers in the five-fifths of Ireland,"
said he, and he signed them to play. They did so, and if they played,
the lank grey beggarman listened.

"Heardst thou ever the like?" said the king.

"Did you ever, O king, hear a cat purring over a bowl of broth, or the
buzzing of beetles in the twilight, or a shrill tongued old woman
scolding your head off?"

"That I have often," said the king.

"More melodious to me," said the lank grey beggarman, "were the worst
of these sounds than the sweetest harping of thy harpers."

When the harpers heard this, they drew their swords and rushed at him,
but instead of striking him, their blows fell on each other, and soon
not a man but was cracking his neighbour's skull and getting his own
cracked in turn.

When the king saw this, he thought it hard the harpers weren't content
with murdering their music, but must needs murder each other.

"Hang the fellow who began it all," said he; "and if I can't have a
story, let me have peace."

Up came the guards, seized the lank grey beggarman, marched him to the
gallows and hanged him high and dry. Back they marched to the hall, and
who should they see but the lank grey beggarman seated on a bench with
his mouth to a flagon of ale.

"Never welcome you in," cried the captain of the guard, "didn't we hang
you this minute, and what brings you here?"

"Is it me myself, you mean?"

"Who else?" said the captain.

"May your hand turn into a pig's foot with you when you think of tying
the rope; why should you speak of hanging me?"

Back they scurried to the gallows, and there hung the king's favourite
brother.

Back they hurried to the king who had fallen fast asleep.

"Please your Majesty," said the captain, "we hanged that strolling
vagabond, but here he is back again as well as ever."

"Hang him again," said the king, and off he went to sleep once more.

They did as they were told, but what happened was that they found the
king's chief harper hanging where the lank grey beggarman should have
been.

The captain of the guard was sorely puzzled.

"Are you wishful to hang me a third time?" said the lank grey beggarman.

"Go where you will," said the captain, "and as fast as you please if
you'll only go far enough. It's trouble enough you've given us already."

"Now you're reasonable," said the beggarman; "and since you've given up
trying to hang a stranger because he finds fault with your music, I
don't mind telling you that if you go back to the gallows you'll find
your friends sitting on the sward none the worse for what has happened."

As he said these words he vanished; and the story-teller found himself
on the spot where they first met, and where his wife still was with the
carriage and horses.

"Now," said the lank grey beggarman, "I'll torment you no longer.
There's your carriage and your horses, and your money and your wife; do
what you please with them."

"For my carriage and my houses and my hounds," said the story-teller,
"I thank you; but my wife and my money you may keep."

"No," said the other. "I want neither, and as for your wife, don't
think ill of her for what she did, she couldn't help it."

"Not help it! Not help kicking me into the mouth of my own hounds! Not
help casting me off for the sake of a beggarly old--"

"I'm not as beggarly or as old as ye think. I am Angus of the Bruff;
many a good turn you've done me with the King of Leinster. This morning
my magic told me the difficulty you were in, and I made up my mind to
get you out of it. As for your wife there, the power that changed your
body changed her mind. Forget and forgive as man and wife should do,
and now you have a story for the King of Leinster when he calls for
one;" and with that he disappeared.

It's true enough he now had a story fit for a king. From first to last
he told all that had befallen him; so long and loud laughed the king
that he couldn't go to sleep at all. And he told the story-teller never
to trouble for fresh stories, but every night as long as he lived he
listened again and he laughed afresh at the tale of the lank grey
beggarman.




THE SEA-MAIDEN

There was once a poor old fisherman, and one year he was not getting
much fish. On a day of days, while he was fishing, there rose a
sea-maiden at the side of his boat, and she asked him, "Are you getting
much fish?" The old man answered and said, "Not I." "What reward would
you give me for sending plenty of fish to you?" "Ach!" said the old
man, "I have not much to spare." "Will you give me the first son you
have?" said she. "I would give ye that, were I to have a son," said he.
"Then go home, and remember me when your son is twenty years of age,
and you yourself will get plenty of fish after this." Everything
happened as the sea-maiden said, and he himself got plenty of fish; but
when the end of the twenty years was nearing, the old man was growing
more and more sorrowful and heavy hearted, while he counted each day as
it came.

He had rest neither day nor night. The son asked his father one day,
"Is any one troubling you?" The old man said, "Some one is, but that's
nought to do with you nor any one else." The lad said, "I must know
what it is." His father told him at last how the matter was with him
and the sea-maiden. "Let not that put you in any trouble," said the
son; "I will not oppose you." "You shall not; you shall not go, my son,
though I never get fish any more." "If you will not let me go with you,
go to the smithy, and let the smith make me a great strong sword, and I
will go seek my fortune."

His father went to the smithy, and the smith made a doughty sword for
him. His father came home with the sword. The lad grasped it and gave
it a shake or two, and it flew into a hundred splinters. He asked his
father to go to the smithy and get him another sword in which there
should be twice as much weight; and so his father did, and so likewise
it happened to the next sword--it broke in two halves. Back went the
old man to the smithy; and the smith made a great sword, its like he
never made before. "There's thy sword for thee," said the smith, "and
the fist must be good that plays this blade." The old man gave the
sword to his son; he gave it a shake or two. "This will do," said he;
"it's high time now to travel on my way."

On the next morning he put a saddle on a black horse that his father
had, and he took the world for his pillow. When he went on a bit, he
fell in with the carcass of a sheep beside the road. And there were a
great black dog, a falcon, and an otter, and they were quarrelling over
the spoil. So they asked him to divide it for them. He came down off
the horse, and he divided the carcass amongst the three. Three shares
to the dog, two shares to the otter, and a share to the falcon. "For
this," said the dog, "if swiftness of foot or sharpness of tooth will
give thee aid, mind me, and I will be at thy side." Said the otter, "If
the swimming of foot on the ground of a pool will loose thee, mind me,
and I will be at thy side." Said the falcon, "If hardship comes on
thee, where swiftness of wing or crook of a claw will do good, mind me,
and I will be at thy side."

On this he went onward till he reached a king's house, and he took
service to be a herd, and his wages were to be according to the milk of
the cattle. He went away with the cattle, and the grazing was but bare.
In the evening when he took them home they had not much milk, the place
was so bare, and his meat and drink was but spare that night.

On the next day he went on further with them; and at last he came to a
place exceedingly grassy, in a green glen, of which he never saw the
like.

But about the time when he should drive the cattle homewards, who
should he see coming but a great giant with his sword in his hand? "HI!
HO!! HOGARACH!!!" says the giant. "Those cattle are mine; they are on
my land, and a dead man art thou." "I say not that," says the herd;
"there is no knowing, but that may be easier to say than to do."

He drew the great clean-sweeping sword, and he neared the giant. The
herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a
twinkling. He leaped on the black horse, and he went to look for the
giant's house. In went the herd, and that's the place where there was
money in plenty, and dresses of each kind in the wardrobe with gold and
silver, and each thing finer than the other. At the mouth of night he
took himself to the king's house, but he took not a thing from the
giant's house. And when the cattle were milked this night there _was_
milk. He got good feeding this night, meat and drink without stint, and
the king was hugely pleased that he had caught such a herd. He went on
for a time in this way, but at last the glen grew bare of grass, and
the grazing was not so good.

So he thought he would go a little further forward in on the giant's
land; and he sees a great park of grass. He returned for the cattle,
and he put them into the park.

They were but a short time grazing in the park when a great wild giant
came full of rage and madness. "HI! HAW!! HOGARAICH!!!" said the giant.
"It is a drink of thy blood that will quench my thirst this night."
"There is no knowing," said the herd, "but that's easier to say than to
do." And at each other went the men. _There_ was shaking of blades! At
length and at last it seemed as if the giant would get the victory over
the herd. Then he called on the dog, and with one spring the black dog
caught the giant by the neck, and swiftly the herd struck off his head.

He went home very tired this night, but it's a wonder if the king's
cattle had not milk. The whole family was delighted that they had got
such a herd.

Next day he betakes himself to the castle. When he reached the door, a
little flattering carlin met him standing in the door. "All hail and
good luck to thee, fisher's son; 'tis I myself am pleased to see thee;
great is the honour for this kingdom, for thy like to be come into
it--thy coming in is fame for this little bothy; go in first; honour to
the gentles; go on, and take breath."

"In before me, thou crone; I like not flattery out of doors; go in and
let's hear thy speech." In went the crone, and when her back was to him
he drew his sword and whips her head off; but the sword flew out of his
hand. And swift the crone gripped her head with both hands, and puts it
on her neck as it was before. The dog sprung on the crone, and she
struck the generous dog with the club of magic; and there he lay. But
the herd struggled for a hold of the club of magic, and with one blow
on the top of the head she was on earth in the twinkling of an eye. He
went forward, up a little, and there was spoil! Gold and silver, and
each thing more precious than another, in the crone's castle. He went
back to the king's house, and then there was rejoicing.

He followed herding in this way for a time; but one night after he came
home, instead of getting "All hail" and "Good luck" from the dairymaid,
all were at crying and woe.

He asked what cause of woe there was that night. The dairymaid said
"There is a great beast with three heads in the loch, and it must get
some one every year, and the lot had come this year on the king's
daughter, and at midday to-morrow she is to meet the Laidly Beast at
the upper end of the loch, but there is a great suitor yonder who is
going to rescue her."

"What suitor is that?" said the herd. "Oh, he is a great General of
arms," said the dairymaid, "and when he kills the beast, he will marry
the king's daughter, for the king has said that he who could save his
daughter should get her to marry."

But on the morrow, when the time grew near, the king's daughter and
this hero of arms went to give a meeting to the beast, and they reached
the black rock, at the upper end of the loch. They were but a short
time there when the beast stirred in the midst of the loch; but when
the General saw this terror of a beast with three heads, he took
fright, and he slunk away, and he hid himself. And the king's daughter
was under fear and under trembling, with no one at all to save her.
Suddenly she sees a doughty handsome youth, riding a black horse, and
coming where she was. He was marvellously arrayed and full armed, and
his black dog moved after him. "There is gloom on your face, girl,"
said the youth; "what do you here?"

"Oh! that's no matter," said the king's daughter. "It's not long I'll
be here, at all events."

"I say not that," said he.

"A champion fled as likely as you, and not long since," said she.

"He is a champion who stands the war," said the youth. And to meet the
beast he went with his sword and his dog. But there was a spluttering
and a splashing between himself and the beast! The dog kept doing all
he might, and the king's daughter was palsied by fear of the noise of
the beast! One of them would now be under, and now above. But at last
he cut one of the heads off it. It gave one roar, and the son of earth,
echo of the rocks, called to its screech, and it drove the loch in
spindrift from end to end, and in a twinkling it went out of sight.

"Good luck and victory follow you, lad!" said the king's daughter. "I
am safe for one night, but the beast will come again and again, until
the other two heads come off it." He caught the beast's head, and he
drew a knot through it, and he told her to bring it with her there
to-morrow. She gave him a gold ring, and went home with the head on her
shoulder, and the herd betook himself to the cows. But she had not gone
far when this great General saw her, and he said to her, "I will kill
you if you do not say that 'twas I took the head off the beast." "Oh!"
says she, "'tis I will say it; who else took the head off the beast but
you!" They reached the king's house, and the head was on the General's
shoulder. But here was rejoicing, that she should come home alive and
whole, and this great captain with the beast's head full of blood in
his hand. On the morrow they went away, and there was no question at
all but that this hero would save the king's daughter.

They reached the same place, and they were not long there when the
fearful Laidly Beast stirred in the midst of the loch, and the hero
slunk away as he did on yesterday, but it was not long after this when
the man of the black horse came, with another dress on. No matter; she
knew that it was the very same lad. "It is I am pleased to see you,"
said she. "I am in hopes you will handle your great sword to-day as you
did yesterday. Come up and take breath." But they were not long there
when they saw the beast steaming in the midst of the loch.

At once he went to meet the beast, but _there_ was Cloopersteich and
Claperstich, spluttering, splashing, raving, and roaring on the beast!
They kept at it thus for a long time, and about the mouth of night he
cut another head off the beast. He put it on the knot and gave it to
her. She gave him one of her earrings, and he leaped on the black
horse, and he betook himself to the herding. The king's daughter went
home with the heads. The General met her, and took the heads from her,
and he said to her, that she must tell that it was he who took the head
off the beast this time also. "Who else took the head off the beast but
you?" said she. They reached the king's house with the heads. Then
there was joy and gladness.

About the same time on the morrow, the two went away. The officer hid
himself as he usually did. The king's daughter betook herself to the
bank of the loch. The hero of the black horse came, and if roaring and
raving were on the beast on the days that were passed, this day it was
horrible. But no matter, he took the third head off the beast, and drew
it through the knot, and gave it to her. She gave him her other
earring, and then she went home with the heads. When they reached the
king's house, all were full of smiles, and the General was to marry the
king's daughter the next day. The wedding was going on, and every one
about the castle longing till the priest should come. But when the
priest came, she would marry only the one who could take the heads off
the knot without cutting it. "Who should take the heads off the knot
but the man that put the heads on?" said the king.

The General tried them; but he could not loose them; and at last there
was no one about the house but had tried to take the heads off the
knot, but they could not. The king asked if there were any one else
about the house that would try to take the heads off the knot. They
said that the herd had not tried them yet. Word went for the herd; and
he was not long throwing them hither and thither. "But stop a bit, my
lad," said the king's daughter; "the man that took the heads off the
beast, he has my ring and my two earrings." The herd put his hand in
his pocket, and he threw them on the board. "Thou art my man," said the
king's daughter. The king was not so pleased when he saw that it was a
herd who was to marry his daughter, but he ordered that he should be
put in a better dress; but his daughter spoke, and she said that he had
a dress as fine as any that ever was in his castle; and thus it
happened. The herd put on the giant's golden dress, and they married
that same day.

They were now married, and everything went on well. But one day, and it
was the namesake of the day when his father had promised him to the
sea-maiden, they were sauntering by the side of the loch, and lo and
behold! she came and took him away to the loch without leave or asking.
The king's daughter was now mournful, tearful, blind-sorrowful for her
married man; she was always with her eye on the loch. An old soothsayer
met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate. Then he
told her the thing to do to save her mate, and that she did.

She took her harp to the sea-shore, and sat and played; and the
sea-maiden came up to listen, for sea-maidens are fonder of music than
all other creatures. But when the wife saw the sea-maiden she stopped.
The sea-maiden said, "Play on!" but the princess said, "No, not till I
see my man again." So the sea-maiden put up his head out of the loch.
Then the princess played again, and stopped till the sea-maiden put him
up to the waist. Then the princess played and stopped again, and this
time the sea-maiden put him all out of the loch, and he called on the
falcon and became one and flew on shore. But the sea-maiden took the
princess, his wife.

Sorrowful was each one that was in the town on this night. Her man was
mournful, tearful, wandering down and up about the banks of the loch,
by day and night. The old soothsayer met him. The soothsayer told him
that there was no way of killing the sea-maiden but the one way, and
this is it--"In the island that is in the midst of the loch is the
white-footed hind of the slenderest legs and the swiftest step, and
though she be caught, there will spring a hoodie out of her, and though
the hoodie should be caught, there will spring a trout out of her, but
there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the
sea-maiden is in the egg, and if the egg breaks, she is dead."

Now, there was no way of getting to this island, for the sea-maiden
would sink each boat and raft that would go on the loch. He thought he
would try to leap the strait with the black horse, and even so he did.
The black horse leaped the strait. He saw the hind, and he let the
black dog after her, but when he was on one side of the island, the
hind would be on the other side. "Oh! would the black dog of the
carcass of flesh were here!" No sooner spoke he the word than the
grateful dog was at his side; and after the hind he went, and they were
not long in bringing her to earth. But he no sooner caught her than a
hoodie sprang out of her. "Would that the falcon grey, of sharpest eye
and swiftest wing, were here!" No sooner said he this than the falcon
was after the hoodie, and she was not long putting her to earth; and as
the hoodie fell on the bank of the loch, out of her jumps the trout.
"Oh! that thou wert by me now, oh otter!" No sooner said than the otter
was at his side, and out on the loch she leaped, and brings the trout
from the midst of the loch; but no sooner was the otter on shore with
the trout than the egg came from his mouth. He sprang and he put his
foot on it. 'Twas then the sea-maiden appeared, and she said, "Break
not the egg, and you shall get all you ask." "Deliver to me my wife!"
In the wink of an eye she was by his side. When he got hold of her hand
in both his hands, he let his foot down on the egg, and the sea-maiden
died.




A LEGEND OF KNOCKMANY

What Irish man, woman, or child has not heard of our renowned Hibernian
Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M'Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear
to the Giant's Causeway, nor from that back again to Cape Clear. And,
by-the-way, speaking of the Giant's Causeway brings me at once to the
beginning of my story. Well, it so happened that Fin and his men were
all working at the Causeway, in order to make a bridge across to
Scotland; when Fin, who was very fond of his wife Oonagh, took it into
his head that he would go home and see how the poor woman got on in his
absence. So, accordingly, he pulled up a fir-tree, and, after lopping
off the roots and branches, made a walking-stick of it, and set out on
his way to Oonagh.

Oonagh, or rather Fin, lived at this time on the very tip-top of
Knockmany Hill, which faces a cousin of its own called Cullamore, that
rises up, half-hill, half-mountain, on the opposite side.

There was at that time another giant, named Cucullin--some say he was
Irish, and some say he was Scotch--but whether Scotch or Irish, sorrow
doubt of it but he was a targer. No other giant of the day could stand
before him; and such was his strength, that, when well vexed, he could
give a stamp that shook the country about him. The fame and name of him
went far and near; and nothing in the shape of a man, it was said, had
any chance with him in a fight. By one blow of his fists he flattened a
thunderbolt and kept it in his pocket, in the shape of a pancake, to
show to all his enemies, when they were about to fight him. Undoubtedly
he had given every giant in Ireland a considerable beating, barring Fin
M'Coul himself; and he swore that he would never rest, night or day,
winter or summer, till he would serve Fin with the same sauce, if he
could catch him. However, the short and long of it was, with reverence
be it spoken, that Fin heard Cucullin was coming to the Causeway to
have a trial of strength with him; and he was seized with a very warm
and sudden fit of affection for his wife, poor woman, leading a very
lonely, uncomfortable life of it in his absence. He accordingly pulled
up the fir-tree, as I said before, and having snedded it into a
walking-stick, set out on his travels to see his darling Oonagh on the
top of Knockmany, by the way.

In truth, the people wondered very much why it was that Fin selected
such a windy spot for his dwelling-house, and they even went so far as
to tell him as much.

"What can you mane, Mr. M'Coul," said they, "by pitching your tent upon
the top of Knockmany, where you never are without a breeze, day or
night, winter or summer, and where you're often forced to take your
nightcap without either going to bed or turning up your little finger;
ay, an' where, besides this, there's the sorrow's own want of water?"

"Why," said Fin, "ever since I was the height of a round tower, I was
known to be fond of having a good prospect of my own; and where the
dickens, neighbours, could I find a better spot for a good prospect
than the top of Knockmany? As for water, I am sinking a pump, and,
plase goodness, as soon as the Causeway's made, I intend to finish it."

Now, this was more of Fin's philosophy; for the real state of the case
was, that he pitched upon the top of Knockmany in order that he might
be able to see Cucullin coming towards the house. All we have to say
is, that if he wanted a spot from which to keep a sharp look-out--and,
between ourselves, he did want it grievously--barring Slieve Croob, or
Slieve Donard, or its own cousin, Cullamore, he could not find a neater
or more convenient situation for it in the sweet and sagacious province
of Ulster.

"God save all here!" said Fin, good-humouredly, on putting his honest
face into his own door.

"Musha, Fin, avick, an' you're welcome home to your own Oonagh, you
darlin' bully." Here followed a smack that is said to have made the
waters of the lake at the bottom of the hill curl, as it were, with
kindness and sympathy.

Fin spent two or three happy days with Oonagh, and felt himself very
comfortable, considering the dread he had of Cucullin. This, however,
grew upon him so much that his wife could not but perceive something
lay on his mind which he kept altogether to himself. Let a woman alone,
in the meantime, for ferreting or wheedling a secret out of her good
man, when she wishes. Fin was a proof of this.

"It's this Cucullin," said he, "that's troubling me. When the fellow
gets angry, and begins to stamp, he'll shake you a whole townland; and
it's well known that he can stop a thunderbolt, for he always carries
one about him in the shape of a pancake, to show to any one that might
misdoubt it."

As he spoke, he clapped his thumb in his mouth, which he always did
when he wanted to prophesy, or to know anything that happened in his
absence; and the wife asked him what he did it for.

"He's coming," said Fin; "I see him below Dungannon."

"Thank goodness, dear! an' who is it, avick? Glory be to God!"

"That baste, Cucullin," replied Fin; "and how to manage I don't know.
If I run away, I am disgraced; and I know that sooner or later I must
meet him, for my thumb tells me so."

"When will he be here?" said she.

"To-morrow, about two o'clock," replied Fin, with a groan.

"Well, my bully, don't be cast down," said Oonagh; "depend on me, and
maybe I'll bring you better out of this scrape than ever you could
bring yourself, by your rule o' thumb."

She then made a high smoke on the top of the hill, after which she put
her finger in her mouth, and gave three whistles, and by that Cucullin
knew he was invited to Cullamore--for this was the way that the Irish
long ago gave a sign to all strangers and travellers, to let them know
they were welcome to come and take share of whatever was going.

In the meantime, Fin was very melancholy, and did not know what to do,
or how to act at all. Cucullin was an ugly customer to meet with; and,
the idea of the "cake" aforesaid flattened the very heart within him.
What chance could he have, strong and brave though he was, with a man
who could, when put in a passion, walk the country into earthquakes and
knock thunderbolts into pancakes? Fin knew not on what hand to turn
him. Right or left--backward or forward--where to go he could form no
guess whatsoever.

"Oonagh," said he, "can you do nothing for me? Where's all your
invention? Am I to be skivered like a rabbit before your eyes, and to
have my name disgraced for ever in the sight of all my tribe, and me
the best man among them? How am I to fight this man-mountain--this huge
cross between an earthquake and a thunderbolt?--with a pancake in his
pocket that was once--"

"Be easy, Fin," replied Oonagh; "troth, I'm ashamed of you. Keep your
toe in your pump, will you? Talking of pancakes, maybe, we'll give him
as good as any he brings with him--thunderbolt or otherwise. If I don't
treat him to as smart feeding as he's got this many a day, never trust
Oonagh again. Leave him to me, and do just as I bid you."

This relieved Fin very much; for, after all, he had great confidence in
his wife, knowing, as he did, that she had got him out of many a
quandary before. Oonagh then drew the nine woollen threads of different
colours, which she always did to find out the best way of succeeding in
anything of importance she went about. She then platted them into three
plats with three colours in each, putting one on her right arm, one
round her heart, and the third round her right ankle, for then she knew
that nothing could fail with her that she undertook.

Having everything now prepared, she sent round to the neighbours and
borrowed one-and-twenty iron griddles, which she took and kneaded into
the hearts of one-and-twenty cakes of bread, and these she baked on the
fire in the usual way, setting them aside in the cupboard according as
they were done. She then put down a large pot of new milk, which she
made into curds and whey. Having done all this, she sat down quite
contented, waiting for his arrival on the next day about two o'clock,
that being the hour at which he was expected--for Fin knew as much by
the sucking of his thumb. Now this was a curious property that Fin's
thumb had. In this very thing, moreover, he was very much resembled by
his great foe, Cucullin; for it was well known that the huge strength
he possessed all lay in the middle finger of his right hand, and that,
if he happened by any mischance to lose it, he was no more, for all his
bulk, than a common man.

At length, the next day, Cucullin was seen coming across the valley,
and Oonagh knew that it was time to commence operations. She
immediately brought the cradle, and made Fin to lie down in it, and
cover himself up with the clothes.

"You must pass for your own child," said she; "so just lie there snug,
and say nothing, but be guided by me."

About two o'clock, as he had been expected, Cucullin came in. "God save
all here!" said he; "is this where the great Fin M'Coul lives?"

"Indeed it is, honest man," replied Oonagh; "God save you kindly--won't
you be sitting?"

"Thank you, ma'am," says he, sitting down; "you're Mrs. M'Coul, I
suppose?"

"I am," said she; "and I have no reason, I hope, to be ashamed of my
husband."

"No," said the other, "he has the name of being the strongest and
bravest man in Ireland; but for all that, there's a man not far from
you that's very desirous of taking a shake with him. Is he at home?"

"Why, then, no," she replied; "and if ever a man left his house in a
fury, he did. It appears that some one told him of a big basthoon of
a--giant called Cucullin being down at the Causeway to look for him,
and so he set out there to try if he could catch him. Troth, I hope,
for the poor giant's sake, he won't meet with him, for if he does, Fin
will make paste of him at once."

"Well," said the other, "I am Cucullin, and I have been seeking him
these twelve months, but he always kept clear of me; and I will never
rest night or day till I lay my hands on him."

At this Oonagh set up a loud laugh, of great contempt, by-the-way, and
looked at him as if he was only a mere handful of a man.

"Did you ever see Fin?" said she, changing her manner all at once.

"How could I?" said he; "he always took care to keep his distance."

"I thought so," she replied; "I judged as much; and if you take my
advice, you poor-looking creature, you'll pray night and day that you
may never see him, for I tell you it will be a black day for you when
you do. But, in the meantime, you perceive that the wind's on the door,
and as Fin himself is from home, maybe you'd be civil enough to turn
the house, for it's always what Fin does when he's here."

This was a startler even to Cucullin; but he got up, however, and after
pulling the middle finger of his right hand until it cracked three
times, he went outside, and getting his arms about the house, turned it
as she had wished. When Fin saw this, he felt the sweat of fear oozing
out through every pore of his skin; but Oonagh, depending upon her
woman's wit, felt not a whit daunted.

"Arrah, then," said she, "as you are so civil, maybe you'd do another
obliging turn for us, as Fin's not here to do it himself. You see,
after this long stretch of dry weather we've had, we feel very badly
off for want of water. Now, Fin says there's a fine spring-well
somewhere under the rocks behind the hill here below, and it was his
intention to pull them asunder; but having heard of you, he left the
place in such a fury, that he never thought of it. Now, if you try to
find it, troth I'd feel it a kindness."

She then brought Cucullin down to see the place, which was then all one
solid rock; and, after looking at it for some time, he cracked his
right middle finger nine times, and, stooping down, tore a cleft about
four hundred feet deep, and a quarter of a mile in length, which has
since been christened by the name of Lumford's Glen.

"You'll now come in," said she, "and eat a bit of such humble fare as
we can give you. Fin, even although he and you are enemies, would scorn
not to treat you kindly in his own house; and, indeed, if I didn't do
it even in his absence, he would not be pleased with me."

She accordingly brought him in, and placing half-a-dozen of the cakes
we spoke of before him, together with a can or two of butter, a side of
boiled bacon, and a stack of cabbage, she desired him to help
himself--for this, be it known, was long before the invention of
potatoes. Cucullin put one of the cakes in his mouth to take a huge
whack out of it, when he made a thundering noise, something between a
growl and a yell. "Blood and fury!" he shouted; "how is this? Here are
two of my teeth out! What kind of bread this is you gave me."

"What's the matter?" said Oonagh coolly.

"Matter!" shouted the other again; "why, here are the two best teeth in
my head gone."

"Why," said she, "that's Fin's bread--the only bread he ever eats when
at home; but, indeed, I forgot to tell you that nobody can eat it but
himself, and that child in the cradle there. I thought, however, that,
as you were reported to be rather a stout little fellow of your size,
you might be able to manage it, and I did not wish to affront a man
that thinks himself able to fight Fin. Here's another cake--maybe it's
not so hard as that."

Cucullin at the moment was not only hungry, but ravenous, so he
accordingly made a fresh set at the second cake, and immediately
another yell was heard twice as loud as the first. "Thunder and
gibbets!" he roared, "take your bread out of this, or I will not have a
tooth in my head; there's another pair of them gone!"

"Well, honest man," replied Oonagh, "if you're not able to eat the
bread, say so quietly, and don't be wakening the child in the cradle
there. There, now, he's awake upon me."

Fin now gave a skirl that startled the giant, as coming from such a
youngster as he was supposed to be.

"Mother," said he, "I'm hungry--get me something to eat." Oonagh went
over, and putting into his hand a cake that had no griddle in it, Fin,
whose appetite in the meantime had been sharpened by seeing eating
going forward, soon swallowed it. Cucullin was thunderstruck, and
secretly thanked his stars that he had the good fortune to miss meeting
Fin, for, as he said to himself, "I'd have no chance with a man who
could eat such bread as that, which even his son that's but in his
cradle can munch before my eyes."

"I'd like to take a glimpse at the lad in the cradle," said he to
Oonagh; "for I can tell you that the infant who can manage that
nutriment is no joke to look at, or to feed of a scarce summer."

"With all the veins of my heart," replied Oonagh; "get up, acushla, and
show this decent little man something that won't be unworthy of your
father, Fin M'Coul."

Fin, who was dressed for the occasion as much like a boy as possible,
got up, and bringing Cucullin out, "Are you strong?" said he.

"Thunder an' ounds!" exclaimed the other, "what a voice in so small a
chap!"

"Are you strong?" said Fin again; "are you able to squeeze water out of
that white stone?" he asked, putting one into Cucullin's hand. The
latter squeezed and squeezed the stone, but in vain.

"Ah, you're a poor creature!" said Fin. "You a giant! Give me the stone
here, and when I'll show what Fin's little son can do, you may then
judge of what my daddy himself is."

Fin then took the stone, and exchanging it for the curds, he squeezed
the latter until the whey, as clear as water, oozed out in a little
shower from his hand.

"I'll now go in," said he, "to my cradle; for I scorn to lose my time
with any one that's not able to eat my daddy's bread, or squeeze water
out of a stone. Bedad, you had better be off out of this before he
comes back; for if he catches you, it's in flummery he'd have you in
two minutes."

Cucullin, seeing what he had seen, was of the same opinion himself; his
knees knocked together with the terror of Fin's return, and he
accordingly hastened to bid Oonagh farewell, and to assure her, that
from that day out, he never wished to hear of, much less to see, her
husband. "I admit fairly that I'm not a match for him," said he,
"strong as I am; tell him I will avoid him as I would the plague, and
that I will make myself scarce in this part of the country while I
live."

Fin, in the meantime, had gone into the cradle, where he lay very
quietly, his heart at his mouth with delight that Cucullin was about to
take his departure, without discovering the tricks that had been played
off on him.

"It's well for you," said Oonagh, "that he doesn't happen to be here,
for it's nothing but hawk's meat he'd make of you."

"I know that," says Cucullin; "divil a thing else he'd make of me; but
before I go, will you let me feel what kind of teeth Fin's lad has got
that can eat griddle-bread like that?"

"With all pleasure in life," said she; "only, as they're far back in
his head, you must put your finger a good way in."

Cucullin was surprised to find such a powerful set of grinders in one
so young; but he was still much more so on finding, when he took his
hand from Fin's mouth, that he had left the very finger upon which his
whole strength depended, behind him. He gave one loud groan, and fell
down at once with terror and weakness. This was all Fin wanted, who now
knew that his most powerful and bitterest enemy was at his mercy. He
started out of the cradle, and in a few minutes the great Cucullin,
that was for such a length of time the terror of him and all his
followers, lay a corpse before him. Thus did Fin, through the wit and
invention of Oonagh, his wife, succeed in overcoming his enemy by
cunning, which he never could have done by force.




FAIR, BROWN, AND TREMBLING

King Hugh Curucha lived in Tir Conal, and he had three daughters, whose
names were Fair, Brown, and Trembling. Fair and Brown had new dresses,
and went to church every Sunday. Trembling was kept at home to do the
cooking and work. They would not let her go out of the house at all;
for she was more beautiful than the other two, and they were in dread
she might marry before themselves.

They carried on in this way for seven years. At the end of seven years
the son of the king of Emania fell in love with the eldest sister.

One Sunday morning, after the other two had gone to church, the old
henwife came into the kitchen to Trembling, and said: "It's at church
you ought to be this day, instead of working here at home."

"How could I go?" said Trembling. "I have no clothes good enough to
wear at church; and if my sisters were to see me there, they'd kill me
for going out of the house."

"I'll give you," said the henwife, "a finer dress than either of them
has ever seen. And now tell me what dress will you have?"

"I'll have," said Trembling, "a dress as white as snow, and green shoes
for my feet."

Then the henwife put on the cloak of darkness, clipped a piece from the
old clothes the young woman had on, and asked for the whitest robes in
the world and the most beautiful that could be found, and a pair of
green shoes.

That moment she had the robe and the shoes, and she brought them to
Trembling, who put them on. When Trembling was dressed and ready, the
henwife said: "I have a honey-bird here to sit on your right shoulder,
and a honey-finger to put on your left. At the door stands a milk-white
mare, with a golden saddle for you to sit on, and a golden bridle to
hold in your hand."

Trembling sat on the golden saddle; and when she was ready to start,
the henwife said: "You must not go inside the door of the church, and
the minute the people rise up at the end of Mass, do you make off, and
ride home as fast as the mare will carry you."

When Trembling came to the door of the church there was no one inside
who could get a glimpse of her but was striving to know who she was;
and when they saw her hurrying away at the end of Mass, they ran out to
overtake her. But no use in their running; she was away before any man
could come near her. From the minute she left the church till she got
home, she overtook the wind before her, and outstripped the wind behind.

She came down at the door, went in, and found the henwife had dinner
ready. She put off the white robes, and had on her old dress in a
twinkling.

When the two sisters came home the henwife asked: "Have you any news
to-day from the church?"

"We have great news," said they. "We saw a wonderful grand lady at the
church-door. The like of the robes she had we have never seen on woman
before. It's little that was thought of our dresses beside what she had
on; and there wasn't a man at the church, from the king to the beggar,
but was trying to look at her and know who she was."

The sisters would give no peace till they had two dresses like the
robes of the strange lady; but honey-birds and honey-fingers were not
to be found.

Next Sunday the two sisters went to church again, and left the youngest
at home to cook the dinner.

After they had gone, the henwife came in and asked: "Will you go to
church to-day?"

"I would go," said Trembling, "if I could get the going."

"What robe will you wear?" asked the henwife.

"The finest black satin that can be found, and red shoes for my feet."

"What colour do you want the mare to be?"

"I want her to be so black and so glossy that I can see myself in her
body."

The henwife put on the cloak of darkness, and asked for the robes and
the mare. That moment she had them. When Trembling was dressed, the
henwife put the honey-bird on her right shoulder and the honey-finger
on her left. The saddle on the mare was silver, and so was the bridle.

When Trembling sat in the saddle and was going away, the henwife
ordered her strictly not to go inside the door of the church, but to
rush away as soon as the people rose at the end of Mass, and hurry home
on the mare before any man could stop her.

That Sunday, the people were more astonished than ever, and gazed at
her more than the first time; and all they were thinking of was to know
who she was. But they had no chance; for the moment the people rose at
the end of Mass she slipped from the church, was in the silver saddle,
and home before a man could stop her or talk to her.

The henwife had the dinner ready. Trembling took off her satin robe,
and had on her old clothes before her sisters got home.

"What news have you to-day?" asked the henwife of the sisters when they
came from the church.

"Oh, we saw the grand strange lady again! And it's little that any man
could think of our dresses after looking at the robes of satin that she
had on! And all at church, from high to low, had their mouths open,
gazing at her, and no man was looking at us."

The two sisters gave neither rest nor peace till they got dresses as
nearly like the strange lady's robes as they could find. Of course they
were not so good; for the like of those robes could not be found in
Erin.

When the third Sunday came, Fair and Brown went to church dressed in
black satin. They left Trembling at home to work in the kitchen, and
told her to be sure and have dinner ready when they came back.

After they had gone and were out of sight, the henwife came to the
kitchen and said: "Well, my dear, are you for church to-day?"

"I would go if I had a new dress to wear."

"I'll get you any dress you ask for. What dress would you like?" asked
the henwife.

"A dress red as a rose from the waist down, and white as snow from the
waist up; a cape of green on my shoulders; and a hat on my head with a
red, a white, and a green feather in it; and shoes for my feet with the
toes red, the middle white, and the backs and heels green."

The henwife put on the cloak of darkness, wished for all these things,
and had them. When Trembling was dressed, the henwife put the
honey-bird on her right shoulder and the honey-finger on her left, and,
placing the hat on her head, clipped a few hairs from one lock and a
few from another with her scissors, and that moment the most beautiful
golden hair was flowing down over the girl's shoulders. Then the
henwife asked what kind of a mare she would ride. She said white, with
blue and gold-coloured diamond-shaped spots all over her body, on her
back a saddle of gold, and on her head a golden bridle.

The mare stood there before the door, and a bird sitting between her
ears, which began to sing as soon as Trembling was in the saddle, and
never stopped till she came home from the church.

The fame of the beautiful strange lady had gone out through the world,
and all the princes and great men that were in it came to church that
Sunday, each one hoping that it was himself would have her home with
him after Mass.

The son of the king of Emania forgot all about the eldest sister, and
remained outside the church, so as to catch the strange lady before she
could hurry away.

The church was more crowded than ever before, and there were three
times as many outside. There was such a throng before the church that
Trembling could only come inside the gate.

As soon as the people were rising at the end of Mass, the lady slipped
out through the gate, was in the golden saddle in an instant, and
sweeping away ahead of the wind. But if she was, the prince of Emania
was at her side, and, seizing her by the foot, he ran with the mare for
thirty perches, and never let go of the beautiful lady till the shoe
was pulled from her foot, and he was left behind with it in his hand.
She came home as fast as the mare could carry her, and was thinking all
the time that the henwife would kill her for losing the shoe.

Seeing her so vexed and so changed in the face, the old woman asked:
"What's the trouble that's on you now?" "Oh! I've lost one of the shoes
off my feet," said Trembling.

"Don't mind that; don't be vexed," said the henwife; "maybe it's the
best thing that ever happened to you."

Then Trembling gave up all the things she had to the henwife, put on
her old clothes, and went to work in the kitchen. When the sisters came
home, the henwife asked: "Have you any news from the church?"

"We have indeed," said they, "for we saw the grandest sight to-day. The
strange lady came again, in grander array than before. On herself and
the horse she rode were the finest colours of the world, and between
the ears of the horse was a bird which never stopped singing from the
time she came till she went away. The lady herself is the most
beautiful woman ever seen by man in Erin."

After Trembling had disappeared from the church, the son of the king of
Emania said to the other kings' sons: "I will have that lady for my
own."

They all said: "You didn't win her just by taking the shoe off her
foot; you'll have to win her by the point of the sword; you'll have to
fight for her with us before you can call her your own."

"Well," said the son of the king of Emania, "when I find the lady that
shoe will fit, I'll fight for her, never fear, before I leave her to
any of you."

Then all the kings' sons were uneasy, and anxious to know who was she
that lost the shoe; and they began to travel all over Erin to know
could they find her. The prince of Emania and all the others went in a
great company together, and made the round of Erin; they went
everywhere,--north, south, east, and west. They visited every place
where a woman was to be found, and left not a house in the kingdom they
did not search, to know could they find the woman the shoe would fit,
not caring whether she was rich or poor, of high or low degree.

The prince of Emania always kept the shoe; and when the young women saw
it, they had great hopes, for it was of proper size, neither large nor
small, and it would beat any man to know of what material it was made.
One thought it would fit her if she cut a little from her great toe;
and another, with too short a foot, put something in the tip of her
stocking. But no use; they only spoiled their feet, and were curing
them for months afterwards.

The two sisters, Fair and Brown, heard that the princes of the world
were looking all over Erin for the woman that could wear the shoe, and
every day they were talking of trying it on; and one day Trembling
spoke up and said: "Maybe it's my foot that the shoe will fit."

"Oh, the breaking of the dog's foot on you! Why say so when you were at
home every Sunday?"

They were that way waiting, and scolding the younger sister, till the
princes were near the place. The day they were to come, the sisters put
Trembling in a closet, and locked the door on her. When the company
came to the house, the prince of Emania gave the shoe to the sisters.
But though they tried and tried, it would fit neither of them.

"Is there any other young woman in the house?" asked the prince.

"There is," said Trembling, speaking up in the closet; "I'm here."

"Oh! we have her for nothing but to put out the ashes," said the
sisters.

But the prince and the others wouldn't leave the house till they had
seen her; so the two sisters had to open the door. When Trembling came
out, the shoe was given to her, and it fitted exactly.

The prince of Emania looked at her and said: "You are the woman the
shoe fits, and you are the woman I took the shoe from."

Then Trembling spoke up, and said: "Do you stay here till I return."

Then she went to the henwife's house. The old woman put on the cloak of
darkness, got everything for her she had the first Sunday at church,
and put her on the white mare in the same fashion. Then Trembling rode
along the highway to the front of the house. All who saw her the first
time said: "This is the lady we saw at church."

Then she went away a second time, and a second time came back on the
black mare in the second dress which the henwife gave her. All who saw
her the second Sunday said: "That is the lady we saw at church."

A third time she asked for a short absence, and soon came back on the
third mare and in the third dress. All who saw her the third time said:
"That is the lady we saw at church." Every man was satisfied, and knew
that she was the woman.

Then all the princes and great men spoke up, and said to the son of the
king of Emania: "You'll have to fight now for her before we let her go
with you."

"I'm here before you, ready for combat," answered the prince.

Then the son of the king of Lochlin stepped forth. The struggle began,
and a terrible struggle it was. They fought for nine hours; and then
the son of the king of Lochlin stopped, gave up his claim, and left the
field. Next day the son of the king of Spain fought six hours, and
yielded his claim. On the third day the son of the king of Nyerfói
fought eight hours, and stopped. The fourth day the son of the king of
Greece fought six hours, and stopped. On the fifth day no more strange
princes wanted to fight; and all the sons of kings in Erin said they
would not fight with a man of their own land, that the strangers had
had their chance, and, as no others came to claim the woman, she
belonged of right to the son of the king of Emania.

The marriage-day was fixed, and the invitations were sent out. The
wedding lasted for a year and a day. When the wedding was over, the
king's son brought home the bride, and when the time came a son was
born. The young woman sent for her eldest sister, Fair, to be with her
and care for her. One day, when Trembling was well, and when her
husband was away hunting, the two sisters went out to walk; and when
they came to the seaside, the eldest pushed the youngest sister in. A
great whale came and swallowed her.

The eldest sister came home alone, and the husband asked, "Where is
your sister?"

"She has gone home to her father in Ballyshannon; now that I am well, I
don't need her."

"Well," said the husband, looking at her, "I'm in dread it's my wife
that has gone."

"Oh! no," said she; "it's my sister Fair that's gone."

Since the sisters were very much alike, the prince was in doubt. That
night he put his sword between them, and said: "If you are my wife,
this sword will get warm; if not, it will stay cold."

In the morning when he rose up, the sword was as cold as when he put it
there.

It happened, when the two sisters were walking by the seashore, that a
little cowboy was down by the water minding cattle, and saw Fair push
Trembling into the sea; and next day, when the tide came in, he saw the
whale swim up and throw her out on the sand. When she was on the sand
she said to the cowboy: "When you go home in the evening with the cows,
tell the master that my sister Fair pushed me into the sea yesterday;
that a whale swallowed me, and then threw me out, but will come again
and swallow me with the coming of the next tide; then he'll go out with
the tide, and come again with to-morrow's tide, and throw me again on
the strand. The whale will cast me out three times. I'm under the
enchantment of this whale, and cannot leave the beach or escape myself.
Unless my husband saves me before I'm swallowed the fourth time, I
shall be lost. He must come and shoot the whale with a silver bullet
when he turns on the broad of his back. Under the breast-fin of the
whale is a reddish-brown spot. My husband must hit him in that spot,
for it is the only place in which he can be killed."

When the cowboy got home, the eldest sister gave him a draught of
oblivion, and he did not tell.

Next day he went again to the sea. The whale came and cast Trembling on
shore again. She asked the boy "Did you tell the master what I told you
to tell him?"

"I did not," said he; "I forgot."

"How did you forget?" asked she.

"The woman of the house gave me a drink that made me forget."

"Well, don't forget telling him this night; and if she gives you a
drink, don't take it from her."

As soon as the cowboy came home, the eldest sister offered him a drink.
He refused to take it till he had delivered his message and told all to
the master. The third day the prince went down with his gun and a
silver bullet in it. He was not long down when the whale came and threw
Trembling upon the beach as the two days before. She had no power to
speak to her husband till he had killed the whale. Then the whale went
out, turned over once on the broad of his back, and showed the spot for
a moment only. That moment the prince fired. He had but the one chance,
and a short one at that; but he took it, and hit the spot, and the
whale, mad with pain, made the sea all around red with blood, and died.

That minute Trembling was able to speak, and went home with her
husband, who sent word to her father what the eldest sister had done.
The father came, and told him any death he chose to give her to give
it. The prince told the father he would leave her life and death with
himself. The father had her put out then on the sea in a barrel, with
provisions in it for seven years.

In time Trembling had a second child, a daughter. The prince and she
sent the cowboy to school, and trained him up as one of their own
children, and said: "If the little girl that is born to us now lives,
no other man in the world will get her but him."

The cowboy and the prince's daughter lived on till they were married.
The mother said to her husband "You could not have saved me from the
whale but for the little cowboy; on that account I don't grudge him my
daughter."

The son of the king of Emania and Trembling had fourteen children, and
they lived happily till the two died of old age.




JACK AND HIS MASTER

A poor woman had three sons. The eldest and second eldest were cunning
clever fellows, but they called the youngest Jack the Fool, because
they thought he was no better than a simpleton. The eldest got tired of
staying at home, and said he'd go look for service. He stayed away a
whole year, and then came back one day, dragging one foot after the
other, and a poor wizened face on him, and he as cross as two sticks.
When he was rested and got something to eat, he told them how he got
service with the Gray Churl of the Townland of Mischance, and that the
agreement was, whoever would first say he was sorry for his bargain,
should get an inch wide of the skin of his back, from shoulder to hips,
taken off. If it was the master, he should also pay double wages; if it
was the servant, he should get no wages at all. "But the thief," says
he, "gave me so little to eat, and kept me so hard at work, that flesh
and blood couldn't stand it; and when he asked me once, when I was in a
passion, if I was sorry for my bargain, I was mad enough to say I was,
and here I am disabled for life."

Vexed enough were the poor mother and brothers; and the second eldest
said on the spot he'd go and take service with the Gray Churl, and
punish him by all the annoyance he'd give him till he'd make him say he
was sorry for his agreement. "Oh, won't I be glad to see the skin
coming off the old villain's back!" said he. All they could say had no
effect: he started off for the Townland of Mischance, and in a
twelvemonth he was back just as miserable and helpless as his brother.

All the poor mother could say didn't prevent Jack the Fool from
starting to see if he was able to regulate the Gray Churl. He agreed
with him for a year for twenty pounds, and the terms were the same.

"Now, Jack," said the Gray Churl, "if you refuse to do anything you are
able to do, you must lose a month's wages."

"I'm satisfied," said Jack; "and if you stop me from doing a thing
after telling me to do it, you are to give me an additional month's
wages."

"I am satisfied," says the master.

"Or if you blame me for obeying your orders, you must give the same."

"I am satisfied," said the master again.

The first day that Jack served he was fed very poorly, and was worked
to the saddleskirts. Next day he came in just before the dinner was
sent up to the parlour. They were taking the goose off the spit, but
well becomes Jack he whips a knife off the dresser, and cuts off one
side of the breast, one leg and thigh, and one wing, and fell to. In
came the master, and began to abuse him for his assurance. "Oh, you
know, master, you're to feed me, and wherever the goose goes won't have
to be filled again till supper. Are you sorry for our agreement?"

The master was going to cry out he was, but he bethought himself in
time. "Oh no, not at all," said he.

"That's well," said Jack.

Next day Jack was to go clamp turf on the bog. They weren't sorry to
have him away from the kitchen at dinner time. He didn't find his
breakfast very heavy on his stomach; so he said to the mistress, "I
think, ma'am, it will be better for me to get my dinner now, and not
lose time coming home from the bog."

"That's true, Jack," said she. So she brought out a good cake, and a
print of butter, and a bottle of milk, thinking he'd take them away to
the bog. But Jack kept his seat, and never drew rein till bread,
butter, and milk went down the red lane.

"Now, mistress," said he, "I'll be earlier at my work to-morrow if I
sleep comfortably on the sheltery side of a pile of dry peat on dry
grass, and not be coming here and going back. So you may as well give
me my supper, and be done with the day's trouble." She gave him that,
thinking he'd take it to the bog; but he fell to on the spot, and did
not leave a scrap to tell tales on him; and the mistress was a little
astonished.

He called to speak to the master in the haggard, and said he, "What are
servants asked to do in this country after aten their supper?"

"Nothing at all, but to go to bed."

"Oh, very well, sir." He went up on the stable-loft, stripped, and lay
down, and some one that saw him told the master. He came up.

"Jack, you anointed scoundrel, what do you mean?" "To go to sleep,
master. The mistress, God bless her, is after giving me my breakfast,
dinner, and supper, and yourself told me that bed was the next thing.
Do you blame me, sir?"

"Yes, you rascal, I do."

"Hand me out one pound thirteen and fourpence, if you please, sir."

"One divel and thirteen imps, you tinker! what for?"

"Oh, I see, you've forgot your bargain. Are you sorry for it?"

"Oh, ya--no, I mean. I'll give you the money after your nap."

Next morning early, Jack asked how he'd be employed that day. "You are
to be holding the plough in that fallow, outside the paddock." The
master went over about nine o'clock to see what kind of a ploughman was
Jack, and what did he see but the little boy driving the bastes, and
the sock and coulter of the plough skimming along the sod, and Jack
pulling ding-dong again' the horses.

"What are you doing, you contrary thief?" said the master.

"An' ain't I strivin' to hold this divel of a plough, as you told me;
but that ounkrawn of a boy keeps whipping on the bastes in spite of all
I say; will you speak to him?"

"No, but I'll speak to you. Didn't you know, you bosthoon, that when I
said 'holding the plough,' I meant reddening the ground."

"Faith, an' if you did, I wish you had said so. Do you blame me for
what I have done?"

The master caught himself in time, but he was so stomached, he said
nothing.

"Go on and redden the ground now, you knave, as other ploughmen do."

"An' are you sorry for our agreement?"

"Oh, not at all, not at all!"

Jack, ploughed away like a good workman all the rest of the day.

In a day or two the master bade him go and mind the cows in a field
that had half of it under young corn. "Be sure, particularly," said he,
"to keep Browney from the wheat; while she's out of mischief there's no
fear of the rest."

About noon, he went to see how Jack was doing his duty, and what did he
find but Jack asleep with his face to the sod, Browney grazing near a
thorn-tree, one end of a long rope round her horns, and the other end
round the tree, and the rest of the beasts all trampling and eating the
green wheat. Down came the switch on Jack.

"Jack, you vagabone, do you see what the cows are at?"

"And do you blame, master?"

"To be sure, you lazy sluggard, I do?"

"Hand me out one pound thirteen and fourpence, master. You said if I
only kept Browney out of mischief, the rest would do no harm. There she
is as harmless as a lamb. Are you sorry for hiring me, master?"

"To be--that is, not at all. I'll give you your money when you go to
dinner. Now, understand me; don't let a cow go out of the field nor
into the wheat the rest of the day."

"Never fear, master!" and neither did he. But the churl would rather
than a great deal he had not hired him.

The next day three heifers were missing, and the master bade Jack go in
search of them.

"Where will I look for them?" said Jack.

"Oh, every place likely and unlikely for them all to be in."

The churl was getting very exact in his words. When he was coming into
the bawn at dinner-time, what work did he find Jack at but pulling
armfuls of the thatch off the roof, and peeping into the holes he was
making?

"What are you doing there, you rascal?"

"Sure, I'm looking for the heifers, poor things!"

"What would bring them there?"

"I don't think anything could bring them in it; but I looked first into
the likely places, that is, the cow-houses, and the pastures, and the
fields next 'em, and now I'm looking in the unlikeliest place I can
think of. Maybe it's not pleasing to you it is."

"And to be sure it isn't pleasing to me, you aggravating goose-cap!"

"Please, sir, hand me one pound thirteen and four pence before you sit
down to your dinner. I'm afraid it's sorrow that's on you for hiring me
at all."

"May the div--oh no; I'm not sorry. Will you begin, if you please, and
put in the thatch again, just as if you were doing it for your mother's
cabin?"

"Oh, faith I will, sir, with a heart and a half;" and by the time the
farmer came out from his dinner, Jack had the roof better than it was
before, for he made the boy give him new straw.

Says the master when he came out, "Go, Jack, and look for the heifers,
and bring them home."

"And where will I look for 'em?"

"Go and search for them as if they were your own." The heifers were all
in the paddock before sunset.

Next morning, says the master, "Jack, the path across the bog to the
pasture is very bad; the sheep does be sinking in it every step; go and
make the sheep's feet a good path." About an hour after he came to the
edge of the bog, and what did he find Jack at but sharpening a carving
knife, and the sheep standing or grazing round.

"Is this the way you are mending the path, Jack?" said he.

"Everything must have a beginning, master," said Jack, "and a thing
well begun is half done. I am sharpening the knife, and I'll have the
feet off every sheep in the flock while you'd be blessing yourself."

"Feet off my sheep, you anointed rogue! and what would you be taking
their feet off for?"

"An' sure to mend the path as you told me. Says you, 'Jack, make a path
with the foot of the sheep.'"

"Oh, you fool, I meant make good the path for the sheep's feet."

"It's a pity you didn't say so, master. Hand me out one pound thirteen
and fourpence if you don't like me to finish my job."

"Divel do you good with your one pound thirteen and fourpence!"

"It's better pray than curse, master. Maybe you're sorry for your
bargain?"

"And to be sure I am--not yet, any way."

The next night the master was going to a wedding; and says he to Jack,
before he set out: "I'll leave at midnight, and I wish you, to come and
be with me home, for fear I might be overtaken with the drink. If
you're there before, you may throw a sheep's eye at me, and I'll be
sure to see that they'll give you something for yourself."

About eleven o'clock, while the master was in great spirits, he felt
something clammy hit him on the cheek. It fell beside his tumbler, and
when he looked at it what was it but the eye of a sheep. Well, he
couldn't imagine who threw it at him, or why it was thrown at him.
After a little he got a blow on the other cheek, and still it was by
another sheep's eye. Well, he was very vexed, but he thought better to
say nothing. In two minutes more, when he was opening his mouth to take
a sup, another sheep's eye was slapped into it. He sputtered it out,
and cried, "Man o' the house, isn't it a great shame for you to have
any one in the room that would do such a nasty thing?"

"Master," says Jack, "don't blame the honest man. Sure it's only myself
that was thrown' them sheep's eyes at you, to remind you I was here,
and that I wanted to drink the bride and bridegroom's health. You know
yourself bade me."

"I know that you are a great rascal; and where did you get the eyes?"

"An' where would I get em' but in the heads of your own sheep? Would
you have me meddle with the bastes of any neighbour, who might put me
in the Stone Jug for it?"

"Sorrow on me that ever I had the bad luck to meet with you."

"You're all witness," said Jack, "that my master says he is sorry for
having met with me. My time is up. Master, hand me over double wages,
and come into the next room, and lay yourself out like a man that has
some decency in him, till I take a strip of skin an inch broad from
your shoulder to your hip."

Every one shouted out against that; but, says Jack, "You didn't hinder
him when he took the same strips from the backs of my two brothers, and
sent them home in that state, and penniless, to their poor mother."

When the company heard the rights of the business, they were only too
eager to see the job done. The master bawled and roared, but there was
no help at hand. He was stripped to his hips, and laid on the floor in
the next room, and Jack had the carving knife in his hand ready to
begin.

"Now you cruel old villain," said he, giving the knife a couple of
scrapes along the floor, "I'll make you an offer. Give me, along with
my double wages, two hundred guineas to support my poor brothers, and
I'll do without the strap."

"No!" said he, "I'd let you skin me from head to foot first."

"Here goes then," said Jack with a grin, but the first little scar he
gave, Churl roared out, "Stop your hand; I'll give the money."

"Now, neighbours," said Jack, "you mustn't think worse of me than I
deserve. I wouldn't have the heart to take an eye out of a rat itself;
I got half a dozen of them from the butcher, and only used three of
them."

So all came again into the other room, and Jack was made sit down, and
everybody drank his health, and he drank everybody's health at one
offer. And six stout fellows saw himself and the master home, and
waited in the parlour while he went up and brought down the two hundred
guineas, and double wages for Jack himself. When he got home, he
brought the summer along with him to the poor mother and the disabled
brothers; and he was no more Jack the Fool in the people's mouths, but
"Skin Churl Jack."




BETH GELLERT

Print Llewelyn had a favourite greyhound named Gellert that had been
given to him by his father-in-law, King John. He was as gentle as a
lamb at home but a lion in the chase. One day Llewelyn went to the
chase and blew his horn in front of his castle. All his other dogs came
to the call but Gellert never answered it. So he blew a louder blast on
his horn and called Gellert by name, but still the greyhound did not
come. At last Prince Llewelyn could wait no longer and went off to the
hunt without Gellert. He had little sport that day because Gellert was
not there, the swiftest and boldest of his hounds.

He turned back in a rage to  his castle, and as he came to the gate,
who should he see but Gellert come bounding out to meet him. But when
the hound came near him, the Prince was startled to see that his lips
and fangs were dripping with blood. Llewelyn started back and the
greyhound crouched down at his feet as if surprised or afraid at the
way his master greeted him.

Now Prince Llewelyn had a little son a year old with whom Gellert used
to play, and a terrible thought crossed the Prince's mind that made him
rush towards the child's nursery. And the nearer he came the more blood
and disorder he found about the rooms. He rushed into it and found the
child's cradle overturned and daubed with blood.

Prince Llewelyn grew more and more terrified, and sought for his little
son everywhere. He could find him nowhere but only signs of some
terrible conflict in which much blood had been shed. At last he felt
sure the dog had destroyed his child, and shouting to Gellert,
"Monster, thou hast devoured my child," he drew out his sword and
plunged it in the greyhound's side, who fell with a deep yell and still
gazing in his master's eyes.

As Gellert raised his dying yell, a little child's cry answered it from
beneath the cradle, and there Llewelyn found his child unharmed and
just awakened from sleep. But just beside him lay the body of a great
gaunt wolf all torn to pieces and covered with blood. Too late,
Llewelyn learned what had happened while he was away. Gellert had
stayed behind to guard the child and had fought and slain the wolf that
had tried to destroy Llewelyn's heir.

In vain was all Llewelyn's grief; he could not bring his faithful dog
to life again. So he buried him outside the castle walls within sight
of the great mountain of Snowdon, where every passer-by might see his
grave, and raised over it a great cairn of stones. And to this day the
place is called Beth Gellert, or the Grave of Gellert.




THE TALE OF IVAN

There were formerly a man and a woman living in the parish of
Llanlavan, in the place which is called Hwrdh. And work became scarce,
so the man said to his wife, "I will go search for work, and you may
live here." So he took fair leave, and travelled far toward the East,
and at last came to the house of a farmer and asked for work.

"What work can ye do?" said the farmer. "I can do all kinds of work,"
said Ivan. Then they agreed upon three pounds for the year's wages.

When the end of the year came his master showed him the three pounds.
"See, Ivan," said he, "here's your wage; but if you will give it me
back I'll give you a piece of advice instead."

"Give me my wage," said Ivan.

"No, I'll not," said the master; "I'll explain my advice."

"Tell it me, then," said Ivan.

Then said the master, "Never leave the old road for the sake of a new
one."

After that they agreed for another year at the old wages, and at the
end of it Ivan took instead a piece of advice, and this was it: "Never
lodge where an old man is married to a young woman."

The same thing happened at the end of the third year, when the piece of
advice was: "Honesty is the best policy."

But Ivan would not stay longer, but wanted to go back to his wife.

"Don't go to-day," said his master; "my wife bakes to-morrow, and she
shall make thee a cake to take home to thy good woman."

And when Ivan was going to leave, "Here," said his master, "here is a
cake for thee to take home to thy wife, and, when ye are most joyous
together, then break the cake, and not sooner."

So he took fair leave of them and travelled towards home, and at last
he came to Wayn Her, and there he met three merchants from Tre Rhyn, of
his own parish, coming home from Exeter Fair. "Oho! Ivan," said they,
"come with us; glad are we to see you. Where have you been so long?"

"I have been in service," said Ivan, "and now I'm going home to my
wife."

"Oh, come with us! you'll be right welcome." But when they took the new
road Ivan kept to the old one. And robbers fell upon them before they
had gone far from Ivan as they were going by the fields of the houses
in the meadow. They began to cry out, "Thieves!" and Ivan shouted out
"Thieves!" too. And when the robbers heard Ivan's shout they ran away,
and the merchants went by the new road and Ivan by the old one till
they met again at Market-Jew.

"Oh, Ivan," said the merchants, "we are beholding to you; but for you
we would have been lost men. Come lodge with us at our cost, and
welcome."

When they came to the place where they used to lodge, Ivan said, "I
must see the host."

"The host," they cried; "what do you want with the host? Here is the
hostess, and she's young and pretty. If you want to see the host you'll
find him in the kitchen."

So he went into the kitchen to see the host; he found him a weak old
man turning the spit.

"Oh! oh!" quoth Ivan, "I'll not lodge here, but will go next door."

"Not yet," said the merchants, "sup with us, and welcome."

Now it happened that the hostess had plotted with a certain monk in
Market-Jew to murder the old man in his bed that night while the rest
were asleep, and they agreed to lay it on the lodgers.

So while Ivan was in bed next door, there was a hole in the pine-end of
the house, and he saw a light through it. So he got up and looked, and
heard the monk speaking. "I had better cover this hole," said he, "or
people in the next house may see our deeds." So he stood with his back
against it while the hostess killed the old man.

But meanwhile Ivan out with his knife, and putting it through the hole,
cut a round piece off the monk's robe. The very next morning the
hostess raised the cry that her husband was murdered, and as there was
neither man nor child in the house but the merchants, she declared they
ought to be hanged for it.

So they were taken and carried to prison, till a last Ivan came to
them. "Alas! alas! Ivan," cried they, "bad luck sticks to us; our host
was killed last night, and we shall be hanged for it."

"Ah, tell the justices," said Ivan, "to summon the real murderers."

"Who knows," they replied, "who committed the crime?"

"Who committed the crime!" said Ivan. "If I cannot prove who committed
the crime, hang me in your stead."

So he told all he knew, and brought out the piece of cloth from the
monk's robe, and with that the merchants were set at liberty, and the
hostess and the monk were seized and hanged.

Then they came all together out of Market-Jew, and they said to him:
"Come as far as Coed Carrn y Wylfa, the Wood of the Heap of Stones of
Watching, in the parish of Burman." Then their two roads separated, and
though the merchants wished Ivan to go with them, he would not go with
them, but went straight home to his wife.

And when his wife saw him she said: "Home in the nick of time. Here's a
purse of gold that I've found; it has no name, but sure it belongs to
the great lord yonder. I was just thinking what to do when you came."

Then Ivan thought of the third counsel, and he said "Let us go and give
it to the great lord."

So they went up to the castle, but the great lord was not in it, so
they left the purse with the servant that minded the gate, and then
they went home again and lived in quiet for a time.

But one day the great lord stopped at their house for a drink of water,
and Ivan's wife said to him: "I hope your lordship found your
lordship's purse quite safe with all its money in it."

"What purse is that you are talking about?" said the lord.

"Sure, it's your lordship's purse that I left at the castle," said Ivan.

"Come with me and we will see into the matter," said the lord.

So Ivan and his wife went up to the castle, and there they pointed out
the man to whom they had given the purse, and he had to give it up and
was sent away from the castle. And the lord was so pleased with Ivan
that he made him his servant in the stead of the thief.

"Honesty's the best policy!" quoth Ivan, as he skipped about in his new
quarters. "How joyful I am!"

Then he thought of his old master's cake that he was to eat when he was
most joyful, and when he broke it, to and behold, inside it was his
wages for the three years he had been with him.




ANDREW COFFEY

My grandfather, Andrew Coffey, was known to the whole barony as a
quiet, decent man. And if the whole barony knew him, he knew the whole
barony, every inch, hill and dale, bog and pasture, field and covert.
Fancy his surprise one evening, when he found himself in a part of the
demesne he couldn't recognise a bit. He and his good horse were always
stumbling up against some tree or stumbling down into some bog-hole
that by rights didn't ought to be there. On the top of all this the
rain came pelting down wherever there was a clearing, and the cold
March wind tore through the trees. Glad he was then when he saw a light
in the distance, and drawing near found a cabin, though for the life of
him he couldn't think how it came there. However, in he walked, after
tying up his horse, and right welcome was the brushwood fire blazing on
the hearth. And there stood a chair right and tight, that seemed to
say, "Come, sit down in me." There wasn't a soul else in the room.
Well, he did sit, and got a little warm and cheered after his
drenching. But all the while he was wondering and wondering.

"Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey!"

Good heavens! who was calling him, and not a soul in sight? Look around
as he might, indoors and out, he could find no creature with two legs
or four, for his horse was gone.

"ANDREW COFFEY! ANDREW COFFEY! tell me a story."

It was louder this time, and it was nearer. And then what a thing to
ask for! It was bad enough not to be let sit by the fire and dry
oneself, without being bothered for a story.

"ANDREW COFFEY! ANDREW COFFEY!! Tell me a story, or it'll be the worse
for you."

My poor grandfather was so dumbfounded that he could only stand and
stare.

"ANDREW COFFEY! ANDREW COFFEY! I told you it'd be the worse for you."

And with that, out there bounced, from a cupboard that Andrew Coffey
had never noticed before, _a man_. And the man was in a towering rage.
But it wasn't that. And he carried as fine a blackthorn as you'd wish
to crack a man's head with. But it wasn't that either. But when my
grandfather clapped eyes on him, he knew him for Patrick Rooney, and
all the world knew _he'd_ gone overboard, fishing one night long years
before.

Andrew Coffey would neither stop nor stay, but he took to his heels and
was out of the house as hard as he could. He ran and he ran taking
little thought of what was before till at last he ran up against a big
tree. And then he sat down to rest.

He hadn't sat for a moment when he heard voices.

"It's heavy he is, the vagabond." "Steady now, we'll rest when we get
under the big tree yonder." Now that happened to be the tree under
which Andrew Coffey was sitting. At least he thought so, for seeing a
branch handy he swung himself up by it and was soon snugly hidden away.
Better see than be seen, thought he.

The rain had stopped and the wind fallen. The night was blacker than
ever, but Andrew Coffey could see four men, and they were carrying
between them a long box. Under the tree they came, set the box down,
opened it, and who should they bring out but--Patrick Rooney. Never a
word did he say, and he looked as pale as old snow.

Well, one gathered brushwood, and another took out tinder and flint,
and soon they had a big fire roaring, and my grandfather could see
Patrick plainly enough. If he had kept still before, he kept stiller
now. Soon they had four poles up and a pole across, right over the
fire, for all the world like a spit, and on to the pole they slung
Patrick Rooney.

"He'll do well enough," said one; "but who's to mind him whilst we're
away, who'll turn the fire, who'll see that he doesn't burn?"

With that Patrick opened his lips: "Andrew Coffey," said he.

"Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey! Andrew Coffey!"

"I'm much obliged to you, gentlemen," said Andrew Coffey, "but indeed I
know nothing about the business."

"You'd better come down, Andrew Coffey," said Patrick.

It was the second time he spoke, and Andrew Coffey decided he would
come down. The four men went off and he was left all alone with Patrick.

Then he sat and he kept the fire even, and he kept the spit turning,
and all the while Patrick looked at him.

Poor Andrew Coffey couldn't make it all out at all, at all, and he
stared at Patrick and at the fire, and he thought of the little house
in the wood, till he felt quite dazed.

"Ah, but it's burning me ye are!" says Patrick, very short and sharp.

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," said my grandfather "but might I ask you
a question?"

"If you want a crooked answer," said Patrick; "turn away or it'll be
the worse for you."

But my grandfather couldn't get it out of his head; hadn't everybody,
far and near, said Patrick had fallen overboard. There was enough to
think about, and my grandfather did think.

"ANDREW COFFEY! ANDREW COFFEY! IT'S BURNING ME YE ARE."

Sorry enough my grandfather was, and he vowed he wouldn't do so again.

"You'd better not," said Patrick, and he gave him a cock of his eye,
and a grin of his teeth, that just sent a shiver down Andrew Coffey's
back. Well it was odd, that here he should be in a thick wood he had
never set eyes upon, turning Patrick Rooney upon a spit. You can't
wonder at my grandfather thinking and thinking and not minding the fire.

"ANDREW COFFEY, ANDREW COFFEY, IT'S THE DEATH OF YOU I'LL BE."

And with that what did my grandfather see, but Patrick unslinging
himself from the spit and his eyes glared and his teeth glistened.

It was neither stop nor stay my grandfather made, but out he ran into
the night of the wood. It seemed to him there wasn't a stone but was
for his stumbling, not a branch but beat his face, not a bramble but
tore his skin. And wherever it was clear the rain pelted down and the
cold March wind howled along.

Glad he was to see a light, and a minute after he was kneeling, dazed,
drenched, and bedraggled by the hearth side. The brushwood flamed, and
the brushwood crackled, and soon my grandfather began to feel a little
warm and dry and easy in his mind.

"ANDREW COFFEY! ANDREW COFFEY!"

It's hard for a man to jump when he has been through all my grandfather
had, but jump he did. And when he looked around, where should he find
himself but in the very cabin he had first met Patrick in.

"Andrew Coffey, Andrew Coffey, tell me a story."

"Is it a story you want?" said my grandfather as bold as may be, for he
was just tired of being frightened. "Well if you can tell me the rights
of this one, I'll be thankful."

And he told the tale of what had befallen him from first to last that
night. The tale was long, and may be Andrew Coffey was weary. It's
asleep he must have fallen, for when he awoke he lay on the hill-side
under the open heavens, and his horse grazed at his side.




THE BATTLE OF THE BIRDS

I will tell you a story about the wren. There was once a farmer who was
seeking a servant, and the wren met him and said: "What are you
seeking?"

"I am seeking a servant," said the farmer to the wren.

"Will you take me?" said the wren.

"You, you poor creature, what good would you do?"

"Try me," said the wren.

So he engaged him, and the first work he set him to do was threshing in
the barn. The wren threshed (what did he thresh with? Why a flail to be
sure), and he knocked off one grain. A mouse came out and she eats that.

"I'll trouble you not to do that again," said the wren.

He struck again, and he struck off two grains. Out came the mouse and
she eats them. So they arranged a contest to see who was strongest, and
the wren brings his twelve birds, and the mouse her tribe.

"You have your tribe with you," said the wren.

"As well as yourself," said the mouse, and she struck out her leg
proudly. But the wren broke it with his flail, and there was a pitched
battle on a set day.

When every creature and bird was gathering to battle, the son of the
king of Tethertown said that he would go to see the battle, and that he
would bring sure word home to his father the king, who would be king of
the creatures this year. The battle was over before he arrived all but
one fight, between a great black raven and a snake. The snake was
twined about the raven's neck, and the raven held the snake's throat in
his beak, and it seemed as if the snake would get the victory over the
raven. When the king's son saw this he helped the raven, and with one
blow takes the head off the snake. When the raven had taken breath, and
saw that the snake was dead, he said, "For thy kindness to me this day,
I will give thee a sight. Come up now on the root of my two wings." The
king's son put his hands about the raven before his wings, and, before
he stopped, he took him over nine Bens, and nine Glens, and nine
Mountain Moors.

"Now," said the raven, "see you that house yonder? Go now to it. It is
a sister of mine that makes her dwelling in it; and I will go bail that
you are welcome. And if she asks you, Were you at the battle of the
birds? say you were. And if she asks, 'Did you see any one like me,'
say you did, but be sure that you meet me to-morrow morning here, in
this place." The king's son got good and right good treatment that
night. Meat of each meat, drink of each drink, warm water to his feet,
and a soft bed for his limbs.

On the next day the raven gave him the same sight over six Bens, and
six Glens, and six Mountain Moors. They saw a bothy far off, but,
though far off, they were soon there. He got good treatment this night,
as before--plenty of meat and drink, and warm water to his feet, and a
soft bed to his limbs--and on the next day it was the same thing, over
three Bens and three Glens, and three Mountain Moors.

On the third morning, instead of seeing the raven as at the other
times, who should meet him but the handsomest lad he ever saw, with
gold rings in his hair, with a bundle in his hand. The king's son asked
this lad if he had seen a big black raven.

Said the lad to him, "You will never see the raven again, for I am that
raven. I was put under spells by a bad druid; it was meeting you that
loosed me, and for that you shall get this bundle. Now," said the lad,
"you must turn back on the self-same steps, and lie a night in each
house as before; but you must not loose the bundle which I gave ye,
till in the place where you would most wish to dwell."

The king's son turned his back to the lad, and his face to his father's
house; and he got lodging from the raven's sisters, just as he got it
when going forward. When he was nearing his father's house he was going
through a close wood. It seemed to him that the bundle was growing
heavy, and he thought he would look what was in it.

When he loosed the bundle he was astonished. In a twinkling he sees the
very grandest place he ever saw. A great castle, and an orchard about
the castle, in which was every kind of fruit and herb. He stood full of
wonder and regret for having loosed the bundle--for it was not in his
power to put it back again--and he would have wished this pretty place
to be in the pretty little green hollow that was opposite his father's
house; but he looked up and saw a great giant coming towards him.

"Bad's the place where you have built the house, king's son," says the
giant.

"Yes, but it is not here I would wish it to be, though it happens to be
here by mishap," says the king's son.

"What's the reward for putting it back in the bundle as it was before?"

"What's the reward you would ask?" says the king's son.

"That you will give me the first son you have when he is seven years of
age," says the giant.

"If I have a son you shall have him," said the king's son.

In a twinkling the giant put each garden, and orchard, and castle in
the bundle as they were before.

"Now," says the giant, "take your own road, and I will take mine; but
mind your promise, and if you forget I will remember."

The king's son took to the road, and at the end of a few days he
reached the place he was fondest of. He loosed the bundle, and the
castle was just as it was before. And when he opened the castle door he
sees the handsomest maiden he ever cast eye upon.

"Advance, king's son," said the pretty maid; "everything is in order
for you, if you will marry me this very day."

"It's I that am willing," said the king's son. And on the same day they
married.

But at the end of a day and seven years, who should be seen coming to
the castle but the giant. The king's son was reminded of his promise to
the giant, and till now he had not told his promise to the queen.

"Leave the matter between me and the giant," says the queen.

"Turn out your son," says the giant; "mind your promise."

"You shall have him," says the king, "when his mother puts him in order
for his journey."

The queen dressed up the cook's son, and she gave him to the giant by
the hand. The giant went away with him; but he had not gone far when he
put a rod in the hand of the little laddie. The giant asked him--

"If thy father had that rod what would he do with it?"

"If my father had that rod he would beat the dogs and the cats, so that
they shouldn't be going near the king's meat," said the little laddie.

"Thou'rt the cook's son," said the giant. He catches him by the two
small ankles and knocks him against the stone that was beside him. The
giant turned back to the castle in rage and madness, and he said that
if they did not send out the king's son to him, the highest stone of
the castle would be the lowest.

Said the queen to the king, "We'll try it yet; the butler's son is of
the same age as our son."

She dressed up the butler's son, and she gives him to the giant by the
hand. The giant had not gone far when he put the rod in his hand.

"If thy father had that rod," says the giant, "what would he do with
it?"

"He would beat the dogs and the cats when they would be coming near the
king's bottles and glasses."

"Thou art the son of the butler," says the giant and dashed his brains
out too. The giant returned in a very great rage and anger. The earth
shook under the sole of his feet, and the castle shook and all that was
in it.

"OUT HERE WITH THY SON," says the giant, "or in a twinkling the stone
that is highest in the dwelling will be the lowest." So they had to
give the king's son to the giant.

When they were gone a little bit from the earth, the giant showed him
the rod that was in his hand and said: "What would thy father do with
this rod if he had it?"

The king's son said: "My father has a braver rod than that."

And the giant asked him, "Where is thy father when he has that brave
rod?"

And the king's son said: "He will be sitting in his kingly chair."

Then the giant understood that he had the right one.

The giant took him to his own house, and he reared him as his own son.
On a day of days when the giant was from home, the lad heard the
sweetest music he ever heard in a room at the top of the giant's house.
At a glance he saw the finest face he had ever seen. She beckoned to
him to come a bit nearer to her, and she said her name was Auburn Mary
but she told him to go this time, but to be sure to be at the same
place about that dead midnight.

And as he promised he did. The giant's daughter was at his side in a
twinkling, and she said, "To-morrow you will get the choice of my two
sisters to marry; but say that you will not take either, but me. My
father wants me to marry the son of the king of the Green City, but I
don't like him." On the morrow the giant took out his three daughters,
and he said:

"Now, son of the king of Tethertown, thou hast not lost by living with
me so long. Thou wilt get to wife one of the two eldest of my
daughters, and with her leave to go home with her the day after the
wedding."

"If you will give me this pretty little one," says the king's son, "I
will take you at your word."

The giant's wrath kindled, and he said: "Before thou gett'st her thou
must do the three things that I ask thee to do."

"Say on," says the king's son.

The giant took him to the byre.

"Now," says the giant, "a hundred cattle are stabled here, and it has
not been cleansed for seven years. I am going from home to-day, and if
this byre is not cleaned before night comes, so clean that a golden
apple will run from end to end of it, not only thou shalt not get my
daughter, but 'tis only a drink of thy fresh, goodly, beautiful blood
that will quench my thirst this night."

He begins cleaning the byre, but he might just as well to keep baling
the great ocean. After midday when sweat was blinding him, the giant's
youngest daughter came where he was, and she said to him:

"You are being punished, king's son."

"I am that," says the king's son.

"Come over," says Auburn Mary, "and lay down your weariness."

"I will do that," says he, "there is but death awaiting me, at any
rate." He sat down near her. He was so tired that he fell asleep beside
her. When he awoke, the giant's daughter was not to be seen, but the
byre was so well cleaned that a golden apple would run from end to end
of it and raise no stain. In comes the giant, and he said:

"Hast thou cleaned the byre, king's son?"

"I have cleaned it," says he.

"Somebody cleaned it," says the giant.

"You did not clean it, at all events," said the king's son.

"Well, well!" says the giant, "since thou wert so active to-day, thou
wilt get to this time to-morrow to thatch this byre with birds' down,
from birds with no two feathers of one colour."

The king's son was on foot before the sun; he caught up his bow and his
quiver of arrows to kill the birds. He took to the moors, but if he
did, the birds were not so easy to take. He was running after them till
the sweat was blinding him. About mid-day who should come but Auburn
Mary.

"You are exhausting yourself, king's son," says she.

"I am," said he.

"There fell but these two blackbirds, and both of one colour."

"Come over and lay down your weariness on this pretty hillock," says
the giant's daughter.

"It's I am willing," said he.

He thought she would aid him this time, too, and he sat down near her,
and he was not long there till he fell asleep.

When he awoke, Auburn Mary was gone. He thought he would go back to the
house, and he sees the byre thatched with feathers. When the giant came
home, he said:

"Hast thou thatched the byre, king's son?"

"I thatched it," says he.

"Somebody thatched it," says the giant.

"You did not thatch it," says the king's son.

"Yes, yes!" says the giant. "Now," says the giant, "there is a fir tree
beside that loch down there, and there is a magpie's nest in its top.
The eggs thou wilt find in the nest. I must have them for my first
meal. Not one must be burst or broken, and there are five in the nest."

Early in the morning the king's son went where the tree was, and that
tree was not hard to hit upon. Its match was not in the whole wood.
From the foot to the first branch was five hundred feet. The king's son
was going all round the tree. She came who was always bringing help to
him.

"You are losing the skin of your hands and feet."

"Ach! I am," says he. "I am no sooner up than down."

"This is no time for stopping," says the giant's daughter. "Now you
must kill me, strip the flesh from my bones, take all those bones
apart, and use them as steps for climbing the tree. When you are
climbing the tree, they will stick to the glass as if they had grown
out of it; but when you are coming down, and have put your foot on each
one, they will drop into your hand when you touch them. Be sure and
stand on each bone, leave none untouched; if you do, it will stay
behind. Put all my flesh into this clean cloth by the side of the
spring at the roots of the tree. When you come to the earth, arrange my
bones together, put the flesh over them, sprinkle it with water from
the spring, and I shall be alive before you. But don't forget a bone of
me on the tree."

"How could I kill you," asked the king's son, "after what you have done
for me?"

"If you won't obey, you and I are done for," said Auburn Mary. "You
must climb the tree, or we are lost; and to climb the tree you must do
as I say."  The king's son obeyed. He killed Auburn Mary, cut the flesh
from her body, and unjointed the bones, as she had told him.

As he went up, the king's son put the bones of Auburn Mary's body
against the side of the tree, using them as steps, till he came under
the nest and stood on the last bone.

Then he took the eggs, and coming down, put his foot on every bone,
then took it with him, till he came to the last bone, which was so near
the ground that he failed to touch it with his foot.

He now placed all the bones of Auburn Mary in order again at the side
of the spring, put the flesh on them, sprinkled it with water from the
spring. She rose up before him, and said: "Didn't I tell you not to
leave a bone of my body without stepping on it? Now I am lame for life!
You left my little finger on the tree without touching it, and I have
but nine fingers."

"Now," says she, "go home with the eggs quickly, and you will get me to
marry to-night if you can know me. I and my two sisters will be arrayed
in the same garments, and made like each other, but look at me when my
father says, 'Go to thy wife, king's son;' and you will see a hand
without a little finger."

He gave the eggs to the giant.

"Yes, yes!" says the giant, "be making ready for your marriage."

Then, indeed, there was a wedding, and it _was_ a wedding! Giants and
gentlemen, and the son of the king of the Green City was in the midst
of them. They were married, and the dancing began, that was a dance!
The giant's house was shaking from top to bottom.

But bed time came, and the giant said, "It is time for thee to go to
rest, son of the king of Tethertown; choose thy bride to take with thee
from amidst those."

She put out the hand off which the little finger was, and he caught her
by the hand.

"Thou hast aimed well this time too; but there is no knowing but we may
meet thee another way," said the giant.

But to rest they went. "Now," says she, "sleep not, or else you are a
dead man. We must fly quick, quick, or for certain my father will kill
you."

Out they went, and on the blue grey filly in the stable they mounted.
"Stop a while," says she, "and I will play a trick to the old hero."
She jumped in, and cut an apple into nine shares, and she put two
shares at the head of the bed, and two shares at the foot of the bed,
and two shares at the door of the kitchen, and two shares at the big
door, and one outside the house.

The giant awoke and called, "Are you asleep?"

"Not yet," said the apple that was at the head of the bed.

At the end of a while he called again.

"Not yet," said the apple that was at the foot of the bed.

A while after this he called again: "Are your asleep?"

"Not yet," said the apple at the kitchen door.

The giant called again.

The apple that was at the big door answered.

"You are now going far from me," says the giant.

"Not yet," says the apple that was outside the house.

"You are flying," says the giant. The giant jumped on his feet, and to
the bed he went, but it was cold--empty.

"My own daughter's tricks are trying me," said the giant. "Here's after
them," says he.

At the mouth of day, the giant's daughter said that her father's breath
was burning her back.

"Put your hand, quick," said she, "in the ear of the grey filly, and
whatever you find in it, throw it behind us."

"There is a twig of sloe tree," said he.

"Throw it behind us," said she.

No sooner did he that, than there were twenty miles of blackthorn wood,
so thick that scarce a weasel could go through it.

The giant came headlong, and there he is fleecing his head and neck in
the thorns.

"My own daughter's tricks are here as before," said the giant; "but if
I had my own big axe and wood knife here, I would not be long making a
way through this."

He went home for the big axe and the wood knife, and sure he was not
long on his journey, and he was the boy behind the big axe. He was not
long making a way through the blackthorn.

"I will leave the axe and the wood knife here till I return," says he.

"If you leave 'em, leave 'em," said a hoodie that was in a tree, "we'll
steal 'em, steal 'em."

"If you will do that," says the giant, "I must take them home." He
returned home and left them at the house.

At the heat of day the giant's daughter felt her father's breath
burning her back.

"Put your finger in the filly's ear, and throw behind whatever you find
in it."

He got a splinter of grey stone, and in a twinkling there were twenty
miles, by breadth and height, of great grey rock behind them.

The giant came full pelt, but past the rock he could not go.

"The tricks of my own daughter are the hardest things that ever met
me," says the giant; "but if I had my lever and my mighty mattock, I
would not be long in making my way through this rock also."

There was no help for it, but to turn the chase for them; and he was
the boy to split the stones. He was not long in making a road through
the rock.

"I will leave the tools here, and I will return no more."

"If you leave 'em, leave 'em," says the hoodie, "we will steal 'em,
steal 'em."

"Do that if you will; there is no time to go back."

At the time of breaking the watch, the giant's daughter said that she
felt her father's breath burning her back.

"Look in the filly's ear, king's son, or else we are lost."

He did so, and it was a bladder of water that was in her ear this time.
He threw it behind him and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty miles
in length and breadth, behind them.

The giant came on, but with the speed he had on him, he was in the
middle of the loch, and he went under, and he rose no more.

On the next day the young companions were come in sight of his father's
house. "Now," says she, "my father is drowned, and he won't trouble us
any more; but before we go further," says she, "go you to your father's
house, and tell that you have the likes of me; but let neither man nor
creature kiss you, for if you do, you will not remember that you have
ever seen me."

Every one he met gave him welcome and luck, and he charged his father
and mother not to kiss him; but as mishap was to be, an old greyhound
was indoors, and she knew him, and jumped up to his mouth, and after
that he did not remember the giant's daughter.

She was sitting at the well's side as he left her, but the king's son
was not coming. In the mouth of night she climbed up into a tree of oak
that was beside the well, and she lay in the fork of that tree all
night. A shoemaker had a house near the well, and about mid-day on the
morrow, the shoemaker asked his wife to go for a drink for him out of
the well. When the shoemaker's wife reached the well, and when she saw
the shadow of her that was in the tree, thinking it was her own
shadow--and she never thought till now that she was so handsome--she
gave a cast to the dish that was in her hand, and it was broken on the
ground, and she took herself to the house without vessel or water.

"Where is the water, wife?" said the shoemaker.

"You shambling, contemptible old carle, without grace, I have stayed
too long your water and wood thrall."

"I think, wife, that you have turned crazy. Go you, daughter, quickly,
and fetch a drink for your father."

His daughter went, and in the same way so it happened to her. She never
thought till now that she was so lovable, and she took herself home.

"Up with the drink," said her father.

"You home-spun shoe carle, do you think I am fit to be your thrall?"

The poor shoemaker thought that they had taken a turn in their
understandings, and he went himself to the well. He saw the shadow of
the maiden in the well, and he looked up to the tree, and he sees the
finest woman he ever saw.

"Your seat is wavering, but your face is fair," said the shoemaker.
"Come down, for there is need of you for a short while at my house."

The shoemaker understood that this was the shadow that had driven his
people mad. The shoemaker took her to his house, and he said that he
had but a poor bothy, but that she should get a share of all that was
in it.

One day, the shoemaker had shoes ready, for on that very day the king's
son was to be married. The shoemaker was going to the castle with the
shoes of the young people, and the girl said to the shoemaker, "I would
like to get a sight of the king's son before he marries."

"Come with me," says the shoemaker, "I am well acquainted with the
servants at the castle, and you shall get a sight of the king's son and
all the company."

And when the gentles saw the pretty woman that was here they took her
to the wedding-room, and they filled for her a glass of wine. When she
was going to drink what is in it, a flame went up out of the glass, and
a golden pigeon and a silver pigeon sprang out of it. They were flying
about when three grains of barley fell on the floor. The silver pigeon
sprung, and ate that up.

Said the golden pigeon to him, "If you remembered when I cleared the
byre, you would not eat that without giving me a share."

Again there fell three other grains of barley, and the silver pigeon
sprung, and ate that up as before.

"If you remembered when I thatched the byre, you would not eat that
without giving me my share," says the golden pigeon.

Three other grains fall, and the silver pigeon sprung, and ate that up.

"If you remembered when I harried the magpie's nest, you would not eat
that without giving me my share," says the golden pigeon; "I lost my
little finger bringing it down, and I want it still."

The king's son minded, and he knew who it was that was before him.

"Well," said the king's son to the guests at the feast, "when I was a
little younger than I am now, I lost the key of a casket that I had. I
had a new key made, but after it was brought to me I found the old one.
Now, I'll leave it to any one here to tell me what I am to do. Which of
the keys should I keep?"

"My advice to you," said one of the guests, "is to keep the old key,
for it fits the lock better and you're more used to it."

Then the king's son stood up and said: "I thank you for a wise advice
and an honest word. This is my bride the daughter of the giant who
saved my life at the risk of her own. I'll have her and no other woman."

So the king's son married Auburn Mary and the wedding lasted long and
all were happy. But all I got was butter on a live coal, porridge in a
basket, and they sent me for water to the stream, and the paper shoes
came to an end.




BREWERY OF EGGSHELLS

In Treneglwys there is a certain shepherd's cot known by the name of
Twt y Cymrws because of the strange strife that occurred there. There
once lived there a man and his wife, and they had twins whom the woman
nursed tenderly. One day she was called away to the house of a
neighbour at some distance. She did not much like going and leaving her
little ones all alone in a solitary house, especially as she had heard
tell of the good folk haunting the neighbourhood.

Well, she went and came back as soon as she could, but on her way back
she was frightened to see some old elves of the blue petticoat crossing
her path though it was midday. She rushed home, but found her two
little ones in the cradle and everything seemed as it was before.

But after a time the good people began to suspect that something was
wrong, for the twins didn't grow at all.

The man said: "They're not ours."

The woman said: "Whose else should they be?"

And so arose the great strife so that the neighbours named the cottage
after it. It made the woman very sad, so one evening she made up her
mind to go and see the Wise Man of Llanidloes, for he knew everything
and would advise her what to do.

So she went to Llanidloes and told the case to the Wise Man. Now there
was soon to be a harvest of rye and oats, so the Wise Man said to her,
"When you are getting dinner for the reapers, clear out the shell of a
hen's egg and boil some potage in it, and then take it to the door as
if you meant it as a dinner for the reapers. Then listen if the twins
say anything. If you hear them speaking of things beyond the
understanding of children, go back and take them up and throw them into
the waters of Lake Elvyn. But if you don't hear anything remarkable, do
them no injury."

So when the day of the reap came the woman did all that the Wise Man
ordered, and put the eggshell on the fire and took it off and carried
it to the door, and there she stood and listened. Then she heard one of
the children say to the other:

  Acorn before oak I knew,
    An egg before a hen,
  But I never heard of an eggshell brew
    A dinner for harvest men.

So she went back into the house, seized the children and threw them
into the Llyn, and the goblins in their blue trousers came and saved
their dwarfs and the mother had her own children back and so the great
strife ended.




THE LAD WITH THE GOAT-SKIN

Long ago, a poor widow woman lived down near the iron forge, by
Enniscorth, and she was so poor she had no clothes to put on her son;
so she used to fix him in the ash-hole, near the fire, and pile the
warm ashes about him; and according as he grew up, she sunk the pit
deeper. At last, by hook or by crook, she got a goat-skin, and fastened
it round his waist, and he felt quite grand, and took a walk down the
street. So says she to him next morning, "Tom, you thief, you never
done any good yet, and you six foot high, and past nineteen;--take that
rope and bring me a faggot from the wood."

"Never say't twice, mother," says Tom--"here goes."

When he had it gathered and tied, what should come up but a big giant,
nine foot high, and made a lick of a club at him. Well become Tom, he
jumped a-one side, and picked up a ram-pike; and the first crack he
gave the big fellow, he made him kiss the clod.

"If you have e'er a prayer," says Tom, "now's the time to say it,
before I make fragments of you."

"I have no prayers," says the giant; "but if you spare my life I'll
give you that club; and as long as you keep from sin, you'll win every
battle you ever fight with it."

Tom made no bones about letting him off; and as soon as he got the club
in his hands, he sat down on the bresna, and gave it a tap with the
kippeen, and says, "Faggot, I had great trouble gathering you, and run
the risk of my life for you, the least you can do is to carry me home."
And sure enough, the wind o' the word was all it wanted. It went off
through the wood, groaning and crackling, till it came to the widow's
door.

Well, when the sticks were all burned, Tom was sent off again to pick
more; and this time he had to fight with a giant that had two heads on
him. Tom had a little more trouble with him--that's all; and the
prayers he said, was to give Tom a fife; that nobody could help dancing
when he was playing it. Begonies, he made the big faggot dance home,
with himself sitting on it. The next giant was a beautiful boy with
three heads on him. He had neither prayers nor catechism no more nor
the others; and so he gave Tom a bottle of green ointment, that
wouldn't let you be burned, nor scalded, nor wounded. "And now," says
he, "there's no more of us. You may come and gather sticks here till
little Lunacy Day in Harvest, without giant or fairy-man to disturb
you."

Well, now, Tom was prouder nor ten paycocks, and used to take a walk
down street in the heel of the evening; but some o' the little boys had
no more manners than if they were Dublin jackeens, and put out their
tongues at Tom's club and Tom's goat-skin. He didn't like that at all,
and it would be mean to give one of them a clout. At last, what should
come through the town but a kind of a bellman, only it's a big bugle he
had, and a huntsman's cap on his head, and a kind of a painted shirt.
So this--he wasn't a bellman, and I don't know what to call
him--bugleman, maybe, proclaimed that the King of Dublin's daughter was
so melancholy that she didn't give a laugh for seven years, and that
her father would grant her in marriage to whoever could make her laugh
three times.

"That's the very thing for me to try," says Tom; and so, without
burning any more daylight, he kissed his mother, curled his club at the
little boys, and off he set along the yalla highroad to the town of
Dublin.

At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and
cursed at him instead of letting him in. Tom stood it all for a little
time, but at last one of them--out of fun, as he said--drove his
bayonet half an inch or so into his side. Tom done nothing but take the
fellow by the scruff o' the neck and the waistband of his corduroys,
and fling him into the canal. Some run to pull the fellow out, and
others to let manners into the vulgarian with their swords and daggers;
but a tap from his club sent them headlong into the moat or down on the
stones, and they were soon begging him to stay his hands.

So at last one of them was glad enough to show Tom the way to the
palace-yard; and there was the king, and the queen, and the princess,
in a gallery, looking at all sorts of wrestling, and sword-playing, and
long-dances, and mumming, all to please the princess; but not a smile
came over her handsome face.

Well, they all stopped when they seen the young giant, with his boy's
face, and long black hair, and his short curly beard--for his poor
mother couldn't afford to buy razors--and his great strong arms, and
bare legs, and no covering but the goat-skin that reached from his
waist to his knees. But an envious wizened bit of a fellow, with a red
head, that wished to be married to the princess, and didn't like how
she opened her eyes at Tom, came forward, and asked his business very
snappishly.

"My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess,
God bless her, laugh three times."

"Do you see all them merry fellows and skilful swordsmen," says the
other, "that could eat you up with a grain of salt, and not a mother's
soul of 'em ever got a laugh from her these seven years?"

So the fellows gathered round Tom, and the bad man aggravated him till
he told them he didn't care a pinch o' snuff for the whole bilin' of
'em; let 'em come on, six at a time, and try what they could do.

The king, who was too far off to hear what they were saying, asked what
did the stranger want.

"He wants," says the red-headed fellow, "to make hares of your best
men."

"Oh!" says the king, "if that's the way, let one of 'em turn out and
try his mettle."

So one stood forward, with sword and pot-lid, and made a cut at Tom. He
struck the fellow's elbow with the club, and up over their heads flew
the sword, and down went the owner of it on the gravel from a thump he
got on the helmet. Another took his place, and another, and another,
and then half a dozen at once, and Tom sent swords, helmets, shields,
and bodies, rolling over and over, and themselves bawling out that they
were kilt, and disabled, and damaged, and rubbing their poor elbows and
hips, and limping away. Tom contrived not to kill any one; and the
princess was so amused, that she let a great sweet laugh out of her
that was heard over all the yard.

"King of Dublin," says Tom, "I've quarter your daughter."

And the king didn't know whether he was glad or sorry, and all the
blood in the princess's heart run into her cheeks.

So there was no more fighting that day, and Tom was invited to dine
with the royal family. Next day, Redhead told Tom of a wolf, the size
of a yearling heifer, that used to be serenading about the walls, and
eating people and cattle; and said what a pleasure it would give the
king to have it killed.

"With all my heart," says Tom; "send a jackeen to show me where he
lives, and we'll see how he behaves to a stranger."

The princess was not well pleased, for Tom looked a different person
with fine clothes and a nice green birredh over his long curly hair;
and besides, he'd got one laugh out of her. However, the king gave his
consent; and in an hour and a half the horrible wolf was walking into
the palace-yard, and Tom a step or two behind, with his club on his
shoulder, just as a shepherd would be walking after a pet lamb.

The king and queen and princess were safe up in their gallery, but the
officers and people of the court that wor padrowling about the great
bawn, when they saw the big baste coming in, gave themselves up, and
began to make for doors and gates; and the wolf licked his chops, as if
he was saying, "Wouldn't I enjoy a breakfast off a couple of yez!"

The king shouted out, "O Tom with the Goat-skin, take away that
terrible wolf, and you must have all my daughter."

But Tom didn't mind him a bit. He pulled out his flute and began to
play like vengeance; and dickens a man or boy in the yard but began
shovelling away heel and toe, and the wolf himself was obliged to get
on his hind legs and dance "Tatther Jack Walsh," along with the rest. A
good deal of the people got inside, and shut the doors, the way the
hairy fellow wouldn't pin them; but Tom kept playing, and the outsiders
kept dancing and shouting, and the wolf kept dancing and roaring with
the pain his legs were giving him; and all the time he had his eyes on
Redhead, who was shut out along with the rest. Wherever Redhead went,
the wolf followed, and kept one eye on him and the other on Tom, to see
if he would give him leave to eat him. But Tom shook his head, and
never stopped the tune, and Redhead never stopped dancing and bawling,
and the wolf dancing and roaring, one leg up and the other down, and he
ready to drop out of his standing from fair tiresomeness.

When the princess seen that there was no fear of any one being kilt,
she was so divarted by the stew that Redhead was in, that she gave
another great laugh; and well become Tom, out he cried, "King of
Dublin, I have two halves of your daughter."

"Oh, halves or alls," says the king, "put away that divel of a wolf,
and we'll see about it."

So Tom put his flute in his pocket, and says he to the baste that was
sittin' on his currabingo ready to faint, "Walk off to your mountain,
my fine fellow, and live like a respectable baste; and if ever I find
you come within seven miles of any town, I'll--"

He said no more, but spit in his fist, and gave a flourish of his club.
It was all the poor divel of a wolf wanted: he put his tail between his
legs, and took to his pumps without looking at man or mortal, and
neither sun, moon, or stars ever saw him in sight of Dublin again.

At dinner every one laughed but the foxy fellow; and sure enough he was
laying out how he'd settle poor Tom next day.

"Well, to be sure!" says he, "King of Dublin, you are in luck. There's
the Danes moidhering us to no end. Deuce run to Lusk wid 'em! and if
any one can save us from 'em, it is this gentleman with the goat-skin.
There is a flail hangin' on the collar-beam, in hell, and neither Dane
nor devil can stand before it."

"So," says Tom to the king, "will you let me have the other half of the
princess if I bring you the flail?"

"No, no," says the princess; "I'd rather never be your wife than see
you in that danger."

But Redhead whispered and nudged Tom about how shabby it would look to
reneague the adventure. So he asked which way he was to go, and Redhead
directed him.

Well, he travelled and travelled, till he came in sight of the walls of
hell; and, bedad, before he knocked at the gates, he rubbed himself
over with the greenish ointment. When he knocked, a hundred little imps
popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted.

"I want to speak to the big divel of all," says Tom: "open the gate."

It wasn't long till the gate was thrune open, and the Ould Boy received
Tom with bows and scrapes, and axed his business.

"My business isn't much," says Tom. "I only came for the loan of that
flail that I see hanging on the collar-beam, for the king of Dublin to
give a thrashing to the Danes."

"Well," says the other, "the Danes is much better customers to me; but
since you walked so far I won't refuse. Hand that flail," says he to a
young imp; and he winked the far-off eye at the same time. So, while
some were barring the gates, the young devil climbed up, and took down
the flail that had the handstaff and booltheen both made out of red-hot
iron. The little vagabond was grinning to think how it would burn the
hands o' Tom, but the dickens a burn it made on him, no more nor if it
was a good oak sapling.

"Thankee," says Tom. "Now would you open the gate for a body, and I'll
give you no more trouble."

"Oh, tramp!" says Ould Nick; "is that the way? It is easier getting
inside them gates than getting out again. Take that tool from him, and
give him a dose of the oil of stirrup."

So one fellow put out his claws to seize on the flail, but Tom gave him
such a welt of it on the side of the head that he broke off one of his
horns, and made him roar like a devil as he was. Well, they rushed at
Tom, but he gave them, little and big, such a thrashing as they didn't
forget for a while. At last says the ould thief of all, rubbing his
elbow, "Let the fool out; and woe to whoever lets him in again, great
or small."

So out marched Tom, and away with him, without minding the shouting and
cursing they kept up at him from the tops of the walls; and when he got
home to the big bawn of the palace, there never was such running and
racing as to see himself and the flail. When he had his story told, he
laid down the flail on the stone steps, and bid no one for their lives
to touch it. If the king, and queen, and princess, made much of him
before, they made ten times more of him now; but Redhead, the mean
scruff-hound, stole over, and thought to catch hold of the flail to
make an end of him. His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar
out of him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept
flinging his arms about and dancing, that it was pitiful to look at
him. Tom run at him as soon as he could rise, caught his hands in his
own two, and rubbed them this way and that, and the burning pain left
them before you could reckon one. Well the poor fellow, between the
pain that was only just gone, and the comfort he was in, had the
comicalest face that you ever see, it was such a mixtherum-gatherum of
laughing and crying. Everybody burst out a laughing--the princess could
not stop no more than the rest; and then says Tom, "Now, ma'am, if
there were fifty halves of you, I hope you'll give me them all."

Well, the princess looked at her father, and by my word, she came over
to Tom, and put her two delicate hands into his two rough ones, and I
wish it was myself was in his shoes that day!

Tom would not bring the flail into the palace. You may be sure no other
body went near it; and when the early risers were passing next morning,
they found two long clefts in the stone, where it was after burning
itself an opening downwards, nobody could tell how far. But a messenger
came in at noon, and said that the Danes were so frightened when they
heard of the flail coming into Dublin, that they got into their ships,
and sailed away.

Well, I suppose, before they were married, Tom got some man, like Pat
Mara of Tomenine, to learn him the "principles of politeness,"
fluxions, gunnery, and fortification, decimal fractions, practice, and
the rule of three direct, the way he'd be able to keep up a
conversation with the royal family. Whether he ever lost his time
learning them sciences, I'm not sure, but it's as sure as fate that his
mother never more saw any want till the end of her days.

MAN OR WOMAN BOY OR GIRL THAT READS WHAT FOLLOWS 3 TIMES SHALL FALL
ASLEEP AN HUNDRED YEARS

JOHN D. BATTEN DREW THIS AUG. 20TH, 1801 GOOD-NIGHTThe Project Gutenberg EBook of East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon, by 
Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

Title: East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon

Author: Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

Illustrator: Frederick Richardson

Posting Date: February 5, 2015 [EBook #8653]
Release Date: August, 2005
First Posted: July 30, 2003

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST O' THE SUN AND WEST O' THE MOON ***




Produced by David Garcia, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










EAST O' THE SUN AND WEST O' THE MOON
with
OTHER NORWEGIAN FOLK TALES


Retold by Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

Illustrated by Frederick Richardson




FOREWORD


In recent years there has been a wholesome revival of the ancient art
of story-telling. The most thoughtful, progressive educators have come
to recognize the culture value of folk and fairy stories, fables and
legends, not only as means of fostering and directing the power of the
child's imagination, but as a basis for literary interpretation and
appreciation throughout life.

This condition has given rise to a demand for the best material in each
of these several lines. Some editors have gleaned from one field; some
from several. It is the aim of this little book to bring together only
the very best from the rich stores of Norwegian folk-lore. All these
stories have been told many times by the editor to varied audiences of
children and to those who are "older grown." Each has proved its power
to make the universal appeal.

In preparing the stories for publication, the aim has been to preserve,
as much as possible, in vocabulary and idiom, the original folk-lore
language, and to retain the conversational style of the teller of tales,
in order that the sympathetic young reader may, in greater or less
degree, be translated into the atmosphere of the old-time story-hour.

GUDRUN THORNE-THOMSEN.




CONTENTS


East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Taper Tom

Why the Bear is Stumpy-Tailed

Reynard and the Cock

Bruin and Reynard Partners

Boots and His Brothers

The Lad Who Went to the North Wind

The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body

The Sheep and the Pig Who Set Up Housekeeping

The Parson and the Clerk

Father Bruin

The Pancake

Why the Sea is Salt

The Squire's Bride

Peik

The Princess Who Could Not Be Silenced

The Twelve Wild Ducks

Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside

The Princess on the Glass Hill

The Husband Who Was to Mind the House

Little Freddy with His Fiddle




[Illustration: "Are you afraid?"]




EAST O' THE SUN AND WEST O' THE MOON


Once on a time there was a poor woodcutter who had so many children that
he had not much of either food or clothing to give them. Pretty children
they all were, but the prettiest was the youngest daughter, who was so
lovely there was no end to her loveliness.

It was on a Thursday evening late in the fall of the year. The weather
was wild and rough outside, and it was cruelly dark. The rain fell and
the wind blew till the walls of the cottage shook. There they all sat
round the fire busy with this thing and that. Just then, all at once,
something gave three taps at the window pane. Then the father went out
to see what was the matter, and, when he got out of doors, what should
he see but a great White Bear.

"Good evening to you!" said the White Bear.

"The same to you," said the man.

"Will you give me your youngest daughter? If you will, I'll make you as
rich as you are now poor," said the Bear.

Well, the man would not be at all sorry to be so rich;--but give him his
prettiest lassie, no, that he couldn't do, so he said "No" outright and
closed the door both tight and well. But the Bear called out, "I'll give
you time to think; next Thursday night I'll come for your answer."

Now, the lassie had heard every word that the Bear had said, and before
the next Thursday evening came, she had washed and mended her rags, made
herself as neat as she could, and was ready to start. I can't say her
packing gave her much trouble.

Next Thursday evening came the White Bear to fetch her, and she got upon
his back with her bundle, and off they went. So when they had gone a bit
of the way, the White Bear said, "Are you afraid?"

"No, not at all," said the lassie.

"Well! mind and hold tight by my shaggy coat, and then there's nothing
to fear," added the Bear.

So she rode a long, long way, till they came to a great steep hill.
There on the face of it the White Bear gave a knock, and a door opened,
and they came into a castle, where there were many rooms all lit up,
gleaming with silver and gold, and there too was a table ready laid, and
it was all as grand as grand could be. Then the White Bear gave her a
silver bell. When she wanted anything she had only to ring it, and she
would get what she wanted at once.

Well, when she had had supper and evening wore on, she became sleepy
because of her journey. She thought she would like to go to bed, so she
rang the bell. She had scarce taken hold of it before she came into a
chamber where there were two beds as fair and white as any one would
wish to sleep in. But when she had put out the light and gone to bed
some one came into the room and lay down in the other bed. Now this
happened every night, but she never saw who it was, for he always came
after she had put out the light; and, before the day dawned, he was up
and off again.

So things went on for a while, the lassie having everything she wanted.
But you must know, that no human being did she see from morning till
night, only the White Bear could she talk to, and she did not know what
man or monster it might be who came to sleep in her room by night. At
last she began to be silent and sorrowful and would neither eat nor
drink.

One day the White Bear came to her and said: "Lassie, why are you so
sorrowful? This castle and all that is in it are yours, the silver bell
will give you anything that you wish. I only beg one thing of you--ask
no questions, trust me and nothing shall harm you. So now be happy
again." But still the lassie had no peace of mind, for one thing she
wished to know: Who it was who came in the night and slept in her room?
All day long and all night long she wondered and longed to know, and she
fretted and pined away.

So one night, when she could not stand it any longer and she heard that
he slept, she got up, lit a bit of a candle, and let the light shine on
him. Then she saw that he was the loveliest Prince one ever set eyes on,
and she bent over and kissed him. But, as she kissed him, she dropped
three drops of hot tallow on his shirt, and he woke up.

"What have you done?" he cried; "now you have made us both unlucky, for
had you held out only this one year, I had been freed. For I am the
White Bear by day and a man by night. It is a wicked witch who has
bewitched me; and now I must set off from you to her. She lives in a
castle which stands East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon, and there are
many trolls and witches there and one of those is the wife I must now
have."

She wept, but there was no help for it; go he must.

Then she asked if she mightn't go with him?

No, she mightn't.

"Tell me the way then," she said, "and I'll search you out; that,
surely, I may get leave to do."

"Yes, you may do that," he said, "but there is no way to that place. It
lies East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon and thither you can never find
your way." And at that very moment both Prince and castle were gone, and
she lay on a little green patch in the midst of the gloomy thick wood,
and by her side lay the same bundle of rags she had brought with her
from home.

Then she wept and wept till she was tired, and all the while she thought
of the lovely Prince and how she should find him.

So at last she set out on her way and walked many, many days and
whomever she met she asked: "Can you tell me the way to the castle that
lies East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon?" But no one could tell her.

And on she went a weary time. Both hungry and tired was she when she got
to the East Wind's house one morning. There she asked the East Wind if
he could tell her the way to the Prince who dwelt East o' the Sun and
West o' the Moon. Yes, the East Wind had often heard tell of it, the
Prince, and the castle, but he couldn't tell the way, for he had never
blown so far.

"But, if you will, I'll go with you to my brother the West Wind. Maybe
he knows, for he's much stronger. So, if you will just get on my back,
I'll carry you thither."

Yes, she got on his back, and I can tell you they went briskly along.

So when they got there, they went into the West Wind's house, and the
East Wind said that the lassie he had brought was the one who ought to
marry the Prince who lived in the castle East o' the Sun and West o' the
Moon; and that she had set out to seek him, and would be glad to know if
the West Wind knew how to get to the castle.

"Nay," said the West Wind, "so far I've never blown; but if you will,
I'll go with you to our brother the South Wind, for he is much stronger
than either of us, and he has flapped his wings far and wide. Maybe
he'll tell you. You can get on my back and I'll carry you to him."

Yes, she got on his back, and so they travelled to the South Wind, and
were not long on the way, either.

When they got there, the West Wind asked him if he could tell her the
way to the castle that lay East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon, for it
was she who ought to marry the Prince who lived there.

"You don't say so. That's she, is it?" said the South Wind.

"Well, I have blustered about in most places in my time, but that far I
have never blown; however, if you will, I'll take you to my brother the
North Wind; he is the oldest and strongest of all of us, and if he
doesn't know where it is, you'll never find anyone in the world to tell
you. You can get on my back and I'll carry you thither."

Yes, she got on his back, and away he went from his house at a fine
rate. And this time, too, she was not long on the way. When they got
near the North Wind's house he was so wild and cross that cold puffs
came from him.

"Heigh, there, what do you want?" he bawled out to them ever so far off,
so that it struck them with an icy shiver.

"Well," said the South Wind, "you needn't be so put out, for here I am
your brother, the South Wind, and here is the lassie who ought to marry
the Prince who dwells in the castle that lies East o' the Sun and West
o' the Moon. She wants to ask you, if you ever were there, and can tell
her the way, for she would be so glad to find him again."

"Yes, I know well enough where it is," said the North Wind. "Once in my
life I blew an aspen leaf thither, but I was so tired I couldn't blow a
puff for ever so many days after it. But if you really wish to go
thither, and aren't afraid to come along with me, I'll take you on my
back and see if I can blow you there."

"Yes! and thank you," she said, for she must and would get thither if it
were possible in any way; and as for fear, however madly he went, she
wouldn't be at all afraid.

"Very well then," said the North Wind, "but you must sleep here
to-night, for we must have the whole day before us if we're to get
thither at all."

Early next morning the North Wind woke her, and puffed himself up, and
blew himself out, and made himself so stout and big, it was gruesome to
look at him. And so off she went, high on the back of the North Wind up
through the air, as if they would never stop till they got to the
world's end.

Down here below there was a terrible storm; it threw down long tracts of
woodland and many houses, and when it swept over the great sea ships
foundered by hundreds.

So they tore on and on,--no one can believe how far they went,--and all
the while they still went over the sea, and the North Wind got more and
more weary, and so out of breath he could scarce bring out a puff, and
his wings drooped and drooped, till at last he sunk so low that the
crests of the waves lashed over her heels.

"Are you afraid?" said the North Wind.

She wasn't.

But they were not very far from land; and the North Wind had still so
much strength left in him that he managed to throw her up on shore close
by the castle which lay East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon; but then
he was so weak and worn out, that he had to stay there and rest many
days before he could get home again.

And now the lassie began to look about her and to think of how she might
free the Prince, but nowhere did she see a sign of life.

Then she sat herself down right under the castle windows, and as soon as
the sun went down, out they came, trolls and witches, red-eyed,
long-nosed, hunch-backed hags, tumbling over each other, scolding,
hurrying and scurrying hither and thither.

At first they almost frightened the life out of her, but when she had
watched them awhile and they had not noticed her, she took courage and
walked up to one of them and said: "Pray tell me what goes on here
to-night that you are all so busy, and could I perhaps get something to
do for a night's lodging and a bit of food?"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the horrid witch, "and where do you come from that
you do not know that it is to-night that the Prince chooses his bride.
When the moon stands high over the tree tops yonder we meet in the
clearing by the old oak. There the caldrons are ready with boiling lye,
for don't you know?--he's going to choose for his bride the one who can
wash three spots of tallow from his shirt, Ha, ha, ha!"

And the wicked witch hurried off again, laughing such a horrible laugh
that it made the lassie's blood run cold.

But now the trolls and witches came trooping out of the very earth, it
seemed, and all turned their steps toward the clearing in the woods.

So the lassie went too, and found a place among the rest. Now the moon
stood high above the tree tops, and there was the caldron in the middle
and round about sat the trolls and witches;--such gruesome company I'm
sure you were never in. Then came the Prince; he looked about from one
to the other, and he saw the lassie, and his face grew white, but he
said nothing.

"Now, let's begin," said a witch with a nose three ells long. She was
sure she was going to have the Prince, and she began to wash away as
hard as she could, but the more she rubbed and scrubbed, the bigger the
spots grew.

"Ah!" said an old hag, "you can't wash, let me try."

But she hadn't long taken the shirt in hand, before it was far worse
than ever, and with all her rubbing and scrubbing and wringing, the
spots grew bigger and blacker, and the darker and uglier was the shirt.

Then all the other trolls began to wash, but the longer it lasted, the
blacker and uglier the shirt grew, till at last it was as black all over
as if it had been up the chimney.

"Ah!" said the Prince, "you're none of you worth a straw, you can't
wash. Why there sits a beggar lassie, I'll be bound she knows how to
wash better than the whole lot of you. Come here, lassie," he shouted.

"Can you wash the shirt clean, lassie?" said he.

"I don't know," she said, "but I think I can."

And almost before she had taken it and dipped it in the water, it was as
white as snow, and whiter still.

"Yes; you are the lassie for me," said the Prince.

At that moment the sun rose and the whole pack of trolls turned to
stone.

There you may see them to this very day sitting around in a circle, big
ones and little ones, all hard, cold stone.

But the Prince took the lassie by the hand and they flitted away as far
as they could from the castle that lay East o' the Sun and West o' the
Moon.




THE THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF


Once on a time there were three Billy Goats, who were to go up to the
hillside to make themselves fat, and the family name of the goats was
"Gruff."

On the way up was a bridge, over a river which they had to cross, and
under the bridge lived a great ugly Troll with eyes as big as saucers,
and a nose as long as a poker.

First of all came the youngest Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge.
"Trip, trap; trip, trap!" went the bridge.

"_Who's that tripping over my bridge?_" roared the Troll.

"Oh, it is only I, the tiniest Billy Goat Gruff, and I'm going up to the
hillside to make myself fat," said the Billy Goat, with such a small
voice.

"Now, I'm coming to gobble you up," said the Troll.

"Oh, no! pray do not take me, I'm too little, that I am," said the Billy
Goat; "wait a bit till the second Billy Goat Gruff comes, he's much
bigger."

"Well! be off with you," said the Troll.

A little while after came the second Billy Goat Gruff across the bridge.

"Trip, trap! trip, trap! trip, trap!" went the bridge.

"_Who is that tripping over my bridge_?" roared the Troll.

"Oh, it's the second Billy Goat Gruff, and I'm going up to the hillside
to make myself fat," said the Billy Goat. Nor had he such a small voice,
either.

"Now, I'm coming to gobble you up!" said the Troll.

"Oh, no! don't take me, wait a little till the big Billy Goat comes,
he's much bigger."

"Very well! be off with you," said the Troll.

But just then up came the big Billy Goat Gruff.

"Trip, trap! trip, trap! trip, trap!" went the bridge, for the Billy
Goat was so heavy that the bridge creaked and groaned under him.

"_Who's that tramping on my bridge?_" roared the Troll.

"It's I! the big Billy Goat Gruff," said the Billy Goat, and he had a
big hoarse voice.

"Now, I'm coming to gobble you up!" roared the troll.

  "_Well come! I have two spears so stout,
   With them I'll thrust your eyeballs out;
   I have besides two great big stones,
   With them I'll crush you body and bones!_"

That was what the big Billy Goat said; so he flew at the Troll, and
thrust him with his horns, and crushed him to bits, body and bones, and
tossed him out into the river, and after that he went up to the
hillside.

There the Billy Goats got so fat that they were scarcely able to walk
home again, and if they haven't grown thinner, why they're still fat;
and so,--

  "Snip, snap, stout.
   This tale's told out."




TAPER TOM


Once on a time there was a King who had a daughter, and she was so
lovely that her good looks were well known far and near. But she was so
sad and serious she could never be got to laugh, and besides, she was so
high and mighty that she said "No" to all who came to woo her. She would
have none of them, were they ever so grand--lords or princes,--it was
all the same.

The King had long ago become tired of this, for he thought she might
just as well marry; she, too, like all other people. There was no use in
waiting; she was quite old enough, nor would she be any richer, for she
was to have half the kingdom,--that came to her as her mother's heir.

So he had word sent throughout the kingdom, that anyone who could get
his daughter to laugh should have her for his wife and half the kingdom
besides. But, if there was anyone who tried and could not, he was to
have a sound thrashing. And sure it was that there were many sore backs
in that kingdom, for lovers and wooers came from north and south, and
east and west, thinking it nothing at all to make a King's daughter
laugh. And gay fellows they were, some of them too, but for all their
tricks and capers there sat the Princess, just as sad and serious as she
had been before.

Now, not far from the palace lived a man who had three sons, and they,
too, had heard how the King had given it out that the man who could make
the Princess laugh was to have her to wife and half the kingdom.

The eldest was for setting off first. So he strode off, and when he came
to the King's grange, he told the King he would be glad to try to make
the Princess laugh.

"All very well, my man," said the King, "but it's sure to be of no use,
for so many have been here and tried. My daughter is so sorrowful it's
no use trying, and it's not my wish that anyone should come to grief."

But the lad thought he would like to try. It couldn't be such a very
hard thing for him to get the Princess to laugh, for so many had laughed
at him, both gentle and simple, when he enlisted for a soldier and was
drilled by Corporal Jack.

So he went off to the courtyard, under the Princess's window, and began
to go through his drill as Corporal Jack had taught him. But it was no
good, the Princess was just as sad and serious and did not so much as
smile at him once. So they took him and thrashed him well, and sent him
home again.

Well, he had hardly got home before his second brother wanted to set
off. He was a schoolmaster, and the funniest figure one ever laid eyes
upon; he was lopsided, for he had one leg shorter than the other, and
one moment he was as little as a boy, and in another, when he stood on
his long leg, he was as tall and long as a Troll. Besides this he was a
powerful preacher.

So when he came to the king's palace, and said he wished to make the
Princess laugh, the King thought it might not be so unlikely after all.
"But mercy on you," he said, "if you don't make her laugh. We are for
laying it on harder and harder for every one that fails."

Then the schoolmaster strode off to the courtyard, and put himself
before the Princess's window, and read and preached like seven parsons,
and sang and chanted like seven clerks, as loud as all the parsons and
clerks in the country round.

The King laughed loud at him, and the Princess almost smiled a little,
but then became as sad and serious as ever, and so it fared no better
with Paul, the schoolmaster, than with Peter the soldier--for you must
know one was called Peter and the other Paul. So they took him and
flogged him well, and then they sent him home again.

Then the youngest, whose name was Taper Tom, was all for setting out.
But his brothers laughed and jeered at him, and showed him their sore
backs, and his father said it was no use for him to go for he had no
sense. Was it not true that he neither knew anything nor could do
anything? There he sat in the hearth, like a cat, and grubbed in the
ashes and split tapers. That was why they called him "Taper Tom." But
Taper Tom would not give in, and so they got tired of his growling; and
at last he, too, got leave to go to the king's palace to try his luck.

When he got there he did not say that he wished to try to make the
Princess laugh, but asked if he could get work there. No, they had no
place for him, but for all that Taper Tom would not give up. In such a
big palace they must want someone to carry wood and water for the
kitchen maid,--that was what he said. And the king thought it might very
well be, for he, too, got tired of his teasing. In the end Taper Tom
stayed there to carry wood and water for the kitchen maid.

So one day, when he was going to fetch water from the brook, he set eyes
upon a big fish which lay under an old fir stump, where the water had
eaten into the bank, and he put his bucket softly under the fish and
caught it. But as he was gong home to the grange he met an old woman who
led a golden goose by a string.

"Good-day, godmother," said Taper Tom, "that's a pretty bird you have,
and what fine feathers! If one only had such feathers one might leave
off splitting fir tapers."

The goody was just as pleased with the fish Tom had in his bucket and
said, if he would give her the fish, he might have the golden goose. And
it was such a curious goose. When any one touched it he stuck fast to
it, if Tom only said, "If you want to come along, hang on." Of course,
Taper Tom was willing enough to make the exchange. "A bird is as good as
a fish any day," he said to himself, "and, if it's such a bird as you
say, I can use it as a fish hook." That was what he said to the goody,
and he was much pleased with the goose.

Now, he had not gone far before he met another old woman. As soon as she
saw the lovely golden goose she spoke prettily, and coaxed and begged
Tom to give her leave to stroke his lovely golden goose.

"With all my heart," said Taper Tom, and just as she stroked the goose
he said, "If you want to come along, hang on."

The goody pulled and tore, but she was forced to hang on whether she
would or not, and Taper Tom went on as though he alone were with the
golden goose.

When he had gone a bit farther, he met a man who had had a quarrel with
the old woman for a trick she had played him. So, when he saw how hard
she struggled and strove to get free, and how fast she stuck, he thought
he would just pay her off the old grudge, and so he gave her a kick with
his foot.

"If you want to come along, hang on!" called out Tom, and then the old
man had to hop along on one leg, whether he would or not. When he tore
and tugged and tried to get loose--it was still worse for him, for he
all but fell flat on his back every step he took.

In this way they went on a good bit till they had nearly reached the
King's palace.

There they met the King's smith, who was going to the smithy, and had a
great pair of tongs in his hand. Now you must know this smith was a
merry fellow, full of both tricks and pranks, and when he saw this
string come hobbling and limping along, he laughed so that he was almost
bent double. Then he bawled out, "Surely this is a new flock of geese
the Princess is going to have--Ah, here is the gander that toddles in
front. Goosey! goosey! goosey!" he called, and with that he threw his
hands about as though he were scattering corn for the geese.

But the flock never stopped--on it went and all that the goody and the
man did was to look daggers at the smith for making fun of them. Then
the smith went on:

"It would be fine fun to see if I could hold the whole flock, so many as
they are," for he was a stout strong fellow. So he took hold with his
big tongs by the old man's coat tail, and the man all the while
screeched and wriggled. But Taper Tom only said:

"If you want to come along, hang on!" So the smith had to go along too.
He bent his back and stuck his heels into the ground and tried to get
loose, but it was all no good. He stuck fast, as though he had been
screwed tight with his own vise, and whether he would or not, he had to
dance along with the rest.

So, when they came near to the King's palace, the dog ran out and began
to bark as though they were wolves and beggars. And when the Princess,
looking out of the window to see what was the matter, set eyes on this
strange pack, she laughed softly to herself. But Taper Tom was not
content with that:

"Bide a bit," he said, "she will soon have to make a noise." And as he
said that he turned off with his band to the back of the palace.

When they passed by the kitchen the door stood open, and the cook was
just stirring the porridge. But when she saw Taper Tom and his pack she
came running out at the door, with her broom in one hand and a ladle
full of smoking porridge in the other, and she laughed as though her
sides would split. And when she saw the smith there too, she bent double
and went off again in a loud peal of laughter. But when she had had her
laugh out, she too thought the golden goose so lovely she must just
stroke it.

"Taper Tom! Taper Tom!" she called out, and came running out with the
ladle of porridge in her fist, "Give me leave to pet that pretty bird of
yours'?"

"Better come and pet me," said the smith. But when the cook heard that
she got angry.

"What is that you say?" she cried and gave the smith a box on his ears
with the ladle.

"If you want to come along, hang on," said Taper Tom. So she stuck fast
too, and for all her kicks and plunges, and all her scolding and
screaming, and all her riving and striving, she too had to limp along
with them.

[Illustration: She opened her mouth wide and laughed]

Soon the whole company came under the Princess's window. There she stood
waiting for them. And when she saw they had taken the cook too, with her
ladle and broom, she opened her mouth wide, and laughed so loud that the
King had to hold her upright.

So Taper Tom got the Princess and half the kingdom, and they say he kept
her in high spirits with his tricks and pranks till the end of her days.




WHY THE BEAR IS STUMPY-TAILED


One day the Bear met the Fox, who came slinking along with a string of
fish he had stolen.

"Where did you get those?" asked the Bear.

"Oh! my Lord Bruin, I've been out fishing and caught them," said the
Fox.

So the Bear had a mind to learn to fish too, and bade the Fox tell him
how he was to set about it.

"Oh! it is an easy craft for you," answered the Fox, "and soon learned.
You've only to go upon the ice, cut a hole, stick your tail down into
it, and hold it there as long as you can. You're not to mind if your
tail smarts a little; that's when the fish bite. The longer you hold it
there the more fish you'll get; and then all at once out with it, with a
cross pull sideways, and with a strong pull too."

Yes, the Bear did as the Fox had said, and held his tail a long, long
time down in the hole, till it was frozen in fast. Then he pulled it out
with a cross pull, and it snapped short off. That's why Bruin goes about
with a stumpy tail to this very day.




REYNARD AND THE COCK


Once on a time there was a cock who stood on the barnyard fence and
crowed and flapped his wings. Then the fox came by.

"Good-day," said Reynard. "I have heard you crowing so nicely, but can
you stand on one leg and crow, and wink your eyes?"

"Oh, yes," said the cock, "I can do that very well." So he stood on one
leg and crowed, but he winked only with one eye, and when he had done
that he made himself big and flapped his wings, as though he had done a
great thing.

"Very pretty, to be sure," said Reynard. "Almost as pretty as when the
parson preaches in church, but can you stand on one leg and wink both
your eyes at once? I hardly think you can."

"Can't I though!" said the cock, and stood on one leg, and winked both
his eyes and crowed. But Reynard caught hold of him, took him by the
throat, and threw him on his back, so that he was off to the wood before
he had crowed his crow out, as fast as Reynard could lay legs to the
ground.

When they had come under an old spruce fir, Reynard threw the cock on
the ground, and set his paw on his breast, and was going to take a bite:
"You are a heathen, Reynard!" said the cock. "Good Christians say grace
before they eat."

But Reynard would be no heathen, no indeed. So he let go his hold, and
was about to fold his paws over his breast, and say grace--but pop! up
flew the cock into a tree.

"You shan't get off for all that," said Reynard to himself. So he went
away, and came again with a few chips which the woodcutters had left.
The cock peeped and peered to see what they could be.

"What is that you have there?" he asked.

"These are letters I have just got," said Reynard, "won't you help me to
read them, for I don't know how to read writing."

"I'd be so happy, but I dare not read them now," said the cock, "for
here comes a hunter--I see him, I see him with his pouch and gun."

When Reynard heard the cock chattering about a hunter, he took to his
heels as fast as he could.




BRUIN AND REYNARD PARTNERS


Once on a time Bruin and Reynard owned a field in common. They had
a little clearing up in the wood, and the first year they sowed rye.

"Now we must share the crop as is fair and right," said Reynard.
"If you like to have the root, I'll take the top."

Yes, Bruin was ready to do that; but when they had threshed out the
crop, Reynard got all the corn, but Bruin got nothing but roots and
rubbish. He did not like that at all; but Reynard said that was how
they had agreed to share it.

"This year I have the gain," said Reynard, "next year it will be your
turn. Then you shall have the top, and I shall have to put up with the
root."

But when spring came, and it was time to sow, Reynard asked Bruin what
he thought of turnips.

"Aye, aye!" said Bruin, "that's better food than rye," and so Reynard
thought also. But when harvest time came Reynard got the roots, while
Bruin got the turnip-tops. And then Bruin was so angry with Reynard
that he put an end at once to his partnership with him.




BOOTS AND HIS BROTHERS


Once on a time there was a man who had three sons, Peter, Paul and
Espen. Espen was Boots, of course, because he was the youngest. I can't
say the man had anything except these three sons, for he did not possess
one penny to rub against another; and so he told his sons over and over
again they must go out into the world to seek their fortune, for at home
there was nothing to be expected but to starve to death.

Now, a short way from the man's cottage was the King's palace, and you
must know, just against the King's windows a great oak had sprung up,
which was so stout and big that it took away all the light from the
king's palace. The King had said he would give much gold to any man who
could fell the oak, but no one was man enough to do it, for as soon as
one chip of the oak's trunk flew off, two grew in its stead. The King
wished also to have a well dug which was to hold water for the whole
year. All his neighbors had wells, but he had none, and he thought that
a shame.

So the King said he would give to any one who could dig him such a well
as would hold water for the whole year round, both money and goods, but
no one could do it, for the King's palace lay high, high up on a hill,
and they could dig but a few inches before they would come upon rock.

But as the King had set his heart on having these two things done, he
had it given out in all the churches of his kingdom far and wide, that
he who could fell the big oak in the King's courtyard, and dig him a
well that would hold water the whole year round, should have the
Princess and half the kingdom. Well! you may easily know there was many
a man who came to try his luck; but all their hacking and hewing, and
all their digging and delving were useless. The oak got bigger and
stouter at every stroke, and the rock grew no softer either.

One day the three brothers thought they, too, would set off and try it.
Their father had not a word to say against it; for even if they did not
get the Princess and half the kingdom, it might happen they would get a
place somewhere with a good master and that was all he wanted. So when
the brothers asked his permission, he consented at once, and Peter, Paul
and Espen set forth.

Well, they had not gone far before they came to a fir wood where at one
side there rose a steep hill, and as they went along they heard
something hewing and hacking away up on the hill among the trees.

"I wonder now what it is that is hewing away up yonder," said Boots.

"You're always so clever with your wondering," laughed Peter and Paul
both at once. "What wonder is it, pray, that a wood cutter should stand
and hack up on a hillside?"

"Still, I'd like to see what it is, after all," said Boots, and up he
went.

"Oh, if you're such a child, 'twill do you good to go and take a
lesson," called out his brothers after him.

But Boots didn't care for what they said; he climbed the steep hillside
towards the spot whence the noise came, and when he reached the place,
what do you think he saw? Why, an axe that stood there hacking and
hewing, all of itself, at the trunk of a fir tree.

"Good-day," said Boots. "So you stand here all alone and hew, do you?"

"Yes, here I've stood and hewed and hacked for hundreds of years,
waiting for you," said the axe.

"Well, here I am at last," said Boots, as he took the axe, pulled it off
its haft, and stuffed both head and haft into his wallet.

When he got down again to his brothers, they began to jeer and laugh at
him.

"And now, what strange thing was it you saw up yonder on the hillside?"
they asked.

"Oh, it was only an axe we heard," said Boots.

When they had gone on a bit farther, their road passed under a steep
spur of rock, where they heard something digging and shovelling.

[Illustration: A spade that stood digging and delving]

"I wonder now," said Boots, "what is digging and shovelling up yonder at
the top of the rock."

"Ah, you're always so clever with your wondering," laughed Peter and
Paul again, "as if you'd never heard a woodpecker hacking and pecking at
a hollow tree."

"Well, well," said Boots, "I just think it would be fun to see what it
really is."

And so off he set to climb the rock, while the others laughed and made
fun of him. But he did not care a bit for that; up he climbed, and when
he got near the top, what do you think he saw? Why, a spade that stood
there digging and delving.

"Good-day!" said Boots. "So you stand here all alone, and dig and delve,
do you?"

"Yes, that's what I do," said the spade, "and that's what I've done
these hundreds of years, waiting for you, Boots."

"Well, here I am," said Boots again, as he took the spade and knocked it
off the handle, and put it into his wallet,--and then returned to his
brothers.

"Well, what was it, so rare and strange," said Peter and Paul, "that you
saw up there at the top of the rock?"

"Oh," said Boots, "nothing more than a spade; that was what we heard."

So they went on again a good bit until they came to a brook. They were
thirsty, all three, after their long walk, and so they lay down beside
the brook to have a drink.

"I wonder now," said Boots, "where all this water comes from."

"I wonder if you've lost the little sense you had," said Peter and Paul
in one breath. "Where the brook comes from indeed! Have you never heard
how water rises from a spring in the earth?"

"Yes! but still I've a great fancy to see where this brook comes from,"
said Boots.

So along beside the brook he went, in spite of all that his brothers
cried after him. Nothing could stop him. On he went, up and up, and the
brook got smaller and smaller, and at last, a little way farther on,
what do you think he saw? Why, a great walnut, and out of that the water
trickled.

"Good-day!" said Boots again. "So you lie here, and trickle and run down
all alone?"

"Yes, I do," said the walnut, "and here have I trickled and run these
hundreds of years, waiting for you, Boots."

"Well, here I am," said Boots, as he took up a lump of moss, and plugged
up the hole, that the water might not run out. Then he put the walnut
into his wallet, and ran down to his brothers.

"Well, now," said Peter and Paul, "have you found out where the water
comes from? A rare sight it must have been!"

"Oh, after all, it was only a hole it ran out of," said Boots; and so
the others laughed and made fun of him again, but Boots didn't mind that
a bit.

"After all, I had the fun of seeing it," said he.

So when they had gone a bit farther, they came to the King's palace; but
as every one in the kingdom had heard how he might win the Princess and
half the realm, if he could only fell the big oak and dig the King's
well, so many had come to try their luck that the oak was now twice as
stout and big as it had been at first; for two chips grew for every one
they hewed out with their axes, as I dare say you remember I told you.
So the King had now laid down as a punishment, that if any one tried and
could not fell the oak, he should be put on a barren island, much like a
prison.

The two brothers did not let themselves be scared by that, however, for
they were quite sure they could fell the oak, and Peter, as he was the
eldest, was to try his hand first. But it went with him as with all the
rest who had hewn at the oak. For every chip he had cut out, two grew in
its place. So the King's men seized him, bound him hand and foot, and
put him out on the island.

Now, Paul was to try his luck, but he fared just the same; when he had
hewn two or three strokes, they began to see the oak grow, and so the
King's men seized him too, bound him hand and foot, and put him out on
the island.

And now Boots was to try.

"You can save yourself the trouble, we'll bind you and send you off
after your brothers just as well first as last," laughed the King's men.

"Well, I'd just like to try first," said Boots, and so he got leave.
Then he took his axe out of his wallet and fitted it to its haft.

"Hew away!" said he to his axe; and away it hewed, making the chips fly,
so that it wasn't long before down came the oak.

When that was done Boots pulled out his spade and fitted it to its
handle.

"Dig away!" said he to the spade; and the spade began to dig and delve
till the earth and rock flew out in splinters, and he had the well soon
dug out, as you may believe.

And when he had got it as big and deep as he chose, Boots took out his
walnut and laid it in one corner of the well, and pulled the plug of
moss out.

"Trickle and run," said Boots; and so the water trickled and ran, till
it gushed out of the hole in a stream, and in a short time the well was
brimful.

Then Boots had felled the oak which shaded the King's palace, and dug a
well that held water all the year around, and so he got the princess and
half the kingdom, as the King had said. And it was lucky for Peter and
Paul that they were on the barren island, else they had heard each day
and hour how every one said: "Well, after all, Boots did not wonder
about things for nothing."




THE LAD WHO WENT TO THE NORTH WIND


Once on a time there was an old widow who had one son, and as she was
feeble and weak, she asked her son to go out to the storehouse and fetch
meal for cooking. But when he got outside the storehouse, and was just
going down the steps, there came the North Wind, puffing and blowing,
caught up the meal, and away with it through the air. Then the lad went
back into the storehouse for more; but when he came out again on the
steps, the North Wind came again and carried off the meal with a puff;
and more than that, he did it the third time. At this the lad got very
angry; and as it seemed hard that the North Wind should behave so, he
thought he would go in search of him and ask him to give up his meal.

So off he went, but the way was long, and he walked and walked. At last
he came to the North Wind's house.

"Good-day!" said the lad, "and thank you for coming to see us."

"Good-day," answered the North Wind, and his voice was loud and gruff,
"and thanks for coming to see me. What do you want?"

"Oh," answered the lad, "I only wished to ask you to be so good as to
let me have back the meal you took from me on the storehouse steps, for
we haven't much to live on; and if you're to go on snapping up the
morsel we have, there'll be nothing for it but to starve."

"I haven't your meal," said the North Wind; "but since you are in such
need, I'll give you a table cloth which will get you everything you
want. You need only say, 'Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds
of good dishes!'"

With this the lad was well content. But, as the way was long he could
not get home in one day, so he turned into an inn on the way; and when
they were going to sit down to supper he laid the cloth on the table
which stood in the corner, and said,--

"Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes."

He had scarcely said this before the cloth did as it was bid, and all
who stood by thought it a fine thing, but most of all the landlord. So,
when all were fast asleep, at dead of night, he took the lad's cloth,
and put another like it in its stead. But this could not so much as
serve up a bit of dry bread.

When the lad woke he took the cloth and went off with it, and that day
he got home to his mother.

"Now," said he, "I've been to the North Wind's house, and a good fellow
he is, for he gave me this cloth and when I only say to it, 'Cloth,
spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes,' I get every
sort of food I please."

"All very true, I dare say," said the mother, "but seeing is believing."

So the lad made haste, drew out a table, laid the cloth on it, and
said,--

"Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes."

But not even a bit of dry bread did the cloth serve up.

"Well!" said the lad, "there's no help for it but to go to the North
Wind again," and away he went.

So, late in the afternoon, he came to where the North Wind lived.

"Good evening!" said the lad.

"Good evening!" said the North Wind.

"I want my rights for that meal of ours which you took," said the lad,
"for, as for that cloth I got, it isn't worth a penny."

"I have no meal," said the North Wind; "but you may have the ram yonder
which will coin gold ducats when you say to it,--

"Ram, ram! make money!"

The lad thought this a fine thing; but as it was too far to get home
that day, he turned in for the night to the same inn where he had slept
the first time.

Before he called for anything, he tried what the North Wind had said of
the ram, and found it all true. When the landlord saw this, he thought
it a fine ram, and when the lad had fallen asleep, he took another which
could not coin even a penny, and exchanged the two.

Next morning off went the lad, and when he got home to his mother, he
said,--

"After all, the North Wind is a jolly fellow, for now he has given me a
ram, which will coin golden ducats if I only say, 'Ram, ram! make
money!'"

"All very true, I dare say," said his mother, "but I shan't believe it
until I see the ducats made."

"Ram, ram! make money!" said the lad; but not even a penny did the ram
coin.

So the lad went back to the North Wind and scolded him, and said the ram
was worth nothing, and he must have his rights for the meal.

"Well!" said the North Wind, "I've nothing else to give you but that old
stick in the corner yonder; but it's a stick of such a kind that if you
say, 'Stick, stick! lay on! it lays on till you say,--'Stick, stick! now
stop!'"

So the lad thanked the North Wind and went his way, and as the road was
long, he turned in this night also to the landlord; but as he could
guess pretty well how things stood as to the cloth and the ram, he lay
down at once on the bench and began to snore, as if he were asleep. Now
the landlord who thought surely the stick must be worth something,
hunted up one which was like it, and when he heard the lad snore he was
going to exchange the two; but, just as the landlord was about to take
it, the lad called out,--

"Stick, stick! lay on!"

So the stick began to beat the landlord, till he jumped over chairs and
tables and benches, and yelled and roared,--

"Oh my, oh my! bid the stick be still, else it will beat me to death.
You shall have back both your cloth and your ram."

When the lad thought the landlord had had enough, he said, "Stick,
stick! now stop!"

Then he took the cloth and put it into his pocket, and went home with
his stick in his hand, leading the ram by a cord tied around its horns;
and so he got his rights for the meal he had lost.




THE GIANT WHO HAD NO HEART IN HIS BODY


Once on a time there was a King who had seven sons. Six of them were
stout, brave lads, but the youngest was the cinderlad, you must know;
and he went about by himself neither saying nor doing much. Best of all
he liked to sit by the hearth and watch the glowing cinders, so they
called him Boots, and thought little of him.

Now, when the Princes were grown up, the six were to set off to fetch
brides for themselves. As for Boots, they would not be seen with him, so
he was to stay at home; but the others were to bring back a bride for
him, if any could be found willing to marry such a one. The King gave
the six the finest clothes you ever set eyes upon, so fine that the
light gleamed from them a long way off; and each had his horse, which
cost many, many hundred dollars, and so they set off. Now, when they had
been to many palaces, and seen many princesses, they came to a king who
had six daughters. Such lovely king's daughters they had never seen, and
so they asked them to be their brides, and when they had got them, they
set off home again. But they quite forgot that they were to bring back a
bride for Boots, their brother, who was staying at home.

When they had gone a good bit on their way, they passed close by a steep
hillside, like a wall, where was a giant's house. Out came the giant and
set his eyes upon them, and turned them all into stone, princes,
princesses and all. Now, the king waited and waited for his six sons,
but so long as he waited so long they stayed away; so he fell into great
grief, and said he would never know what it was to be happy again.

One day Boots said to the King,--

"I've been thinking to ask your leave to set out and find my brothers."

"Nay, nay!" said his father, "that would be of no use, for you are not
clever enough. Better stay and dig in the ashes all your life."

But Boots had set his heart upon it. Go he would; and he begged and
pleaded so long that the King was forced to let him go. He gave Boots an
old broken-down nag; but Boots did not care a pin for that, he sprang up
on his sorry old steed.

"Farewell, Father," he said, "I'll come back, never fear, and likely
enough I shall bring my six brothers back with me," and with that he
rode off.

When he had ridden a while he came to a raven, which lay in the road and
flapped its wings, and was not able to get out of the way, it was so
starved.

"Oh, dear friend," said the raven, "give me a little food, and I'll help
you again at your utmost need."

"I haven't much food," said the Prince, "and I don't see how you'll ever
be able to help me; but still I can spare you a little. I see you need
it."

So he gave the raven some of the food he had brought with him.

Now, when he had gone a little farther, he came to a brook, and in the
brook lay a great salmon which had got upon a dry place and dashed
itself about, and could not get into the water again.

"Oh, dear friend," said the salmon to the Prince; "help me out into the
water again, and I'll help you at your utmost need."

"Well!" said the Prince, "the help you'll give me will not be great, I
daresay, but it's a pity you should be there and choke;" and with that
he shot the fish out into the stream again.

After that he went on a long, long way, and there met him a wolf, which
was so famished that it lay and crawled along the road.

"Dear friend, do let me have some food," said the wolf, "I'm so hungry
that the wind whistles through my ribs. I've had nothing to eat these
two years. When I have eaten, you can ride upon my back, and I'll help
you again in your utmost need."

"Well, the help I shall get from you will not be great, I'll be bound,"
said the Prince; "but you may take all I have, since you are in such
great need."

[Illustration: Never had the prince had such a ride in his life]

So when the wolf had eaten the food. Boots took the bit and put it
between the wolf's jaws, and laid the saddle on his back; and away they
went like the wind. Never had the Prince had such a ride before.

"When we have gone still farther," said Graylegs, "I'll show you the
Giant's house."

And after a while they came to it.

"See, here is the Giant's house," said the Wolf; "and see, here are your
six brothers whom the Giant has turned to stone; and see, here are their
six brides. Yonder is the door, and in at that door you must go. When
you get in you'll find a princess, and she'll tell you what to do to
make an end of the Giant. Only mind you do as she bids you."

Well! Boots went in, but, truth to say, he was very much afraid. The
Giant was away, but in one of the rooms sat the Princess, just as the
wolf had said, and so lovely a princess Boots had never set eyes upon.

"Oh, heaven help you! whence have you come?" said the Princess, as she
saw him; "it will surely be your death. No one can make an end of the
Giant who lives here. He is a most cruel monster, and he has no heart in
his body."

"Well! well!" said Boots; "but now that I am here, I may as well try
what I can do with him, and I will see if I can't free my brothers, who
have been turned to stone; and you, too, I will try to save, that I
will."

"Well, if you must, you must," said the Princess; "so let us see if we
can't hit upon a plan. Just creep under the bed yonder, and mind you
listen to what he and I talk about. But, pray, do lie as still as a
mouse."

So he crept under the bed, and he had scarce got well underneath, before
the Giant came.

"Ha!" roared the Giant, "what a smell of Christian blood there is in the
house."

"Yes, I know there is," said the Princess, "for there came a crow flying
with a man's bone, and let it fall down the chimney. I made all the
haste I could to get it out, but all one can do the smell doesn't go so
soon."

So the Giant said no more about it, and when night came they went to
bed. After they had lain a while the Princess said, "There is one thing
I'd be glad to ask you about, if I only dared."

"What thing is that?" asked the Giant.

"Only this, where do you keep your heart, since you don't carry it about
you," said the Princess.

"Ah! that's a thing you've no business to ask about: but if you must
know, it lies under the door sill." said the Giant.

"Ho, ho!" said Boots to himself under the bed. "Then we'll soon see if
we can't find it."

Next morning the Giant got up very early, and strode off to the wood;
but he was hardly out of the house before Boots and the Princess set to
work to look under the door sill for this heart; but the more they dug
and the more they hunted the more they couldn't find it.

"He has balked us this time," said the Princess, "but we'll try him once
more."

So she picked all the prettiest flowers she could find, and strewed them
over the door sill, which they had laid in its right place again; and
when the time came for the Giant to come home, Boots crept under the
bed. Just as he was well under back came the Giant.

Snuff-snuff went the Giant's nose. "My eyes and limbs, what a smell of
Christian blood there is in here," said he.

"I know there is," said the Princess, "for there came a crow flying with
a man's bone in his bill, and let it fall down the chimney. I made as
much haste as I could to get it out, but I dare say it's that you
smell."

So the Giant held his peace and said no more about it. A little while
after, he asked who it was that had strewed flowers about the door sill.

"Oh, I, of course," said the Princess.

"And, pray, what is the meaning of all this? said the Giant.

"Ah!" said the Princess, "I strewed them there when I knew your heart
lay under there."

"You don't say so," said the Giant; "but after all it doesn't lie there
at all."

So when they went to bed in the evening, the Princess asked the Giant
again where his heart was, for she said she would so much like to know.

"Well," said the Giant, "if you must know, it lies away yonder in the
cupboard against the wall."

"So, so!" thought Boots and the Princess; "then we will soon find it."

Next morning the Giant was away early, and strode off to the wood. As
soon as he was gone, Boots and the Princess were in the cupboard hunting
for the heart, but the more they looked for it the less they found it.

"Well," said the Princess, "we'll just try him once more."

So she decked the cupboard with flowers and garlands, and when the time
came for the Giant to come home, Boots crept under the bed again.

Then back came the Giant.

Snuff-snuff! "My eyes and limbs, what a smell of Christian blood there
is in here!"

"I know there is," said the Princess, "for a little while since there
came a crow flying with a man's bone in his bill, and let it fall down
the chimney. I made all the haste I could to get it out of the house;
but after all my pains I dare say it's that you smell."

When the Giant heard that he said no more about it, but after a while he
saw how the cupboard was all decked about with flowers and garlands; and
he asked who it was that had done that. Who could it be but the
Princess?

"And, pray what's the meaning of all this foolishness?" asked the Giant.

"Oh, I couldn't help doing it when I knew your heart lay there," said
the Princess.

"How can you be so silly as to believe any such thing?" said the Giant.

"How can I help believing it, when you say it?" said the Princess.

"You're a goose," said the Giant; "where my heart is, you will never
come."

"Yet for all that," said the Princess, "it would be such a pleasure to
know where it really lies."

Then the poor Giant could hold out no longer, but said,--

"Far, far away in a lake lies an island; on that island stands a church;
in that church is a well; in that well swims a duck; in that duck there
is an egg, and in that egg there lies my heart."

In the morning early, while it was still gray dawn, the Giant strode off
to the wood.

"Now I must set off too," said Boots; "if I only knew how to find the
way." He took a long farewell of the Princess, and when he slipped out
of the Giant's door, there stood the Wolf waiting for him. Boots told
him all that had happened, and said now he wished to ride to the well
inside the church, if only he knew the way. The Wolf bade him jump on
his back, and away they went, over hill and dale, over hedge and field,
till the wind whistled after them. After they had travelled many, many
days, they came at last to the lake. Then the Prince did not know how to
get across, but the Wolf bade him not to be afraid, but to hold fast. So
he jumped into the lake with the Prince on his back, and swam over to
the island. When they came to the church, the church keys hung high,
high up on the top of the tower, and the Prince knew not how to get them
down.

"Call upon the raven," said the Wolf.

So the Prince called upon the raven, and immediately the raven came, and
flew up and fetched the keys, and so the Prince got into the church.
When he came to the well, there was the duck, which swam about forward
and backward, just as the Giant had said. So the Prince stood and coaxed
it and coaxed it, till finally it came to him, and he grasped it in his
hand; but just as he lifted it up from the water the duck dropped the
egg in the well, and then Boots was beside himself to know how to get it
out again.

"Now call upon the salmon," said the Wolf, and Boots called upon the
salmon, and the salmon came and fetched up the egg from the bottom of
the well.

Then the Wolf told him to squeeze the egg, and as soon as he squeezed
the egg, the Giant screamed and begged and prayed to be spared, saying
he would do all that the Prince wished if he would only not squeeze his
heart in two.

"Tell him to restore to life again your six brothers and their brides,
whom he has turned to stone," said the Wolf. Yes, the Giant was ready to
do that, and he turned the six brothers into king's sons again, and
their brides into king's daughters.

Then Boots left the Giant's heart on the altar of the church. That took
all the evil power from the cruel Giant, and I have never heard of him
since.

And now, Boots rode back again on the Wolf to the Giant's house, and
there stood all his six brothers alive and merry with their brides. Then
Boots went into the hillside after his bride, and they all set off home
again to their father's house. And you may fancy how glad the old King
was when he saw his seven sons come back, each with his bride;--"But the
loveliest bride is the bride of Boots, after all," said the King, "and
he shall sit highest at the table, with her by his side."

So they had a great wedding feast, and the mirth was both loud and long,
and if they have not done feasting, why they are at it still.




THE SHEEP AND THE PIG WHO SET UP HOUSEKEEPING


Once on a time there was a sheep who stood in the pen to be fattened.

So he lived well and was stuffed and crammed with everything that was
good, till one day the dairymaid came to give him still more food. Then
she said, "Eat away, sheep, you won't be here much longer, we are going
to kill you to-morrow."

The sheep thought over this for a while, and then he ate till he was
ready to burst; and when he was crammed full, he butted out the door of
the pen, and took his way to the neighboring farm. There he went to see
a pig whom he had known out on the common, and with whom he had always
been very friendly.

"Good-day," said the sheep, "do you know why it is you are so well off,
and why it is they fatten you and take such pains with you?"

"No, I don't," said the pig.

"Well, I know; they are going to kill and eat you," said the sheep.

"Are they?" said the pig, "and what is there to be done about it?"

"If you will do as I do," said the sheep, "we'll go off to the wood,
build us a house, and set up for ourselves."

Yes, the pig was willing enough. "Good company is such a comfort," he
said, and so the two set off.

When they had gone a bit they met a goose.

"Good-day, good sirs, and whither away so fast to-day?" said the goose.

"Good-day, good-day," said the sheep, "we are going to set up for
ourselves in the wood, for you know every man's house is his castle."

"Well," said the goose, "I should so much like a home of my own, too.
May I go with you?"

"With gossip and gabble is built neither house nor stable," said the
pig, "let us know what you can do."

"I can pluck moss and stuff it into the seams between the planks, and
the house will be tight and warm."

Yes, they would give him leave, for, above all things, piggy wished to
be warm and comfortable.

So, when they had gone a bit farther--the goose had hard work to walk so
fast--they met a hare, who came frisking out of the wood.

"Good-day, good sirs," she said, "how far are you trotting to-day?"

"Good-day, good-day," said the sheep, "we're going to the wood to build
us a house and set up for ourselves, for, you know, try all the world
around, there's nothing like home."

"As for that," said the hare, "I have a house in every bush, but yet, I
have often said in winter, 'If I only live till summer I'll build me a
house,' and so I have half a mind to go with you and build one, after
all."

"Yes," said the pig, "if we ever get into trouble we might use you to
scare away the dogs, for I don't fancy you could help us in
house-building."

"Don't make fun of me. I have teeth to gnaw pegs and paws to drive them
into the wall, so I can very well set up to be carpenter," said the
hare.

So he too got leave to go with them and help to build their house, and
there was nothing more to be said about it.

When they had gone a bit farther they met a cock.

"Good-day, good sirs," said the cock, "whither are you going to-day,
gentlemen?"

"Good-day, good-day," said the sheep, "we are going off to the wood to
build a house and set up for ourselves, for you know, ''Tis good to
travel east and west, but after all a home is best.'"

"Well," said the cock, "if I might have leave to join such a gallant
company, I also would like to go to the wood and build a house."

"Ay, ay!" said the pig, "but how can you help us build a house?"

"Oh," said the cock, "what would you do without a cock? I am up early,
and I wake every one."

"Very true," said the pig, "let him come with us. Sleep is the biggest
thief," he said, "he thinks nothing of stealing half one's life."

So they all set off to the wood together, and built a house.

The pig hewed the timber, and the sheep drew it home; the hare was
carpenter, and gnawed pegs and bolts and hammered them into the walls
and roof; the goose plucked moss and stuffed it into the seams; the cock
crew, and looked out that they did not oversleep themselves in the
morning; and when the house was ready, and the roof lined with birch
bark and thatched with turf, there they lived by themselves and were
merry and well.

But you must know that a bit farther on in the wood was a wolf's den,
and there lived two graylegs. When they saw that a new house had been
built near by, they wanted to become acquainted with their neighbors.
One of them made up an errand and went into the new house and asked for
a light for his pipe. But as soon as he got inside the door the sheep
gave him such a butt that he fell head foremost into the hearth. Then
the pig began to bite him, and the goose to nip and peck him, and the
cock upon the roost to crow and chatter, and as for the hare, he was so
frightened that he ran about aloft and on the floor and scratched and
scrambled in every corner of the house.

So after a time the wolf came out.

"Well," said the one who waited for him outside, "you must have been
well received since you stayed so long. But what became of the light?
You have neither pipe nor smoke."

"Yes, yes," said the other, "a pleasant company indeed. As soon as I got
inside the door, the shoemaker began to beat me with his last, so that I
fell head foremost into the open fire, and there sat two smiths who blew
the bellows, and made the sparks fly, and struck and punched me with
red-hot tongs and pincers. As for the hunter, he went scrambling about
looking for his gun, and it was good luck he did not find it. And all
the while there was another who sat up under the roof and slapped his
arms and cried out, 'Drag him hither, drag him hither!' That was what he
screamed, and if he had only got hold of me, I should never have come
out alive."

The wolves never went calling on their neighbors any more.




THE PARSON AND THE CLERK


There was once a parson who was such a bully that whenever he met anyone
driving on the king's highway, he called out, ever so far off--"Out of
the way! Out of the way! Here comes the parson!"

One day when he was driving along and behaving so, he met the king. "Out
of the way! Out of the way!" he bawled a long way off. But the king
drove on and held his own; so it was the parson who had to turn his
horse aside that time, and when the king came up beside him, he said,
"To-morrow you shall come to me at the palace, and if you can't answer
three questions which I shall ask you, you shall lose your office for
your pride's sake."

This was something quite different from what the parson was wont to
hear. He could bawl and bully, shout and scold. All that he could do,
but question and answer were not in his line. So he set off to the
clerk, who was said to be worth more than the parson, and told him he
had no mind to go to the king. "For one fool can ask more than ten wise
men can answer;" and the end was, he got the clerk to go in his place.

Yes, the clerk set off and came to the palace in the parson's clothes.
There the king met him out on the porch with crown and sceptre, and he
was so grand he fairly glittered and gleamed. "Well, are you there?"
said the king.

"Tell me first," said the king, "how far the east is from the west?"

"Just a day's journey," said the clerk.

"How is that?" asked the king.

"Don't you know," said the clerk, "that the sun rises in the east and
sets in the west, and he does it just nicely in a day?"

"Very well!" said the king, "but tell me now what you think I am worth,
as you see me stand here?"

"Well," said the clerk, "our Lord was valued at thirty pieces of silver,
so I don't think I can set your price higher than twenty-nine."

"All very fine!" said the king, "but, as you are so wise, perhaps you
can tell me what I am thinking about now?"

"Oh!" said the clerk, "you are thinking it's the parson who stands
before you, but there's where you are mistaken, for I am the clerk."

"Be off home with you," said the king, "and be you parson, and let him
be clerk." And so it was.




FATHER BRUIN


Once on a time there was a man who lived far, far away in the wood. He
had many, many goats and sheep, but never a one could he keep because of
Greylegs, the wolf.

At last he said, "I'll soon trap Greyboots," and so he set to work to
dig a pitfall. When he had dug it deep enough, he put a pole down in the
midst of the pit, and on the top of the pole he set a board, and on the
board he put a little dog. Over the pit itself he spread boughs and
branches and leaves, and other rubbish, and a-top of all he strewed
snow, so that Greylegs might not see that there was a pit underneath.

So when night came on, the little dog grew weary of sitting there:
"Bow-wow, bow-wow," he said, and bayed at the moon. Just then up came a
fox, prowling and sneaking, and thought here was a fine time for
marketing, and with that gave a jump,--head over heels down into the
pitfall.

And when it got a little farther on in the night, the little dog grew so
weary and so hungry, and it fell to yelping and howling: "Bow-wow,
bow-wow," he cried out. Just at that very moment up came Greylegs,
trotting and trotting. He, too, thought he should get a fat steak, and
he, too, made a spring--head over heels down into the pitfall.

When it was getting on towards grey dawn in the morning, down fell the
snow, with a north wind, and it grew so cold that the little dog stood
and shivered and shook, he was so weary and hungry, "Bow-wow, bow-wow,
bow-wow," he called out, and barked and yelped and howled. Then up came
a bear, tramping and tramping along, and thought to himself how he could
get a morsel for breakfast at the very top of the morning, and so he
thought and thought among the boughs and branches, till he, too, went
bump--head over heels down into the pitfall.

So when it got a little farther on in the morning, an old beggar wife
came walking by, who toddled from farm to farm with a bag on her back.
When she set eyes on the little dog that stood there and howled, she
could not help going near to look and see if any wild beasts had fallen
into the pit during the night. So she crawled up on her knees and peeped
down into it.

"Art thou come into the pit at last, Reynard?" she said to the fox, for
he was the first she saw; "a very good place, too, for such a hen-roost
robber as thou; and thou, too, Grey-paw," she said to the wolf; "many a
goat and sheep hast thou torn and rent, and now thou shalt be plagued
and punished to death. Bless my heart! Thou, too, Bruin! Art thou, too,
sitting in this room, thou horse killer? Thee, too, will we strip, and
thee shall we flay, and thy skull shall be nailed up on the wall." All
this the old lass screeched out as she bent over towards the bear. But
just then her bag fell over her ears and dragged her down, and slap!
down went the old woman--head over heels into the pitfall.

So there they all four sat and glared at one another, each in a
corner--Reynard in one, Greylegs in another, Bruin in a third, and the
old woman in a fourth.

But as soon as it was broad daylight, Reynard began to peep and peer,
and to twist and turn about, for he thought he might as well try to get
out.

But the old lass cried out, "Canst thou not sit still, thou whirligig
thief, and not go twisting and turning? Only look at Father Bruin
himself in the corner, how he sits as grave as a judge," for now she
thought she might as well make friends with the bear.

But just then up came the man who owned the pitfall.

First he drew up the old woman, and after that he slew all the beasts,
and neither spared Father Bruin himself in the corner, nor Grey-legs,
nor Reynard the whirligig thief. That night, at least, he thought he had
made a good haul.




THE PANCAKE


Once on a time there was a woman who had seven hungry children, and she
was frying a pancake for them. It was a sweet milk pancake, and there it
lay in the pan, bubbling and frizzling so thick and good, it was a
delight to look at it. And the children stood round about, and the old
father sat by and looked on.

"Oh, give me a bit of pancake, mother, dear, I am so hungry," said one
child.

"Oh, darling mother," said the second.

"Oh, darling, good mother," said the third.

"Oh, darling, good, sweet mother," said the fourth.

"Oh, darling, pretty, good, sweet mother," said the fifth.

"Oh, darling, pretty, good, sweet, clever mother," said the sixth.

"Oh, darling, pretty, good, sweet, clever, kindest little mother," said
the seventh.

So they begged for the pancake all around, the one more prettily than
the other, for they were so hungry and so good.

"Yes, yes, children, only bide a bit till it turns itself"--she ought to
have said, 'till I can get it turned,'--"and then you shall have some
lovely sweet milk pancake. Only look how fat and happy it lies there."

When the pancake heard all this it became afraid, and in a trice it
turned itself and tried to jump out of the pan, but it fell back into it
again, the other side up. When it had been fried a little on the other
side too, till it got firm and stiff, it jumped out of the pan to the
floor and rolled off like a wheel through the door and down the hill.

"Holloa! Stop, pancake!" and away ran the mother after it, with the
frying pan in one hand and the ladle in the other, as fast as she could,
and all the children behind her, while the old father on crutches limped
after them last of all.

"Hi! Won't you stop? Catch it! Stop, pancake!" they all screamed out,
one after another, and tried to catch it on the run and hold it. But the
pancake rolled on and on, and in a twinkling of an eye it was so far
ahead that they couldn't see it.

So when it had rolled awhile it met a man.

"Good-day, pancake," said the man.

"Good-day, Manny Panny!" said the pancake.

"Dear pancake," said the man, "don't roll so fast; stop a little and let
me eat you."

"No, no; I have run away from the mother, and the father, and seven
hungry children. I'll run away from you, Manny Panny," said the pancake,
and it rolled and rolled till it met a hen.

"Good-day, pancake," said the hen.

"The same to you, Henny Penny," said the pancake.

"Pancake, dear, don't roll so fast. Bide a bit and let me eat you up,"
said the hen.

"No, no; I have run away from the mother, and the father, and seven
hungry children, and Manny Panny. I'll run away from you, too, Henny
Penny," said the pancake, and it rolled on like a wheel down the road.

Just then it met a cock.

"Good-day, pancake," said the cock.

"The same to you, Cocky Locky," said the pancake.

"Pancake, dear, don't roll so fast, but bide a bit and let me eat you
up."

"No, no; I have run away from the mother, and the father, seven hungry
children, Manny Panny, and Henny Penny. I'll run away from you too,
Cocky Locky," said the pancake, and it rolled and rolled as fast as it
could. Bye and bye it met a duck.

"Good-day, pancake," said the duck.

"The same to you, Ducky Lucky."

"Pancake, dear, don't roll away so fast; bide a bit and let me eat you
up."

"No, no; I have run away from the mother, and the father, and seven
hungry children, Manny Panny, Henny Penny, and Cocky Locky. I'll run
away from you, too, Ducky Lucky," said the pancake, and with that it
took to rolling and rolling faster than ever; and when it had rolled a
long, long while, it met a goose.

"Good-day, pancake," said the goose.

"The same to you, Goosey Poosey."

"Pancake, dear, don't roll so fast; bide a bit and let me eat you up."

"No, no; I have run away from the mother, the father, seven hungry
children, Manny Panny, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, and Ducky Lucky. I'll
run away from you, too, Goosey Poosey," said the pancake, and off it
rolled.

So when it had rolled a long way off, it met a gander.

"Good-day, pancake," said the gander.

"The same to you, Gander Pander," said the pancake.

"Pancake, dear, don't roll so fast; bide a bit and let me have a bite."

"No, no; I've run away from the mother, the father, seven hungry
children, Manny Panny, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, and Goosey
Poosey. I'll run away from you, too, Gander Pander," said the pancake,
and it rolled and rolled as fast as ever.

So when it had rolled a long, long time, it met a pig.

"Good-day, pancake," said the pig.

"The same to you, Piggy Wiggy," said the pancake, and without a word
more it began to roll and roll for dear life.

"Nay, nay," said the pig, "you needn't be in such a hurry; we two can go
side by side through the wood; they say it is not too safe in there."

The pancake thought there might be something in that, and so they kept
company. But when they had gone a while, they came to a brook. As for
Piggy, he was so fat he could swim across. It was nothing for him, but
the poor pancake could not get over.

"Seat yourself on my snout," said the pig, "and I'll carry you over."

So the pancake did that.

"Ouf, ouf," said the pig, and swallowed the pancake at one gulp, and
then, as the poor pancake could go no farther, why--this story can go no
farther either.




WHY THE SEA IS SALT


Once on a time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two
brothers, one rich and one poor.

Now, one Christmas eve, the poor one had not so much as a crumb in the
house, either of meat or bread, so he went to his brother to ask him for
something with which to keep Christmas. It was not the first time his
brother had been forced to help him, and, as he was always stingy, he
was not very glad to see him this time, but he said, "I'll give you a
whole piece of bacon, two loaves of bread, and candles into the bargain,
if you'll never bother me again--but mind you don't set foot in my house
from this day on."

The poor brother said he wouldn't, thanked his brother for the help he
had given him, and started on his way home.

He hadn't gone far before he met an old, old man with a white beard, who
looked so thin and worn and hungry that it was pitiful to see him.

"In heaven's name give a poor man a morsel to eat," said the old man.

"Now, indeed, I have been begging myself," said the poor brother, "but
I'm not so poor that I can't give you something on the blessed Christmas
eve." And with that he handed the old man a candle, a loaf of bread, and
he was just going to cut off a slice of bacon, when the old man stopped
him--"That is enough and to spare," said he. "And now, I'll tell you
something. Not far from here is the entrance to the home of the
underground folks. They have a mill there which can grind out anything
they wish for except bacon; now mind you go there. When you get inside
they will all want to buy your bacon, but don't sell it unless you get
in return the mill which stands behind the door. When you come out I'll
teach you how to handle the mill."

So the man with the bacon thanked the other for his good advice and
followed the directions which the old man had given him, and soon he
stood outside the door of the hillfolk's home.

When he got in, everything went just as the old man had said. All the
hillfolk, great and small, came swarming up to him, like ants around an
ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the bacon.

"Well!" said the man, "by rights, my old dame and I ought to have this
bacon for our Christmas dinner; but, since you have all set your hearts
on it, I suppose I must give it up to you. Now, if I sell it at all,
I'll have for it that mill behind the door yonder."

At first the hillfolk wouldn't hear of such a bargain and higgled and
haggled with the man, but he stuck to what he said, and at last they
gave up the mill for the bacon.

When the man got out of the cave and into the woods again, he met the
same old beggar and asked him how to handle the mill. After he had
learned how to use it, he thanked the old man and went off home as fast
as he could; but still the clock had struck twelve on Christmas eve
before he reached his own door.

"Wherever in the world have you been?" said his old dame. "Here have I
sat hour after hour, waiting and watching, without so much as two sticks
to lay together under the Christmas porridge."

"Oh!" said the man, "I could not get back before, for I had to go a long
way first for one thing and then for another; but now you shall see what
you shall see."

So he put the mill on the table, and bade it first of all grind lights,
then a tablecloth, then meat, then ale, and so on till they had
everything that was nice for Christmas fare. He had only to speak the
word and the mill ground out whatever he wanted. The old dame stood by
blessing her stars, and kept on asking where he had got this wonderful
mill, but he wouldn't tell her.

"It's all the same where I got it. You see the mill is a good one, and
the mill stream never freezes. That's enough."

So he ground meat and drink and all good things to last out the whole of
Christmas holidays, and on the third day he asked all his friends and
kin to his house and gave them a great feast. Now, when his rich brother
saw all that was on the table and all that was in the cupboards, he grew
quite wild with anger, for he could not bear that his brother should
have anything.

"'Twas only on Christmas eve," he said to the rest, "he was so poorly
off that he came and begged for a morsel of food, and now he gives a
feast as if he were count or a king." and he turned to his brother and
said, "But where in the world did you get all this wealth?"

"From behind the door," answered the owner of the mill, for he did not
care to tell his brother much about it. But later in the evening, when
he had gotten a little too merry, he could keep his secret no longer,
and he brought out the mill and said:

"There you see what has gotten me all this wealth," and so he made the
mill grind all kinds of things.

When his brother saw it, he set his heart on having the mill, and, after
some talk, it was agreed that the rich brother was to get it at
hay-harvest time, when he was to pay three hundred dollars for it. Now,
you may fancy the mill did not grow rusty for want of work, for while he
had it the poor brother made it grind meat and drink that would last for
years. When hay-harvest came, the rich brother got it, but he was in
such a hurry to make it grind that he forgot to learn how to handle it.

It was evening when the rich brother got the mill home, and next morning
he told his wife to go out into the hayfield and toss hay while the
mowers cut the grass, and he would stay at home and get the dinner
ready. So, when dinner time drew near, he put the mill on the kitchen
table and said:

"Grind herrings and broth, and grind them good and fast."

And the mill began to grind herrings and broth; first of all the dishes
full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor was quite
covered. The man twisted and twirled at the mill to get it to stop, but
for all his fiddling and fumbling the mill went on grinding, and in a
little while the broth rose so high that the man was nearly drowning. So
he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlor, but it was not
long before the mill had ground the parlor full too, and it was only at
the risk of his life that the man could get hold of the latch of the
house door through the stream of broth. When he got the door open, he
ran out and set off down the road, with the stream of herrings and broth
at his heels, roaring like a waterfall over the whole farm.

Now, his old dame, who was in the field tossing hay, thought it a long
time to dinner, and at last she said:

"Well! though the master doesn't call us home, we may as well go. Maybe
he finds it hard work to boil the broth, and will be glad of my help."

The men were willing enough, so they sauntered homewards. But just as
they had got a little way up the hill, what should they meet but
herrings and broth, all running and dashing and splashing together in a
stream, and the master himself running before them for his life, and as
he passed them he called out: "Eat, drink! eat, drink! but take care
you're not drowned in the broth."

Away he ran as fast as his legs would carry him to his brother's house,
and begged him in heaven's name to take back the mill, and that at once,
for, said he, "If it grinds only one hour more, the whole parish will be
swallowed up by herrings and broth."

So the poor brother took back the mill, and it wasn't long before it
stopped grinding herrings and broth.

[Illustration: With the herrings and broth at his heels]

And now he set up a farmhouse far finer than the one in which his
brother lived, and with the mill he ground so much gold that he covered
it with plates of gold. And, as the farm lay by the seaside, the golden
house gleamed and glistened far away over the sea. All who sailed by put
ashore to see the rich man in the golden house, and to see the wonderful
mill the fame of which spread far and wide, till there was nobody who
hadn't heard of it.

So one day there came a skipper who wanted to see the mill, and the
first thing he asked was if it could grind salt.

"Grind salt!" said the owner, "I should just think it could. It can
grind anything."

When the skipper heard that, he said he must have the mill, for if he
only had it, he thought, he need not take his long voyages across stormy
seas for a lading of salt. He much preferred sitting at home with a pipe
and a glass. Well, the man let him have it, but the skipper was in such
a hurry to get away with it that he had no time to ask how to handle the
mill. He got on board his ship as fast as he could and set sail. When he
had sailed a good way off, he brought the mill on deck and said, "Grind
salt, and grind both good and fast."

And the mill began to grind salt so that it poured out like water, and
when the skipper had got the ship full he wished to stop the mill, but
whichever way he turned it, and however much he tried, it did no good;
the mill kept on grinding, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher,
and at last down sank the ship.

There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and grinds away to this
very day, and that is the reason why the sea is salt--so some folks say.




THE SQUIRE'S BRIDE


There was once a very rich squire who owned a large farm, had plenty of
silver at the bottom of his chest, and money in the bank besides; but
there was something he had not, and that was a wife.

One day a neighbor's daughter was working for him in the hayfield. The
squire liked her very much and, as she was a poor man's daughter, he
thought that if he only mentioned marriage she would be more than glad
to take him at once. So he said to her, "I've been thinking I want to
marry."

"Well, one may think of many things," said the lassie, as she stood
there and smiled slyly. She really thought the old fellow ought to be
thinking of something that behooved him better than getting married at
his time of life.

"Now, you see," he said, "I was thinking that you should be my wife!"

"No, thank you," said she, "and much obliged for the honor."

The squire was not used to being gainsaid, and the more she refused him
the more he wanted her. But the lassie would not listen to him at all.
So the old man sent for her father and told him that, if he could talk
his daughter over and arrange the whole matter for him, he would forgive
him the money he had lent him, and would give him the piece of land
which lay close to his meadow into the bargain.

"Yes, yes, be sure I'll bring the lass to her senses," said the father.
"She is only a child and does not know what is best for her."

But all his coaxing, all his threats and all his talking, went for
naught. She would not have the old miser, if he sat buried in gold up to
his ears, she said.

The squire waited and waited, but at last he got angry and told the
father that he had to settle the matter at once if he expected him to
stand by his bargain, for now he would wait no longer.

The man knew no other way out of it, but to let the squire get
everything ready for the wedding; then, when the parson and the wedding
guests had arrived, the squire would send for the lassie as if she were
wanted for some work on the farm. When she got there they would marry
her right away, in such a hurry that she would have no time to think it
over.

When the guests had arrived the squire called one of his farm lads, told
him to run down to his neighbor and ask him to send up immediately what
he had promised.

"But if you are not back with her in a twinkling," he said, shaking his
fist at him, "I'll----"

He did not finish, for the lad ran off as if he had been shot at.

"My master has sent me to ask for that which you promised him," said the
lad, when he got to the neighbor, "but, pray, lose no time, for master
is terribly busy to-day."

"Yes, yes! Run down in the meadow and take her with you--there she
goes," answered the neighbor.

The lad ran off and when he came to the meadow he found the daughter
there raking the hay.

"I am to fetch what your father has promised my master," said the lad.

"Ah, ha!" thought she, "is that what they are up to?" And with a wicked
twinkle of the eye, she said, "Oh, yes, it's that little bay mare of
ours, I suppose. You had better go and take her. She stands tethered on
the other side of the pea field."

The boy jumped on the back of the bay mare and rode home at full gallop.

"Have you got her with you?" asked the squire.

"She is down at the door," said the lad.

"Take her up to the room my mother had," said the squire.

"But, master, how can I?" said the lad.

"Do as I tell you," said the squire. "And if you can't manage her alone,
get the men to help you," for he thought the lassie might be stubborn.

When the lad saw his master's face he knew it would be no use to argue.
So he went and got all the farm hands together to help him. Some pulled
at the head and the forelegs of the mare and others pushed from behind,
and at last they got her upstairs and into the room. There lay all the
wedding finery ready.

"Well, that's done, master!" said the lad, while he wiped his wet brow,
"but it was the worst job I have ever had here on the farm."

"Never mind, never mind, you shall not have done it for nothing," said
his master, and he pulled a bright silver coin out of his pocket and
gave it to the lad. "Now send the women up to dress her."

"But, I say--master!--"

"None of your talk!" cried the squire. "Tell them to hold her while they
dress her, and mind not to forget either wreath or crown."

The lad ran into the kitchen:

"Listen, here, lasses," he called out, "you are to go upstairs and dress
up the bay mare as a bride--I suppose master wants to play a joke on his
guests."

The women laughed and laughed, but ran upstairs and dressed the bay mare
in everything that was there. And then the lad went and told his master
that now she was all ready, with wreath and crown and all.

"Very well, bring her down. I will receive her at the door myself," said
the squire.

There was a clatter and a thumping on the stairs, for that bride, you
know, had no silken slippers on.

When the door was opened and the squire's bride entered the room, you
can imagine there was laughing and tittering and grinning enough.

And as for the squire, they say he never went courting again.




PEIK


Once on a time there was a man, and he had a wife. They had a son and a
daughter who were twins, and these were so alike that no one could tell
one from the other except by their clothing. The boy they called Peik.
He was of little use while his father and mother lived, for he cared to
do naught else than to befool folk, and he was so full of tricks and
pranks that no one was left in peace. When the parents died, matters
grew still worse and worse. He would not turn his hand to anything. All
he would do was to squander what they left behind them.

His sister toiled and moiled all she could, but it helped little; so at
last she told him how silly it was to do naught for the house.

"What shall we have to live on when you have wasted everything?"
she said.

"Oh, I'll go out and befool somebody," said Peik.

"Yes, Peik, I'll be bound you'll do that soon enough," said the sister.

"Well, I'll try," said Peik.

At last they had indeed nothing more. There was an end of everything;
and Peik started off, and walked and walked till he came to the King's
palace.

Now, I must tell you, this King and his queen and eldest daughter were
little better than trolls,--mean and hateful and very foolish,--so there
was no love lost between them and the people.

When Peik came to the King's palace, there stood the King in the porch,
and as soon as he set eyes on the lad he said,

"Whither away, to-day, Peik?"

"Oh, I was going out to see if I could befool anybody," said Peik.

"Can't you befool me now?" said the King.

"No, I'm sure I can't," said Peik, "for I've forgotten my fooling rods."

"Can't you go home and fetch them?" said the King, "I should be very
glad to see if you are such a trickster as folks say."

"I've no strength to walk," said Peik.

"I'll lend you a horse and saddle," said the King

"But I can't ride either," said Peik.

"We'll lift you up," said the King, "then you'll be able to stick on."

Well, Peik stood and scratched his head as though he would pull the hair
off, and he let them lift him up into the saddle. There he sat, swinging
this side and that, so long as the King could see him, and the King
laughed till the tears came into his eyes, for such a tailor on
horseback he had never seen. But when Peik was come well into the wood
behind the hill, so that he was out of the King's sight, he sat as
though he were tied to the horse, and off he rode as fast as the horse
could carry him. But when he got to the town he sold both horse and
saddle.

All the while the King walked up and down, and loitered, and waited for
Peik to come tottering back again with his fooling rods. And every now
and then he laughed when he called to mind how wretched the lad looked
as he sat swinging about on the horse like a sack of corn, not knowing
on which side to fall off. This lasted for seven lengths and seven
breaths, but no Peik came, and so at last the King saw that he was
fooled and cheated out of his horse and saddle, even though Peik had not
had his fooling rods with him. Then there was another story, for the
King got wroth, and was all for setting off to kill Peik.

But Peik had found out the day he was coming, and told his sister she
must put on the big boiling-pot with a little water in it. Just as the
King came in, Peik dragged the pot off the fire and ran off with it to
the chopping-block, and so boiled the porridge on the block.

The King wondered at that, and wondered on and on, so much that he quite
forgot what brought him there.

"What do you want for that pot?" said he.

"I can't spare it," said Peik.

"Why not?" said the King; "I'll pay what you ask."

"No, no!" said Peik. "It saves me time and money, wood hire and chopping
hire, carting and carrying."

"Never mind," said the King, "I'll give you a hundred dollars. It's true
you've fooled me out of a horse and saddle, and bridle besides, but all
that shall go for nothing if I can only get the pot."

"Well, if you must have it, you must," said Peik.

When the King got home he asked guests and made a feast, but the meat
was to be boiled in the new pot, and so he took it up and set it in the
middle of the floor. The guests thought the King had lost his wits, and
went about elbowing one another, and laughing at him. But he walked
round and round the pot and cackled and chattered, saying all in a
breath--

"Well, well! bide a bit, bide a bit! 'Twill boil in a minute."

But there was no boiling. So he saw that Peik had been out with his
fooling rods and had cheated him again, and now he would set off at once
and slay him.

When the King came, Peik stood out by the barn door. "Wouldn't it boil?"
he asked.

"No, it would not, and you shall smart for it," said the King, about to
unsheath his knife.

"I can well believe that," said Peik, "for you did not take the block,
too."

"I wish I thought," said the King, "you weren't telling me a pack of
lies."

"I tell you it's because of the block it stands on; it won't boil
without it," said Peik.

"Well, what do you want for it?"

It was well worth three hundred dollars; but for the King's sake it
should go for two. So the King got the block and traveled home with it.
He bade guests again, made a feast, and set the pot on the
chopping-block in the middle of the room. The guests thought he was both
daft and mad, and they went about making game of him, while he cackled
and chattered around the pot, calling out, "Bide a bit! Now it boils,
now it boils in a trice."

But it wouldn't boil a bit more on the block than on the bare floor. So
he saw that Peik had been out with his fooling rods this time, too. Then
he fell a-tearing his hair, and said he would set off at once and slay
the lad. He wouldn't spare him this time, whether or no.

But Peik was ready for him. He had filled a leather bag with blood and
stuffed it into his sister's bosom, and told her what to say and do.

"Where's Peik?" screamed out the King. He was in such a rage that he
stuttered and stammered.

"He is so poorly that he can't stir hand or foot," she said, "and now
he's trying to get a nap."

"Wake him up!" said the King.

"Nay, I daren't, he will be so angry," said the sister.

"Well, I am angrier still," said the King, "and if you don't wake him, I
will," and with that he tapped his side where his knife hung.

"Well, she would go and wake him," but Peik turned hastily in his bed,
drew out a knife and ripped open the leather bag in her bosom, so that
the blood gushed out, and down she fell on the floor as though she were
dead.

"What an awful fellow you are, Peik," said the King; "you have killed
your sister right before my eyes!"

"Oh, there's no trouble with her so long as there's breath in my
nostrils," said Peik, and with that he pulled out a ram's horn and began
to toot on it.

"Toot-e-too-too," he blew, with one end of the horn to her body, and up
she rose as though there was nothing the matter with her.

"Dear me, Peik! Can you kill folk and blow life into them again? Can you
do that?" said the King.

"Why!" said Peik, "how could I get on at all if I couldn't? I am always
killing every one I come near; don't you know I have a terrible temper?"

"I am hot-tempered, too," said the King, "and that horn I must have.
I'll give you a hundred dollars for it, and besides I'll forgive you for
cheating me out of my horse and for fooling me about the pot and the
block, and all else."

Peik was loth to part with it, but for his sake he would let him have
it. And so the King went off home with it, and he hardly got back before
he must try it.

So he fell a-wrangling and quarreling with the queen and his eldest
daughter, and they paid him back in the same coin; but before they knew
what was happening he had whipped out his knife and cut their throats.
They fell down stone dead and the other two daughters ran from the
house, they were so afraid.

The King walked about the floor for a while and kept chattering that
there was no harm done so long as there was breath in him, and then he
pulled out the horn and began to blow "Toot-e-too-too! Toot-e-too-too!"
but, though he blew and tooted as hard as he could all that day and the
next, too, he could not blow life into them again. Dead they were, and
dead they stayed. But the people in the kingdom were only glad to get
rid of such troll-folk, and were wishing some one might make an end of
the King, too, so that they might have a good King in his place.

But the King was now angrier than ever, and must go right off to kill
Peik.

But Peik knew that he was coming and then he said to his sister--

"Now, you must change clothes with me and set off. If you will do that,
you may have all we own."

So, she changed clothes with him, packed up and started off as fast as
she could; but Peik sat all alone in his sister's clothes.

"Where is that Peik?" roared the King, as as he came, in a towering
rage, through the door.

"He has run away," said Peik. "He knew that your Majesty was coming, so
he left me all alone without a morsel of bread or a penny in my purse,"
and he made himself as gentle and sweet as a young lady.

"Come along, then, to the King's palace, and you shall have enough to
live on. There's no good sitting here and starving in this cabin by
yourself," said the King.

So Peik went home with the King, and there he was treated as the King's
own daughter, for Miss Peik sewed and stitched and sang and played with
the others, and was with them early and late.

But one day a man came to the King and told him that Peik's sister was
at a farm in the neighborhood, and that it was Peik he had brought up in
his own house. Now, Peik had heard all that the man told the King, so he
ran away from the King's palace, out into the wide world.

The King got into a terrible rage then, and called for Peik, but he was
nowhere to be found. Then he mounted his horse to go out to look for
Peik.

He had not gone far before he came to a ploughed field and there sat
Peik on a stone, playing on a mouth organ.

"What! Are you sitting there, Peik?" said the King.

"Here I sit, sure enough," said Peik; "where else should I sit?"

"You have cheated me foully time after time," said the King, "but now
you must come along home with me, and I'll kill you."

"Well, well," said Peik, "if it can't be helped, it can't; I suppose I
must go along with you."

When they got home to the King's palace they got ready a barrel which
Peik was to be put in, and when it was ready they carted it up a high
mountain. There he was to lie three days, thinking on all the evil he
had done, then they were to roll him down the mountain into the sea.

The third day a rich man passed by and when he heard Peik's story he was
ready to help him out of his trouble.

They made a stuffed man and put him with some stones into the
barrel--but the rich man gave Peik horses and cows, sheep and swine, and
money beside.

Now, the King came to roll Peik down the mountain. "A happy journey!"
said the King, "and now it is all over with you and your fooling rods."

Before the barrel was halfway down the mountain there was not a whole
stave of it left, nor would there have been a whole limb on Peik, had he
been there. But when the King came back to the palace, Peik was there
before him, and sat in the court-yard playing on his mouth organ.

"What! You sitting here, you, Peik?"

"Yes! Here I sit, sure enough. Where else should I sit?" said Peik.
"Maybe I can get room here for all my horses and sheep and money."

"But whither was it that I rolled you that you got all this wealth?"
asked the King.

"Oh, you rolled me into the sea," said Peik, "and when I got to the
bottom there was more than enough and to spare, both of horses and
sheep, and of gold and silver. The cattle went about in great flocks,
and the gold and silver lay in large heaps as big as houses."

"What will you take to roll me down the same way?" asked the King.

"Oh," said Peik, "it costs little or nothing to do it. Besides, you took
nothing from me, and so I'll take nothing from you either."

So he stuffed the King into a barrel and rolled him over, and when he
had given him a ride down to the sea for nothing, he went home to the
King's palace.

[Illustration: So he stuffed the King into the barrel and rolled him over]

Then he began to hold his bridal feast with the youngest princess, and
afterwards he ruled the land both well and long. But he kept his fooling
rods to himself, and kept them so well that nothing was ever heard of
Peik and his tricks, but only of "Ourself the King."




THE PRINCESS WHO COULD NOT BE SILENCED


There was once a King, and he had a daughter who was so cross and
crooked in her words that no one could silence her, and so he gave it
out that he who could do it should marry the princess and have half the
kingdom, too. There were plenty of those who wanted to try it, I can
tell you, for it is not every day that you can get a princess and half a
kingdom. The gate to the King's palace did not stand still a minute.
They came in great crowds from the East and the West, both riding and
walking. But there was not one of them who could silence the princess.

At last the king had it given out that those who tried, and failed,
should have both ears marked with the big redhot iron with which he
marked his sheep. He was not going to have all that flurry and worry for
nothing.

Well, there were three brothers, who had heard about the princess, and,
as they did not fare very well at home, they thought they had better set
out to try their luck and see if they could not win the princess and
half the kingdom. They were friends and good fellows, all three of them,
and they set off together.

When they had walked a bit of the way, Boots picked up something.

"I've found--I've found something!" he cried.

"What did you find!" asked the brothers.

"I found a dead crow," said he.

"Ugh! Throw it away! What would you do with that?" said the brothers,
who always thought they knew a great deal.

"Oh, I haven't much to carry, I might as well carry this," said Boots.

So when they had walked on a bit, Boots again picked up something.

"I've found--I've found something!" he cried.

"What have you found now?" said the brothers.

"I found a willow twig," said he.

"Dear, what do you want with that? Throw it away!" said they.

"Oh, I haven't much to carry, I might as well carry that," said Boots.

So when they had walked a bit, Boots picked up something again. "Oh,
lads, I've found--I've found something!" he cried.

"Well, well, what did you find this time?" asked the brothers.

"A piece of a broken saucer," said he.

"Oh, what is the use of that? Throw it away!" said they.

"Oh, I haven't much to carry, I might as well carry that," said Boots.

And when they had walked a bit further, Boots stooped down again and
picked up something else.

"I've found--I've found something, lads!" he cried.

"And what is it now?" said they.

"Two goat horns," said Boots.

"Oh! Throw them away. What could you do with them?" said they.

"Oh, I haven't much to carry, I might as well carry them," said Boots.

In a little while he found something again.

"Oh, lads, see, I've found--I've found something," he cried.

"Dear, dear, what wonderful things you do find! What is it now?" said
the brothers.

"I've found a wedge," said he.

"Oh, throw it away. What do you want with that?" said they.

"Oh, I haven't much to carry, I might as well carry that," said Boots.

And now, as they walked over the fields close up to the King's palace,
Boots bent down again and held something in his fingers.

"Oh, lads, lads, see what I've found!" he cried.

"If you only found a little common sense, it would be good for you,"
said they. "Well, let's see what it is now."

"A worn-out shoe sole," said he.

"Pshaw! Well, that was something to pick up! Throw it away! What do you
want with that?" said the brothers.

"Oh, I haven't much to carry, I might as well carry that, if I am to win
the princess and half the kingdom," said Boots.

"Yes, you are likely to do that--you," said they.

And now they came to the King's palace. The eldest one went in first.

"Good-day," said he.

"Good-day to you," said the princess, and she twisted and turned.

"It's awfully hot here," said he.

"It is hotter over there in the hearth," said the princess. There lay
the red-hot iron ready awaiting. When he saw that he forgot every word
he was going to say, and so it was all over with him.

And now came the next oldest one.

"Good-day," said he.

"Good-day to you," said she, and she turned and twisted herself.

"It's awfully hot here," said he.

"It's hotter over there in the hearth," said she. And when he looked at
the red-hot iron he, too, couldn't get a word out, and so they marked
his ears and sent him home again.

Then it was Boots' turn.

"Good-day," said he.

"Good-day to you," said she, and she twisted and turned again.

"It's nice and warm in here," said Boots.

"It's hotter in the hearth," said she, and she was no sweeter, now the
third one had come.

"That's good, I may bake my crow there, then?" asked he.

"I'm afraid she'll burst," said the princess.

"There's no danger; I'll wind this willow twig around," said the lad.

"It's too loose," said she.

"I'll stick this wedge in," said the lad, and took out the wedge.

"The fat will drop off," said the princess.

"I'll hold this under," said the lad, and pulled out the broken bit of
the saucer.

"You are crooked in your words, that you are," said the princess.

"No, I'm not crooked, but this is crooked," said the lad, and he showed
her the goat's horn.

"Well, I never saw the equal to that!" cried the princess.

"Oh, here is the equal to it," said he, and pulled out the other.

"Now, you think you'll wear out my soul, don't you?" said she.

"No, I won't wear out your soul, for I have a sole that's worn out
already," said the lad, and pulled out the shoe sole.

Then the princess hadn't a word to say.

"Now, you're mine," said Boots.

And so she was.




THE TWELVE WILD DUCKS


Once on a time there was a Queen who had twelve sons but no daughter.

One day she was out driving in the woods and met the prettiest little
lassie one ever did see, and so the Queen stopped her horses, lifted the
child up in her arms, kissed her on both cheeks, all the while thinking:

"I wish I had a little girl of my own, oh, how long I've waited and
wished for one."

Just then an old witch of the trolls came up to her, but you wouldn't
have known it was a witch at all, she looked so kind and good.

"A daughter you shall have," she said, "and she shall be the prettiest
child in twelve kingdoms, if you will give to me what ever comes to meet
you at the bridge."

Now the Queen had a little snow white dog of which she was very fond,
and it always ran to meet her when she had been away. She thought, of
course, it was the dog the old dame wanted, so the Queen said, "Yes, you
may have what comes to meet me on the bridge." With that she hurried
home as fast as she could.

But, who should come to meet her on the bridge but her twelve sons; and
before the mother could cry out to them the wicked witch threw her spell
upon them and turned them into twelve ducks which flapped their wings
and flew away. Away they went and away they stayed.

But the Queen had a daughter, and she was the loveliest child one ever
set eyes upon. The Princess grew up, and she was both tall and fair, but
she was often quiet and sorrowful, and no one could understand what it
was that ailed her. The Queen, too, was often sorrowful, as you may
believe, for she had many strange fears when she thought of her sons.
And one day she said to her daughter, "Why are you so sorrowful, lassie
mine? Is there anything you want? If so, only say the word, and you
shall have it."

"Oh, it seems so dull and lonely here," said the daughter, "every one
else has brothers and sisters, but I am all alone; I have none. That's
why I'm so sorrowful."

"But you had brothers, my daughter," said the Queen; "I had twelve sons,
stout, brave lads, but I lost them all when you came;" and so she told
her the whole story.

When the Princess heard that she had no rest; for she thought it was all
her fault, and in spite of all the Queen could say or do, though she
wept and prayed, the lassie would set off to seek her brothers. On and
on she walked into the wide world, so far you would never have thought
her small feet could have had strength to carry her so far.

Finally, one day, when she was walking through a great, great wood, she
felt tired, and sat down on a mossy tuft and fell asleep. Then she
dreamt that she went deeper and deeper into the wood, till she came to a
little wooden hut, and there she found her brothers. Just then she
awoke, and straight before her she saw a worn path in the green moss.
This path went deeper into the wood, so she followed it, and after a
long time she came to just such a little wooden house as that she had
seen in her dream.

Now, when she went into the room there was no one at home, but there
were twelve beds, and twelve chairs, and twelve spoons,--in short, a
dozen of everything. When she saw that she was very glad; she had not
been so glad for many a long year, for she could guess at once that her
brothers lived there, and that they owned the beds and chairs and
spoons. So she began to make up the fire, and sweep the room and make
the beds and cook the dinner, and to make the house as tidy as she
could.

And when she had done all the work and the dinner was on the table she
suddenly heard something flapping and whirling in the air, and she
slipped behind the door. Then all the twelve ducks came sweeping in; but
as soon as ever they crossed the threshold they became Princes.

"Oh, how nice and warm it is here," they said, "Heaven bless him who
made up the fire and cooked such a nice dinner for us."

"But who can it be?" said the youngest Prince, and they all hunted both
high and low until they found the lassie behind the door. And she threw
her arms around their necks and said, "I'm your sister; I've gone about
seeking you these three years, and if I could set you free, I'd
willingly give my life."

Then all the brothers looked sorrowfully, one at the other, and they
shook their heads.

"No, it's too hard," said the eldest Prince, looking at the pretty young
Princess, "it's too hard," and again they sighed and shook their heads.

"Oh, tell me, only tell me," said the Princess, "how can it be done, and
I'll do it, whatever it be." And as she begged and pleaded for them to
tell her, the youngest brother said at last, "You must pick thistledown,
and you must card it, and spin it, and weave it. After you have done
that, you must cut out and make twelve shirts, one for each of us, and
while you do that, you must neither talk, nor laugh, nor weep. If you
can do that we are free."

"But where shall I ever get thistledown enough for so many shirts?"
asked the sister.

"Well, that is the hardest thing of all," said the eldest brother. "You
must go to the witches' moor at midnight and gather it there," and big
tears stood in his eyes, "and you must go alone, all alone."

But the sister smiled and nodded her head, and when midnight came, and
the moon was high in the sky she said good-bye to her brothers, and went
to the great, wide moor, where the witches lived. There stood a great
crop of thistles, all nodding and nodding in the breeze, while the down
floated and glistened like gossamer through the air in the moonbeams.
The Princess began to pluck and gather it as fast as she could, but she
saw long skinny arms outstretched toward her, and, among the thistles,
she saw a host of wicked faces all looking at her. Her heart stood still
then and she grew icy cold, but never a sound did she utter, only
plucked and gathered until her bag was full; and when she got home at
break of day she set to work carding and spinning yarn from the down.

[Illustration: The Princess began to pluck and gather as fast as she
could]

So she went on a long, long time picking down on the witches' moor,
carding and spinning, and all the while keeping the house of the
Princes, cooking, and making their beds. But she never talked, nor
laughed, nor wept.

At evening home the brothers came, flapping and whirring like wild
ducks, and all night they were Princes, but in the morning off they flew
again, and were wild ducks the whole day.

But, it happened one night when she was out on the moor picking
thistledown, that the young King who ruled that land was out hunting,
and had lost his way. He had become separated from his companions, and
now, as he came riding across the moor, he saw her. He stopped and
wondered who the lovely lady could be that walked alone on the moor
picking thistledown in the dead of the night; and he asked her name.
Getting no answer, he was still more astonished, but he liked her so
much, that at last nothing would do but he must take her home to his
castle and marry her. So he took her and put her upon his horse. The
Princess wrung her hands, and made signs to him, and pointed to the bags
in which her work was, and when the King saw she wished to have them
with her he took the bags and placed them behind them.

When that was done the Princess, little by little, came to herself, for
the King was both a wise man and a handsome man, and he was as gentle
and kind to her as a mother. But when they reached the palace an old
woman met them. She was the King's guardian, and when she set eyes on
the Princess she became so cross and jealous of her, because she was so
lovely, that she said to the King:

"Can't you see now, that this thing whom you have picked up, and whom
you are going to marry, is a witch? Why, she can neither talk nor laugh
nor weep!"

But the King did not care a straw for what she said. He held to the
wedding and married the Princess, and they lived in great joy and glory.
But the Princess didn't forget to go on working on her shirts, and she
neither talked nor laughed nor wept. However, when she had spun and
woven and cut, she found that she still had not enough cloth for the
twelve shirts, and she needs must go to the witches' moor again.

So that night while all the palace slept she quietly slipped out and
walked off to pick her thistledown, but the old woman who was the King's
guardian saw her, and she knew well where the young Queen was going, for
I must tell you she was the same wicked witch who had changed the twelve
Princes into wild ducks. She hurried to the King's chamber, woke him and
said, "Now, come with me and I'll prove to you that your lovely Queen is
a witch, who joins the wicked company on the moor at midnight." The King
would not listen to her at first, but when he saw that the Queen's bed
was empty, he got up and went with the old woman.

And there upon the edge of the moor they stopped, but in the clear
moonlight they could see the Queen among the horrid hags and trolls. The
King turned away sadly and said not a word, for he loved his quiet Queen
very much.

But the wicked old woman began to whisper and tell abroad about the
Queen's nightly visit to the moor, and at last the King's best men came
to him and said, "We will not have a Queen who is a witch; the people
demand of you that she be burnt alive."

Then the King was so sad that there was no end to his sadness, for now
he saw that he could not save her. He was obliged to order her to be
burnt alive on a pile of wood. When the pile was all ablaze, and they
were about to put her on it, she made signs to them to take twelve
boards and lay them around the pile.

On these she laid the shirts for her brothers all completed but that for
the youngest, which lacked its left sleeve; she had not had time to
finish it. And as soon as ever she had done that, they heard a flapping
and whirring in the air, and down came twelve wild ducks from over the
forest, and each snapped up his shirt in his bill and flew off with it.

"See now!" said the old woman to the King, "wasn't I right when I told
you she was a witch! Make haste and burn her before the pile burns low."

"Oh!" said the King, "we've wood enough and to spare, and so I'll wait a
bit, for I have a mind to see what the end of this will be."

As he spoke up came the twelve Princes riding along, as handsome
well-grown lads as you'd wish to see; but the youngest Prince had a wild
duck's wing instead of his left arm. "What's all this about?" asked the
Princes.

"My Queen is to be burnt," said the King, "because she is a witch, so
the people say, and I can't save her."

"Speak now, sister," said the Princes, "you have set us free and saved
us, now save yourself."

Then the young Queen spoke and told the whole story, and the King and
all the people listened with wonder and joy. Only the wicked old woman
stood trembling with fear. And when the Queen had finished her story,
the people took the old witch and bound her and burned her on the pile.

But the King took his wife and the twelve Princes and went home with
them to their father and mother, and told all that had befallen them.
Then there was joy and gladness over the whole kingdom, because the
wicked witch was dead and the Princes saved and set free, and because
the lovely Princess had set free her twelve brothers.




GUDBRAND-ON-THE-HILLSIDE


Once upon a time there was a man whose name was Gudbrand. He had a farm
which lay far, far away upon a hillside, and so they called him
Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside.

Now, you must know this man and his good wife lived so happily together,
and understood one another so well, that all the husband did the wife
thought so well done there was nothing like it in the world, and she was
always pleased at whatever he turned his hand to. The farm was their own
land, and they had a hundred dollars lying at the bottom of their chest
and two cows tethered up in a stall in their farmyard.

So one day his wife said to Gudbrand, "Do you know, dear, I think we
ought to take one of our cows into town and sell it; that's what I
think; for then we shall have some money in hand, and such well-to-do
people as we ought to have ready money as other folks have. As for the
hundred dollars in the chest yonder, we can't make a hole in our
savings, and I'm sure I don't know what we want with more than one cow.

"Besides, we shall gain a little in another way, for then I shall get
off with only looking after one cow, instead of having, as now, to feed
and litter and water two."

Well, Gudbrand thought his wife talked right good sense, so he set off
at once with the cow on the way to town to sell her; but when he got to
the town, there was no one who would buy his cow.

"Well, well, never mind," said Gudbrand, "at the worst, I can only go
back home with my cow. I've both stable and tether for her, and the road
is no farther out than in." And with that he began to toddle home with
his cow.

But when he had gone a bit of the way, a man met him who had a horse to
sell. Gudbrand thought 'twas better to have a horse than a cow, so he
traded with the man. A little farther on he met a man walking along and
driving a fat pig before him, and he thought it better to have a fat pig
than a horse, so he traded with the man. After that he went a little
farther, and a man met him with a goat, so he thought it better to have
a goat than a pig, and he traded with the man who owned the goat. Then
he went on a good bit till he met a man who had a sheep, and he traded
with him too, for he thought it always better to have a sheep than a
goat. After a while he met a man with a goose, and he traded away the
sheep for the goose; and when he had walked a long, long time, he met a
man with a cock, and he traded with him, for he thought in this wise,
"Tis surely better to have a cock than a goose."

Then he went on till the day was far spent, and he began to get very
hungry, so he sold the cock for a shilling, and bought food with the
money, for, thought Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside, "Tis always better to save
one's life than to have a cock."

After that he went on homeward till he reached his nearest neighbor's
house, where he turned in.

"Well," said the owner of the house, "how did things go with you in
town?"

"Rather so-so," said Gudbrand, "I can't praise my luck, nor do I blame
it either," and with that he told the whole story from first to last.

"Ah!" said his friend, "you'll get nicely hauled over the coals, when
you go home to your wife. Heaven help you, I wouldn't stand in your
shoes for anything."

"Well," said Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside, "I think things might have gone
much worse with me; but now, whether I have done wrong or not, I have so
kind a good wife she never has a word to say against anything that I
do."

"Oh!" answered his neighbor, "I hear what you say, but I don't believe
it for all that."

"And so you doubt it?" asked Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside.

"Yes," said the friend, "I have a hundred crowns, at the bottom of my
chest at home, I will give you if you can prove what you say."

So Gudbrand stayed there till evening, when it began to get dark, and
then they went together to his house, and the neighbor was to stand
outside the door and listen, while the man went in to his wife.

"Good evening!" said Gudbrand-on-the Hillside.

"Good evening!" said the good wife. "Oh! is that you? Now, I am happy."

Then the wife asked how things had gone with him in town.

"Oh, only so-so," answered Gudbrand; "not much to brag of. When I got to
town there was no one who would buy the cow, so you must know I traded
it away for a horse."

"For a horse," said his wife; "well that is good of you; thanks with all
my heart. We are so well to do that we may drive to church, just as well
as other people, and if we choose to keep a horse we have a right to get
one, I should think." So, turning to her child she said, "Run out,
deary, and put up the horse."

"Ah!" said Gudbrand, "but you see I have not the horse after all, for
when I got a bit farther on the road, I traded it for a pig."

"Think of that, now!" said the wife. "You did just as I should have done
myself; a thousand thanks! Now I can have a bit of bacon in the house to
set before people when they come to see me, that I can. What do we want
with a horse? People would only say we had got so proud that we couldn't
walk to church. Go out, child, and put up the pig in the sty."

"But I have not the pig either," said Gudbrand, "for when I got a little
farther on, I traded it for a goat."

"Dear me!" cried the wife, "how well you manage everything! Now I think
it over, what should I do with a pig? People would only point at us and
say 'Yonder they eat up all they have.' No, now I have a goat, and I
shall have milk and cheese, and keep the goat too. Run out, child, and
put up the goat."

"Nay, but I haven't the goat either," said Gudbrand, "for a little
farther on I traded it away and got a fine sheep instead!"

"You don't say so!" cried his wife, "why, you do everything to please
me, just as if I had been with you. What do we want with a goat? If I
had it I should lose half my time in climbing up the hills to get it
down. No, if I have a sheep, I shall have both wool and clothing, and
fresh meat in the house. Run out, child, and put up the sheep."

"But I haven't the sheep any more than the rest," said Gudbrand, "for
when I got a bit farther, I traded it away for a goose."

"Thank you, thank you, with all my heart," cried his wife, "what should
I do with a sheep? I have no spinning wheel or carding comb, nor should
I care to worry myself with cutting, and shaping, and sewing clothes. We
can buy clothes now as we have always done; and now I shall have roast
goose, which I have longed for so often; and, besides, down with which
to stuff my little pillow. Run out, child, and put up the goose.

"Well!" said Gudbrand, "I haven't the goose either; for when I had gone
a bit farther I traded it for a cock."

"Dear me!" cried his wife, "how you think of everything! just as I
should have done myself. A cock! think of that! Why it's as good as an
eight day clock, for every day the cock crows at four o'clock, and we
shall be able to stir our stiff legs in good time. What should we do
with a goose? I don't know how to cook it; and as for my pillow, I can
stuff it with cotton grass. Run out, child, and put up the cock."

"But after all, I haven't the cock either," said Gudbrand, "for when I
had gone a bit farther, I became as hungry as a hunter, so I was forced
to sell the cock for a shilling, for fear I should starve."

"Now, God be praised that you did so!" cried his wife, "whatever you do,
you do it always just after my own heart. What should we do with the
cock? We are our own masters, I should think, and can lie abed in the
morning as long as we like. Heaven be thanked that I have you safe back
again; you who do everything so well, that I want neither cock nor
goose; neither pigs nor kine."

Then Gudbrand opened the door and said,--

"Well, what do you say now? Have I won the hundred crowns?" and his
neighbor was forced to admit that he had.




THE PRINCESS ON THE GLASS HILL


Once on a time, there was a man who had a meadow, which lay high upon
the hillside, and in the meadow was a barn, which he had built to keep
his hay in. Now, I must tell you there hadn't been much in the barn for
the last year or two, for every St. John's night, when the grass stood
greenest and deepest, the meadow was eaten down to the very ground the
next morning, just as if a whole drove of sheep had been there feeding
on it over night. This happened once, and it happened twice; so at last
the man grew weary of losing his crop of hay, and said to his sons--for
he had three of them, and the youngest was nicknamed Boots, of
course--that now one of them must just go and sleep in the barn in the
outlying field when St. John's night came, for it was no joke that his
grass should be eaten, root and blade, this year, as it had been the
last two years. So whichever of them went must keep a sharp look-out;
that was what their father said.

Well, the eldest son was ready to go and watch the meadow; trust him for
looking after the grass. So, when evening came, he set off to the barn,
and lay down to sleep. But a little on in the night came such a clatter,
and such an earthquake, that walls and roof shook, and groaned, and
creaked. Then up jumped the lad, and took to his heels as fast as ever
he could; nor dared he once look around until he reached home; and as
for the hay, why it was eaten up this year just as it had been twice
before.

The next St. John's night, the man said again it would never do to lose
all the grass in the outlying field year after year in this way, so one
of his sons must just trudge off to watch it, and watch it well too.
Well, the next oldest son was ready to try his luck, so he set off and
sat down to watch in the barn as his brother had done before him. But as
the night wore on, there came on a rumbling and quaking of the earth,
worse even than on the last St. John's night, and when the lad heard it,
he got frightened, and took to his heels as though he were running a
race.

Next year the turn came to Boots; but when he made ready to go the other
two began to laugh and to make game of him, saying,--

"You're just the man to watch the hay, that you are; you, who have done
nothing all your life but sit in the ashes and toast yourself by the
fire."

But Boots did not care a pin for their chattering, and as evening drew
on, he walked up the hillside to the outlying field. There he went
inside the barn and sat down; but in about an hour's time the barn began
to groan and creak, so that it was dreadful to hear.

"Well," said Boots to himself, "if it isn't worse than this, I can stand
it well enough."

A little while after came another creak and an earthquake, so that the
litter in the barn flew about the lad's ears.

"Oh!" said Boots to himself, "if it isn't worse than this, I daresay I
can stand it out."

But just then came a third rumbling and a third earthquake, so that the
lad thought walls and roof were coming down on his head; but it passed
off, and all was still as death about him.

"It'll come again, I'll be bound," thought Boots; but no, it didn't come
again; still it was, and still it stayed. But after he had sat a little
while, he heard a noise as if a horse were standing just outside the
barn door, and feeding on the grass. He stole to the door, and peeped
through a chink, and there stood a horse feeding away. So big, and fat,
and grand a horse, Boots had never set eyes on. By his side on the grass
lay a saddle and bridle, and a full set of armor for a knight, all of
brass, so bright that the light gleamed from it.

"Ho, ho!" thought the lad; "it's you, is it, that eats up our hay?"

So he lost no time, but took the steel out of his tinder box and threw
it over the horse; then it had no power to stir from the spot, and
became so tame that the lad could do what he liked with it. Then he got
on its back, and rode off with it to a place which no one knew of, and
there he put up the horse. When he got home, his brothers laughed, and
asked how he had fared.

"You didn't sit long in the barn, even if you had the heart to go as far
as the field."

"Well," said Boots, "all I can say is, I sat in the barn till the sun
rose."

"A pretty story," said his brothers; "but we'll soon see how you have
watched the meadow;" so they set off; but when they reached it, there
stood the grass as deep and thick as it had been over night.

Well, the next St. John's eve it was the same story over again; neither
of the elder brothers dared to go out to the outlying field to watch the
crop; but Boots, he had the heart to go, and everything happened just as
it had the year before. First a clatter and an earthquake, then a
greater clatter and another earthquake, and so on a third time; only
this year the earthquakes were far worse than the year before. Then all
at once everything was still as death, and the lad heard how something
was cropping the grass outside the barn door, so he stole to the door,
and peeped through a chink; and what do you think he saw? Why, another
horse standing right up against the wall, and chewing and champing with
might and main. It was far larger and finer than that which came the
year before, and it had a saddle on its back, and a bridle on its head,
and a full suit of mail for a knight lay by its side, all of silver, and
as splendid as you would wish to see.

"Ho, ho!" said Boots to himself; "it's you that gobbles up our hay, is
it?" And with that he took the steel out of his tinder box, and threw it
over the horse's crest; then it stood as still as a lamb. Well, the lad
rode this horse, too, to the hiding place where he kept the other one,
and after that, he went home.

"I suppose you'll tell us," said one of his brothers, "there's a fine
crop this year too, up in the hay field."

"Well, so there is," said Boots; and off ran the others to see, and
there stood the grass thick and deep, as it was the year before; but
they didn't give Boots softer words for all that.

Now, when the third St. John's eve came, the two elder still hadn't the
heart to sit out in the barn and watch the grass, for they had got so
scared at heart the night they sat there before, that they couldn't get
over the fright. But Boots dared to go; and the very same thing happened
this time that had happened twice before. Three earthquakes came, one
after the other, each worse than the one which went before, and when the
last came, the lad danced about with the shock from one barn wall to the
other; and after that, all at once, it was still as death. Now, when he
had sat a little while, he heard something cropping away at the grass
outside the barn, so he stole again to the door chink, and peeped out,
and there stood a horse outside--far, far bigger and more beautiful than
the two he had taken before. It had a saddle on its back, a bridle on
its head, and a full suit of mail for a knight lay by its side--all of
gold, all more splendid than anything you ever saw.

[Illustration: So he caught up the steel and threw it over the horse]

"Ho, ho!" said the lad to himself, "it's you, is it, that comes here
eating up our hay? I'll soon stop that." So he caught up his steel, and
threw it over the horse's neck, and in a trice it stood as if it were
nailed to the ground, and Boots could do as he pleased with it. Then he
rode off with it to the hiding place, where he kept the other two, and
then went home. When he got home, his two brothers made game of him as
they had done before, saying, they could see he had watched the grass
well, for he looked for all the world as if he were walking in his
sleep, and many other spiteful things they said, but Boots gave no heed
to them, only asking them to go and see for themselves; and when they
went, there stood the grass as fine and deep this time as it had been
twice before.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now you must know that the king of the country where Boots lived had a
daughter, whom he would only give to the man who could ride up over the
hill of glass, for there was a high, high hill, all of glass, as smooth
and slippery as ice, close by the king's palace. Upon the tip top of the
hill the king's daughter was to sit, with three golden apples in her
lap, and the man who could ride up and carry off the three golden apples
was to have half the kingdom, and the Princess to wife. This offer the
king had posted on all the church doors in his realm; and had given it
out in many other kingdoms besides. Now, this Princess was so lovely,
that all who set eyes on her loved her. So I needn't tell you how all
the princes and knights who heard of her were eager to win her to wife,
and half the kingdom besides; and how they came riding from all parts of
the world on high prancing horses, and clad in the grandest clothes, for
there wasn't one of them who hadn't made up his mind that he, and he
alone, was to win the Princess.

So when the day of trial came, which the king had fixed, there was such
a crowd of princes and knights under the glass hill, that it made one's
head whirl to look at them; and every one in the country who could even
crawl along was off to the hill, for they all were eager to see the man
who was to win the Princess. Thus the two elder brothers set off with
the rest; but as for Boots, they said outright he shouldn't go with
them, for if they were seen with such a dirty fellow, all begrimed with
smut from cleaning their shoes, and sifting cinders in the dust-hole,
they said folk would make game of them.

"Very well," said Boots; "it's all one to me. I can go alone."

Now, when the two brothers came to the hill of glass, the knights and
princes were all hard at it, riding their horses till they were all in a
foam; but it was no good; for as soon as ever the horses set foot on the
hill, down they slipped, and there wasn't one who could get a yard or
two up; and no wonder, for the hill was as smooth as a sheet of glass,
and as steep as a house-wall. But all were eager to have the Princess
and half the kingdom. So they rode and slipped, and slipped and rode,
and still it was the same story over again. At last all their horses
were so weary that they could scarce lift a leg, and so the knights had
to give up trying any more.

The king was just thinking that he would proclaim a new trial for the
next day, to see if they would have better luck, when all at once a
knight came riding up on so brave a steed, that no one had ever seen the
like of it in his born days, and the knight had a mail of brass, and the
horse a brass bit in his mouth, so bright that the sunbeams shone from
it. Then all the others called out to him that he might just as well
spare himself the trouble of riding at the hill, for it would lead to no
good; but he gave no heed to them, and put his horse at the hill, and
went up it for a good way, about a third of the height; and when he had
got so far, he turned his horse round and rode down again. So lovely a
knight the Princess thought she had never yet seen; and while he was
riding, she sat and thought to herself,--

"Ah, how I wish that he might come up and go down the other side."

And when she saw him turning back, she threw down one of the golden
apples after him, and it rolled down into his shoe. But when he got to
the bottom of the hill he rode off so fast that no one could tell what
had become of him. That evening all the knights and princes were to go
before the king, that he who had ridden so far up the hill might show
the apple which the Princess had thrown, but there was no one who had
anything to show. One after the other they all came, but not a man of
them could show the apple.

The next day, all the princes and knights began to ride again, and you
may fancy they had taken care to shoe their horses well; but it was no
use,--they rode and slipped, and slipped and rode, just as they had done
the day before; and there was not one who could get so far as a yard up
the hill. And when they had worn out their horses, so that they could
not stir a leg, they were all forced to give it up. So the king thought
he might as well proclaim that the riding should take place the day
after for the last time, just to give them one chance more; but all at
once it came across his mind that he might as well wait a little longer,
to see if the knight in brass mail would come this day too. Well! they
saw nothing of him; but all at once came one riding on a steed, far, far
braver and finer than that on which the knight in brass had ridden, and
he had silver mail, and a silver saddle and bridle, all so bright that
the sunbeams gleamed and glanced from them far away. Then the others
shouted out to him again, saying he might as well stop, and not try to
ride up the hill, for all his trouble would be thrown away. But the
knight paid no heed to them, and rode straight at the hill, and right up
it, till he had gone two-thirds of the way, and then he wheeled his
horse around and rode down again. To tell the truth, the Princess liked
him still better than the knight in brass, and she sat and wished he
might be able to come right up to the top, and down the other side; but
when she saw him turning back, she threw the second apple after him, and
it rolled down and fell into his shoe. But as soon as ever he had come
down the hill of glass, he rode off so fast that no one could see what
became of him.

At even, all were to go in before the king and the Princess, that he who
had the golden apple might show it. In they went, one after the other,
but there was no one who had any apple to show.

The third day everything happened as it had happened the two days
before. There was no one who could get so much as a yard up the hill;
and now all waited for the knight in silver mail, but they neither saw
nor heard of him. At last came one riding on a steed, so brave that no
one had ever seen his match; and the knight had a suit of golden mail,
and a golden saddle and bridle, so wondrous bright that the sunbeams
gleamed from them a mile off. The other knights and princes could not
find time to call out to him not to try his luck, for they were amazed
to see how grand he was. So he rode at the hill, and tore up it like
nothing, so that the Princess hadn't even time to wish that he might get
up the whole way. As soon as ever he reached the top, he took the third
golden apple from the Princess's lap, and then turned his horse and rode
down again. As soon as he got down he rode off at full speed, and was
out of sight in no time.

Now, when the two brothers got home at even, you may fancy what long
stories they told, how the riding had gone off that day; and amongst
other things, they had a deal to say about the knight in golden mail.

"He just was a chap to ride," they said; "so grand a knight isn't to be
found in this wide world."

Next day all the knights and princes were to pass before the king and
the Princess--that he who had the gold apple might bring it forth; but
one came after another, first the princes, then the knights, and still
no one could show the gold apple.

"Well," said the king, "some one must have it, for it was something that
we all saw with our own eyes, how a man came and rode up and bore it
off."

So he commanded that everyone who was in the kingdom should come up to
the palace and see if he could show the apple. Well, they all came one
after another, but no one had the golden apple, and after a long time
the two brothers of Boots came. They were the last of all, so the king
asked them if there was no one else in the kingdom who hadn't come.

"Oh, yes," said they; "we have a brother, but he never carried off the
golden apple. He hasn't stirred out of the dust-hole on any of the three
days."

"Never mind that," said the king; "he may as well come up to the palace
like the rest." So he came.

"How, now," said the king; "have you the golden apple? Speak out."

"Yes, I have," said Boots; "here is the first, and here is the second,
and here is the third, too;" and with that he pulled all three golden
apples out of his pocket, and at the same time threw off his sooty rags,
and stood before them in his gleaming golden mail.

"Yes," said the king; "you shall have my daughter, and half my kingdom,
for you well deserve both her and it."

So they got ready for the wedding, and Boots got the Princess to wife,
and there was great merry-making at the bridal-feast, you may fancy, for
they could all be merry though they couldn't ride up the hill of glass;
and all I can say is, if they haven't left off their merry-making yet,
why, they're still at it.




THE HUSBAND WHO WAS TO MIND THE HOUSE


Once on a time there was a man so mean and cross that he never thought
his wife did anything right in the house. So one evening in hay-making
time he came home scolding and tearing, and showing his teeth and making
a fuss.

"Dear love, don't be so angry; there's a good man," said his goody;
"to-morrow let's change our work. I'll go out with the mowers and mow,
and you shall mind the house at home."

The husband thought that would do very well. He was quite willing, he
said.

So, early next morning his goody took a scythe on her shoulders, and
went out into the hayfield with the mowers, and began to mow; but the
man was to mind the house and do the work at home.

First of all he wanted to churn the butter; but when he had churned a
while, he grew thirsty and went down to the cellar to tap a barrel of
ale. So, just when he was putting the tap into the cask, he heard
overhead the pig come into the kitchen. Then off he ran up the cellar
steps, with the tap in his hand, as fast as he could to look after the
pig, lest it should upset the churn. But when he got up, and saw the pig
had already knocked the churn over and stood there grunting and rooting
in the cream which was running all over the floor, he became so wild
with rage, that he quite forgot the ale barrel, and ran at the pig as
hard as he could.

He caught it, too, just as it ran out of doors, and gave it such a kick
that piggy died on the spot. Then all at once he remembered he had the
tap in his hand; but when he got down to the cellar, every drop of ale
had run out of the cask.

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the
churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at
dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their milking cow
was still shut up in its stall, and had not had a mouthful to eat or a
drop to drink all the morning, though the sun was high. Then he thought
it was too far to take her down to the meadow, so he'd just get her up
on the house top, for the house, you must know, was thatched with sods,
and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now their house lay close up
against a steep rock, and he thought if he laid a plank across to the
roof at the back, he'd easily get the cow up.

But still he could not leave the churn, for there was their little babe
crawling about the floor, and, "If I leave it," he thought, "the child
is sure to upset it."

So he took the churn on his back and went out with it. Then he thought
he'd better water the cow before he turned her out on the thatch, and he
took up a bucket to draw water out of the well. But, as he stooped down
at the brink of the well, all the cream ran out of the churn over his
shoulders, about his neck, and down into the well.

Now it was near dinner time, and he had not even got butter yet. So he
thought he'd best boil the porridge, and he filled the pot with water,
and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he thought the cow
might perhaps fall off the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he
got up on the house to tie her up. One end of the rope he made fast to
the cow's neck, and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round
his own waist. He had to make haste, for the water now began to boil in
the pot, and he had still to grind the oatmeal.

So he began to grind away; but while he was hard at it, down fell the
cow off the housetop after all, and as she fell she dragged the man up
the chimney by the rope. There he stuck fast. And as for the cow, she
hung halfway down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she
could neither get down nor up.

And now the goody had waited seven lengths and seven breadths for her
husband to come and call them home to dinner, but never a call they had.
At last she thought she'd waited long enough and went home.

When she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she
ran up and cut the rope in two with her scythe. But as she did this,
down came her husband out of the chimney, and so when his old dame came
inside the kitchen, there she found him standing on his head in the
porridge pot.




LITTLE FREDDY WITH HIS FIDDLE


Once there was a farmer who had an only son. The lad had had very poor
health so he could not go out to work in the field.

His name was Freddy, but, since he remained such a wee bit of a fellow,
they called him Little Freddy. At home there was but little to eat and
nothing at all to burn, so his father went about the country trying to
get the boy a place as cowherd or errand boy; but there was no one who
would take the weakly little lad till they came to the sheriff. He was
ready to take him, for he had just sent off his errand boy, and there
was no one who would fill his place, for everybody knew the sheriff was
a great miser.

But the farmer thought it was better there than nowhere; he would get
his food, for all the pay he was to get was his board--there was nothing
said about wages or clothes. When the lad had served three years he
wanted to leave, and the sheriff gave him all his wages at one time. He
was to have a penny a year. "It couldn't well be less," said the
sheriff. And so he got three pence in all.

As for Little Freddy, he thought it was a great sum, for he had never
owned so much; but, for all that, he asked if he wasn't to have anything
for clothes, for those he had on were worn to rags. He had not had any
new ones since he came to the sheriff's three years ago.

"You have what we agreed on," said the sheriff, "and three whole pennies
besides. I have nothing more to do with you. Be off!"

So Little Freddy went into the kitchen and got a little food in his
knapsack, and after that he set off on the road to buy himself more
clothes. He was both merry and glad, for he had never seen a penny
before, and every now and then he felt in his pockets as he went along
to see if he had them all three. So, when he had gone far and farther
than far, he got up on top of the mountains. He was not strong on his
legs, and had to rest every now and then, and then he counted and
counted how many pennies he had. And now he came to a great plain
overgrown with moss. There he sat down and began to see if his money was
all right. Suddenly a beggarman appeared before him, so tall and big
that when he got a good look at him and saw his height and length, the
lad began to scream and screech.

"Don't you be afraid," said the beggarman, "I'll do you no harm, I came
only to beg you for a penny."

"Dear me!" said the lad, "I have only three pennies, and with them I was
going to town to buy clothes."

"It is worse for me than for you," said the beggarman, "I have not one
penny, and I am still more ragged than you."

"Well, that is so; you shall have it," said the lad.

When he had walked on a while, he grew weary again, and sat down to
rest. Suddenly another beggarman stood before him, and this one was
still taller and uglier than the first. When the lad saw how very tall
and ugly and long he was, he began to scream again.

"Now, don't you be afraid of me," said the beggar, "I'll do you no harm.
I came only to beg for a penny."

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said the lad. "I have only two pennies, and with
them I was going to the town to buy clothes. If I had only met you
sooner, then--"

"It's worse for me than for you," said the beggarman. "I have no penny,
and a bigger body and less clothing."

"Well, you may have it," said the lad. So he went away farther, till he
got weary, and then he sat down to rest; but he had scarcely sat down
when a third beggarman came to him. This one was so tall and ugly and
long that the lad had to look up and up, right up to the sky. And when
he took him all in with his eyes, and saw how very, very tall and ugly
and ragged he was, he fell a-screeching and screaming again.

[Illustration: The lad had to look up, right up into the sky]

"Now, don't you be afraid of me, my lad," said the beggarman, "I'll do
you no harm, for I am only a beggarman, who begs you for a penny."

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said the lad. "I have only one penny left, and with
it I was going to the town to buy clothes. If I had only met you sooner,
then--"

"As for that," said the beggarman, "I have no penny at all, that I
haven't, and a bigger body and less clothes, so it is worse for me than
for you."

"Yes," said Little Freddy, "he must have the penny then--there was no
help for it; for so each beggarman would have one penny, and he would
have nothing."

"Well," said the beggarman, "since you have such a good heart that you
gave away all that you had in the world, I will give you a wish for each
penny." For you must know it was the same beggarman who had got them all
three; he had only changed his shape each time, that the lad might not
know him again.

"I have always had such a longing to hear a fiddle go, and see folk so
merry and glad that they couldn't help dancing," said the lad; "and so
if I may wish what I choose, I will wish myself such a fiddle, that
everything that has life must dance to its tune."

"That you may have," said the beggarman, "but it is a sorry wish. You
must wish something better for the other two pennies."

"I have always had such a love for hunting and shooting," said Little
Freddy; "so if I may wish what I choose, I will wish myself such a gun
that I shall hit everything I aim at, were it ever so far off."

"That you may have," said the beggarman, "but it is a sorry wish too.
You must wish better for the last penny."

"I have always had a longing to be in company with folks who were kind
and good," said Little Freddy; "and so, if I could get what I wish, I
would wish it to be so that no one can say 'Nay' to the first thing I
ask."

"That wish is not so sorry," said the beggarman; and off he strode
between the hills, and Freddy saw him no more.

So the lad lay down to sleep, and the next day he came down from the
mountain with his fiddle and his gun. First he went to the storekeeper
and asked for clothes. Next at a farm he asked for a horse, and at a
second for a sleigh; and at another place he asked for a fur coat. No
one said him "Nay"--even the stingiest folk were all forced to give him
what he asked for. At last he went through the country as a fine
gentleman, and had his horse and his sleigh. When he had gone a bit he
met the sheriff whose servant he had been.

"Good day, master," said Little Freddy, as he pulled up and took off his
hat.

"Good day," said the sheriff, "but when was I ever your master?"

"Oh yes," said Little Freddy, "don't you remember how I served you three
years for three pence?"

"My goodness, now!" said the sheriff, "you have grown rich in a hurry,
and pray, how was it that you got to be such a fine gentleman?"

"Oh, that is a long story," said Little Freddy.

"And are you so full of fun that you carry a fiddle about with you?"
asked the sheriff.

"Yes, yes," said Freddy. "I have always had such a longing to get folk
to dance. But the funniest thing of all is this gun, for it brings down
almost anything that I aim at, however far it may be off. Do you see
that magpie yonder, sitting in the spruce fir? What will you give me if
I hit it as we stand here?"

"Well," said the sheriff, and he laughed when he said it, "I'll give you
all the money I have in my pocket, and I'll go and fetch it when it
falls," for he never thought it possible for any gun to carry so far.

But as the gun went off down fell the magpie, and into a great bramble
thicket; and away went the sheriff up into the bramble after it, and he
picked it up and held it up high for the lad to see. But just then
Little Freddy began to play his fiddle, and the sheriff began to dance,
and the thorns to tear him; but still the lad played on, and the sheriff
danced, and cried, and begged, till his clothes flew to tatters, and he
scarce had a thread to his back.

"Yes," said Little Freddy, "now I think you're about as ragged as I was
when I left your service; so now you may get off with what you have."

But first the sheriff had to pay him all the money that he had in his
pocket.

So when the lad came to town he turned into an inn, and there he began
to play, and all who came danced and laughed and were merry, and so the
lad lived without any care, for all the folks liked him and no one would
say "Nay" to anything he asked.

But one evening just as they were all in the midst of their fun, up came
the watchmen to drag the lad off to the town hall; for the sheriff had
laid a charge against him, and said he had waylaid him and robbed him
and nearly taken his life. And now he was to be hanged. The people would
hear of nothing else. But Little Freddy had a cure for all trouble, and
that was his fiddle. He began to play on it, and the watchmen fell
a-dancing and they danced and they laughed till they gasped for breath.

So soldiers and the guard were sent to take him, but it was no better
with them than with the watchmen. When Little Freddy played his fiddle,
they were all bound to dance; and dance as long as he could lift a
finger to play a tune; but they were half dead long before he was tired.

At last they stole a march on him, and took him while he lay asleep by
night. Now that they had caught him they could condemn him to be hanged
on the spot, and away they hurried him to the gallows tree.

There a great crowd of people flocked together to see this wonder, and
the sheriff too was there. He was glad to get even at last for the money
and the clothes he had lost, and to see the lad hanged with his own
eyes.

And here came Little Freddy, carrying his fiddle and his gun. Slowly he
mounted the steps of the gallows,--and when he got to the top he sat
down, and asked if they could deny him a wish, and if he might have
leave to do one thing? He had such a longing, he said, to scrape a tune
and play a bar on his fiddle before they hanged him.

"No, no," they said; "it were sin and shame to deny him that." For you
know, no one could say "Nay" to what he asked.

But the sheriff begged them not to let him have leave to touch a string,
else it would be all over with them altogether. If the lad leave, he
begged them to bind him to the birch that stood there.

Little Freddy was not slow in getting his fiddle to speak, and all that
were there fell a-dancing at once, those who went on two legs, and those
who went on four. Both the dean and the parson, the lawyer and the
sheriff, masters and men, dogs and pigs--they all danced and laughed and
barked and squealed at one another. Some danced till they lay down and
gasped, some danced till they fell in a swoon. It went badly with all of
them, but worst of all with the sheriff; for there he stood bound to the
birch, and he danced till he scraped the clothes off his back. I dare
say it was a sorry looking sight and a sore back.

But there was not one of them who thought of doing anything to Little
Freddy, and away he went with his fiddle and his gun, whither he chose,
and he lived merrily and happily all his days, for there was no one who
could say "Nay" to the first thing he asked for.










End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon, by 
Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST O' THE SUN AND WEST O' THE MOON ***

***** This file should be named 8653.txt or 8653.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/8/6/5/8653/

Produced by David Garcia, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
  are located before using this ebook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
  Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
  works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
  receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org



Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:

    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
    Chief Executive and Director
    gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.